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Den generelle følelse fra dem, jeg talte med, og som arbejdede hos Blistered Thumbs, følte alle, at Austin Yorski var en chefredaktør, der vidste, hvor siden skulle hen, og som havde en god forståelse for, hvordan man får det derhen. Micah havde nævnt, at Yorski kunne have taget siden til nye højder, men var begrænset af Channel Awesomes manglende engagement i at give Yorski de nødvendige ressourcer til at gøre det. Faktisk udtaler Micah...

“Austin was promised by That Guy With The Glasses that he was going to get the next-generation consoles to staff writers for them to review, which could potentially bring that traffic back up.” […] “And they fucked him over on it. They didn't give him the money that he needed to get these things.”

“So all of a sudden he was promised and expecting these consoles for launch that they were going to get for him, and they just never ponied up the money and they had no intentions to do so, either. So they lied to him. So everything he had worked on had just went to shit.”


Jeg spurgte Yorski, om det var sandt, at han blev nægtet ressourcerne hos Blistered Thumbs, og om hans hænder var bundet på grund af det. Yorski udtalte...

“That may be one of the truest sentences ever crafted by human hands. While I can't promise that I could have turned [Blistered Thumbs] into the next IGN or anything, we had more than enough gifted writers and an established audience; there is absolutely no excuse for the way things turned out.”


Men dette problem var der længe før Yorski tog over. Micah havde nævnt, at Joe desperat forsøgte at udvide siden, men også blev nægtet de nødvendige ressourcer. Det tidligere personale har uafhængigt bekræftet, at der var alvorlige problemer med ledelsen, selv før Joe blev fyret. Faktisk nævnte Yorski...

“Even before [Blistered Thumbs] launched, Channel Awesome made a number of promises that were never delivered upon, even years later. Compensation is obviously the big one – næsten alle arbejdede gratis fra start til slut.”

Hvad værre er, er, at Channel Awesome holdt en Indiegogo kampagne der genererede næsten 90,000 $, men ifølge Yorski blev personalet hos Blistered Thumbs aldrig betalt for det arbejde, de lagde ind på webstedet, og de så heller ikke pengene fra crowdfunding-kampagnen, udtalte...

“The crowd-funding was generally for Doug and his various projects, but you can imagine that, from our perspective, the terminally neglected [Blistered Thumbs] site should have been a part of those efforts. In fact, [Channel Awesome] had previously shot down the idea of a [Blistered Thumbs] Kickstarter, saying that they would never resort to such tactics. When they then turned around and raised money for themselves that way while leaving us to die a slow death, you can imagine our indignation.”

“I was under the impression that the IndieGogo campaign was a collaborative effort between Mike Michaud and the Walkers, but I have no first-hand knowledge of the specifics of that arrangement. As you are likely aware, many of the promises made as a result of IndieGogo fundraising have yet to be fulfilled to this day, over a year later. This is a common criticism of [Channel Awesome], and a continuation of the managerial mishandling that is so evident in [Blistered Thumb's] case.”


Jason "Lordkat" Pullara tilbød lignende følelser om fejlstyringen af ​​webstedet, især da han blev spurgt om, hvad administratorerne kunne have gjort for at løse problemet og redde Blistered Thumbs, idet han sagde...

“After leaving Channel Awesome and realizing just how much of a clusterfuck it actually was, there was nothing that could “save” Blistered Thumbs. The management at Channel Awesome is either completely incompetent or they are criminals. I have not concluded what my opinion is yet. You have to understand that there is zero communication from management to everyone else – Rob, Doug, and Mike will tell a few of their friends what they’re thinking of doing, and will leave it up to them to spread rumors via a Skype chat.”


Retfærdigvis nævnte IndieGoGo-kampagnen aldrig en gang, at midler ville blive brugt til Blistered Thumbs, og de opnåede stretch-mål havde heller ikke noget at gøre med Blistered Thumbs. Det er dog let at se, hvorfor en kæmpende del af netværket ville have personalet til at antage, at crowd-sourcing ville blive brugt til at løse de tekniske problemer med Blistered Thumbs og potentielt begynde at betale personale. Det skete selvfølgelig ikke.

Jeg kontaktede Mike Michaud for at få en kommentar, men der har ikke været noget svar ved udgivelsen af ​​denne artikel.

Ikke desto mindre fik jeg at vide, at det ville være svært at komme i kontakt med Mike Michaud, fordi han ikke nødvendigvis er pressevenlig. Pullara havde udtalt...

“Michaud himself doesn’t actually [make] any company statements, set any goals, provide a vision, or execute any sort of leadership within the company – he’ busy spending 12 hours a day playing on Xbox Live (At least, that’s what he did when I was around). When management is that bad any product you launch is going to be equally as terrible.”


Men det var ikke kun mangel på finansiering, der skadede stedet, det var også manglen på infrastruktur; en manglende forpligtelse til at stille de tekniske midler til rådighed for personalet til at drive forretning på den yderste professionelle måde.

Yorski udtalte, at problemerne strakte sig ud over Blistered Thumbs, og nævnte ...

“Perhaps most importantly, the website was so poorly designed as to render it nearly unusable. This is an issue which persisted for the entirety of my tenure, and continues to be a problem for all Channel Awesome ventures. Simply put, company management refuses to make site design and maintenance a priority and everything and everyone suffers.

“I could write an entire book on that one aspect of the situation – kampen for at rette op på Blistered Thumbs-webstedet er en sand græsk tragedie. Det er dog i det væsentlige en åben hemmelighed på nuværende tidspunkt. Det behøver næppe at understreges.”

Pullara nævnte, at stedet led under Yorski, men ikke på grund af manglen på hans indsats. Ifølge Pullara faldt mange af problemerne tilbage til dårlig støtte fra de ansvarlige ledere.

Sjovt nok gentog Micah Pullaras følelser i et separat interview og udtalte...

“The big thing is that [Channel Awesome's administrators] promoted Austin Yorski – which is a position we needed for a very long time. They promoted Austin but just gave him the site and said 'Try to fix this mess'. And he did his damnedest to do so.

“He couldn't plug the leaks of a sinking ship.” […] “It was the Titanic and it hit the iceberg that I warned everyone about.”


Micah udtrykte sin skuffelse over, hvordan ledelsen håndterede hele situationen, og hvordan de højerestående gjorde meget lidt for at løse problemerne. Han nævnte, at Channel Awesome for det meste gik i skadeskontrol, efter at Austin Yorski tog afsked med Blistered Thumbs, og forsøgte for det meste at "mukke" dem, der blev. Han kommenterede, at det er som om de har "Stockholm Syndrome", fordi Channel Awesome stadig tilbyder dem en platform og en lønseddel.

Yorski har en mere neutral tilgang til det hele og siger...

“It's tempting to throw Mike Michaud under the bus for everything that happened. Whether it was Joe or I in charge, whenever [Blistered Thumbs] wanted to get something done, we had to go to Mike to make it happen. So when the inevitable happened and [Channel Awesome] was unable or unwilling to help, Mike ended up as the face of obstruction. Whether or not that narrative reflects the reality of the situation is difficult to say, however. I was not present for the management meetings that ultimately doomed [Blistered Thumbs], so it's entirely possible that Mike represented our interests fully and competently and was simply overruled.”

“This would all be a lot simpler if I could just dump the blame on Mike Michaud and sit back in judgment. Unfortunately, the most likely scenario is that CA management made a number of mistakes and ended up neglecting what they saw as a side project until it was simply too late to fix it.”


For dem, der var villige til at kommentere eller give en form for indsigt i handlingerne bag kulisserne med Blistered Thumbs, gjorde de det kendt, at de var alvorligt skuffede over resultatet af webstedet og den mangelfulde tilgang fra ledelsen, der havde ignoreret nogle af de nødvendige utilitaristiske aspekter for at få det hele til at fungere.

Yorskis afsluttende kommentarer om Blistered Thumbs afspejler en stærk følelse om det sløsede talent under Channel Awesome, og siger...

“The only appropriate emotional reaction to the collapse of Blistered Thumbs is disappointment. It could have been something special. We were let down by forces beyond our control, and, in turn, let down our loyal readers.

“We had a stable of beloved video personalities and unique editorial series. We had access to nearly every industry event and resource, from E3 to Metacritic. We had a parent company with the power to bring all of this together into a great place to share our love of video games.

“It's actually an impressive feat of incompetence that we managed to fail.”

På en positiv bemærkning havde næsten alle noget godt at sige om de arbejdsforhold, de havde med Micah Curtis og "Angry" Joe Vargas. Joe blev kendt for at bruge penge af sin egen lomme for at hjælpe med at få personaleanmeldelseskopier til spil, som de ikke kunne få fra udgivere. Det blev også bemærket, at han gjorde, hvad han kunne for at udrydde argumenter og gnidninger i personalet, mens han var der.

Desværre førte en blanding af dårlig ledelse og ringe eller ingen strukturel støtte fra administratorerne til faldet af en af ​​de mest omtalte spilwebsteder, der aldrig helt levede op til sit eget potentiale.