Rebel FM

kuddles wrote:

Itunes measures popularity by how many new listeners a podcast gets each week, so one just starting up always has a much higher chance of making the charts. That said, it's clear there's a lot of people who felt the personalities at 1UP were part of their lives.

Perhaps, for those using iTunes, it would be beneficial to the new podcast for those who are currently subscribed to unscubscribe after listening and then re-subscribe after the next one is launched.

With all this hoopla, I thought I'd give this show a try. Two hours? No thanks. Maybe next time.

Ok, I've got to call you out on that one... you don't have to listen to the WHOLE recording at once! Pause button is your friend.

LockAndLoad wrote:
With all this hoopla, I thought I'd give this show a try. Two hours? No thanks. Maybe next time.

Ok, I've got to call you out on that one... you don't have to listen to the WHOLE recording at once! Pause button is your friend. :)

I'm the first one to defend my own podcast for being an hour plus, but I have very little free time to listen to podcasts (my commute is five minutes, and I can't listen while I work). It would literally take me a week to find enough time to listen to that show on top of the other podcasts I already subscribe to.

SommerMatt wrote:

It would literally take me a week to find enough time to listen to that show on top of the other podcasts I already subscribe to.

Good news! It's a weekly podcast!

Good podcast. They should form their own site and make UGO regret their decision to give them the axe.

... also, I wonder if Steam took away Anthony's press account.

edit: I just noticed that the podcast has nearly 300 listener reviews. I have yet to find one below 5 stars.

Grubber788 wrote:

Good podcast. They should form their own site and make UGO regret their decision to give them the axe.

... also, I wonder if Steam took away Anthony's press account.

edit: I just noticed that the podcast has nearly 300 listener reviews. I have yet to find one below 5 stars.

haha, i was wondering about anthonys press account too

Sounds like they're getting more support then I would have guessed. This was posted on the site this morning along with Episode 2.

Nick Suttner wrote:

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. That’s one from each of us, but it will never be enough to express how truly grateful we are. Thanks to you astoundingly generous people, we have received over $11,000 in donations — enough to buy new, awesome podcasting equipment, pay for hosting fees, and help us on our way to putting out the highest quality content we can in our post-1UP lives.

I'm sure no one will be surprised to hear this, but Rebel FM made into the top 10 podcasts on itunes for all categories at #9. That's damn impressive.

Episode 2 is up, including Shane Bettenhausen talking about where he's going to work next.

http://www.eat-sleep-game.com/news/

Sounds a lot better.
Enjoying it so far.
I hope it's not too soon to say that I look forward to whatever it becomes once they start talking about stuff other than the layoff.
I know, it's a fresh wound, demons need exorcising, but I like all the personalities and look forward to when the healing starts.

casual_alcoholic wrote:

I'm sure no one will be surprised to hear this, but Rebel FM made into the top 10 podcasts on itunes for all categories at #9. That's damn impressive.

They got as high as #2.

I'm surprised there have been no posts on this podcast over the past 7 years. Do people not listen to this? I guess there really is no way to gauge the popularity of a podcast you're listening to if you're not checking out their forums (do they even have any forums anymore?) or checking iTunes rankings.

However, I guess they have one fewer listener now, as I just bumped it from my gaming podcast rotation after 7 years. I'm bailing both because other quality podcasts have steadily been pushing this one further and further down my list, and because of the abundance of podcasts recorded in diners of late with terrible audio quality and chewing noises, plus just getting fed up with Arthur's disrespect for opposing viewpoints (poor Matt Chandronait, Arthur can never just say "eh I disagree, but who knows, I guess we'll see," it seems like he responds to every one of Matt's opinions with disdainful dismissal; I've always assumed that Ryan O'Donnell stopped appearing on the podcast due to Arthur's similar attitudes towards him, they had a couple of blow-ups and then he just never came back, with the exception of a couple of the game music episodes. Matt is just too nice a dude to push back.).

I have long wanted to do two supercuts from this podcast--one of every time Anthony starts a sentence with "I will say..." (which happens easily 10-20 times an episode), and one of every time Mitch makes a confident statement, Arthur responds saying Mitch is completely wrong, and Mitch immediately says something like "sure" or "right" as if to say "of course the strong opinion I stated a moment ago is wrong, obviously, don't you think I know that?" But that always struck me as too much effort to go to to engage in some mild teasing.

I still slightly resent that I subscribed (and back in the day, donated to) this podcast because I wanted to listen to the Phil Kollar/Nick Suttner podcast and yet they both left after maybe a dozen episodes, but I realize this is a completely absurd complaint from someone who has listened to nearly 300 episodes of the podcast at this point. I have always been curious why, after Phil moved back to the Bay Area, he never returned to this podcast. Given some of his early podcast conversations with Arthur, I had initially guessed they did not get along, but once they started working at Polygon together they sure seemed friendly. I'm sure he's busy and already does games-talk all day long for his job, but I still assumed he'd pop in for a random fill-in day at some point. I guess not.

Despite my trash talking here though, there are good reasons I listened to hundreds of hours of this podcast. It's always enjoyable when Anthony gets way into some insane mindset about a video game, stories of their antisocial behavior in Rust and other similar games are always amusing, and they had many excellent guests over the years (Robert Ashley, Shawn Elliott, Jeff Green), and some semi-regular hosts I liked a lot (I preferred the Tyler Barber-era). So thanks for the years of good casts, Rebel FM. Maybe I'll check in again in a few months if another gaming podcast in my rotation falters.

Wow, seven years of Rebel FM. I feel old, even though I hate saying that.

There was a comments section for each episode post, no forums. There might have been a bit on the Geekbox forums. The Geekbox is the one I'm cutting, s much as I love Ryan Scott and enjoy Alice, Justin, and a little Ryan Higgins, 90% of the show is on American entertainment I will never see. And the outro is too long.

I listen occasionally if they're talking about a game I'm interested in, but it's more and more rare lately. They tend to poo-poo Nintendo games and Japanese games which is a lot of my wheelhouse. Also, kinda can't stand Arthur since he's been with Polygon.

Arthur drove me away years ago.

I was also a regular Geekbox listener for a pretty long time, at least a few years, until they hit a hard stretch of several podcasts in a row that were just the two Ryans and Adam Fitch, and those were sufficiently unpleasant that I unsubscribed. Glad to hear that Alice and Justin returned (pretty sure both of them had been off the podcast for at least a year at the time I stopped listening), maybe I'll give that one another chance sometime.

Yeah I recently unfollowed Arthur on twitter as well. I do like the way he approaches games writing, we have some similar tastes in games and I think he brings up technical issues in ways few other writers do, particularly about controls...but the way he delivers those opinions, especially in podcast form, can be incredibly abrasive, smug, and condescending. Hell, I nearly unsubscribed in the first month or two of Rebel FM when he would not drop, for like an hour, this tedious argument about whether Portal was a shooter or just a game where you pointed a gun at things and pulled triggers to do stuff. Dude really needs to learn how to agree to disagree.

Thin_J wrote:

Arthur drove me away years ago.

Same. I like Anthony, but not enough to put up with Arthur.

mrlogical wrote:

I'm surprised there have been no posts on this podcast over the past 7 years. Do people not listen to this? I guess there really is no way to gauge the popularity of a podcast you're listening to if you're not checking out their forums (do they even have any forums anymore?) or checking iTunes rankings.

There's actually a specific thread in the Games and Platforms section that covered a lot of podcasts outside Idle Thumbs, GWJCC and the Bombcast which have their own threads and got a lot of discussion, although it is way less active now.

However, I guess they have one fewer listener now, as I just bumped it from my gaming podcast rotation after 7 years. I'm bailing both because other quality podcasts have steadily been pushing this one further and further down my list, and because of the abundance of podcasts recorded in diners of late with terrible audio quality and chewing noises, plus just getting fed up with Arthur's disrespect for opposing viewpoints (poor Matt Chandronait, Arthur can never just say "eh I disagree, but who knows, I guess we'll see," it seems like he responds to every one of Matt's opinions with disdainful dismissal; I've always assumed that Ryan O'Donnell stopped appearing on the podcast due to Arthur's similar attitudes towards him, they had a couple of blow-ups and then he just never came back, with the exception of a couple of the game music episodes. Matt is just too nice a dude to push back.).

I do skip the dining episodes, but I'm still subscribed to this show. I have been dropping a lot of them recently, though. A combination of so many gaming podcasts with unique views and a declining personal interest in gaming (particularly whatever the latest AAA title is) means my interest in listening to people talk about their Destiny raids or the latest NDP numbers has gone from slightly boring to unbearable for me now.

I feel like Arthur gets undue strife, because the nature of the internet has left people just assuming that someone who presents their opinion strongly is also saying it is the only right opinion. There have been many occasions over the years where he graciously ate crow for being wrong or showed acceptance of someone's completely different viewpoint. (In fact, there was an episode a few years ago where a listener wrote in about Ryan O'Donnell should stop voicing his opinions because he is wrong all the time, and Arthur basically called the listener an asshole and said Ryan could say anything he wanted on the show.)

I didn't realize this was even still going. Assumed Arthur would have killed everybody else long ago.

kuddles, I agree that every argument or opinion shouldn't need to be delivered with "it's just my opinion" or "I may be wrong, but..." to avoid the speaker coming across as close-minded or dismissive of other views. But (in my opinion!) Arthur's tone and attitude often crosses the line between confident and condescending. I feel he tends to lecture people rather than engaging in arguments, basically waiting long enough for people to finish talking so he can get back to saying "but you're just wrong." (I agree he admits he was wrong sometimes when external facts prove that, but how often have you heard him make an argument, listen to a response, and say "oh, yeah, I didn't think of it that way, you're right"?) But we don't need to agree on that obviously, if he doesn't bother you, more power to you. Obviously I wasn't that bothered by his attitude if I listened for a few hundred episodes. But his tendency to dominate discussions was always my least favorite aspect of the show, and with all the diner-casts of late it just feels like their heart isn't in this podcast anymore. Which is fair, you don't have to podcast forever and I'm sure they're super busy.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

I didn't realize this was even still going. Assumed Arthur would have killed everybody else long ago.