A Note From Your Friendly Neighborhood Editor in Chief

[WarpZone]

A Note From Your Friendly Neighborhood Editor in Chief

?Don?t ever become a pessimist? a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.? ?Robert A. Heinlein

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Yeah, good plan. Get rid of Yahtzee, MovieBob... maybe LRR, because Feed Dump is just so *mean* to people who stuff reptiles down their pants... and we can finally go back to the good old days in which The Escapist didn't get any traffic.

On the plus side, without all those pesky critics involved, you can basically just run promotional material for your business partners 24/7. Because that's what "optimism" means in the advertising world, right? The opposite of criticism?

Seriously, how do you expect maintain the community you have, let alone build upon it, if you keep discarding your best content creators?

 

[Mikeybb]

Firstly, want to offer my best wishes to Greg Tito in whatever he does next.

Secondly, best of luck to the new EIC and community manager.

Thirdly, to ask if we can still be a little bit curmudgeonly?
I'm getting old and frankly that's the only upside of the whole deal.

 

[Lightknight]

A Note From Your Friendly Neighborhood Editor in Chief

?Don?t ever become a pessimist? a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.? ?Robert A. Heinlein

Read Full Article

Yeah, good plan. Get rid of Yahtzee, MovieBob... maybe LRR, because Feed Dump is just so *mean* to people who stuff reptiles down their pants... and we can finally go back to the good old days in which The Escapist didn't get any traffic.

*sigh* they didn't get rid of Yahtzee or Moviebob. It has been a really fun internet rumor though.

 

[lastcigarette]

Leading of with a Heinlein quote. I think I'm going to like this guy.

 

[Nurb]

The enforcement of "enthusiasm" sounds a lot like Putin's rule that a certain percentage of Russian news needs to be "positive and uplifting".

Nerds, geeks, and gamers have always been cynical and argumentitive, it's a form of entertainment in itself and there was plenty of enthusiasm for good quality games and developers. It's sad that there needs to be a corporate owner over so many sites like how corporations own so many big news and publishing companies because they lack the understanding of their audience. Gaming enthusiasts are the only ones willing to sink time into an online community.

I've been here for a long while myself, before the PubClub, and since this site has moved away from gaming and humor with some insight first with movies and tv relating to geek culture coming second to a site that is trying to be IGN by covering entertainment media with a heavy dose of certain poltical views, things have slipped downhill to be nastier than ever before because of the extreme nature of the people controling the dialogue dividing the community.

Well this should be interesting.

Could we perhaps get an official statement on the twitter convos revealed here-in: http://www.alienpickle.com/2015/01/defy-media-cuts-staff-at-escapist.html

But I guess it'll be interesting to see how many bridges will be burned over the next few days.

Man, look at how little they regarded their audience on this site. They wanted people to pay for subscriptions too.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

A Note From Your Friendly Neighborhood Editor in Chief

?Don?t ever become a pessimist? a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.? ?Robert A. Heinlein

Read Full Article

Well, sir, for what little it's worth...

All I've really got is this; Good luck!

I will say that the declaration to promote more positive aspects of our collective hobbies, rather than drowning us in perpetual, unrelenting bile, is appreciated quite a damned lot. I'm here to escape after all. One would think that such a goal would be a foregone conclusion, given the site's name and the nature of entertainment.

Well this should be interesting.

Could we perhaps get an official statement on the twitter convos revealed here-in: http://www.alienpickle.com/2015/01/defy-media-cuts-staff-at-escapist.html

But I guess it'll be interesting to see how many bridges will be burned over the next few days.

Man, look at how little they regarded their audience on this site. They wanted people to pay for subscriptions too.

And this? This is why I'm maintaining a positive outlook on the recent shift. These responses are ridiculously unprofessional and, at least for me, call their previous work into question...if I could be bothered to be riled up about it beyond this paragraph. I'd much rather just let sleeping dogs lie.

I mean, they did lose their jobs and they've my basest sympathies for that fact alone, so it's understandable that their collective hackles would be up, but ugh. This is yet another reminder of how awful Twitter and social media is as a platform for discussion/expression.

I'll miss Tito though, simply because I truly do respect the guy, despite differences in viewpoints.

 

[WarpZone]

*sigh* they didn't get rid of Yahtzee or Moviebob. It has been a really fun internet rumor though.

Oh I wasn't going off of a rumor. I was just reading what Josh wrote about The Escapist's new direction.

Yahtzee basically popularized the whole curmudgeonly style The Escapist is currently taking a stand against, and MovieBob is possibly the most serious internet critic I've ever seen about delivering hardcore criticism directly to the big-budget movie's solar plexus. If the goal is to purge The Escapist of everything but what advertisers call "optimism," then they're going to have to either get rid of them or else censor them heavily to the point where they would have been better off jumping ship voluntarily.

Besides, it's happened with all the rest of The Escapist's good shows, why wouldn't it happen with these two?

 

[ThunderCavalier]

As much as I love the Escapist and I do hope that the new Editor-in-Chief does great at his job (or at least lives longer than his contemporaries), I do share some of the... concerns of everyone else. Optimism is fine and everything, but people like Yahtzee are known for being blunt, intellectual cynics who have issues and aren't afraid to state them. He's not doing it because he hates everything, but because he feels that there are some things that you simply can't sugarcoat. I don't agree with Bob sometimes, but I feel that he shares the exact same brutal honesty that Yahtzee does, and his content is entertaining regardless.

I guess that's just my issue. Despite whether or not the former Escapist staff is unjustly bitter, it is alarming to see so many people culled. I really hope it's just me being paranoid, and that the website continues being as awesome as I remembered it when I joined, but... you know...

 

[Korolev]

Best of luck to you - I hope you manage to thrive in your new job.

 

[Strazdas]

Optimists may have more fun, but its the pessimists that make the world better. world needs pessimists because they keep those in power in check. and when it comes to gaming, this means keeping publishers from going Full McIntosh.

With that in mind, The Escapist's mothership, Defy Media, has a number of other gaming properties that we're eager to ramp up coordination with, including GameFront and GameTrailers.

i remmeber last time that happened. CriticalIntel or something it was called. it was basically advertisement spam that culminated in articles directly insulting entire escapist community and that finally led to partnership being removed.

If i wanted GameFront or GameTrailers i would go there. But i go to Escapist because i like Escapist material instead. this bleeding one site into another is going to just become another Gawker.

Damn, Editor-in-Chief seems to be an extremely temporary position here at The Escapist. From Pitts to Butts to Arendt to Tito and now to Vanderwall...this is the 5th one in the the years I've been coming to this site.

it also seems to attract the strangest surnames. We got a Pit. we got a Butt, we got "Arent" and we got a Tit. Now we got Wonder Wall. And i dont mean it as anything bad, i think this is awesome.

As Bob already tweeted Suffice it to say: Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. I have NOT been fired from The Escapist or Defy Media. [https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/558041993843335168]

Rampant speculation begone!

And here i though they wanted to bring the positives in. way to start with a downer.

I've been here for a long while myself, before the PubClub, and since this site has moved away from gaming and humor with some insight first with movies and tv relating to geek culture coming second to a site that is trying to be IGN by covering entertainment media with a heavy dose of certain poltical views, things have slipped downhill to be nastier than ever before because of the extreme nature of the people controling the dialogue dividing the community.

I think its quite sad state of affairs when you look at gaming media and its IGN that seems the most neutral one. how did we come to this?

 

[NortherWolf]

Hey awesome, soon Escapist can join in on the 11/10 for Next Big Game! Awesome!
Anything else is "curmudgeonly" or "negative", right?
Bad is good, good is bad!

*snortchuckles*

 

[IrenIvy]

I saw a similar process before on several different sites where the 'stand against negativity' led eventually to heavy censorship of valid criticism; anything that wasn't cheerful, pro-company or extremely 'please don't hurt me, I am so little but here is my nibble of what I think is a very minute problem' bow-cowing was censored away. Those other sites ended up from being a communities to places that just want to sell their stuff and make buying customers to be silent about any flaws that stuff had (as the stuff always had flaws). I wonder if 'The Escapist' will be end up the same way because it looks for me that with policy like that it will become just like the any '11/10 for Next Big Game' pro-publisher 'review' site indeed.

Anyway, if Yahtzee won't bow and will leave this place instead, I will going where Zero Punctuation will be going.

Also, I am curious what will happen to that disclosure policy that was implemented in this site quite recently. Will it go away with previous Editor-in-Chief?

 

[IrenIvy]

[second post instead of edit by some reason, please disregard]

 

[Callate]

I have a sneaky suspicion that "curmudgeon" is code for the sorts of reports and editorials that existed to say "You should be as angry about this as I am, dammit."

While I never like to see anyone lose their job... call me names if you must, but I wouldn't be that sorry if that was the change they had in mind. Constantly stewing in anger isn't healthy, and I get really tired of manufactured controversies.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I used to browse and post on The Escapist because it was about video games. Now I rarely visit because it's not about video games.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Apologies for the necro, but I lost internet for a month and only just now came across this article.

Welp, I'm gonna keep an open mind and hope the new EiC takes the site in a good direction. However, I do hope that the next time some GG-sized controversy hits, that the Escapist doesn't ban all discussion on the matter like so many other sites did with Quinn / GG. I do fully approve of the site and its staff staying out of the fray, however, as well as the general idea of the site becoming more apolitical. Still, as much as I hate the whole GG controversy these days, I could never support blanket bans on the entire subject or any other controversial subject that may come up down the line (yes, I'm against the bans on discussing Piracy and AdBlock as well). If one actually does keep civil and follow the site's rules, then one should be able to argue about virtually anything imho.

 

[Monsterfurby]

This whole editorial is getting somewhat of a bitter taste considering that The Escapist got rid of two of their major content producers (Bob Chipman and Gavin Dunne) since then.

Not saying that Defy Media consciously waited a month after shedding their backend people before moving on to better-known personalities, but, you know, one has one's thoughts about this.