Jim Sterling sheds light on The Escapist's previous parent company

[Bedinsis]

In the latest Jimquisition video Mr. Sterling starts out with a tangent where he explains his reasoning for leaving the Escapist in 2014.

Apparently The Escapist chose not to publish a review of his of the then latest Assassin's Creed game Unity due to their parent company Defy Media having sponsorship opportunities with Ubisoft they didn't want to risk.


I just thought people here might be interested to hear this.

Since then, Defy Media has gone defunct and no longer exists. I believe the current Escapist leadership has nothing to do with the previous Defy Media, though I would appreciate them laying out what the case is in this thread.

 

[Houseman]

That's disgusting. I'm glad Defy Media is no more. Such corrupt companies shouldn't exist, and I hope that nobody who went along with that is currently involved with this site in any fashion.

 

[BrawlMan]

I saw the video this morning. Even though I stopped buying Ubisoft games since 2013, I definitely want nothing to do with them anymore. They can freaking keep Prince of Persia for all I care. It's disgusting though that these super, hyper fan boys and girls are going out of their ways to defend them or don't want to feel guilty about playing Ubi's games. If something happened to them or somebody they care about, then they would actually give a rat's ass.

 

[Dalisclock]

In the latest Jimquisition video Mr. Sterling starts out with a tangent where he explains his reasoning for leaving the Escapist in 2014.

Apparently The Escapist chose not to publish a review of his of the then latest Assassin's Creed game Unity due to their parent company Defy Media having sponsorship opportunities with Ubisoft they didn't want to risk.


I just thought people here might be interested to hear this.

Since then, Defy Media has gone defunct and no longer exists. I believe the current Escapist leadership has nothing to do with the previous Defy Media, though I would appreciate them laying out what the case is in this thread.

Apparently Defy screwed a lot of people over on their way out the door. I know Game Theory was talking about how they were owed money by Defy which wasn't forthcoming and the only way to get it was to try to go to court to get it. I don't even particularly like Game Theory but that's fucking shitty.

As far as I know, the previous Escapist staff who "ran" the shop during the Defy error aren't the same as the people running it now, but then again, I'm not sure anyone was actually running the place while Defy owned it. I was here that entire period(oh, god, how depressing that was) and if there was anyone actually in charge, you couldn't tell.

I know a lot of us were making jokes about waiting for the lights to go off, because of how abandoned the whole thing felt. I mean, hell, a lot of people had "exclusive" membership for free because apparently a former member of the tech team gifted it to everyone at some point and the owners apparently didn't notice, didn't care or didn't have the means to change it. None of which speaks to any actual supervision.

 

[Nick Calandra]

That's disgusting. I'm glad Defy Media is no more. Such corrupt companies shouldn't exist, and I hope that nobody who went along with that is currently involved with this site in any fashion.

Nobody from Defy is involved in the site. Yahtzee and Bob are all that's left from the early days, and basically the first team that was brought in while Kyle Gaddo was roughing you all up here is gone too. The only "name" talent I've brought in since taking over is Jack Packard and Marty Sliva has been freelancing, but that's about it. Everyone else is new.

On the topic of the video, I wish when people like Jim and other former Escapist people talk about the site, they'd reference the new owners and that a new team is working here, cause damn has it been annoying on YouTube the past day with people calling us out for "censoring" content and treating people like shit when we had nothing to do with it. Comes with the brand, but man it's frustrating when we do a TON of hard work to put out a positive image and people either inadvertently or purposefully just cause us shit for no reason.

/End Rant.

For those curious, Enthusiast Gaming now owns The Escapist, along with other sites like Destructoid, Siliconera, PCInvasion, The Sims Resource etc. They've also bought two other brands from me including Gameumentary and OnlySP before I was brought here to steer the ship.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Power to Jim and all for always getting his own way with things but I can't stand his act.

 

[Dalisclock]

Nobody from Defy is involved in the site. Yahtzee and Bob are all that's left from the early days, and basically the first team that was brought in while Kyle Gaddo was roughing you all up here is gone too. The only "name" talent I've brought in since taking over is Jack Packard and Marty Sliva has been freelancing, but that's about it. Everyone else is new.

On the topic of the video, I wish when people like Jim and other former Escapist people talk about the site, they'd reference the new owners and that a new team is working here, cause damn has it been annoying on YouTube the past day with people calling us out for "censoring" content and treating people like shit when we had nothing to do with it. Comes with the brand, but man it's frustrating when we do a TON of hard work to put out a positive image and people either inadvertently or purposefully just cause us shit for no reason.

/End Rant.

For those curious, Enthusiast Gaming now owns The Escapist, along with other sites like Destructoid, Siliconera, PCInvasion, The Sims Resource etc. They've also bought two other brands from me including Gameumentary and OnlySP before I was brought here to steer the ship.

Thanks for the update.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

The first team that was brought in while Kyle Gaddo was roughing you all up here is gone too.

Was Kyle part of the old defy team, or was he at an odd spot between Defy and Enthusiast?

 

[Nick Calandra]

Was Kyle part of the old defy team, or was he at an odd spot between Defy and Enthusiast?

Nope, he was part of the team Russ put together when the site was relaunched.

And I’ll tell you what, I had been doing this stuff for going on 10 years already when I started working with him and I’ve never felt more condescended to than for the few weeks that I worked with him, Kyle and others. It wasn’t fun.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Nope, he was part of the team Russ put together when the site was relaunched.

And I’ll tell you what, I had been doing this stuff for going on 10 years already when I started working with him and I’ve never felt more condescended to than for the few weeks that I worked with him, Kyle and others. It wasn’t fun.

I have no shame in saying Kyle was a total ass and had no business being near a community manager role. The amount of times I held back on making a snide comment on his parting thread was more than a handful. If that was the kind of person Russ had in mind for the team, I'm glad that he ditched as quickly as he did and paved way to have the current team take over. Things have been much smoother sailing since and I'm grateful for it

 

[Nick Calandra]

I have no shame in saying Kyle was a total ass and had no business being near a community manager role. The amount of times I held back on making a snide comment on his parting thread was more than a handful. If that was the kind of person Russ had in mind for the team, I'm glad that he ditched as quickly as he did and paved way to have the current team take over. Things have been much smoother sailing since and I'm grateful for it

I was in charge of him for a bit, but yea. Maybe he is a nice guy, maybe he isn’t, but having never interacted with me he had already decided I was a “conservative” and wanted me to explain “my values” to him literally every time we interacted and that was the end of that.

 

[Houseman]

You're the best we may have ever had in the history of The Escapist.

The bar...varied in height.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

I was in charge of him for a bit, but yea. Maybe he is a nice guy, maybe he isn’t, but having never interacted with me he had already decided I was a “conservative” and wanted me to explain “my values” to him literally every time we interacted and that was the end of that.

Maybe he was. Sure didn't show it often enough if that's the case. "Y'all are still complaining in here?" is a pretty crap thing for a community manager to say to its userbase. With the example you gave (And through experience of his 'moderating'), he seemed to have trouble leaving his personal values/issues at the door and speaking/handling issues in a neutral manner. Shame that your experience was like that

 

[Nick Calandra]

Maybe he was. Sure didn't show it often enough if that's the case. "Y'all are still complaining in here?" is a pretty crap thing for a community manager to say to its userbase. With the example you gave (And through experience of his 'moderating'), he seemed to have trouble leaving his personal values/issues at the door and speaking/handling issues in a neutral manner. Shame that your experience was like that

Well, he left because I refused to believe everyone left on The Escapist forums was a terrible person and my challenging of that kept him from doing his job apparently. “Shrug”

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Well, he left because I refused to believe everyone left on The Escapist forums was a terrible person and my challenging of that kept him from doing his job apparently. “Shrug”

That's... really? That's it? That's the entire reason he left? He hated all of us and got pissy when someone told him we weren't all awful people and couldn't do the smitings he probably wanted?

If that's the case, and that's all it came down to that made him leave... Well, glad to know my feelings were pretty spot on. What an absolute treat. Sounds to me like we were minutes away from a rampage if it weren't from you. If it wasn't Defy that was gonna be the death of the forum and its userbase... it sure is fun seeing what could've potentially been instead. The final boss, so to speak

 

[Nick Calandra]

That's... really? That's it? That's the entire reason he left? He hated all of us and got pissy when someone told him we weren't all awful people and couldn't do the smitings he probably wanted?

If that's the case, and that's all it came down to that made him leave... Well, glad to know my feelings were pretty spot on. What an absolute treat. Sounds to me like we were minutes away from a rampage if it weren't from you. If it wasn't Defy that was gonna be the death of the forum and its userbase... it sure is fun seeing what could've potentially been instead. The final boss, so to speak

Normally wouldn’t talk about it on the forum, but the houlier than though attitude he put off, and then getting dogpiled by Susan Ardent earlier this year and other people in that group just for asking for feedback from our readership, I’m not too worried about it anymore.

I do not have time or patience for anyone that automatically assumes the worst of people or myself without even getting to know me.

 

[IceForce]

If that was the kind of person Russ had in mind for the team, I'm glad that he ditched as quickly as he did

The writing was on the wall fairly early on, when his wife made a comment about wiping the forums clean. The exact quote was "Scorched earth, motherfuckers."

 

[Nick Calandra]

The writing was on the wall fairly early on, when his wife made a comment about wiping the forums clean. The exact quote was "Scorched earth, motherfuckers."

I don’t have much to say about her. My first interaction with her was her getting all her colleagues / friends to dogpile me over literally nothing on Twitter, and they’ve done that to a TON of people while at the same time being these big advocates for mental health. Cause as long as it’s people they disagree with, it’s OK to go after them and fuck their mental health up on social media.

 

[Gordon_4]

The writing was on the wall fairly early on, when his wife made a comment about wiping the forums clean. The exact quote was "Scorched earth, motherfuckers."

A sentiment that had some support since the old forums were a pretty crap place to be.

 

[Dreiko]

I guess I wasn't even paying attention to this Kyle person whoever he was (or any interaction I had with him was totally forgettable) cause I legit have no recollection of who he is. Doesn't sound like a very nice fellow though. Then again I don't think I ever got any warnings or mod attention in general even back when people were getting warned over peanuts.


But yeah I have a soft spot in my heart for the old days and the old content makers on this site. There was even a convention this one year. It kinda blows that politics had to go on and make people enemies. I think if everyone just focused on games and didn't try to solve societal issues on a game forum it'd have been all together still.

But yeah that ubisoft thing is sketchy as all hell. I'm glad I don't use reviews or trust them in general haha.