The talent say a video isn't worth their time if it does 200-300k views on YT when it requires 2+ people and an editor, it's been said plenty of times on Off Topic etc. Thats almost half their letsplay videos after 1 month and all of the Achievement Hunter content.
Yes the bulk of RT's revenue was from other sources(FIRST, merch, direct ads etc) which is admirable but clearly AH don't see enough from that side if they have to make these programming choices. Theres also the FIRST price hikes, I doubt we will see another press release with FIRST numbers mentioned. The volume of FIRST programming had dropped(live action shows not working out) and new partnerships mean content arrives later(ie genlock 90 days after hbo max shows s02).
As for my pivot comment look at the top few hundred YT gaming channels and see how many of them have more than 2 hosts or cater to a large number of different titles each month..
Single host/game channels do well because the viewers know what they are getting and the analytics are better because they watch every video and not just the ones of the game that interests them or with the host they prefer. YouTube won't recomment a channel to new viewers that the subs only watch 1 out of 5 uploads each week.
Its why RT is moving into audio only content too, the cost to produce a podcast like Always Open where you need 4 hosts, 4 camera crew + makeup + broadcast etc would be significant. Ad reads do make up for that, if you have the numbers.