Post: #1

Reaxxion is closed down.

I enjoy reading Reaxxion video game reviews.

Roosh posted this update: http://www.reaxxion.com/10995/reaxxion-is-closing

There were some lively, enthusiastic discussion on this Reaxxion thread before. /thread-42237.html . I think one or two people objected to it or something, prophesying reaxxion demise. In my eyes, Reaxxion was a stunning success.

Matt Forney has this to say about the demise of Reaxxion.

Quote:2. Editing is more time-consuming than you think

I offered to become Reaxxion’s editor because I figured that fixing typos in other peoples’ articles would require less work than writing my own. This was a huge mistake. Given the varying writing abilities and skill levels of Reaxxion’s writers, editing articles took more time out of my schedule than I thought it would, leaving me less time to devote to my own projects. Fact-checking articles also took a sizable bite out of my free time.

Additionally, as the editor, I was essentially required to be on call at all times in the event of breaking news. For example, when a bomb threat was famously called in to the Washington, D.C. GamerGate meetup back in May, I had to interrupt my Friday night and get home so I could edit and publish a pair of Reaxxion articles on the story. Fortunately, I was drinking at the bar across the street from my apartment, so I was able to get home quickly. It’s things like this that took some of the shine out of being the site’s editor.


3. You need a more in-depth knowledge of a site’s subject matter in order to be a truly effective editor


As Reaxxion’s editor, I bear some of the blame for the site’s demise. While I’m an accomplished writer and editor, I’ll freely admit that I was tuned out of gaming news—and gaming in general—before GamerGate happened. Indeed, it was my lack of knowledge of modern gaming—and the lack of time I had to dedicate to learning more about it—that led to me resigning as a weekly columnist from the site to begin with. All I could really write were game reviews and retrospectives of classic PC titles, neither of which moved the needle in regards to traffic.

Because I wasn’t as plugged into gaming culture as I would have liked, I wasn’t able to steer Reaxxion as effectively as someone with a deeper knowledge of the subject matter. I was reliant on the site’s writers to generate article ideas, and while Reaxxion’s staff were good at what they did, I wasn’t able to give them the knowledgeable nudging that an editor is supposed to.

Nothing in this article is meant to disparage Roosh’s or Reaxxion’s writers: it was a pleasure working with all of them and I wish that the site could have continued. But assuming the editor’s mantle came with a set of responsibilities that I didn’t expect. If you’re looking to create a website in this day and age, you need to be prepared for all the trials and issues that come alongside it.

Aren't there enough talent on RVF to rectify these two main issues?

Is there a way to reboot it back up?

To give Reaxxion another chance at life?

In Memoriam, everybody should post below their favorite Reaxxion post. Mine is the "star citizen". http://www.reaxxion.com/10195/why-star-c...e-disaster

In the meantime....

Post: #2

Gamergate's kind of running out of gas because there aren't enough SJW events occurring anymore to keep fueling the fire. Same thing with the Sarkeesian Effect, no one cares about Anita Sarkeesian anymore, Owen and Aurini got caught up fighting each other and took too long to finish.

Maybe if reaxxion moved to a pure game review site touting a lack of social justice bias it'd do better, but to be useful for game reviews you need something like let's plays or a twitch stream or something more visual than just the text and a couple embedded screenshots in roosh's standard website format. Returnofkings does a lot better because it's a subject material where you want to actually read a long article.

Also, since the manosphere has a general disdain for spending all your time playing video games, I'd be surprised to see any of the major players like Roosh bothering to spend the hours required to generate a twitch following.

Post: #3

I checked it out once. The key issue is the one Forney mentioned- you have to be passionate about video games to keep a site like that going. Otherwise its just built on a battle thats now finished, and then what?

Post: #4

(08-08-2015 07:02 PM)GlobalMan Wrote:  I checked it out once. The key issue is the one Forney mentioned- you have to be passionate about video games to keep a site like that going. Otherwise its just built on a battle thats now finished, and then what?

Yes, I think this is the main reason Reaxxion wasn't as successful as it could have been. First of all, it was created and owned by someone with absolutely no interest in video games - it was done out of a reaction to SJW's and the gamergate culture wars and not out of a genuine interest for gaming, so there wasn't much personal investment on the part of the owner and editors; it was always more a collective blog than a real video game site centered around News/Previews/Reviews/Etc., like goodgamers.us, for example. The free-for-all format that worked well on RoK didn't work out so well for Reaxxion. Second, there wasn't much engagement from readers - most articles got about 30 comments on average (my own estimate).

Post: #5

Unfortunate, probably can't be called a failure but that's what it will feel like for the creators.

Good move shutting it down rather than stringing it along.

You win some and lose some and you need a bunch of looses to stand on to reach something great.

Post: #6

Awesome to see a post-mortem written by someone as insightful and introspective as Roosh though. I find that most founders of ambitious ventures I encounter remain in the dark even after their failures. This a good live lesson for all who aspire to do big things.

Post: #7

I kind of liked some of the articles there

Post: #8

I don't want to sound like a hater since I've been following Roosh since 2009. But when he announced the launch of Reaxxion, I thought it would fail since the red pill/neomasculinity crowd doesn't play video games. Or at least I don't. It's like grouping a wine festival with a bunch of beer drinkers. The just don't overlap.

Post: #9

I like some of the articles, but there's only so much time in a day to be good enough at videogames to write quality articles about them. Most of us, if we play videogames at all, do it pretty casually.

Post: #10

Actually its funny you bring up rebooting the site. Most of us who have been writing on Reaxxion are looking into starting a new site. I definitely don't want to get everyone's hope up just yet. It still early in the planning stage. One concern I have is funding.

Post: #11

Apparently you were not the only person that thought so.

Starting from page 3 of that thread, there were some objections to Reaxxion during its inception 9 months ago, predicting eventual failure.

/thread-42237-page-3.html

AnonymousBosch had some great responses to those predictions on that thread.

I am not admitting defeat because i think Reaxxion can still be brought back.

(08-08-2015 08:52 PM)wi30 Wrote:  I don't want to sound like a hater since I've been following Roosh since 2009. But when he announced the launch of Reaxxion, I thought it would fail since the red pill/neomasculinity crowd doesn't play video games. Or at least I don't. It's like grouping a wine festival with a bunch of beer drinkers. The just don't overlap.

Post: #12

I thought they were going to make it a section for RoK, but I may have misread that somewhere.

Post: #13

(08-08-2015 08:52 PM)wi30 Wrote:  I don't want to sound like a hater since I've been following Roosh since 2009. But when he announced the launch of Reaxxion, I thought it would fail since the red pill/neomasculinity crowd doesn't play video games. Or at least I don't. It's like grouping a wine festival with a bunch of beer drinkers. The just don't overlap.

While I know many red pill guys seem to have that opinion, I think that attitude is just nonsense.
I respect the men who swear off any kind of primarily passive entertainment in favor of a sharp and exclusive focus on self improvement and the other type of gaming, but for those of us with a more laid back lifestyle and enough spare hours in our week to "waste" a few or even a moderate amount of them (it's obviously bad if it consumes your life, like all addictions), video games are - to me - just another type of sit down entertainment like watching a movie, reading a novel or having the same superficial conversation over a beer with your buddy that you've had a hundred times before.

I enjoy including all of those in my life - while also finding time for lifting weights, hiking, meeting women, traveling, reading non-fiction and assorted other activities that make up a typical day, week or month for me.

Basically I do what I enjoy. Playing video games for typically 5-10 hours per week (can spike much higher over a few days or more if I'm playing a new, story based game that's very large in scope - like Fallout 4 will in November for instance) happens to be one of those things.

Very occasionally you even see highly respected players (of the woman seducing kind) readily admit that they enjoy playing video games when they are unwinding from hitting the streets meeting women. Krauser is one - at a similar "advanced" age to mine - who mentions it occasionally on his blog.

Post: #14

^ But you have other gaming journalists who are playing video games more like 5 or 10 hours a DAY... not week.

Post: #15

(08-09-2015 07:17 AM)Enigma Wrote:  ^ But you have other gaming journalists who are playing video games more like 5 or 10 hours a DAY... not week.

Well, if they are getting paid accordingly I can think of much worse jobs.
5-10 hours a day all or most days just for entertainment on the other hand, then I'd agree it's turned into a problem (just like watching TV 5-10 hours a day, or for that matter exercising 5-10 hours a day).

Post: #16

I think the layout wasn't quite great either. IGN and gamespots have tabs of different subject which allows easy access to the info you want. THe layout was like a blog so its hard to find stuff if it ever did get real big.

Games and Movies are huge in terms of its affects on society. An underlying theme of how there is liberal corruption I think could still work. However you probably would need full time staff or much larger volunteers without a 3 a day limit of entries. So perhaps more editors to avoid burnout. I'm just not sure how much it costs though and if it would be worthwhile profit wise. Total Bisicuits popularity is sort of showing that youtube video reviews are the future.

Post: #17

I liked it and I wrote two early articles for it (including one that rustled another writer's jimmies really bad because he thought I didn't play games the "right" way), but I don't play videogames enough to churn out any meaningful, relevant material for a video game site. I also don't think a lot of kids care about how I used to troll online games ten years ago.

Although when I've got nothing better to do I occasionally grief people on GTA V online.

Post: #18

It's not that the site wasn't popular enough, it's that it wasn't generating enough money to be profitable. I'm not sure what the fixed costs of Reaxxion were, but if they could be reduced than there's no reason the site couldn't stay live.

The plan is, from what I've seen, to roll in the Reaxxion content into RoK and have it be a section of its own.

Post: #19

I wrote two massive posts when Reaxxion was starting up on the topic of monetization in the video game culture. Basically, the sky is the limit when it comes to video games and I even recommended harnessing the income of the female population with an alpha tatted up streamer who would soak their panties by playing video games (serious suggestion).

Another problem is getting the exclusive content. Sites like Gamespot can attract clicks with titles such as "Exclusive coverage of XYZ" but Reaxxion could never get such a thing, since we are completely opposed to the mainstream. So, what are we left with? Wordpress articles, which do get read and viewed but are not as monetizable as other forms of content, most notably video.

Post: #20

There is a youtube lets play where two guys play games and have some hilarious commentary. A version of this where one or more guys (more seems more light hearted) that say red pill commentary and mock feminist tropes might have some appeal.

Post: #21

(08-09-2015 04:48 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  I liked it and I wrote two early articles for it (including one that rustled another writer's jimmies really bad because he thought I didn't play games the "right" way), but I don't play videogames enough to churn out any meaningful, relevant material for a video game site. I also don't think a lot of kids care about how I used to troll online games ten years ago.

Although when I've got nothing better to do I occasionally grief people on GTA V online.

I remember that article and I loved it. I also remember people bitching about it in the comments. The art of trolling online games is virtually dead, and basically the hard competition of games is being sanded down so nobody feels "inferior". Examples:

1. In starcraft broodwar you could backstab your allies. That was always a good time, I used to play with a friend, we would start on opposite teams, and coordinate a single moment to backstab each of our respective allies. Lol those were the days.

Also, there was a really funny hack in that game where you could nuke from anywhere on the map, so I would just turtle up and sit on a bunch of nukes, then drop them on my enemy (or ally) for the lulz.


However in SC2 you cannot backstab allies, and once they removed the losses from your W/L record I straight up stopped playing. What kind of carebear shit is that? Just more "everyone deserves a trophy!" bullshit brought into online gaming...


2. Diablo 2 was a kick ass game with great pvp, especially in hardcore mode. Diablo 3 didn't have dueling on hardcore mode which was fucking lame. And you couldn't even hostile other players in game. In d2, you could go hostile with anyone and they can't do shit about it, other than just stay in town to be safe. You essentially had to be careful who you trusted in that game. In diablo 3, everybody is automatically allied and there is no danger from other players which is FUCKING BULLSHIT.

Post: #22

I never really played RTS games much but two of the games I had a ton of fun griefing on were Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 3. Battlefield 2 had plenty of opportunities, but by 3 there were far less and 4 was a boring mess of a game. Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Red Dead Redemption are other honorable mentions.

These days multiplayer games cater to babies with sensitive feelings and it's all really polished. GTA is an exception, but it's also a Wild West since they have no anti-cheat stuff. That means there are a ton of modders who can fuck things up for you. Just today some faggot attached a mannequin to my character. In the past they've put ferris wheels, UFOs, and aliens on me. They've also cloned my guy twenty or thirty times and I had to kill them all.

I may be a griefer but I was never a modder.

Post: #23

(08-09-2015 07:42 AM)MikeS Wrote:  

(08-09-2015 07:17 AM)Enigma Wrote:  ^ But you have other gaming journalists who are playing video games more like 5 or 10 hours a DAY... not week.

Well, if they are getting paid accordingly I can think of much worse jobs.
5-10 hours a day all or most days just for entertainment on the other hand, then I'd agree it's turned into a problem (just like watching TV 5-10 hours a day, or for that matter exercising 5-10 hours a day).

I'm talking purely in the context of creating a gaming site.

The gaming journalists on the popular sites have lives that revolve around video games and video game news. That is why it's difficult for someone who plays maybe an hour or two per day to compete on content, which is what Matt Forney was saying.

It's like if someone who approached one or two girls per day tried to compete with Roosh's "Bang" series.

Post: #24

Warcraft 3 is IMO the best fantasy RTS ever. It has an immense level of detail and polish and the original servers are still up. I have been playing it for 10 years now and, by the looks of it, I will play it for 10 years more. The campaign is kickass as well and I've completed it maybe 50 times so far. Now that's value.

Post: #25

(08-09-2015 12:47 AM)Bloody Axe Wrote:  AnonymousBosch had some great responses to those predictions on that thread.

I am not admitting defeat because i think Reaxxion can still be brought back.

As I said before, Roosh was simply providing the space for Red-Pill Gamers to write and build the site's culture, and I doubt the expense outlay was massive enough to have cost him a serious chunk of money. It's not like he sunk $50 million and office space into a field he hadn't researched, particularly as the site was never going to have the mainstream approval that could generate mainstream advertising income.

He was also smart enough to recognise when something isn't profitable, and pull the plug before it does him any long-term financial damage. This is the sort of thing you should do as a man to grow into a great one: experiment and take risks. Sometimes you'll succeed, sometimes you'll fail, but you always gain knowledge through failure, and can apply the lessons of your failure to your next endeavour, (as per Forney's breakdown).

So given's Roosh's time-and-expense outlay, I'd mark it as a successful experiment, particularly as I never really thought its intention was to be a true gaming site that could compete with IGN, but simply as a gateway drug to introduce red pill concepts to Millennial Gamers unplugged by Gamergate, and lead them to their real destination - ROK.

It was definitely worth the attempt. Roosh's one failing was probably overestimating the innate rebelliousness of Gamergate, (which was my frustration with it, speaking as a guy who was arrested multiple times for protesting in his teens). In my day, we'd all have shown up at Gawker and invaded the premises instead of just bitching at each other on Twitter.

GG has always been focused on having the moral high ground and not 'stooping to their level', and is constantly-seeking legitimacy from the very outlets that demonised them. It's trying to win by being a polite revolution. Rebel! Rebel! Seize the school! Being faux-threatened with things going on your Permanent Record is fun and what your youth is for! Not tone policing each other on KIA.

To quote Bowie: "The same old thing in brand-new drag comes sweeping into view." Where they see Anita Sarkeesian, I simply see: