General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Game Changer

Game Changer is an American comedy game show that premiered on the streaming service Dropout on September 20, 2019, in which a rotating cast of comedians competes in a new game each episode without being told the rules in advance; the players must work out what the game actually is while playing it.¹^•² It was created by Sam Reich, Dropout's chief executive officer, who also serves as host.³

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	September 20, 2019, on Dropout, the subscription streaming service of CollegeHumor¹
Format	A new game with a surprise premise every episode; contestants begin each round without knowing the rules and must figure them out while competing²
Creator and host	Sam Reich, CEO of Dropout³^•⁴
Seasons	Seven seasons listed on Dropout's site, with season 7 running April 7 to August 25, 2025 across 11 episodes⁵^•⁶
Episode length	Roughly 40 to 64 minutes in season 7; TheTVDB lists an average runtime of 36 minutes for the series⁶^•²
Recognition	Season 7 won a People's Voice Award at the 2026 Webby Awards in the comedy series and channels category⁷

Spoilers

Seasons

The first season ran weekly from September 20 to October 18, 2019, with five episodes.⁸ Season 2 ran from February 29 to May 8, 2020, with six episodes including Do I Hear $1?, Sleeper Agents, and the finale Yes or No.¹¹

Season 7 premiered on April 7, 2025 with the episode One Year Later and concluded on August 25, 2025 with the finale Samalamadingdong, airing 11 episodes on a roughly biweekly schedule.⁶ Its episodes included You-lympics, Earnest-est, Crowd Control, The Drinking Game, One and Done, Rulette, Fool's Gold, Who Wants to Be Jacob Wysocki?, and Outvoted.⁵

Format

Each episode is a self-contained game show with a different premise. The official description is that the game changes every show and that players begin each round without knowing the rules, and must figure them out while competing to win.² Reich described the premise in a 2025 interview as deceptively simple: a rotating cast of comedians competes in a new game show each episode, but the players do not know the rules going in and must figure them out as they play.⁴

The games themselves vary widely. Early episodes included a lie-detector interrogation of the contestants, a noise-making contest, a murder-mystery whodunnit, and a challenge in which contestants had to feed a giant mouth exactly what it wanted.⁸ Later episodes have included a lip-reading challenge, an impromptu cosplay contest called ChangerCon, and a parody of Jeopardy!⁸

Production and platform

Dropout announced the series in August 2019 as a game show with ever-changing rules and challenges, debuting on the subscription service on Friday, September 20.¹ The service had launched in 2018 as the streaming arm of CollegeHumor, which fully rebranded as Dropout in September 2023; the platform focuses primarily on unscripted comedy and charges $6.99 a month for a subscription.⁹^•¹⁰

Game Changer is one of Dropout's mainstays alongside the tabletop actual-play show Dimension 20 and the trivia show Um, Actually.⁹

Reception

The New York Times called Game Changer "a fun and unpredictable game show," and the outlet /Film called it "the best comedy series on streaming," quotes featured on the show's page on Dropout.⁵ Season 7 won a People's Voice Award at the 2026 Webby Awards.⁷ Common Sense Media notes that the series has a fervent fanbase and that its occasional drawback is a reliance on in-jokes that only longtime viewers who know the cast will understand.¹²

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Comedy, drama, and general-genre web series › Premiered 2017 to 2021

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

Notice something wrong?