Rolfe's character, 'the Nerd', is a short-tempered, foul-mouthed video game collector who reviews old video games in the form reminiscent of insult comedies such as Mystery Science Theater 3000. The show revolves around the Nerd's commentary of shovelware and retro video games that he deems to be of particularly low quality, unfair difficulty, or poor design. James Rolfe in-character as the Nerd in 2008 Various media review/ sketch comedy entertainers have since cited the show as inspiration for their own material, such as JonTron, Nostalgia Critic, Egoraptor, Angry Joe, and Joueur du Grenier among others. The Angry Video Game Nerd is considered one of the pioneers of internet review videos, being highly influential on the style and format of subsequent video reviewers as well as being responsible for helping to bring the concept into the mainstream. From 2007 to 2011, the series entered a distribution deal with popular gaming websites ScrewAttack and GameTrailers, and briefly with streaming service Amazon Video in 2018. The series was soon renamed to The Angry Video Game Nerd to avoid trademark issues with Nintendo, and to allow Rolfe to review games from non-Nintendo consoles. The series became a cult success, and Rolfe began appearing as the character in various other media such as a feature-length film and video games, and many public appearances. In 2004, Rolfe, at the suggestion of future series producer Mike Matei, put the Angry Nintendo Nerd videos on his website, and in 2006 on the emerging video streaming platform YouTube, where it gained popularity. Starting out as an independent filmmaker, Rolfe intended his earliest videos of the character (originally called The Angry Nintendo Nerd) to be a joke privately shown amongst friends and colleagues.

While the series began with Rolfe simply playing games while delivering retrospective commentary, the show would eventually grow in scope to encompass sketches featuring guest characters, reviews of gaming consoles and peripherals, and short lectures about video game history and culture. The series centers on Rolfe's titular skit character, often simply shortened to 'the Nerd' (sometimes just 'Nerd'), a fictionalized version of himself who is a short-tempered and foul-mouthed gamer who delivers commentary on retro games of poor quality. The Angry Video Game Nerd (abbreviated as AVGN) is an American retrogaming review comedy web series created by and starring James Rolfe. 'Angry Video Game Nerd Theme' by Kyle Justin

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