In retrospect, the 2016-era is the time when people stopped watching shows and started following influencers. I rebooted Classic Game Room with crowdfunding which saved the company, but also killed the show at the same time because viewers hated crowdfunding. Influencers don't need crowdfunding, but expensive-to-produce and time-consuming CGR sure did! It was hard to watch CGR get 8,000 views on a video, but influencers pulled in 10,000,000. It got crushed.

2016 is an interesting season because I think the CGR style was in its prime, but I had to scale back production expenses and cut costs. Also, it went from being a six-person company to just me. I got overloaded for sure, but even worse, the subscribers left in droves, and views collapsed, which made growth impossible. In the middle of stress and chaos, Classic Game Room churned out nearly-daily high quality reviews. But gosh, those influencers just took all the views and money though.... and YouTube viewers complained endlessly about crowdfunding and everything. I'll never get the "It's not fair that he has all these game systems" but also "I want a review show from someone who knows all about these game systems." paradox. Anyway, you can't crowdfund forever, I couldn't take the endless complaining, and without growth, you can't stay in business much longer.