Escapist Editors in the Midst of an Exodus?! -Updated-

[Scarim Coral]

I can't help to feel something bad is going to happened. If the worse is to come, can someone please PM me to where other people will migrate to. Every sites I've been has been pants (this is my home dammit!).

 

[Elijah Newton]

Man, I'm sorry for those who've lost their jobs. Best of luck in your next endeavors.

At times the Escapist has sounded like a liberal college professor's dinner party on campus.

Yeah, I always considered that one of its strengths, actually. I doubt what's going to replace it will retain viewers as well.

Topic shift, off the top of my head and in no particular order :

I Hit It With My Axe
Extra Credits
Shut Up & Sit Down
Reel Physics
Matt Lees
Jimquisition

This place used to be a hub for all of that. I like Zero Punctuation, it brought me to the Escapist in the first place. But oh come on. Whatever happened to retention!?!

 

[Roxas1359]

I can't help to feel something bad is going to happened. If the worse is to come, can someone please PM me to where other people will migrate to. Every sites I've been has been pants (this is my home dammit!).

Forward it to me too should shit hit the proverbial fan. I've tried other sites, and I don't wanna go to IGN. T^T
I mainly just want a place with User Groups as well.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

I can't help to feel something bad is going to happened. If the worse is to come, can someone please PM me to where other people will migrate to. Every sites I've been has been pants (this is my home dammit!).

Forward it to me too should shit hit the proverbial fan. I've tried other sites, and I don't wanna go to IGN. T^T
I mainly just want a place with User Groups as well.

Add me to that list please, because I want to be where some familiar faces are going preferably.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

So does this have anything to do with #GG? I know the Escapist took an ostensibly neutral stance, Movie Bob not withstanding. I'm wondering if this is a result of the number of people who installed Ad-Blocker to punish The Escapist for not agreeing with them.

 

[Fappy]

@ Everyone talking about migrating to another forum:

I think most will agree that it's far too early to condemn the site and seek out a promised land. Very little official information is available at the moment, so I think we should wait and see where this goes. Things may even improve around here; you never know.

In the event that I and/or others I know choose to move on, you guys will know about it. I imagine the biggest hurdle will be deciding on a destination. A handful of people moving isn't at all a big deal, but if a sizable portion of the community chooses to migrate together finding one place everyone wants to go will be a bit difficult.

EDIT: Unless someone actually straight up STARTS a forum/website.

Not it!

 

[Albino Boo]

Man, I'm sorry for those who've lost their jobs. Best of luck in your next endeavors.

At times the Escapist has sounded like a liberal college professor's dinner party on campus.

Yeah, I always considered that one of its strengths, actually. I doubt what's going to replace it will retain viewers as well.

Topic shift, off the top of my head and in no particular order :

I Hit It With My Axe
Extra Credits
Shut Up & Sit Down
Reel Physics
Matt Lees
Jimquisition

This place used to be a hub for all of that. I like Zero Punctuation, it brought me to the Escapist in the first place. But oh come on. Whatever happened to retention!?!

According to Alexa, the escapist figures have been steady but that is not sufficient to make money. Appealing to small section of views will give you less traffic than a broader range of views. Its also the way the things were written. Mr Tito and Mr Lincoln have been on occasion, quite hostile to views other than their own. I dont always agree with the conclusion in critical intel or experienced points but the way they are written feels less aggressive to other views. If you shout down anyone who disagrees with you, you deny yourself a lot of traffic.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

This website is dying pretty fast. The news section is on life support, there's no more Jimquisition, even the forums feel less chatty these days. I already spend more time in gaming threads on Reddit than I do on here.

If at some point Yahtzee decides to pull the pin, the Escapist will probably slip out of my top sites altogether.

 

[faefrost]

So does this have anything to do with #GG? I know the Escapist took an ostensibly neutral stance, Movie Bob not withstanding. I'm wondering if this is a result of the number of people who installed Ad-Blocker to punish The Escapist for not agreeing with them.

Only in a global sense. The entire industry blow up has made all of the gaming press rather toxic to advertisers. Or at least the kinds concerned about brand associations. This is not site specific and the advertisers really do not look at site specifics beyond "video games" and traffic numbers. As the good advertisers flee the whole subject of video games, the revenue at all sites goes down. We have long known that the Video Game related sites are among the most marginal revenue wise in Defy's portfolio. It's safe to assume that similar issues are happening elsewhere.

 

[Archon]

While the notion of creating walking tanks with howitzers seems awesome, actually we will have tanks, infantry, and howitzers, and they will work together in a combined-arms task force. This metaphor seems sensible to me but I have been watching a lot of Robotech lately.

Sounds more like Metal Gear to me, Colonel.

Destroids, man.

 

[Ishal]

That said I really doubt politics are the reason behind this, considering Movie "there are no bad methods only bad targets" Bob is still employed.

Is he?

http://www.craveonline.com/gaming/articles/813763-gametrailers-gamefront-escapist-hit-layoffs

That said, reading the tweets from that link I snipped in your earlier post were cringe worthy. Smug is an understatement.

That said, regardless of how childish these people act. Losing a job is a serious thing. It's hard saying this... given how I feel. But I do hope they land on their feet.

 

[Thorn14]

Can we keep the shit-flinging out of one thread please? Can this thread please be about the unfortunate people who've lost their jobs and the unfortunate people who might be considering a new internet home?

GG discussion, from both sides, can fuck right off.

Agreed.

Greg Tito also confirmed its because of budget cuts at Defy Media. GG is completely irrelevant to this so lets stop talking about it here.

Ok let's be upfront about where all of this comes from. GG did not cause this, but it is a piece of the puzzle. Ultimately the root cause of this was the storm of "Gamers are over, dead, don't need to be your audience etc" articles that triggered a pushback from the gamers and consumers of the gaming press. No matter what your views on Gamergate the truth is it is largely centered around consumer pushback if not open revolt. Nothing else about GG costs anybody money.

If you step outside the gaming press, and actually poke around in the business and marketing articles you would find that the advertising industry pretty much thinks the gaming press went insane. A large part of the industry rather than quickly putting out a fire poured gasoline on it while lobbing in dynamite. This made the ad industry pretty much universally designate gaming related sites as toxic to advertisers. Good sites, bad sites, pro GG, anti GG completely indifferent, it does not matter. The press was at war with the audience the ad industry was seeking to reach, hence there was no value to be found in pouring money into ads on those sites. Even as traffic is up, advertising and advertising rates for game sites are down. Defy is clearly retrenching to deal with this. It remains to be seen if this is a proactive reaction to a changing situation, or a holy shit we're fucked move. But rest assured they are not the only site or branch of the gaming industry dealing with this. If you notice you see a lot of others starting to trickle out into "independence" from major sites and less blatant changes quietly occurring. Also pay attention to not just the status of writers at all of these sites, but the changes to the frequency of their appearences. Most are already independent contractors. They don't get "laid off" the workflow simply trickles downward or stops as the sites reduce paying for articles.

As far as two points that while seemingly unrelated, but in truth are joined at the hip. Journalists "Free Speech" and Greg Tito's departure. Here's the elephant in the room. Journalists speech is not "free". In truth it is a bought and paid for product. The employer is paying the journalist for his speech. The assumption being that the employer can then resell or package said speech to a consuming audience for a profit. When the journalists speech starts costing the employer revenue instead of earning it, the employer will stop paying for the journalists speech. It's that simple.

So how does this apply to Mr. Tito? While Greg throughout all of this has been a nice guy that we like and respect, there have been a number of moments where his decisions, actions or management have not been indicative of the best judgement. (Granted many others were he showed fine or superb judgement, so a mixed bag). Things like being a member of the Games Journalist Pro's mailing list, and as a result giving his employers direct competitors a voice or input in this sites editorial and managerial decisions. In an up market this would largely be forgiven. In a falling market space however the employer will almost always make a management change. Short answer, Greg probably put his personal politics and feelings over his employers legitimate reasonable and ethical best interests one too many times with no revenue returns or benefits for doing so. And thus the employer decided a change in direction was needed. Not unlike Black Monday when football coaches with borderline or losing records will find themselves replaced.

You make an excelent point. I can totally see this entire debacle causing advertisers to just go "Woah fuck we don't wanna get involved with this insanity" and pull out and/or not get involved. I'm not really sure if I should feel responsible or not, because this whole mess could have been avoided had the industry not constantly thrown fire onto the spark and make the worst possible decisions regarding it.

That said, I'm sure there are many people being let go who had no involvement with this mess and I feel real bad for them. Even Tito, who was anti, at least was polite to us and allowed discussion here on escapist (Which in light of all i've seen has had no effect on the actual firings. IMO)

I wonder if we're seeing the biggest step towards the shift towards youtube journalism as opposed to "traditional" online-text video game journalism like I've seen people discuss before.

 

[wizzy555]

Sorry to see you go. I bought another year publishers club purely for the bravery of those GG interviews.

 

[Redd the Sock]

While it's sad to see people lose their jobs, it's hard to be surprised.

In a business sense, certain unnamed software has made it very hard to earn money for online content, and the rise of youtube and webcams on every computer has made online content very prolific, meaning that if I get tired of Moviebob (and I really have), there are 20 other people making jokes at movies or adding their two cents on geek happenings out there just in my subscription feed. This isn't a problem, but it's a tough market in which you really have to stand out, and the escapist stuff really hasn't. Jim had gotten repetitive and boring even before he left. Yahtzee's still enjoyable but we've become desensitized to his act. No right answer feels like it ran out of good topics a long time ago. Moviebob, his personal politics and holier than thou attitude notwithstanding, can't seem to tell the difference between review and recap half the time, so really, he just spends a lot of time covering what most of us already know about things. News is nonexistent, behind other sites, sporadically covered, and despite this supposedly being a video game site, is more prone to focus on every rumor of the MCU than anything non-AAA related in games. Editorials may as well be long forum posts in that "you want to know what I think" mindset. If I had to judge the site by look, it's a nerd TV review site that occasionally covers games.

All this was before the gate hit the fan. Lost in ranting about certain software and how evil people in a certain hashtag were was the issue that a lot of people that had been their revenue stream no longer saw your content as worth paying for, or even dealing with a commercial. This applies to both social justice issues and non, people need to want to get your message, and few want to pay for a message about how sexist, evil, long list of insults here, they are. If social justice is all you bring to the table, you don't bring much. You need more substance than calling out "bad behavior" to maintain readers that aren't fanatical.

For those that lost their jobs I hope they realize that layoffs cut the dead weight not producing, and realize they need to improve to keep their future jobs. I hope the site moves beyond "diversity is good" as the only thing it needs to succeed and gets back to producing content worth the time it takes to consume it.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

If it turns out that this is because of these writers' opinions on GG/SJ issues, as many are suggesting, then I will be cancelling my Pub Club membership and not coming back. Even though I would identify as anti-anti-gamergate (I think the anti side are worse, but I don't like the GG side much either) and I've disagreed vehemently with some of the things written by some of the contributors, I see no evidence that any of them did anything unethical and people losing their jobs simply because of their opinions is wrong.

I find this sad as I spend a fair amount of time here, even though I don't contribute that often. Oh well, life goes on I suppose.

Well said. I'm hoping it's not that, mostly because those fires seemed to have died down for the most part, and this seems very sudden for everyone involved (including the people getting laid off), but if it is I'll be very sad.

P.S. If anyone does find a decent geek forum, or sets up a usergroup for it, let me know. I'm not popular here, but I do like the quality of people.

 

[Signa]

That said I really doubt politics are the reason behind this, considering Movie "there are no bad methods only bad targets" Bob is still employed.

Is he?

http://www.craveonline.com/gaming/articles/813763-gametrailers-gamefront-escapist-hit-layoffs

That said, reading the tweets from that link I snipped in your earlier post were cringe worthy. Smug is an understatement.

That said, regardless of how childish these people act. Losing a job is a serious thing. It's hard saying this... given how I feel. But I do hope they land on their feet.

Yeah, Moviebob isn't fired. I read his tweets linked there.

 

[Ishal]

That said I really doubt politics are the reason behind this, considering Movie "there are no bad methods only bad targets" Bob is still employed.

Is he?

http://www.craveonline.com/gaming/articles/813763-gametrailers-gamefront-escapist-hit-layoffs

That said, reading the tweets from that link I snipped in your earlier post were cringe worthy. Smug is an understatement.

That said, regardless of how childish these people act. Losing a job is a serious thing. It's hard saying this... given how I feel. But I do hope they land on their feet.

Yeah, Moviebob isn't fired. I read his tweets linked there.

New Tweets. I see.

Didn't see those before.

 

[beardmosexual]

I recommend going and giving the front page a looksie. =]

 

[Breakdown]

Mitch and James got laid off from Game Front. I hope they continue to make their own Youtube videos.