General Gaming Ben Moore Leaving Easy Allies Next.

[BloodyHell]

Ben Moore leaves EA July 1st. Now all of the best talent is gone. I don't see how the company doesn't fall apart. 

 

 

 

Pretty sad. Its pretty much the end of EA for me. I hope Ben does his own podcast or at least streams.

 

[crispy4000]

Really sucks, Frame Trap was excellent.  Disagree that they're toast though.  If Giant Bomb can live on, they'll be fine.

[Biggie]

One man doesn’t make an entire organization. And if he did then they never had a chance anyway. 🤷‍♀️

[BloodyHell]

49 minutes ago, Biggie said:

One man doesn’t make an entire organization. And if he did then they never had a chance anyway. 🤷‍♀️

No, one man doesn't. But they lost 3, and all three were their top talent. I have very little interest in the rest of the cast.

[BloodyHell]

51 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

Really sucks, Frame Trap was excellent.  Disagree that they're toast though.  If Giant Bomb can live on, they'll be fine.

Giant bomb isn't living on a diminishing patreon, though.

[crispy4000]

53 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

Giant bomb isn't living on a diminishing patreon, though.

 

True true.

[BloodyHell]

3 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

True true.

Thats the problem with that format. Especially in an economic downturn when people really can't afford to kick their favorite creators 10$ here and there. Obviously Kyle/Brandon/Ben leaving within 14 months is absolutely a part, theres a lot of things hurting the patreon model.  

[Bacon]

Who is even left? Hubert, Bloodwhatever, and that boring guy who streams ffxiv on their twitch account? I don't even know if that blood guy is still on the team, and I think I am actually missing a person or two but I don't know their names. 

[Brian]

EZA got hit hard by the pandemic. It felt like it stopped the momentum they started to gather with the studio and newer projects like Mysterious Monsters.  Add to the fact that they always got a big bump during e3 and the reaction videos get the most views too.  
 

Ultimately, they failed to grow the fanbase. Bosman is finally doing the show everyone wanted him to do

at EZA and it’s getting 20-25k views. It’s similar to the views on the EZA podcast.  
 

It will be interesting to see how they change.  They hired a community manager which I find strange when you need more creative, on air talent. Good luck to them.  I’ll continue to listen to the podcast and watch Mysterious Monsters. 
 

 

[BloodyHell]

51 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Who is even left? Hubert, Bloodwhatever, and that boring guy who streams ffxiv on their twitch account? I don't even know if that blood guy is still on the team, and I think I am actually missing a person or two but I don't know their names. 

Bloodworth, Huber, Isla, Don, Damiani and Brad.  Don is rarely ever part of the show, he mostly does video editing.

[Xbob42]

I'd always like to hear what finally influences people to leave these kinds of positions. Do they just get bored of it? Think they can make more money? Just want to relax? We never seem to get a real answer, or at best we get one that seems a little too corporate friendly.

 

 

In terms of Patreon, even right now they're doing just fine unless they've got 15+ people working for them. Jeff Gerstmann on the other hand was clearly blindsided to some extent by his departure from Giant Bomb. The Nextlander guys clearly had more planning done and I'm assuming they were just sick of all the meetings that bogged down their content pipeline; they still complain about those meetings even now. I'd love to just get some unfiltered podcasts on what happened.

[BloodyHell]

39 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I'd always like to hear what finally influences people to leave these kinds of positions. Do they just get bored of it? Think they can make more money? Just want to relax? We never seem to get a real answer, or at best we get one that seems a little too corporate friendly.

 

 

In terms of Patreon, even right now they're doing just fine unless they've got 15+ people working for them. Jeff Gerstmann on the other hand was clearly blindsided to some extent by his departure from Giant Bomb. The Nextlander guys clearly had more planning done and I'm assuming they were just sick of all the meetings that bogged down their content pipeline; they still complain about those meetings even now. I'd love to just get some unfiltered podcasts on what happened.

You think 7 (previously 8 people) can survive in California of 31000$ plus advertising? These people make very little off add revenue, and they have a studio. Their bare minimum to keep the lights on was 35k/month on patreon when they had there annual subscription drive a few months back.

[Xbob42]

Do I think 7 people can live on $4.5k/month each in California? As someone in California who makes less than that, yes, yes I do! No idea their studio cost, though. I would imagine the studio would largely be subsidized by the advertising, as most sponsors paying a podcast/show that big pay several thousand dollars minimum.

 

I think Gerstmann did have the right idea though, he's got 500 more Patrons than them and gets 100% of the money!

[BloodyHell]

37 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Do I think 7 people can live on $4.5k/month each in California? As someone in California who makes less than that, yes, yes I do! No idea their studio cost, though. I would imagine the studio would largely be subsidized by the advertising, as most sponsors paying a podcast/show that big pay several thousand dollars minimum.

 

I think Gerstmann did have the right idea though, he's got 500 more Patrons than them and gets 100% of the money!

But thats the thing  its not that big. They struggle to get views. No advertisers are paying big dollars for a podcast that struggles to get 20k views. Even most of the Not E3 stuff, which they had no sponsors for, got 40k max. I think the FF stuff was their biggest hit of the june thing, their reacts got 59k, but that's very, very rare. A guy like completionist puts out a vid, it gets millions of views.

 

Colin Moriarty did it right. He hired as he grew, and hired the right people. Chris Raygun, MrMattyPlays and Lord Cognito. Just grew the employees as the patreon grew, but he owns it. And everyone he hired is interesting in a different way.

 

These guys just banded together, some talented, some not so much. And now the most talented people are all gone, and that patreon will only shrink more.

[Paperclyp]

The speed in which Gertsmann got his new pod up, combined with the tip toeing around the topic by all parties, combined with the quality of said podcast (dog shit); something weird went down and I’m dying to know what it was. He clearly is flying by the seat of his pants. 
 

I’m not super familiar with the easy allies staff. 

[Keyser_Soze]

39 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

combined with the quality of said podcast (dog shit);

 

I think the podcast is fine. You sign up for a Jeff Gerstmann podcast to hear Jeff Gerstmann and that's what you get, sounds just like the bombcast to me, just with one guy. I'm impressed he can carry the show by himself and imo he does it.

[Paperclyp]

20 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I think the podcast is fine. You sign up for a Jeff Gerstmann podcast to hear Jeff Gerstmann and that's what you get, sounds just like the bombcast to me, just with one guy. I'm impressed he can carry the show by himself and imo he does it.

I am a big fan of his but unless he’s rummaging through his garage or actively playing a game, I need him to bounce off someone who he respects and can give him some shit. He went on a huge rambling soliloquy about his damn leaky office on his second pod I think hahaha I’m just like wtf are we doin man. 

[johnny]

theyre getting more podcast views than you probably think. and that patreon amount is really good. they really should be able to sustain themselves with those numbers. 

[BloodyHell]

3 hours ago, johnny said:

theyre getting more podcast views than you probably think. and that patreon amount is really good. they really should be able to sustain themselves with those numbers. 

They literally said two months ago during their EZ-X yearly event that 35k/month in patreon is what they need just to keep the lights on, and that they were burning company savings. Its clearly not a really good amount. I checked their podcast views, aside from June, where everyone in the gaming industry gets a bump, its been low and declining, and is already back to pre Not-E3 levels.

 

And as allies leave, so do patreon subs. Most Patreons grow, EA shed 300 in the last month. Thats almost 5%. More will go with Ben leaving (I did). Every metric you look at shows decline, there is no growth, they aren't even sustaining their viewership.

 

I dunno, to me the heart and talent of EA are gone. Blood, Brad and Damiani are incredibly boring to watch. Isla's taste in games is just to different than mine, Huber can be hard tp listen to, and Don is funny, but rarely ever in any of their content. 

 

I wish them the best, but theres so much good gaming content that I can't see me using my time to listen this lineup. Frame Trap was the last show of theirs I was watching. 

[crispy4000]

Heard on their podcasts that Brad will be taking over Frame Trap.  Right person for the job, IMO.