After watching GameOverse and reading all of Ross's whining about how his show was rejected, it becomes very clear that the reason why multiple execs rejected the show was never that it was some "misunderstood masterpiece."
No, the real reason GameOverse kept getting rejected by everyone is simply that Ross's writing ability is just shit.
The entire premise of this show is that Kit and friends must prevent the game world's protagonist from beating it.
Otherwise, the planet will explode.
Here's the problem. They don't explain why the catastrophe happens by beating the game in the first place, and, worse, they don't really offer a solution for preventing this world-ending event.
How do they prevent the protagonist from beating the final boss forever? Why does beating the game cause the end of the world? How long can they keep this up? Especially considering there are other forces that need the game to be completed to achieve their own goals.
The show never really answers these questions, and yet it overrelied on mystery boxes to hook in the audience.
But looking back at Ross' interview questions, it painfully shows he doesn't know, or worse, doesn't care about the answers either.
It doesn't make any sense, even in terms of gameplay logic, since most gamers don't stop playing once they complete a game.
They go back to play it to try new things, either speedrunning to see how much better they can complete it or screw around to have fun.
They can't exactly do that if said game explodes for some reason.
It just comes off as Ross being one of those "gamers" who will play something once and then drop it forever. Which makes it come off as a tourist who pretends to be an expert in said field but quickly becomes obvious that he barely knows what he is talking about.
Hell, this is someone who works at GamesGrumps, a let's-play channel run by one of the biggest sell-outs, Arin Hanson, whose main claim to fame was calling Orcaina Time for being terrible, only for it to be revealed he was so shit at the game, he kept wearing the float boots the moment he acquired them, making his playthrough much harder for himself.
There's a good reason GameOverse is being compared to OK KO Let's be Heroes, Ready Player One, and even Mixtape.
They all share the same problem.
Their premise and story do not define them. They're defined by how many products the creator has consumed.
The reason most people talk more about the references in these shows than about the plot and characters is that, without those references, the shows end up being completely hollow. They don't have anything else to offer but references.
They pretend to be anti-cooperation when in reality they perfectly embody everything corporations want from their audience.
A mindless sheep that devours everything that big corp will shill out any product no matter how poor the quality is and buy it with pure glee.
They're the living embodiment of this very meme.
Since we were talking about games being a threat to the world, Reboot handled this premise much better and much more reasonably.
For starters, Reboot actually shows how the games function in that world.
They result from the User wanting to play a game, and whenever this happens, a voice sounds an alarm with the phrase
"WARNING, INCOMING GAME." The sky turns dark purple, and a giant purple game cube (yeah, I know) comes down to a random area in Mainframe.
Whenever this happens, the Formats, basically the people of that world, need to beat the game before the player does.
You're essentially seeing the NPCs vs the player.
When the Formats win, everything returns to normal, but if the User wins the area, the game cube cover is warped and nullified. The Formats are transformed into slug-like creatures that are essentially parasites as they suck life out of any Format they come in contact with. It's a fate worse than death.
Even the reason they perform the titular reboot in said game is to adapt themselves to the nature of said game so they can properly play it.
It's not just a cosmetic for a cheap excuse for tits and ass.
In comparison, GameOverse tries to up the stakes by having the planet explode, but because we're not given enough time to learn about the world or really know how to prevent its destruction, it ends up being far too much, and the audience ultimately doesn't care.
Even then, these planets mostly consist of one small village.
The reason GameOverse feels like an astroturf is that Ross wanted to cash in on the Indie hype train.
But he did so at the point when we're starting to see everyone question Glitch Productions' credibility, especially as a company that still claims to be indie, even though all the evidence proves otherwise.
And the only reason people are still defending Glitch so hard is that they want a chance to exploit that hype train.
They're just parasites.
