Seems like he will have to adress this at some point because it is going mainstream. Screenrant posted about it.
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Former GameXplain members talk about troubles with the company (heavy crunch, low pay) [Update: André Response]
- Thread starter Magic-Man
- Start date
He's probably talking to PR people and lawyers for a response. A quick and stupid response can sink him faster than he already is.
Haven't the ex-staff come out and said they don't want to take it further/don't want negative pile ons or abuse towards him?
I didn't meant he going after the people that outed him, more like finding the smart thing to say.
Just heard about this shit. Yeah I don't expect Andre to post here after these allegations. The heat is too strong for some people.
Good news is that GVG has gotten an extra 5K subscribers since this broke, hopefully their new project takes off for them.
To be frank, I'm not sure what they expected would happen when they decided to talk about it. Not that they were wrong to do so. I support them coming out with it. It's valid for them to call for no abuse/harassment against Andre and the new employees. That's common sense/decency. But they had to expect Andre was going to get criticized harshly. Even gamexplain taking a hit had to be expected.
Maybe that's just me.
None of the crew played both sides on this, that flat out said that the Grinch leak did not match what they had been told and they ALL got attacked by users here for it for days. I wont let this history be rewritten.
Unfortunately, games media has always been underpaid and undervalued. I was also wondering how the hell one single YouTube channel could support a whole goddamn staff if they weren't pulling in 500k+ views every day or something. Turns out you can't adequately do that.
Also, man, people really need to do a litmus test with naming. "GameXplain" is probably one of the corniest/worst brand names I've seen in a while.
Also, man, people really need to do a litmus test with naming. "GameXplain" is probably one of the corniest/worst brand names I've seen in a while.
Actually you factually can, when the outlet in questions is making $25,000 on a "bad month". Andre just refused to pay his staff and pocketed all that money himself.
It wouldn't have gotten this big if he had adressed it when these statements came up. They only landed on ERA days after they had been posted on the reddit, where someone tried to delete or hide these posts.
He probably has his reasons but the silence isn't really helping. People are gonna take it as some kind of response, especially with the reddit posts being deleted.
Except they still milked the hell out of the Grinch Leak with multiple videos, while Andre on Twitter kept taking snide jabs on Twitter.
That's where the fansite/journalism thing clashed: they had the info, but it went against what the fansite part of getting views with rumor discussions. Theyliterally had the info to kill the rumor and they didn't use it.
Even if Andre made a bad decisions, isn't the fact that he lost so much talent the appropriate reaping of what he sowed? I was a casual subscriber of Gamexplain and definitely noticed the quality dropped over the past few months and haven't watched nearly as many vids, in turn making him less money. The former staff seeming cool about it makes me think he's being piled on a bit much.
Edit: Deleting stuff on reddit isn't helping his case at all, but I still feel a bit bad for him.
Edit: Deleting stuff on reddit isn't helping his case at all, but I still feel a bit bad for him.
If he had addressed it still could've gotten big. Maybe I'm a pessimist, but even if he admitted right away that he purposefully underpaid employees he would still get dragged through the mud. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. He's just more damned now than he would've been.
Eventually the story would've found legs simply because of the size of Gamexplain.
That's enough to pay up to 6 people (including themself) about 20 bucks an hour full time, plus some money on the side for expenses and what not.
They did along with almost every insider on the board. This board turned on every single one of them and launched personal attacks causing most insiders to leave as they said they were lying to protect nintendo's hype or some shit. It was disgusting then and still is regardless of current circumstances.
I feel bad for the people he took advantage of by crunching them and not paying them enough for it.
His silence speaks volumes. If he had a defensible position, would he not have spoken out by now?
I get your point but many posts here are just about waiting on a response from ok him. If he had been part of the discussion early on and been transparent there would be less questions. It's just a bad look right now.
Sure he is gonna have to own up to it and gonna get dragged but at least the story could find some kind of ending or solution in the process.
I would expect a proper response by tomorrow...otherwise I don't think he is gonna address it at all.
Well that's why I said he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. Either way, he was fucked. He's just more fucked now.
I assume it's been noted already because I'm not following this too closely, but he was still active on Twitter when this broke, so everything he posted was subsequently followed by people asking why he's ignoring this.
addressing the issue or not, I hope he learns from his mistakes and starts to pay his staff better for the work they do.
I will not join the crowd and beat the dead horse here. He (used to) have a good youtube channel and this is the second (and last) chance I'm giving to him.
I will not join the crowd and beat the dead horse here. He (used to) have a good youtube channel and this is the second (and last) chance I'm giving to him.
It's likely this. Working week starts tomorrow - I expect something within the next few days.
I think the appropriate action would be for Andre to pay them all an extra lumpsum of money (call it a severance). You know, the money they earned. Obviously he isn't going to be able to pull enough money together to retroactively bring their earnings even vaguely close to minimum wage, but something would definitely be better than nothing.
That would be excellent. The staff gets at least something more, and GameXplain (And everyone else) can learn and grow from it.
This is a great idea.
Honestly, if Andre gave Jon, Steve, Derrick, and Brainchild like $2,000 in severance. That would be a great step to making things right. So long as he treats his current employees alright.
Also, just before the Super Mario 35th Anniversary Direct, they scheduled a livestream called: "Let's watch the Mario Direct! ...if it happens"
I remember there being buzz of maybe something happening that week but I find it odd that a Mario full on Direct was called by GX (it was probably Andre who made the stream) even though it was expected to just be a Twitter drop
Milked is some revisionist history. A lot of Smash fans, including people here, thought that it was weird that Gamexplain always covered rumors but went so long without more than a brief nod to the Grink leak. And when they did make the video, they poked all kinds of holes in it. The crew also said on the podcast they didn't even like talking about that leak in particular because they were pretty sure it was fake.
Derrick's Statement
Hi everyone! Derrick has prepared a statement regarding this situation, but he doesn't have an Era account so I'm posting it on his behalf. I am also preparing my own statement which I will post later, but for now all I'll say is that I fully back everything Steve and now Derrick have said about the situation. It's all true.
That said, I would like to echo Derrick and Steve's reminders that it has never been our intention to have Good Vibes Gaming compete with or undermine GX. The new crew of Joey, Tris, and Chris (as well as my good friend Tom, who remains at GX) deserve the same love and consideration you all have graciously shown us over the years and we are NOT asking you to unsubscribe from GX or pull support from their Patreon. We'd also like to remind you that while we understand your desire for Andre to make a statement, we strongly ask that you don't harass him; we appreciate your sympathy and support, but we categorically do not want this to turn into a witch hunt.
And now, Derrick's statement:
Obviously, I've never posted to ResetEra before this, but I wanted to get some things out there that I've bottled up for some time now. I also want to provide some more context if possible, but these are just some of my experiences. First, none of us knew how much each other was making. All I knew was that I was making the most of all the employees as I had been there the longest. Each year, I would get a raise until I topped out at $5k/month in 2018. Despite asking for my yearly raise, Andre said that the channel couldn't afford it as by that point Jon had been brought on. I didn't mind though as having Jon on the team was a lifesaver. He was able to do updates and keep an eye on the channel, lightening my daily work load significantly. I felt expected to be on call at all times and would be nervous to even leave my home most days, fearing that some random Nintendo news would come out. This didn't really go away until Jon joined and Aimee pushed me to take time for myself. Rarely did Andre handle an update and when it was just him, he would wait until either Jon or myself was free again to actually handle it. Before then, it always had to be done ASAP. As for GameXplain's income, I was able to see the analytics for quite some time and the estimation is mostly on point though there were some months where it would dip below that estimation. But the high end always felt massive and I hoped that the rest of the team, especially Jon, was being compensated with that extra income. That said, I had to handle any work expenses myself for the most part, including consoles and equipment. The only part of my current setup provided by Andre is my mic. I paid for my flights to LA for E3 or trains to NY for Nintendo events while Andre would handle the cost of hotels if needed and meals if we were together. I never said anything as the expenses could be used as write-offs for my taxes and helped at the end of the year.
However, this year felt different as the team started talking more. I discovered that Jon was making less than half of what I did despite doing the same amount of work, Steve's income has already been brought up, and Ash had stepped back from the channel for only occasional work. He would send invoices that Andre would eventually get to, but Andre always had to be reminded to send our paychecks out. We tried to get a calendar started so he could be more consistent but he resisted the idea. One other thing to know is that despite a Discord where we all chatted and coordinated, Andre would often DM each of us to ask specific things. Ostensibly it was so we could see them better, but often it felt like a way to strongarm for videos he wanted. There were many times when he wanted an update on something that I didn't feel was worth the time as I was working on other things, but he would push until I relented. Sometimes he gave up, but that was rare. It got to a point where I would ignore or put off looking at his DMs if I was busy with something else or be more combative over the updates he wanted to put out. Andre was extremely controlling, seemingly timing things to directly disrupt plans. He gave Jon tons of work when his YouTube channel took off, making it difficult for him to make videos there. He also asked me to stop streaming to YouTube as he didn't like old game playthroughs mixed in with our current events style. As a side note, any money I earned from Superchat had to be totaled by me and invoiced at the end of the year as a "bonus." So leaving to Twitch served as a chance to earn money more immediately, especially with a baby on the way and Aimee still unable to work on her own projects due to the effects of COVID. I prepared people for the move for a while as I completed the final playthrough, but on the day of the final stream, Andre contacted me and asked that I stream to GameXplain's Twitch instead.
His reason was that he wouldn't be able to make me properly full-time if I streamed to my own Twitch, something he had been building toward through most of the year. If I streamed to my own Twitch, I would be considered a freelancer and immediately have my pay removed with rates estimated at $15-$20 per update and $100-$150 per feature or review. He said I could have full control of the GameXplain Twitch though so I felt strong-armed into taking the deal. I still got the money from subs and bits monthly but I had to go through him. It also felt like he dragged his feet to confirm Affiliate status because he thought me streaming would somehow turn people away from the new Game Club tier on the Patreon. Around September, he asked me to join a voice call where he wanted to discuss me at GameXplain going forward. I popped in at the appointed time and he asked to be on camera. It turns out he had prepared a PowerPoint where he ran down several things. How COVID had affected ad rates and lowered income, how he was still paying me the same despite this, how I was fighting him when updates had to be done, and ultimately, how I was bringing in less money for the channel then what I was being paid. It ended with a question of whether I was still loyal and still wanted an official full-time position. Again, with a baby on the way, I was scared to the point of meekness because I felt I couldn't put Aimee and the baby in that position.
When Andre finally presented me with the full-time contract, I was in the middle of a nightmare moving situation where I could barely focus on anything. He pushed the fact that I had to make a decision as soon as possible due to timing, but I could not change my income situation without messing up my loan application. Ultimately, he gave me the time I needed and talked to the loan officers as my boss to help me get my loan. But in the intervening time, I was able to take a closer look at the contract. There were no defined set hours, no increase in pay, no overtime, no health coverage (not enough full-time employees), and overtime would only translate to extra time off, not extra pay. In addition, he wanted to approve where I appeared and when I streamed, taking away the one bit of control I had with the Twitch. It felt like I had no say in my life, everything had to go through him if I wanted to earn money beyond GameXplain. But worst of all was an NDA included with the contract. Tucked in the many points listed was a non-compete clause. Basically if I signed the contract and left or was fired from GameXplain for any reason, I would not be able to work in the same space for a year. I took this to mean no YouTube, no games media, nothing. I talked to a lot of people around this time, trying to figure out what to do. After speaking with all of them, including Aimee, Ash, Steve, and Jon, I ultimately decided to leave with Ash and Steve coming with me so we could pursue Ash's idea of Good Vibes Gaming. It felt better to leave and attempt my own thing rather than deal with that contract and the general stress and pressure of GameXplain. Money is tight, but I am so much happier now.
I can only gratefully thank all of you who have supported Good Vibes Gaming so far whether as part of our Patreon, watching my streams, or subscribing to the channel. It means the world to me that I can happily pursue my ideas and I look forward to sharing them with our fans. Ultimately though, no matter what, I request that you don't harass any of the new hires, Tom, or Andre. I merely want to provide more context and shed light on the position I was coming from. Thank you all for your support and take care.
That said, I would like to echo Derrick and Steve's reminders that it has never been our intention to have Good Vibes Gaming compete with or undermine GX. The new crew of Joey, Tris, and Chris (as well as my good friend Tom, who remains at GX) deserve the same love and consideration you all have graciously shown us over the years and we are NOT asking you to unsubscribe from GX or pull support from their Patreon. We'd also like to remind you that while we understand your desire for Andre to make a statement, we strongly ask that you don't harass him; we appreciate your sympathy and support, but we categorically do not want this to turn into a witch hunt.
And now, Derrick's statement:
Obviously, I've never posted to ResetEra before this, but I wanted to get some things out there that I've bottled up for some time now. I also want to provide some more context if possible, but these are just some of my experiences. First, none of us knew how much each other was making. All I knew was that I was making the most of all the employees as I had been there the longest. Each year, I would get a raise until I topped out at $5k/month in 2018. Despite asking for my yearly raise, Andre said that the channel couldn't afford it as by that point Jon had been brought on. I didn't mind though as having Jon on the team was a lifesaver. He was able to do updates and keep an eye on the channel, lightening my daily work load significantly. I felt expected to be on call at all times and would be nervous to even leave my home most days, fearing that some random Nintendo news would come out. This didn't really go away until Jon joined and Aimee pushed me to take time for myself. Rarely did Andre handle an update and when it was just him, he would wait until either Jon or myself was free again to actually handle it. Before then, it always had to be done ASAP. As for GameXplain's income, I was able to see the analytics for quite some time and the estimation is mostly on point though there were some months where it would dip below that estimation. But the high end always felt massive and I hoped that the rest of the team, especially Jon, was being compensated with that extra income. That said, I had to handle any work expenses myself for the most part, including consoles and equipment. The only part of my current setup provided by Andre is my mic. I paid for my flights to LA for E3 or trains to NY for Nintendo events while Andre would handle the cost of hotels if needed and meals if we were together. I never said anything as the expenses could be used as write-offs for my taxes and helped at the end of the year.
However, this year felt different as the team started talking more. I discovered that Jon was making less than half of what I did despite doing the same amount of work, Steve's income has already been brought up, and Ash had stepped back from the channel for only occasional work. He would send invoices that Andre would eventually get to, but Andre always had to be reminded to send our paychecks out. We tried to get a calendar started so he could be more consistent but he resisted the idea. One other thing to know is that despite a Discord where we all chatted and coordinated, Andre would often DM each of us to ask specific things. Ostensibly it was so we could see them better, but often it felt like a way to strongarm for videos he wanted. There were many times when he wanted an update on something that I didn't feel was worth the time as I was working on other things, but he would push until I relented. Sometimes he gave up, but that was rare. It got to a point where I would ignore or put off looking at his DMs if I was busy with something else or be more combative over the updates he wanted to put out. Andre was extremely controlling, seemingly timing things to directly disrupt plans. He gave Jon tons of work when his YouTube channel took off, making it difficult for him to make videos there. He also asked me to stop streaming to YouTube as he didn't like old game playthroughs mixed in with our current events style. As a side note, any money I earned from Superchat had to be totaled by me and invoiced at the end of the year as a "bonus." So leaving to Twitch served as a chance to earn money more immediately, especially with a baby on the way and Aimee still unable to work on her own projects due to the effects of COVID. I prepared people for the move for a while as I completed the final playthrough, but on the day of the final stream, Andre contacted me and asked that I stream to GameXplain's Twitch instead.
His reason was that he wouldn't be able to make me properly full-time if I streamed to my own Twitch, something he had been building toward through most of the year. If I streamed to my own Twitch, I would be considered a freelancer and immediately have my pay removed with rates estimated at $15-$20 per update and $100-$150 per feature or review. He said I could have full control of the GameXplain Twitch though so I felt strong-armed into taking the deal. I still got the money from subs and bits monthly but I had to go through him. It also felt like he dragged his feet to confirm Affiliate status because he thought me streaming would somehow turn people away from the new Game Club tier on the Patreon. Around September, he asked me to join a voice call where he wanted to discuss me at GameXplain going forward. I popped in at the appointed time and he asked to be on camera. It turns out he had prepared a PowerPoint where he ran down several things. How COVID had affected ad rates and lowered income, how he was still paying me the same despite this, how I was fighting him when updates had to be done, and ultimately, how I was bringing in less money for the channel then what I was being paid. It ended with a question of whether I was still loyal and still wanted an official full-time position. Again, with a baby on the way, I was scared to the point of meekness because I felt I couldn't put Aimee and the baby in that position.
When Andre finally presented me with the full-time contract, I was in the middle of a nightmare moving situation where I could barely focus on anything. He pushed the fact that I had to make a decision as soon as possible due to timing, but I could not change my income situation without messing up my loan application. Ultimately, he gave me the time I needed and talked to the loan officers as my boss to help me get my loan. But in the intervening time, I was able to take a closer look at the contract. There were no defined set hours, no increase in pay, no overtime, no health coverage (not enough full-time employees), and overtime would only translate to extra time off, not extra pay. In addition, he wanted to approve where I appeared and when I streamed, taking away the one bit of control I had with the Twitch. It felt like I had no say in my life, everything had to go through him if I wanted to earn money beyond GameXplain. But worst of all was an NDA included with the contract. Tucked in the many points listed was a non-compete clause. Basically if I signed the contract and left or was fired from GameXplain for any reason, I would not be able to work in the same space for a year. I took this to mean no YouTube, no games media, nothing. I talked to a lot of people around this time, trying to figure out what to do. After speaking with all of them, including Aimee, Ash, Steve, and Jon, I ultimately decided to leave with Ash and Steve coming with me so we could pursue Ash's idea of Good Vibes Gaming. It felt better to leave and attempt my own thing rather than deal with that contract and the general stress and pressure of GameXplain. Money is tight, but I am so much happier now.
I can only gratefully thank all of you who have supported Good Vibes Gaming so far whether as part of our Patreon, watching my streams, or subscribing to the channel. It means the world to me that I can happily pursue my ideas and I look forward to sharing them with our fans. Ultimately though, no matter what, I request that you don't harass any of the new hires, Tom, or Andre. I merely want to provide more context and shed light on the position I was coming from. Thank you all for your support and take care.
Thank you, glad someone else remembers how this actually went down.
The worst part is having to ask to get paid. Like, what kind of job is that where you don't get paid unless you go through the awkward process of having to remind your boss to pay you every time.
Thanks so much for sharing this. Andre, who i have to assume is watching this thread like a hawk, sounds like a nightmare situation to work with. Good for you all for getting out and starting your own thing. I know you're not asking anyone to, but I'm making my own choice to not watch any GX videos from now on. Sorry to the current crew for being collateral damage, but simply can't in good conscience support it.
Andre sounds like a classic case of building something that became more successful than he ever expected, and simply got very greedy. Being a good boss and a good business owner is a vastly different skillset than being a good content creator, and not everyone is a natural.
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Yeah, that's...wow.
I'm very happy you guys are in much better places now.
Andre has some SERIOUS explaining to do.
Thank you for sharing Derrick's statement. I look forward to your own statement, and future content from GVG.
This makes sense why derrick always complained about workload and Andre just laughed it off like it was nothing in the podcasts. Yikes
YIKES. I'm so sorry for Derrick having to go through that with all the big changes in his life. He was always so hardworking and was pretty much carrying the channel on his back until Jon joined and helped with the load.
Everything from the past few days sounded bad but this takes it to a new level...
Everything from the past few days sounded bad but this takes it to a new level...
The things that jump out at me:
-not paying them on time and needing to be reminded
-Derrick feeling anxious to leave the house with the implication that he would be punished if he missed a story
-not being able to do anything else they wanted to do
-that PowerPoint presentation where derrick's enthusiasm is questioned and whether he should still be employed by GX
-the NDA
that's not even all of it - sounds like a nightmare situation with a bullying boss...
-not paying them on time and needing to be reminded
-Derrick feeling anxious to leave the house with the implication that he would be punished if he missed a story
-not being able to do anything else they wanted to do
-that PowerPoint presentation where derrick's enthusiasm is questioned and whether he should still be employed by GX
-the NDA
that's not even all of it - sounds like a nightmare situation with a bullying boss...
This is just horrible, I've been following the situation and its worse than I could imagine. Feel sorry for all the previous employees.
A... non-complete clause!? In entertainment journalism!? Like he's afraid you'll go a competitor with the secret technology behind the analysis machine? GX didn't spend millions in R&D on that machine just to let IGN get their hands on it!
There's plenty of other bullshit in that story but somehow that last detail by itself just screams paranoid control freak.
YIKES
I
K
E
S
That sounds like borderline worst case scenario for all involved. I can understand the sympathy of money being tight due to covid (we all feel that), there's so much before covid that is deeply disturbing.
I
K
E
S
That sounds like borderline worst case scenario for all involved. I can understand the sympathy of money being tight due to covid (we all feel that), there's so much before covid that is deeply disturbing.
This is so gross... I'm having a really hard time reconciling the positive, light-hearted vibes of the old gamexplain discussions with the blatant manipulation and strong-arming behind the scenes.
I'm relieved more than ever that the guys have been able to band together and get out of this situation.
I'm relieved more than ever that the guys have been able to band together and get out of this situation.
