Wednesday, October 28, 2015

"Testimony of a Former Irate Gamer Fan" by Robert Howard

Hey everyone. I've got something special today, another fan submission!
You ever want to see in the mind of an Irate Gamer fan? Thanks to today's post from Robert Howard, you can see the how and why, as well as the reason Chris has been bleeding fans for a while now.
Enjoy.

Hello, readers of the Irate Gamer Sucks blog. My name is Robert Howard. I have been following this blog for around a year and a half now and I have very much enjoyed reading BatDan’s posts and the comments that everyone makes. Over the past couple of weeks, I thought about sharing a story detailing my experience with following the Irate Gamer. I decided to e-mail BatDan and ask for his permission to share my story through one of his posts and after he said yes, I began to type it up. So, let’s begin.

I am a former Irate Gamer fan. Yes, I used to believe that his videos were some of the funniest and most creative videos on the Internet. I would like to use this story to explain how I became a fan of the Irate Gamer, what happened to make me lose my appreciation and respect for him, and where I stand now.

Let me start with some background information. In 2008, when the so-called “Internet War” between James Rolfe’s fans and Chris Bores’ fans was happening, I was not aware of any of it. At that time, the only way my family could access the Internet was through the one computer that we all shared and even then, my mom didn’t want me and my brother to be wasting time on YouTube. So, during the time, I had no idea who James Rolfe or Chris Bores even were.

However, that changed in the summer of 2009, when I used all the money I collected from birthday presents to purchase an iPod touch. For the first time, I was able to freely access YouTube without having to ask my parents for permission to use the computer. I spent the first few days watching all sorts of videos and I eventually started making some of my own. I admit that the quality of my old videos were really awful but I had a lot of fun making them.

After a while, I decided to try and find some footage on YouTube of one of my favorite video games at the time: Super Smash Bros. Brawl. After watching some videos of other people play the game, I came across Irate Gamer’s review of it. I watched it and I really enjoyed it. I was so amazed by the fact that there were other people who loved the video games I loved and who shared their love for those games by making reviews of them.

I decided to watch some other videos that he made and that’s when I came across his Super Mario Bros. 2 review. What really attracted me to this review is that I owned Super Mario Bros. 2 for the GBA and that I always loved playing it when I was younger. However, after watching his review, I went on to convince myself that the game was bad. Even though he had said positive things about the GBA port, I still believed that the game was bad simply because Bores said it was bad. I have played the game a couple of times since then and I regret ever hating it.

I went on to try and watch every single one of his reviews and I believed every word he said about the games he reviewed. After all, I am not an old-school gamer. I was born in 1996 and even though the first video game I ever played was Super Mario 64, I really didn’t get into video games until the Wii came out. So, I believed him because he seemed to look like he knew what he was talking about and I didn’t think he would have any reason to lie. I honestly believed that the star moved that slow in Super Mario Bros. 2. I honestly believed that there was no way to reach some of the red jewels in Aladdin. I believed him because I looked up to him and trusted him to tell the truth.

My fandom for the Irate Gamer reached such a high level that I began to memorize chunks of his videos and recite them back to some of my friends to see what they thought. I also tried to enter all of the “pick me” contests that he held, never winning. I had basically become a fanboy. Now, I wasn’t the kind of fanboy who constantly commented on his YouTube videos, defending his every actions. However, I was the kind of fanboy who believed that he could do no wrong.

Now, I know some of you might be asking, “How on earth could you have enjoyed Chris Bores?” Well, I have two reasons. The first reason is I thought his videos were unique and informative. Like I said before, I had no knowledge of video games made in the 80s and 90s so I thought what he was saying about the games was true. I believed Zombies Ate My Neighbors was a bad game because he said it was and he seemed to know more about it than I did.

The second reason is I thought he was funny. I was only 13 at the time and I thought his Family Guy style of jokes was hilarious. I showed the videos to my 12-year-old brother and he thought they were funny too. I talked about the videos to my friends and they seemed to think they were funny too. Granted, there were some jokes that I never found funny (“Someone call 911 because I was ROBbed” Really?) but for the most part, I found his videos to be really funny.

However, as you might have guessed, the inevitable happened. In late 2010, while telling one of my friends about the Irate Gamer and his videos, he told me that there was another YouTube channel called the Angry Video Game Nerd who also did reviews of old video games. So, I decided to check him out. The first video I saw was Rolfe’s review of The Wizard of Oz and I thought it was really funny. I noticed that his style of reviewing old video games was very similar to Bores’. At the time however, I didn’t think much of it. I just thought that they were two guys who shared a similar interest in reviewing video games and I thought there was nothing wrong with me being fans of both of them.

A couple of months later, I came across a YouTube video titled “top 10 stupidest things said by irategamer” uploaded by irateqaymer. My first thoughts on the video were that the creator of the video was bullying Irate Gamer for no good reason. At that time, I was still unaware of all the plagiarism, research mistakes, censorship, and false-flagging that Bores was accused of doing. Therefore, I thought that irateqaymer was simply jealous of Irate Gamer and was making a video just to make him feel bad.

Then, in early 2011, I came across a video made by the Archfiend titled “The Irate Gamer Is Better Than You. ‘Deal With It Bro’ –Chris Bores.” In the video, the Archfiend talked about how Irate Gamer cyberbullied an unknown YouTuber by telling him that he will never be as good or as successful as him. The Archfiend also included links to pictures and a video, which proved the cyberbullying. I was completely shocked and partly in denial. I honestly couldn’t believe that Chris Bores, someone whom I looked up to and respected, would do something so cruel and disrespectful. I didn’t want to believe it but the evidence seemed too convincing.

Shortly after, I began to watch the Archfiend’s other videos about the Irate Gamer, along with some other critical videos made by other users, and that’s when I first learned about the claims that the Irate Gamer was a rip-off of the AVGN. I learned about the plagiarism accusations, the censorship in the comments section, and the false-flagging. I couldn’t believe that the Irate Gamer would do those kinds of things and I was starting to lose a little bit of respect for him. However, I still considered myself a fan of his work and I still thought that there was nothing too wrong about being a fan of both him and James.

And then, I learned about LadyBuggin777. In mid-2012, I watched an Archfiend video which showed a picture of the comments section of Bores’ Silver Surfer review. The picture showed the accidental reveal that Bores is LadyBuggin. Since I usually didn’t like to read the comments sections of videos at that time, I didn’t know who LadyBuggin was. At this point, I was really curious so I decided to do a Google search to see if I could come across any more info. I found Bores’ Encyclopedia Dramatica page and I was first shocked to see how cruel the writer of the page was to Bores. (I didn’t find out until later that the point of the website is to be cruel.) Then, I read LadyBuggin’s section of the page and I learned about all of the horrible things she did. I saw the constant examples of cyberbullying and her inability to listen to reason. To think that this was all done by Chris claiming to be his mother made me furious. What LadyBuggin was doing was terrible and my respect for Chris became smaller and smaller.

Shortly after that came the Cheetahmen 2 “scandal.” I’m not going to talk too much about the original video since I still don’t understand all the details regarding the scam but from what I know, James apologized for his involvement and I accept that. When I saw Bores’ “Ebegging: The Spoof,” I began to feel a mixture of both shock and outrage. I couldn’t believe that Bores was bullying the person who inspired him to make reviews simply because he made a mistake. Don’t get me wrong; criticizing someone for making a mistake and trying to help them realize their mistake and improve so they don’t make the same mistake again is fine. But the only thing Bores seemed to be doing was rubbing the fact that James made a mistake in everyone’s faces and trying to act like he was so much better than James because of that. What made me angry the most is that in the video’s description, Bores criticized James for deleting comments but still running ads on his video when Bores has been doing that since 2007. That was the big turning point for me. That was when I had lost all respect for Bores.

During this entire time, Chris was busy making his story arc so I would like to now briefly talk about my feelings regarding that. When he uploaded the first episode in 2010, I was really excited to see him incorporating a story into his videos and I wanted to see what would happen next. At the same time though, I thought the story arc would only last two or three episodes and that he would have it finished by the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011. I was very annoyed to have to wait until June 2011 for episode 2 and I was also very annoyed to learn that episode 3 was not the end. It honestly felt like he was dragging the story out way too much and the story was getting worse and worse every single episode. It was also very annoying to watch three straight episodes where nothing happened in the plot, which made me think that he had given up. In 2010, I would’ve never guessed that he would spend 12 episodes and three and a half years on the story arc. To put things into perspective, when he uploaded the first episode, I was one month into high school. When he uploaded the last episode, I was one month away from graduation. It also didn’t help that I didn’t find the episodes to be funny and that the ending was very anticlimactic and bad, which made me think the whole story arc was pointless and a waste of time.

After watching some of the episodes he made in 2013 and not finding them funny, I began to question whether the Irate Gamer was even funny to begin with. I went back and watched his old videos that used to make me howl with laughter and I found myself not laughing even once. I questioned why that was and I came up with two reasons. The first reason is that I was growing up. Irate Gamer’s comedy style has been pretty much the same since day 1 and while it might be entertaining to 12-year-olds, it certainly doesn’t entertain most people above the age of 14. The second reason is that I knew the truth. I couldn’t find myself able to laugh at a guy who was trying to become famous by ripping off someone else. Other people might be able to but I am not. It was at this point that I stopped believing he was funny.

Near the end of 2013, I came across DLAbaoaqu’s “I Can’t Believe It’s Not AVGN” series and unlike Bores’ videos, I found DLA’s to be hilarious. There was something about DLA’s harsh criticism towards Bores accompanied with his humorous tone that I found very funny. I also found DLA’s videos to be informative, as they taught me for the first time about Bores’ constant research failures. It was very enlightening to see Bores claim that he knew a lot about 80s and 90s video games yet make mistakes that a quick Google search could have easily fixed. After watching DLA’s videos, I was 100% convinced that the only thing Chris cared about was the money.

At the beginning of 2014, a friend suggested that I watch Linkara’s parody of the Irate Gamer. I did and I thought he did a very good job at imitating Bores’ style of reviewing. In the credits, I saw Linkara thank BatDan and his blog as well as FFL2and3rocks, also known as Third Rate Gamer. I decided to look both of them up. I started with Third Rate Gamer. His parodies were really, really funny and I enjoyed spending an afternoon or two watching all of them. His videos made me laugh harder than Bores’ videos ever did.

After watching Third Rate Gamer, I looked up BatDan and that’s how I found this blog. I began reading the articles he wrote on Bores and I could tell the blog was something special. It was a way to criticize Bores and his actions and inform people of the truth without Bores being able to do anything about it. After all, he isn’t able to false-flag the articles. To me, this showed how much BatDan didn’t want people to be deceived by Bores’ lies, which in turn shows how caring BatDan is.

Now, how does my story with Bores end? Well, the final nail on the coffin was the “Opening Up” video. When I saw that Bores had uploaded that video, I thought that this might’ve been his final chance at redemption, at least in my eyes. I thought that the video would be a chance for Bores to acknowledge his past mistakes and apologize for them but at the same time, accept what happened and move on from there. I saw the entire video and I did not believe it for a single second. I heard him make claims about James yet constantly found myself asking for proof which was never provided. I saw how he neglected to mention the closing of comments, the false-flagging, and the blocking of any user who criticized him. I listened to some of his statements, knowing that there was evidence out there to prove that he was lying. I never once remember him apologizing for anything. He simply used the video to try and justify his actions while trying to make himself look innocent. Even my roommate, who was listening to the video with me and who had no idea who the Irate Gamer was, said, “Does this guy ever shut up? He sounds so whiny and full of himself.” I think the best response I can give to the video is a quote from Kyle Broflovski from the South Park episode “Fishsticks”:

“That's how people like you work! Your ego is so out of whack that it will do whatever it can to protect itself. And people with a messed up ego can do these mental gymnastics to convince themselves they're awesome, when really, they're just douchebags!”

After that video, I convinced myself that Bores would never admit to what he did so I decided that I will probably never be a fan of his work again and that’s where I stand today. My younger brother is no longer a fan either. All I have really done this year regarding Bores other than watch some of his videos and read the blog posts is post a couple of sarcastic remarks on his videos calling him out, which caused Bores to delete the comments and LadyBuggin to block me. I still watch James’ videos and even though I don’t find them that funny anymore, he still does a good job at reviewing games and I still get the sense that he really cares about his fans. I am also still a fan of the Archfiend, even though I disagree with his stances on James and Chris. So, that is how I became a former Irate Gamer fan.

So, what’s my point in saying all of this? Well, I have a few points. The first point is directed to Chris, in case he ever reads this: your deception is more harmful than you think. By acting like the star is that slow in Super Mario Bros. 2 or like Aladdin has no way to obtain some of the red jewels, you cause some people to believe those things. You can claim that they’re jokes all you want but I believed they were true and I wouldn’t blame someone else for believing they’re true either. I know you might not think this matters because it’s just the Internet, but what would you do if you wanted to apply for a job in a business outside of YouTube? Your potential employer can easily search you on the Internet and find out your entire YouTube history. Do you think they will want to hire you, knowing that you have a history of deception and censorship? If you want to gain respect and trust, then the best way to do that is to tell the truth. You’ll at least gain a little respect from me. (Maybe.)

The second point is directed at LadyBuggin: if you really are Chris, then just admit it. There is quite a bit of evidence out there that suggests you are Chris and absolutely no evidence suggesting you are his mother, except for a profile picture that could be of any random woman for all we know. Do you realize how sick it is to say such horrible things to people and then claim that your mom is saying them? Just remember what I said about deception. If you really are Chris’ mom, then why don’t you just prove it to shut us all up? Granted, you don’t have to but as long as you don’t, you need to accept the fact that people won’t believe you when you say you are his mom and stop calling everyone an idiot who claims that you are Chris.

My third point is directed at BatDan and the followers of this blog: informing people of the truth does matter. I think Chris had his chance to improve but he has proven time and time again that he is unwilling to listen to criticism. However, I think the blog is about more than just criticizing Chris; it’s also about trying to stop people from being deceived. There are too many people out there who are ready to believe the statements of someone who is popular simply because they are popular. However, there are also many people out there who are trying to be open-minded and willing to listen to what you have to say. I believe that if people are willing to look past the negative connotation the blog’s title has, they will see all of the positive that the blog is trying to do.

My final point is also directed at BatDan and the blog followers: there is hope. I used to be a close-minded fan of the Irate Gamer who didn’t know or wouldn’t try to learn the truth about him. It’s six years later and I am now in college, more open-minded, and more willing to listen to what people have to say. If I have changed over the years, then surely there must be others who have as well. I know it might be frustrating to see people constantly support the poor quality work that Chris puts out but it will pass. I know that fanboys will always be replaced by new fanboys but Chris won’t be able to do this forever so the fanboys won’t be able to either. I know that there will always be people who don’t grow up and who still act like fanboys even though they are in their 20s or 30s but the number of those people doesn’t even compare to the number of people who will grow up. Fanboys will change and they will discover and accept the truth and it is ok to take pride in knowing that you helped at least one person (me) see the truth.

That’s all I have to say. I will gladly answer any questions you might have in the comments section. Thank you all for reading and thanks to BatDan for sharing this on his blog. I hope you all have a nice day. 

103 comments:

  1. I used to be a fan of Chris's work as well. I too figured it was fine to be a fan of both him and James at the same time, way back when I was in grade school. And much like you, I eventually saw the truth as well. I stopped being a fan of the Irate Gamer right around 2011 or 2012, and any hopes of me having respect for Chris were crushed when I found this blog. I can say with certainty that this blog is FAR more entertaining than anything Chris ever put out, and looking back on it, I can't believe I even found any of his old stuff funny, let alone his new stuff. So yes, I'd say there's hope for other young fanboys to see the truth as well. It'll likely take some longer than others to realize Chris's lies, but I feel like sooner or later, they'll find out Chris's true colors behind all those pointless effects and skits.

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  2. The part about people believing stuff just because it comes from someone being given attention really needs to be remembered more. It goes beyond dipshits like Bores even in the games industry. Look at Anita Sarkeesian, constantly given tons of airtime and interview slots by media outlets trying to 'progress' gaming because she uses the word 'feminist' as a defence mechanism and it's trendy to take what they say at face value right now, but literally no effort is needed to prove that basically everything she says is either completely wrong on a factual level (aka unresearched drivel that rivals Bores for ineptness) or sexist self-victimising dogma that preys on the insecurities and self-conscious inner-loathing of certain male gamers and sabre-rattling for women who are unfortunate enough to have been hard done by and can be easily misled into thinking they're the rule rather than the exception. The worst part is that pretending this woman is saying anything worth listening to just makes people less likely to accept or listen to more reasoned comments or stories that might be relevant to gender barriers because they cannot trust the same media that puts an idiot on a pedestal because of her genitals to be impartial on anything else. This is called the Appeal to Authority, and Bores himself still hangs onto his brief period of being the 55th most subscribed channel on Youtube to try and fool people. I'm glad that the author of this article did eventually see the light as it were, because for a lot of people it's very difficult giving up on something that they've invested themselves into thinking is better than it really is.

    I also think it's right to say what he did about AVGN. His reviews don't really seem all that funny to me any more either and for that matter neither does Doug Walker's newer stuff, plus they also make mistakes and have some views that are questionable (for example, Bores got a lot of flack for saying Super C was harder than the original Contra, but James said the exact same thing in James and Mike Mondays. Difference was, he expressed it as an opinion rather than a fact.) But even though I laugh a lot less at their work now than I used to, there's still a good amount of effort put in that sometimes pays off (e.g. NC's Garfield review which I think had some of his strongest sketches in a while) and besides which the actual critiquing of the film or game at hand is the glue that holds it together, and they're both still strong reviewers. Bores has never had that quality, focusing too often on graphics and trying to force pointless jokes and special effects into his videos that distract from his work rather than enhance it. Think about some of the weird, out-of-nowhere jokes AVGN has done (e.g. Dr Claw's Dump N' Pump, the 'TV version' of calling Action 52's developer an asshole, and most recently him just playing with a fake dog turd for two seconds in his Seaman review), and keep in mind these are rare and make up a tiny portion of the reviews they're in. Irate Gamer's reviews are often almost half-taken up by these non-sequitor cutaways, presumably to try and take attention away from the fact that he's usually talking rubbish.

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    1. I will agree that Doug's recent reviews have felt lacking (especially the clipless ones for obvious reasons) but you can tell that he at least tries at what he does (such as in his most recent review of "Children of the Corn," his best in a while, actually).

      But what really separates Doug and James from Chris is that they are at least willing to admit that they make mistakes and wrong moves. In his re-review of the Back to the Future NES game, James went back to past games he's reviewed and talked about things he never did before while also poking some fun at his earlier videos. Doug has even made 3 different Top 11 lists of times where he's fucked up in his Nostalgia Critic reviews (he even apologized for making a joke about autism in one of his reviews and said that he didn't even know why he made it and that it was stupid of him to). And while both of them hold their own opinions about different movies/games/etc., they also acknowledge that other people have opinions on these same things that differ from theirs, and that this fact is something they can and have to live with.

      Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Chris has ever once admitted that he was wrong about anything or that he made a mistake (at least not without making up some bullshit excuse for why he wasn't wrong). And if there really isn't an instance of this, then I seriously think he may have psychological or mental problems. Great story, Howard. Thank you for sharing.

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    2. Chris once apologized for implying that Kirby's Adventure for NES was the first Kirby game. I think he also apologized for at least one or two other minor errors.

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    3. Do you have photos of any of these instances?

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    4. I know they were mentioned on this blog in the past. I'd recommend searching through the archived here.

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    5. Chris' inability to acknowledge his mistakes was epitomised very recently. The reason why his book is full of spelling and grammar errors right from page one isn't because he's a semi-literate dullard unwilling to put in the effort to produce a worthy product, you guys! It's because he's a maverick, renegade trailblazer who doesn't abide by your 'politically correct' language rules.

      Seriously, I think that whole defense may be my favourite, deeply stupid and laughable thing ever to come out of his gormless delusional mouth.

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  3. He can't even admit he pronounces names wrong. No where have I EVER heard Von Kaiser's name pronounced like he did.


    I think "angry" reviewing has run its course. I've preferred James/Mike mondays/most of his non AVGN material for a while now..the more casual approach feels natural and less forced..especially since as far as I know, the games he reviews now are for reviews sake and doesn't hold any childhood/sentimental attachments.

    Same w/ Doug...I think his real talk segments are a little better than his NC reviews.

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  4. *claps*
    Great testimony, Robert. Now we wait for other ex-IG fans/fanboys to give similar testimonies.

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  5. I think just about all of us would consider it a clean slate if Bores acknowledge his flaws and made an attempt to improve his work and himself, but from his point of view it’d probably be the worst idea ever.

    Imagine if you’d dug yourself in such a deep hole, how vulnerable you’d be if the entire truth got out. Can you really blame Bores for not wanting to proclaim, “Yeah I’ve been pretending to be my own mother to deflect criticism”.

    Still, staying the course and completely outing himself are not the only two options. He doesn’t need to publicly admit what he’s done wrong, he can just stop doing it.

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    1. If he did admit everything, I am sure he would spin it as its all one big joke hahahaaha a parody or something.

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  6. A nice read.
    I'll admit I was once a fan of the Bores as well back then.

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  7. The two newest five star reviews were obviously written by the same shill. Both start with, "I have to say", both begin with the premise of just expecting another ghost hunt book, both use the phrases, "the best part" and "done his homework."

    To say nothing of the fact that most of the 5 star reviews are so blatantly generic and say very little about the actual book.

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    1. Has anybody reported Chris yet? I'm just curious.

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  8. I have to say I too was someone who believe everything Chris said in his videos because I really had no reason to think he was lying because I just didn't know at the time. For example I believe everything in Chris' Contra videos because I have never played a Contra game before watching those videos or since so why would I think he was lying. Same for all of his NES reviews, the first console I played was the SNES and I only played very little of 5 NES(DuckHunt,Jaws,Mega Man 3,Duck Tales and maybe Chip and Dale Resuse Ranges) games as a kid, so why would I think he was lying about his non problems in several of the good NES games he reviewed. Hell I never even knew about the whole Super Mario Bros. 2/Doki Doki Panic thing til I watched his video about it.

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  9. Also here's a random though how come Chris hasn't done a Skylanders Let's Play? He started doing let's play this year and he uploads so many Skylanders videos I'm surprised he hasn't done any yet.

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    1. Maybe because it'll expose that he prefers the toys over the game. But that's just me.
      ^-^

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  10. I honestly think the reason people like him is for the same reason this guy did, they are young and don't know anyone better. They aren't smart enough to see his flaws, so they assume people hate him because of the AVGN plagiarism, and the trouble is, by the time they have grown up and got standards, more kids have found him, and it continues.
    I remember I used to watch him all the time, until I saw the comments calling him an AVGN ripoff. Intrigued, I checked him out, and then basically abandoned IG in favour of James.
    For a while, I'm not gonna lie... I actually felt kind of sorry for Chris. Everyone seemed to hate him, and to me it seemed it was only because of the AVGN.
    Fast forward a few years to 2014, I was reading the 'Scrappy' article on TV Tropes, and one of the entries mentioned Ronnie from The Irate Gamer Show (lol), I followed the link to the article they had on IG, and saw them talk about some of his flaws. On one of the tropes was a link to this very blog. I read from the first post to the then-latest post (the Captain N one, if you're wondering) learning all about his lies, sock puppetry, and general shittiness along the way, and eventually couldn't believe I ever liked him.
    I have a feeling most of his fans have a similar story, except they never found out about this blog, and if they did, it's through Chris bad mouthing it, so they listen to him and don't discover the truth about him. It's like Robert said, when you're a big fan of someone (especially when you're young and impressionable) you go along with everything they say, and that's why they believe his nonsense.
    When you're young, you lack the savviness to read between the lines, and that's why they don't notice the flaws in his videos and fall for the obvious lies.

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  11. Daniel, have you seen this? You may want to do an article on it in the near future.

    http://irategamerdoesnotsuck.wikia.com/wiki/Irate_Gamer_Wiki

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    1. KillUltra, a guy from this blog, is/was an editor on that wiki.

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    2. Haha that is great! "Shadow Overlord had Evil Gamer hire thousands of mindless idiots to create parody videos of the Irate Gamer Show (It is heavily implied that most of them have better quality than the Irate Gamer's show.). Evil Gamer went above and beyond the call of duty and hired capable people, some of which knew how to start blogs and perform referenced empirical research on Irate Gamer's plagrism record and provide constructive criticism on Irate Gamer's inability to act and perform comedy. Most of them did not know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich but that would be because they know how to cook complex meat and rice dishes and not the unhealthy sandwich Irate Gamer consumes mass quantities of. "

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  12. I kinda didn't mind watching him way back in '08, but the corny jokes got old... and he was only up to the SUPER C video.

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  13. "Near the end of 2013, I came across DLAbaoaqu’s “I Can’t Believe It’s Not AVGN” series and unlike Bores’ videos, I found DLA’s to be hilarious. There was something about DLA’s harsh criticism towards Bores accompanied with his humorous tone that I found very funny. I also found DLA’s videos to be informative, as they taught me for the first time about Bores’ constant research failures. It was very enlightening to see Bores claim that he knew a lot about 80s and 90s video games yet make mistakes that a quick Google search could have easily fixed. After watching DLA’s videos, I was 100% convinced that the only thing Chris cared about was the money."

    Then what I did wasn't in vain. Helps me feel a little better, actually.

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    1. Hello DLAbaoaqu. Are you using a different name? (if this is who I think it is)

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    2. It's me. This is an alt which also bore the name DLAbaoaqu at one point.

      Still in retirement, unless Boring Man does Castlevania.

      Will have to put DTP on hiatus until I can garner motivation.

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    3. If Bores does Castlevania, it's all yours. (Plus it will prove our Captain N theory.)

      Delete
  14. I saw Irate Gamer before AVGN in 2009 and even then I didn't like bores lol. At the time I didn't like videos with swearing so the moment I heard an F-bomb I stopped watching but then I found his Mario Bros 2 review and even I could tell the BS that he was pulling, ESPECIALLY the part where he slows down the star footage. I later found out about AVGN later that year and funny thing is, I saw it on some channel who just re-uploaded his reviews. I use to watch Both AVGN & IG and I was aware of the plagarism but IG was more like those people you watch because you had nothing else to do, it was like a guilty pleasure to me but that was in 2009...now IG videos are just...terrible. Like the old IG episodes are bad BUT they have some charm to them like "UH YEAH YA THINK?!", "OH WHAT DA HYELL!?", "BREAKFAST IS RUINED!", "Great, now my cousin Joey is gonna have nightmares for a week!". I still enjoy the content James pulls out, now with videos of just Mike or videos having Mike in them, it's a mix (unless it's Board James, then hell yeah to that).

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  15. I used to be a fan of Chris's work in the sense that I watched him for what he is. I used to find him almost as entertaining as AVGN. The thing that got me to dislike him is the fact that he cannot take criticism and has been known to not be a very nice person at times.

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  16. Is the Robert Howard who wrote this post the same one who created Conan the Barbarian? LOL, just kidding :)

    I know Lewis "Linkara" Lovhaug used to kinda like Bores's videos (since Link hasn't played all that many video games), and this blog showed him the light.

    I remember seeing Bores's Back to the Future in 2007, and thought it was a blatant ripoff of James's video. For whatever reason, around 2008-2009, I sorta considered IG a guilty pleasure.

    I remember wondering of Bores was right about Zombies Ate My Neighbors sucking, but when Happy Video Gamer Nerd covered that game, my uncertainty went away.

    I can't remember exactly when I watched Archfiend's video exposing Bores. I didn't think much of the Uncensored Net Noise interview with Bores when I first saw it.

    I sorta lost interest in Bores in 2009 and especially 2010 because he put out fewer and fewer IG videos. I actually enjoyed the first few times he covered E3 because I didn't watch many other gaming channels on YouTube at the time.

    Then, in late 2010, I discovered this blog through the TV Tropes entry on IG, and have been with you guys through thick and thin ever since.

    So, that's basically my IG story.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The first time I heard about Irate Gamer was back around the time he first came out and barely anyone knew who he was. I was really into AVGN at the time, but I was checking out other NES game reviews on YouTube as well, and sure enough I came across Irate Gamer's Back To The Future review. My first impression was he looked like a douchebag roomate of mine that annoyed the shit out of me in college (ironically his name is also Chris). Anyways, I at first didn't think much of the review, but then I thought the part where he goes back in time to kill the CEO of LJN was pretty creative. I figured at the time he was just another AVGN fan who got inspired to do reviews like many people on YouTube were. The thing that stood out about IG though was that he made an effort to at least attempt to make his reviews good and entertaining, whereas almost everyone else doing game reviews just did shitty LP's behind a webcam.

    I continued to stay a fan even though IG was getting bashed left and right for being an "AVGN ripoff". I mean, everyone who was making game or movie reviews (including Nostalgia Critic) and shouting obscenities about how much it sucks was being accused of being an AVGN ripoff, so I didn't buy into that. I always thought of him as maybe the poorman's version of AVGN, but never a ripoff. AVGN's videos still remained superior, but I actually thought IG's review of the Magnavox Odyssey was superior to AVGN's, only because AVGN's review of the Odyssey was just a bunch of stupid fart and shit jokes (to this day his worst review ever), and IG was much more objective. This of course was before I found out about the errors that Ralph Baer pointed out in IG's review.

    When I first discovered this blog, I didn't really like it at first. I thought BatDan and others were wasting their time obsessing over someone making reviews on YouTube and I thought the whole AVGN ripoff issue was beaten way more than it should have been at this point. I didn't realize at the time however about the lies, deception, cheap attacks and corruption. I vaguely heard about LadyBuggin777 in the past, but I had no clue about her flame wars or how she's really Chris posing as his mom (who I'm guessing is deceased in real life). I think the Ralph Baer response to his Odyssey review was what really made me see things differently.

    I believe that the review that made me think that IG really jumped the shark and has lost any sense of quality whatsoever was his Power Rangers SNES review. First of all, Power Rangers SNES was one of my all-time favorite games; beat-em up arcade action with awesome music and great platforming. However, it really seemed moreso than in his past reviews that he was just making up shit to complain about. It was a total mess.

    The moment I started following this blog on a regular basis and started commenting was when I commented on Chris's video about the news of the Irate Gamer game being released; a video that had so many more dislikes than likes that it had to be taken down. I remember commenting "Why did it take 3 years to make this game?" and he retorted "I'd like to see you make a game quicker!", followed by him blocking me from commenting on his channel until the Google + upgrade came into YouTube, which I guess unblocked everyone he previously blocked.

    From that point on, the videos just got worse and worse and worse, and the corruption was the same - talking down to fans, manipulating things to make him look better, etc. The one thing I really hate is people who are dishonest and lack integrity. It's bad enough that our leaders in Washington DC are that way; we don't need entertainers on YouTube to be the same way.

    ReplyDelete
  18. One of my friends exposed me to AVGN and Spoony. After that, I was hooked on game reviewers. I watched so many of them, including Spax3, Armake21, WizWar100, and even IG. I was still in high school, so I thought his stuff was pretty funny. It wasn't until Armake's big angry rant about IG that I noticed the plagiarism. After that, I rewatched his videos and realized they sucked. However, I still stayed subscribed and watched his stuff anyway. Partially out of bile fascination, but mostly because I wanted to take inspiration for my own videos. Stephen King once said that bad books have more to teach than the good ones. I watched IG's videos with that very mindset. I was confident that even if I wasn't popular, at least I could do better videos than him. Plus, I made sure to take notes on what NOT to do for my own videos. It wasn't until someone from Spoony's forums linked me to this very site that I realized just what kind of a person Chris was. For the longest time, I thought he was just a guy who put out harmless, if low-quality entertainment. Then I read through this site and learned that he, as a person, is an immature jackass.

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  19. I barely remember when I discovered Bores, but I know it was prior to his Robocop review. That's all I remember.

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  20. The first IG video I ever saw was the Yo! Noid review. I was just looking for a video of that game because I think I saw it mentioned on I-Mockery or some similar site and was curious. Anyway, I watched that video and hated him from the start just for that awful "Yo Irate Gamer" joke.

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  21. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I used to like the Irate Gamer back when he started (at the time, I was also, and still am, a fan of AVGN). Over time, however, I learned about his controversy and started to doubt him. By the time I entered college (in 2009), I had lost all respect for him.

    Crisbo, know this: It's you that's the problem! It's not this blog or the "haters", you are solely to blame for your dwindling popularity!
    -_-

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  22. Since so many people are telling their stories, I'll tell mine:

    I was never a fanboy of The Irate Gamer. The first thing I saw from him washis E.T. review. I found him because I was watching AVGN videos and I was wondering if AVGN had ever reviewed what's considered the worst video game of all time. I saw some more of his videos, but I didn't see much of how he was considered an AVGN ripoff because I didn't care much. After I started college and played video games less and less, I didn't pay attention to him.

    Then I discovered the "I can't believe it's not AVGN" series. Those videos are hilarious. I love the captions and the facepalm reactions, and then I saw the stuff everybody else sees. The production values that high school and community college students would be ashamed of, the "Winter Games" button mashing that makes him look like a moron, the angry faces that make him look like he has a severe need to take a dump, and the monotone delivery of his lines. That's when I realized he just sucks.

    So how did I find this blog? Well I went to the Irate Gamer's TV Tropes page and in the YMMV section under Internet Backdraft, there was the article regarding his comments about Jew Wario's suicide. Chris, that wasn't cool, man. I mean, I didn't watch Jew Wario, but I saw him in the Channel Awesome snniversiary specials and a lot of people said that he was a real nice guy, so I know that a lot of people loved him. How hard is it to say "My condolences go out to his family, his friends, and his fans."? I would acknowledge that I didn't know or watch Jew Wario, but that's what I would say if somebody asked me if I heard the news.

    After I discovered this blog, I read the articles, mainly the Reduxes. And there I discovered just how bad he was. I can now tell that Chris Bores is no James Rolfe. You can tell James loves the games he plays and tearing into the crap, whether he's in character or out of character, and that he loves the old games, while Chris is just doing it because angry reviewing was becoming a big thing.

    And here I am now. I read this blog regularly, and I've subscribed to DoubleEdgedSword2's channel and I love his "I Can't Believe It's Not DLAbaoaqu " series. I'm impressed that Chris has finally shown some level of competence in the making of his videos, but he's still not a gamer to me. He still does winter gaming, and if the annotation riffs and this blog are anything to go by, he's still willing to shamelessly use a Game Genie. I'm not a gamer, but I know about cheat codes and Game Genies, and any real gamer would only use a cheat code or cheating device unless you're at the end of your rope/as an absolute last resort (Like in AVGN's Ghostbusters review). Also, his reviewing skills are lacking. He goes over obvious stuff, he doesn't really talk about the gameplay or anything about the games aside from broad statements, and he now seems to be going after what are seen as the great NES classics for some reason. I'll take AVGN over him every day of the week.

    So that's my Chris Bores story and my views on the guy. He doesn't strike me as a gamer "even though I find myself not willing to dismiss his "playing these games for 20 years" claims because I genuinely want to see evidence of playing these games for 20 years like James Rolfe has. I really hope he can learn to take criticism and improve his style and his reviewing skills, but as for right now, the only thing his videos are good for are watching riffs on Irate Gamer episodes and the only two things that his History of Video Games series is good for are seeing the riffs and wondering if he will ever reach the NES (the benchmark that HOVG is saying he will never reach)...so I can see more riffing.

    P.S. DoubleEdgedSword2, if you see this, know that you have a fan, I think you're awesome, and I appreciate what you do.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I first heard of IG when he joined my L4D2 game, sucked ass, and accused the other team of hacking. My teammates were laughing at him until he left, and one of them told me "That guy was the Irate Gamer". My immediate response was, "Irate Gamer? What's that? Some sort of AVGN rip-off?". They thought it was hilarious that I figured that out after only hearing his show's name, and suggested I look up his videos to see how right I was.
    I watched a couple of videos of his and Googled to find pages that compared him to AVGN to see exactly how much he plagiarized, and that led me to this blog.
    Nowadays my following this blog actually has very little to do with Bores. Yeah, I keep up to date with Bores' latest shinanigans, but I mostly come for the off-topic discussion and randomness. This blog pretty much is like a second facebook to me, one with less marketing and political posts.
    On a side note, "Chris Bores" must be a common name among plagiarists. A couple guys tried to take credit for my DooM mod before AVGN or IG existed. One of them was named "Chris Bores", though apparently it's a completely different person.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure if Bores is still on Steam or not. He was friends of friends that I don't play with anymore so I don't see him, but apparently he barely played anything on Steam except "Garry's Mod" (which makes me wonder why the IG channel never got flooded with GM Machinima)

      Delete
    2. Are you sure it was Bores? Didn't he mention in one of the E3 videos last year that he didn't have a steam account? Do you remember when this happened? Just curious.

      Delete
    3. If it wasn't him, it was someone who could impersonate his voice perfectly, had access to his/LadyBuggin's YouTube accounts. At least once he responded to a message I sent him through YouTube in a game. He also announced his next review in a game once, weeks before posting the video, and it was correct (R.O.B. I think)

      Delete
  24. Interesting read, Howard. Always nice to see content from people with the same birth year as me.

    I was more of a TGWTG/"angry" movie reviewer type of person, and only really watched AVGN when I was with friends. A month ago I decided to take a look at a couple older stuff to see if they aged well. Suffice it to say, I was really disappointed.

    I'm left with the same questions as you; did I find the videos bad because of changing tastes, or because it was always this bad? Honestly, I'm afraid to admit the latter.

    ReplyDelete
  25. My very first YouTuber I subscribed to was Bazookachin. Even though he talks like AVGN, the way he did it with 90s and 00s games was superb.

    I used to be subscribed to Irate gamer as I thought some of his reviews were funny. Then I discovered AVGN a short while after and assumed there was no conflicts between the 2 on the content they did. Later on I discovered Armake21 more specifically his archived videos that were uploaded by someone else and really was entertained.

    Then I saw his video on the Irate gamer and thought damn I must compare his videos to AVGN ones. What I discovered was Irate Gamer stole AVGN lines and copied about 90% of his reviews. Then I discovered this blog that told me everything about what a piece shit Irate gamer is.

    So I decided to unsubscribe his channel and started to thumb down his videos and told him he needs professional acting lessons and to learn that stealing content makes you look more dumb than clever.

    ReplyDelete
  26. "Time to go a bit scholarly on everyone today" begins the newest post on theirategamer.com. It's about an apocryphal bible that the Vatican is supposedly threatened by, and the entire text of the post is lifted from the linked article.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Back in 2006, I was a huge fan of James Rolfe when I saw his TMNT on the NES review and since then became a subscriber. To this day, I still watch him but I'm just not that much of a big fan anymore.

    During that time period when James was around on youtube, other youtube users like Armake21, Jedite1, PlayitBogart, Silent Rob, He11sing920, Wizwar100; among others were criticized as AVGN ripoffs but they made videos claiming that they respect James' work and that they do video game reviews in their own style. In the end, the people that labeled them as ripoffs no longer insulted them. Me, on the other hand, I didn't say anything but I subscribed to them cause I enjoy their videos.

    That is until 2007, I heard about IrateGamer through BigAl2k6 and Silent Rob, calling him an AVGN ripoff (literally). At first, I'm like "well, he can't be that much of a ripoff." So I checked IrateGamer out...and they were right. 2007 - 2009, two years of AVGN fans vs IrateGamer fans that I would never forget, especially the so called "Irate Revolution", a radical movement of IG fans with a mission to suspend all video game reviewers off of youtube and make IrateGamer the only one to review games.

    To this day, Chris means nothing to me anymore but I still visit this blog to let my words out on certain reviews that he has done that pissed me off, like his Mighty Morphin Power Rangers SNES review. That's a good game, Chris! The fuck dude?!?

    I'm just waiting for that one time of day for Chris to call it quits.

    ReplyDelete
  28. 1 or 2 year ago when I was watching a NC review, I saw Bore's video show up in the recommend box, I click it just because I remember Critic used to fake insult AVGN by calling him the Irate Gamer to his genius and I want to know if he really that infamous, I watch his videos and I don't like them, his jokes are force, his voice is really obnoxious, and I can even tell when he told lie about a game eventho I never even see it before, I don't even care if he is coping Rolf but his videos are still bad on their own. But for some reason I still watch them, I guess it's like something so bad that you want to watch it to see if it get worse. I give up watching Bore's video after I discover he has been upload a shit ton of Skylander stuff but not a single review. Then one day I randomly found a video of ThatsDoable (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s_JhrpEVc0 ) I discover alot of Bore's crime in the past and found this blog. After a few days of reading, I'm really like this blog, it shows a side of Bore that I didn't know and be funny while doing it. Nowaday, Bore is so desperate for money and fame that I don't thing he can save himseft anymore, faking Amazon reviews, make sockpupet accounts, false flaging people, cherrypicking comment and use his mommy mask to attack people. Most of those problem can be solve if he could just listen to criticism but he can't and that's really sad

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  29. Pretty much everything you says about IG sums up why I no longer have faith in Chris, Robert. :)

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  30. Okay, the weird thing I'm taking from these comments is the fact that a healthy percentage of this blogs members (myself included) are former Irate Gamer fans.

    That really puts a lot into perspective.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I can't say that I've ever been a fan, but I do remember watching one of his videos years ago, and thinking he wasn't that bad, just boring.

    Now, after seeing posts here and seeing first hand the kind of guy he is, it really surprises me the guy has any fans at all.

    ReplyDelete
  32. I was NEVER an Irate Gamer fan. I'll get that out of the way.

    Back in 2008 and 2009, I had heard of the Irate Gamer through various videos people did on how he was considered a rip-off of the Angry Video Game Nerd. When I checked out a few videos, I did notice how VERY similar they were, especially in his review of the NES TMNT game (bringing up the spiked walls and the underwater stage), but didn't think much outside of that, as I was still watching a lot of NC, AVGN, and lesser-knowns like Happy Console Gamer, MN12BIRD, and Gamester81 (three examples of those who don't rip off the Nerd and are still worth checking out, IMO) at the time. I had heard that he was doing dirty deeds like false-flagging, and still thought that was about it. Then, I came across this blog, and it really helped me to understand just how much of a self-centered, egotistical douchebag Chris Bores really is on the Internet. And made even further by DLAbaoaqu's "I Can't Believe It's Not AVGN!" videos (which also covers other terrible reviewers like Game Dude, NC17 Productions, so on and so forth). And what REALLY convinced me that Bores was nothing more than a douche were his "e-begging spoof" and "Opening Up" videos, both of which SOMEHOW got a lot of praise. If he's still doing crap on the Internet next year, given his antics, I'll be shocked.

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    Replies
    1. I've never been an Irate Gamer fan either, as when I first heard about him, it was about how he was a poor man's AVGN.

      The first time I remember hearing about him was when watching these moveset videos on YouTube for random characters in this fake game called Super Smash Bros. LAWL. The characters who have move sets in this "game" are all from random sources, and include Frollo from the Hunchback of Notte Dame, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, the AVGN, the Nostalgia Critic, Panty and Stocking from the adult anime Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt (which is not as brainless as it sounds and which is something I recommend giving a watch), the King from the Zelda CD-I games, Robotnik from the old Sonic cartoon with Jaleel White (and the one with the Pingas meme in it), and many other random characters. Yeah, this all seems random and stupid, but that's kind of the point, and I would highly recommend checking out the the YouTube channel of chincherrinas (the creator of these moveset videos). He even has other series (such as the Frollo Show) that tell stories. The continuity in his videos as well as the amount of effort he has put into them is actually something to be appreciated, and you will definitely have a laugh watching it.

      Kind of got sidetracked there, sorry. Anyway, one of the characters in LAWL is of course, the Irate Gamer himself. And as you can imagine, he is an inferior clone to the AVGN in every way. Think of him as a joke character, he is to this game as Pichu is to Melee (only Bores is even worse than Pichu). After a few years, I grew more curious about Bores and decided to start watching his videos. I of course hated them, started reading this blog last year, and here I am today.

      But I wonder, if Bores's moveset for LAWL were made today, would it more accurately how terrible he is now. Imagine it, his shield could just be LadyBuggin777's profile pic (and would of course, break easily), his new Final Smash could be using the bot to give his book on Amazon a 5-star rating (it would do nothing to the opponent and he be trying to cheat to win), and one of his victory animations could be him telling you to subscribe to his channel and to "game on."

      Delete
  33. Hey BatDan there is a new AVGN episode up. If you saw it what do you think of it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thought the ending was pretty hype. It seems now ever since the beginning of the year, James has been using a lot more cinematic like music in his videos. I was convinced that Doug as Nostalgia Critic would've been in this episode since there was that Doug & James video

      Delete
    2. I think there's gonna be a Board James video soon. I really liked the last Board James so maybe the upcoming one will be better.

      Delete
  34. FYI, a few of the 5-star reviews of GH2.0 got taken down. The overall rating fell from 4 stars to 3.5.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good. Hopefully more of the fakes get removed.

      Delete
    2. EVERYONE who follows this blog should mark EVERY fake review as "not helpful" and click the "report abuse" link as well

      Delete
  35. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  36. off-topic: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

    For almost a year, We Create Stuff has been remaking/updating our 2010 game Nightmare House 2. I’ve been rerecording almost all of my voice-acting work from it. It was originally a HL2E2 mod, but now it’s stand-alone. It’s been updated to the Source 2013 engine, and is also on Mac and Linux. It’s free for anyone with a Steam account. If anyone’s looking for a scary game to play for Halloween, this is it!

    Hen Matshulski announced this about five hours ago and we’ve already had 134 downloads.

    My blog post about it is here, in case anyone wants to comment without flooding the IG Sucks blog with so much off-topic.

    ReplyDelete
  37. I was never a fan, but back when I'd only seen a couple videos I thought he was alright. I was already a fan of the AVGN, so obviously I knew he was doing the same shtick, but I figured he was at worst some guy who wanted to get in on the caustic critic bandwagon and would either improve into his own thing over time or realize that he wasn't getting anywhere with it and move on. Mind you I didn't really look to see how long he had been doing it (I think this was when Aladdin had been his most recent review), so I didn't know much about his history. I did wonder why he was reviewing Aladdin, which was a childhood favorite of mine, but didn't hold that against him. I think I also assumed there was some sort of story arc at the time since it opened with him and the Wise Sage in the desert.

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  38. Great rant Robert. It's very well-written and I agree about people will eventually grow tired of IG because of his lack of improvement and refusal to criticism.

    I was mostly on Deviantart when I was a teenager, but I do know who AVGN is through Gametrailers and I thought his reviews were hilarious. Then one day on DA, I stumbled across a deviation that shows disgust towards Irate Gamer. I was curious to know who IG is so I went to Youtube and watch some of his reviews, Monster Party being the first I ever watched. When I saw the review, I thought it was funny. But thanks to the "Top 10 stupidest things said by Irate Gamer" by irateqaymer, I realize that most information made by IG are wrong. And that's why I stop watching IG and stick with James.

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  39. What do you think? Will the man who speaks to ghosts let Halloween elapse without acknowledgement? Or will we have to make do with the 35 or so videos James (who doesn't even speak to ghosts) put out this month, plus the one he's teased that goes up after midnight tonight?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The answer, of course, was "yes" to both, but it was his ghost-hunting month so I suppose there's that for an excuse.

      Delete
  40. Looks like there has also been some ratings padding get at Good Reads:

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26878845-ghost-hunting-2-0#other_reviews

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the info.

      I don't see a direct "report abuse" link for that page, guess we could contact the company directly about the fake reviews.

      Delete
    2. Yeah, I just looked at the positive reviews. All five of them happened in a timespan of barely over an hour and all are from users who have reviewed nothing else and don't appear to have any activity before that exact day.

      I did Google image searches for the profile pictures. With the exception of Prince Koffi, they're all taken from various articles or stock internet images.

      Delete
    3. I've just sent them a message about it. The website says it could take a few days for them to respond, though.

      Delete
    4. I revisit Amazon and see that Amazon Customer posted ANOTHER 5-star review and rating on Ghost Hunting 2.0.

      He posted a 5-star review and rating twice on Bores's book now. This is ridiculous.

      Delete
    5. The latest review on Amazon is...strange. Almost as if the reviewer believes the book was a fictional story. If Chris is going to resort to fake reviews then he should at least get somebody who actually read the book.

      Delete
  41. That was a great read, Robert, I'm glad you shared it with us! In fact, I sympathize with your views and was in similar circumstances concerning The Bores myself.

    I suppose I may as well go into detail about my own history with IG.

    Like you, Robert, I was born in 1996 and completely new to the Internet in 2008. Around Fall of that year, I (somehow) managed to get my Wii connected online and downloaded the Internet Channel. It opened a completely new world: I was no longer limited to school and the library for my web browsing, now I could do everything in the comfort of my own home.

    At the same time, I had downloaded Super C and Contra III on the Virtual Console and was really getting into them. Needless to say, I discovered Bores' Contra reviews and fell in love with them (again, I was new to the internet). I discovered his other videos and immediately became a fan of his work.

    I quickly found out about the whole plagirising AVGN controversy and, as much as it pains me to say in hindsight, I grew an instant dislike of James Rolfe; I even tried sitting through his Back to the Future review and closed the video after 30 seconds. Dumb 12-Year-Old Me thought Bores was perfect, that he was the best around. Nothing was going to make me think otherwise. As far as I was concerned, these plagiarism accusations were "a bunch of diarrhea dickwaffles". To be fair, as time went on, my only gripe with Chris was that his content was becoming less and less frequent.

    By early 2010, I discovered the Nostalgia Critic through his Bebe's Kids video game review (growing up as a kid, I loved the movie and ironically enough, Doug reviewed the movie itself later that year). His style was hilarious and the movies he reviewed were right up my alley. I still watch his stuff to this day; I wish he'd keep the sketches in his post-2012 videos to a minimum, but I digress.

    The important thing worth mentioning here is that I eventually watched NC's "Making of TMNT Coming Out of Our Shells Tour" with AVGN. The first thing James said ("coming out of our shells? More like coming out of our ASS!") had me bursting into tears with laughter. As such, I decided to give him another chance with his Zelda CD-I and Action 52/Cheetahmen videos. I was instantly hooked, which I never thought would happen back in 2008.

    By now, it was 2012 and I had simply lost interest in Bores because of his lack of new videos at this point, not helped by the fact that James and Doug were still posting frequent, let alone more hilarious content. Then my interest was rekindled the minute I stumbled upon this blog in high school. I rewatched all of the old videos while noticing the errors/mistakes/sheer stupidity that Batdan pointed out. Now that I was older and wiser, I was also able to look back at the controversy surrounding Chris and draw conclusions from a more intelligent, less fanboy-ish perspective. Looking at the plagiarism, the rudeness towards his fans, all of the sockpuppet accounts, and the Ebegging spoof and "opening up" videos have all convinced me that the Irate Gamer is a terrible person. Nowadays I don't check up on Bores' shenanigans as much as I do Chris-Chan and DSP (I recommend Almighty Tevin's YouTube and Twitch videos if you want to make fun of Phil's antics), but I still like to read the blog as well as go back to make fun of his stuff in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way.

    That's pretty much all I have to say. If you read my entire post, I appreciate it. If not, that's cool too. I just wanted to open up a bit about my experience with Irate Gamer.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Happy Halloween, everyone!!!
    ^o^

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  43. I remember being an IG fan when I was around 13 or 14. I remember watching a bunch of his videos in a row, and the younger self kinda liked them. In fact, he may have inadvertanely wanted me to get Mario Kart Wii due to the IG NEO video he made on it. At one point, I searched his name on the web, and found a few wikis talking about him in a negative sort of view. Thus why I created a wiki for him with the url of http://irategamerdoesnotsuck.wikia.com/wiki/Irate_Gamer_Wiki.

    I did not, however, take part in the Wiki, mainly because I forgot all about it soon after. If my memory serves me, the first AVGN video I saw was his Silver Surfer review. It got me hooked, and I saw that his videos were on a better scale than IG's. And then came Linkara's IG parody. It introduced me to this site, and after reading through entries, I realized my mistake about ever thinking IG was mildly enjoyable.

    All these years later, I made my own blog on movies. One unoffical rule of mine goes like this: Do it for the enjoyment, not for the money.

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    Replies
    1. I think forgetting about the wiki after creating it during your fanboy phase worked out nicely, since anti-fans co-opted it to say things like Bores does THC and eats a lot.

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    2. I seriously doubt Bores is a pot-smoker.

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  44. I'm rather ashamed of saying this, but I was once a fan of the IG myself. I was around 16 or 17 when I first saw his vids. Mind you, I saw the AVGN first, but I figured I'd give him a chance.

    The first review I saw was his Tetris video. Plain and simple. I didn't think that reviewing something so simple as Tetris would make you look like a loser. After all, a game is a game. I thought he was funny. So I looked up other videos. They were also funny at the time... until I saw his Super Mario Bros. 2 review.

    He stated that he didn't hate the game, but then halfway, he says that the game sucks. (seriously, make up your mind!) And he said that Super Mario Advance was an excellent game, even though it was the exact same game with some modifications. That's when I slowly started noticing something.

    The second video I saw was his TMNT review. He particularly bashed TMNT2: The Arcade Game in the most unfair way possible, saying that the game has fewer stuff than the arcade game even though the NES clearly couldn't handle that kind of stuff. That's when I started wising up even further.

    Then came his review of Aladdin on the SNES, which I found to be one of my favorite games. He was spreading nothing but lies and nonsensical stuff in that review. And I was also irked at the fact that he wished that the prize for collecting all the red gems to be able to play as a different character. At that time, the ability to play as a different character was for the most part only relegated to cheats, and even then, they were mostly used in fighting games.

    I think the nail in the coffin was in his three-in-one review of Brutal Legend, Tekken 6, and Turtles in Time Re-shelled, which clearly showed he didn't even bother beating either game. He hated Tekken 6 because he didn't like the fact that the voices were all in Japanese (which is a freakin' lie. All characters speak in their native language, I think), and that he was a Mortal Kombat fan, so the game automatically sucks. Then came Turtles in Time Re-Shelled review where he says that the Robot Rodneys were replaced by the robots with the boxing gloves. He apparently thinks that the game is a remake of the SNES version even though it was based on the arcade version. (BTW, he thinks that TiT was released only on the SNES. He had a long time to review Re-Shelled, and he still jacked up!)

    Then I decided to just give up after that. I wanted to make sure people I looked up were on the same page as I was, but I don't think I found anyone at the time. But it wasn't until I found DLAbaoaqu’s “I Can’t Believe It’s Not AVGN” videos that made sure we thought the same thing. They even showed me stuff I overlooked when I saw Chris' videos. They were hilarious, and I thought that there were others like that. That's when I found Linkara's April Fool's parody video of Irate Gamer. That one was also funny, though there were some Irate fans down-voting the vid. I was eventually directed towards this very site, and I followed it since then.

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  45. Board James - what did you guys think?

    Funny how the arc made more sense than the EPIC IG tried to make, in less episodes too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So far, enjoying it! It kinda reminds me of "Who's on First?"

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    2. The episode features some of the best lighting I've ever seen. Something that Bores can never pull off in his Halloween specials.

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  46. Woe was you. I was an irate gamer fan too. I didn't think super mario bros 2 was bad despite what he said.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He's practically the only one who I've heard bash the game.

      Even more laughable he thought the GBA port somehow improved it.

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    2. I remember ScrewAttack put SMB 2 on their "Top 10 Worst Mario Games" list as well. To be fair, however, they put it very low on the list-- at #9.

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    3. US/EU version.

      For proof:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PT2Mhb3fO0

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  47. Chris considers retiring from Youtube.

    https://www.facebook.com/chris.bores.94?fref=nf

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Translation: His 3 videos a week campaign didn't pan out, he realized he will never rebuild his channel to the same level of (dubious) success he achieved in the past, money is tight and he'd rather spend more time leading ghost hunts.

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    2. Well, he's founded a new branch of psychology; If I'd done that, I wouldn't waste my time complaining that Q*Bert gets harder as you play it.

      I wonder if we'll get a farewell video and what form it'll take.

      And how long the retirement will last.

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    3. Me, I think he just confused "retirement" with "hiatus" again.

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    4. To be positive, a career change gives him a chance to reinvent himself for the better. He's not off to a great start with the fake reviews, but this his his opportunity to work on his ethics and start fresh. I wish him the best of luck.

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    5. Wow

      Not sure how to approach this yet.
      This could be real, this could be attention seeking, this could be him confusing "retirement" and "hiatus" again
      Who knows with Bores.

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    6. Is he going to make another 40 minute video demonizing James Rolfe?

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    7. He will probably talk about how we sabotaged sales of Ghost Hunting 2.0, distort the fake reviews controversy by claiming that we accused him of writing every single one of those reviews (we didn't), how we just do not understand the subject matter and how Chris is completely innocent and misunderstood.

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    8. Who knows...

      BTW, love I Can't Believe It's Not DLAbaoaqu! Will you ever tackle over crappy reviewers in addition to Boring Man? (I'd love to see you riff on rmbrettt and his Arkham City PS3 review.)

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    9. And he'll probably say that the FBI finally got me and locked me up for being a terrible man and that I molested his Lucky Charms of some shit.

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    10. Perhaps Chris is finally giving up on the backlash from "trolls" and realizes he can't win. Well, at least he's not rage qutting about it....yet. I hold my reservations until I hear further notice.

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    11. Interesting. Perhaps the fact he's nearing the big 40 has made him realize he has to shape up at last?

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  48. I know this was already known about for a while, but I still have to ask...are you fucking serious?:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJCgqzNS38U

    And seriously, that sound clip of some guy saying "what the fuck" that got got cut off before the actual swear word is something from another video. I would know because it shows up in SMG4's videos every not and then. And yes, I know SMG4 makes a Super Mario 64/FNAF-related GMod/Machinima for every FNAF game, but at least he doesn't completely rely on FNAF for his content (glares at a Markiplier) and at least his videos on FNAF are actually entertaining, unlike the fucking games themselves.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Assassin's Creed = CoD of Action/Adventure games

      FNAF = CoD of Indie games (which is very sad seeing how the series already has 4 games in less than 1 year of being made)

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    2. FNAF has 4 games already?

      I only played the first, thought the premise was interesting and quickly forgot about it. I actually thougth all this "craze" about it was because of the one single game.

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  49. Does everybody know about DJcuell? The Man who inspires DLAbaoaqu to creat I Can't Believe It's Not AVGN series?

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    Replies
    1. He's quite good. :-)

      And he has collab'd with DLA a few times. Notably on trashing Bores' Ghosts 'n Goblins review to shreds.

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  50. BatDan cares my ass, he's just a mean-spirited who gets on a power-trip mocking Chris for stupid things like how he pronounces certain words and also acts really ableist at times(using the term "spastic" which is considered very offensive in the UK)

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