The Escapist Countdown to Shutdown Thread: What’s Next?

[CriticalGaming]

This whole thing made Forbes, which goes into more detail -

Zero Punctuation Ends As ‘The Escapist’ Faces Mass Resignations After EIC Firing

A wild scene unfolded last night as long-time gaming site The Escapist fired some of its team members, including EIC Nick Calandra, for reportedly not meeting goals set by its parent company Gamurs.

www.forbes.com

Thats about what i expected. The management had an unrealistic and unplanned idea for the site and fired Nick when it didnt work. And to be honest i never even go to the actual website because they are far to slow with news and the articles are nonsense.

I think the video team saw this coming because they have sort of already established themselves a patreon and separate fanbase that is just following them to the new site. The question is do they have enough fans (namely Yahtzee) to support everyone?

 

[SilentPony]

Thats about what i expected. The management had an unrealistic and unplanned idea for the site and fired Nick when it didnt work. And to be honest i never even go to the actual website because they are far to slow with news and the articles are nonsense.

I think the video team saw this coming because they have sort of already established themselves a patreon and separate fanbase that is just following them to the new site. The question is do they have enough fans (namely Yahtzee) to support everyone?

I mean the Second Wind youtube channel is already at 90k subs, and has a single video of just Nick and Yahtzee explaining what happened. Seems like they're getting plenty of support.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I mean the Second Wind youtube channel is already at 90k subs, and has a single video of just Nick and Yahtzee explaining what happened. Seems like they're getting plenty of support.

I hope so. Youtube ad revenue aint shit anymore so subs don't mean much. Their patreon is at $1100/month and will have to dramatically increase to support the staff. Once content starts coming out I'm sure that support will grow.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I mean the Second Wind youtube channel is already at 90k subs, and has a single video of just Nick and Yahtzee explaining what happened. Seems like they're getting plenty of support.

Thanks for reminding me to check this out.

Anyway, did everyone leave? Because it seems there are some articles still being published. EDIT: Ah looks like some of the writing team stayed. Interesting.

 

[Chimpzy]

I hope so. Youtube ad revenue aint shit anymore so subs don't mean much. Their patreon is at $1100/month and will have to dramatically increase to support the staff. Once content starts coming out I'm sure that support will grow.

It already is more. The vast majority of patrons are in their 7 day free trial, so that number of patrons and $ is not representative.

Thanks for reminding me to check this out.

Anyway, did everyone leave? Because it seems there are some articles still being published.

Not everyone. Just everyone that made the content that paid the bills. There's still some (presumably freelance) writers left. Hence the articles. I suspect Gamurs will ditch those soon too, and turn the site into an AI driven content farm or something.

 

[CriticalGaming]

and turn the site into an AI driven content farm or something.

All hail ChatGPT

 

[Chimpzy]

Something I just noticed, but the Escapists entry on Wikipedia used to list pretty much all the video series, webcomics and whatnot it has published.

It doesn't anymore. Similarly, the only old content that I've seen mention of on the Discord is Yahtzee, Moviebob and Sterling.

And that's kind of sad, how so much of it has been forgotten. And when this site goes, and it's YT channel with it, so will all of that.

People used to say "something on the internet is there forever", but that's not true, is it? Whole swathes of it are gone, actually forever.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Something I just noticed, but the Escapists entry on Wikipedia used to list pretty much all the video series, webcomics and whatnot it has published.

It doesn't anymore. Similarly, the only old content that I've seen mention of on the Discord is Yahtzee, Moviebob and Sterling.

And that's kind of sad, how so much of it has been forgotten. And when this site goes, and it's YT channel with it, so will all of that.

People used to say "something on the internet is there forever", but that's not true, is it? Whole swathes of it are gone, actually forever.

Some remnants can be dug up through the wayback machine but yeah stuff only lasts if people want it too. Much like real history there is stuff on the internet that will forever fade into nothingness, lost on some random hard drive somewhere.

 

[Chimpzy]

Some remnants can be dug up through the wayback machine but yeah stuff only lasts if people want it too. Much like real history there is stuff on the internet that will forever fade into nothingness, lost on some random hard drive somewhere.

I know. Just kind of sucks to be confronted with it

 

[CriticalGaming]

I know. Just kind of sucks to be confronted with it

I wonder if the Second Wind site will have a forum, because it is kind of a bummer to lose this one.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I know. Just kind of sucks to be confronted with it

"Deep into that darkness creeping. Long I stood there. Wondering. Fearing. Doubting."

 

[Bedinsis]

Something I just noticed, but the Escapists entry on Wikipedia used to list pretty much all the video series, webcomics and whatnot it has published.

It doesn't anymore. Similarly, the only old content that I've seen mention of on the Discord is Yahtzee, Moviebob and Sterling.

And that's kind of sad, how so much of it has been forgotten. And when this site goes, and it's YT channel with it, so will all of that.

People used to say "something on the internet is there forever", but that's not true, is it? Whole swathes of it are gone, actually forever.

MovieBob actually had to remake one of his reviews when uploading it to his YouTube channel since the original had been lost.

 

[Chimpzy]

I wonder if the Second Wind site will have a forum, because it is kind of a bummer to lose this one.

Discord, yes. Subreddit, yes. But Second Wind might not actually get a website, let alone a forum. Nick has already mentioned that the effort and upkeep of a forum is just not worth the paltry returns anymore. If you ask me, our best bet is moving somewhere else. But not a lot of active gaming forums left that I know of. IGN is, well, IGN. Resetera and Neogaf would not be very welcoming of all of us. Brawlman suggested a place called Space Battles, which I've never heard of, but which seems ok and quite active. Kind of reminds me of the v1 Escapist forums in some ways, tho it seems really a general geek media fanfic forum, and not specifically a gaming one.

 

[BrawlMan]

Discord, yes. Subreddit, yes. But Second Wind might not actually get a website, let alone a forum. Nick has already mentioned that the effort and upkeep of a forum is just not worth the paltry returns anymore. If you ask me, our best bet is moving somewhere else. But not a lot of active gaming forums left that I know of. IGN is, well, IGN. Resetera and Neogaf would not be very welcoming of all of us. Brawlman suggested a place called Space Battles, which I've never heard of, but which seems ok and quite active. Kind of reminds me of the v1 Escapist forums in some ways, tho it seems really a general geek media fanfic forum, and not specifically a gaming one.

They do have a huge gaming section though. They have one big thread dedicated to anything gaming, and there's a whole bunch of Gaming topics on that forum you can talk and discuss. And it is very active over there.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

And that's kind of sad, how so much of it has been forgotten. And when this site goes, and it's YT channel with it, so will all of that.

People used to say "something on the internet is there forever", but that's not true, is it? Whole swathes of it are gone, actually forever.

Only when it needs to be used against someone.

 

[Chimpzy]

They do have a huge gaming section though. They have one big thread dedicated to anything gaming, and there's a whole bunch of Gaming topics on that forum you can talk and discuss. And it is very active over there.

That is true. Most of the subforums we have here are represented there in some way or another. Also yes, lots of people. Not quite Escapist forums hayday, but a quite healthy community.

 

[BrawlMan]

Not quite Escapist forums hayday, but a quite healthy community.

I'll take 1/2 or 3/4 of the Escapist, GameTrailers, or IMDb's heyday over nothing.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

What’s pretty shitty is I have a feeling if this forum does go under that we won’t even get a warning. It’ll just be gone. Or continue the way it is if no one’s concerned enough, which would at least be something.

 

[Chimpzy]

I'll take 1/2 or 3/4 of the Escapist, GameTrailers, or IMDb's heyday over nothing.

Honestly, Escapist heyday activity would kind of suck too. Like 2009-2011 era, when there could be tens of thousands of users online all at once, and threads moved so fast that by the time you finished writing a post the thread could be several pages ahead already. I have a lot of fondness for those days, but despite the discussion value rule, it was actually kind of hard to hold one.

 

[BrawlMan]

Honestly, Escapist heyday activity would kind of suck too. Like 2009-2011 era, when there could be tens of thousands of users online all at once, and threads moved so fast that by the time you finished writing a post the thread could be several pages ahead already. I have a lot of fondness for those days, but despite the discussion value rule, it was actually kind of hard to hold one.

Fine by me. That makes SB even more valuable to me. I'll admit that I was always a lurker to the original version of the site. I always thought of joining at some point, but backed out because I was on other forums at the time. I don't want to keep track of too many accounts. Originally, I was going to join around 2011 to 2012, but then you know what happened, and it was like that for a while. Users fighting and screaming at each other, and a lot of content creators leaving for one reason or another. You all know I joined around 2016 in March. There are days that I wish I had subscribed earlier or join around 2008, but I'm not going to let that put me down. What was done was done, and I don't regret the fun I had.