the question I want to know is...is there any bad blood between any of the former OCP reviewers and Kyle regarding how everything went down...did he give you guys enough notice before shutting that part of the site down?...I know Steve left on somewhat bad terms...I have my own theories...
This would probably have to be a question answered by each of us individually. We all had very different personal and working relationships with Kyle. Speaking for myself, I knew that the site was going to get shut down eventually. I had warning of this well in advance. However, I was never privy to the exact date or anything. When we had a conversation about that sometime before it happened, Kyle was obviously weighing his options. When an opportunity presented itself he got a job and then shut the site down. It was fairly sudden from our perspective. Again, I knew it was coming but the timeline I was aware of was much shorter than expected.
Personally, I think Kyle was looking for a way out as I believe he was done with the review business. He'd been in it for more than 20 years and some of us had been with him for most of it. I worked for the man for nearly 15 years. I think Brent and Steve were the only ones that had me beat on time.
As for the Steve thing, I've heard straight from the horse's mouth on that one. Well, at least Kyle's side. I'm not going to go into details, but I'd almost bet your theories are wrong. All I will say is that the hardware review industry changed a lot from its golden age. It was no longer as lucrative as it once was. Kyle simply had to trim back expenses and Kyle couldn't afford to continue paying Steve a full time salary. It was a simple business decision.
The business part of it I mentioned above is effectively what was in Kyle's post on the subject. The bad blood part of it, well, that's not something that I'm going to get into. I've heard it from Kyle, but my account of that is second hand and really, there is no point in dredging that kind of **** up.
Based on my conversations with everyone and that the review equipment was left with them to continue if they wish, there's nothing to see here from a bad blood perspective. Most reviewers did (and still do) this as a side job/hobby, so it's generally not "make it or break it" sort of income that they're relying upon but rather spare pocket change.
For Steve theories, Kyle has stated his side of the events that went down in GenMay at some point and then locked the thread. I assume that with enough searching you'll be able to find his side of the story and I'm guessing you can figure out Steve's from his Facebook page or his site. It's not something that I care for us to get into around here.
Indeed, I don't rely on the money for reviewing hardware and frankly, I never have. It's always been a side job and a bit of a hobby more than anything. I do it because I like the access to hardware and some of the experiences that I've been allowed to have as a result of being in the business. We decided to keep doing this because although Kyle was done with the business, we weren't and wished to continue. I'm just glad that Kyle made that so much easier on us by allowing us to keep our equipment. It made starting back up considerably easier and vastly less expensive than it would have been otherwise.
