>>35308130>>35308445>>35308480At least half of the audience for most of gen2 are split viewers with gen1/gen1.5. This is one of the huge benefits of such a community focused company like Phase Connect in that every streamer starts with a good baseline to build from. However, this creates a massive weakness. If yet more "new" streamers are introduced too quickly you risk splitting the audience even more thin and devastating previous generations that may have been inclining. One of the biggest issues with PC recently is that Sakana is forcing moves to actively suppress the Phase community at large. You can see it in the types of content that he's trying to push, and more importantly in the reaction said content is getting from both the talent and the various communities.
Minecraft is not a buff game and does not attract the kind of audience that PC values. Spending hours and hours on a project off stream towards something that most don't really care about is silly. I understand wanting to force some sort of company community, cross company community, brand image, etc, but it comes off entirely inauthentic and debased when all involved are required by contract to participate. Then you have the donobait streams which worked as a quick revenue stream for the talents while just as quickly growing resentment in the audience. There were vastly better ways to handle everything involved, and fish chose the worst or close to it in each case.
Furthermore, forcing or allowing talent to work side projects outside of regular streaming to the point of constant overwork and exhaustion is idiotic. You can see this most clearly with Pippa, Shiina, and Rie. Shiina in particular should have never been allowed to focus so much on backend art during the formative period of her streaming career with Phase. That was an active managerial decision made by Sakana that negatively impacted the health of the talent and the growth of her channel.
Now we’ve had a spat of censorship and content changes which confuse the core audience and any potential new viewers. You can very noticeably feel the tension in the air at times. None of the decisions being made strike me as anything done for long-term growth and optimization of potential revenue streams, but of quick cash-out actions to set up for some kind of buyout. When it comes down to it you can very plainly see the discontent building. It's not simply /here/ but on Twitter and the Discord as well. I can tell you for a fact that the talent notice.
Now, some things very recently have changed for the better. I'll attribute it to the massive amount of negative feedback recently. Ads are running again, support staff is being brought in, and a lot of the censorship changes are being dialed back or removed. Overall, I believe the company to be successful both because of Sakana, and in spite of him. I've worked with his type before. He needs to allow himself to get out of his own way. Bring in a good general manager, take a step back, and focus more on logistics and merchandising.
