I've been away for a while, can y'all bring me up to speed?

[TelosSupreme]

SNIP

To be fair this is what is used to look like, so we're at least beating the spread

I mean, I was making a joke about stagnation, but whatever. Still funny. Maybe it's just my love for Internet chaos, but I feel like anything would be more entertaining at this point than the site's slow death.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think the 'problem' there is that, unlike Jim Sterling, Yatzhee's prime passion isn't what he's doing here. From everything I've listened to and read about and from him, his Escapist work is pretty much just a way for him to publish frequently and pay the bills - If he could make money doing his real passion (Writing straight up stories), I have no doubt he'd ditch all this Video Game review stuff and never look back.

Starting a Patreon and building his own 'brand' like Sterling is exactly the opposite of that. It may not seem like it, but Jim does a lot of work behind the scenes to keep his little 'empire' running - It's essentially a full fledged business. Yatzhee likely wants nothing to so with that, and it's likely why he's still here - So someone else can do all that bullshit.

I've got a lot of respect for Jim Sterling, watching him run his own brand management has been fascinating, I really didn't have him pegged as being so savvy to be honest.

I agree about Yahtzee too, the impression I got is that this is a well paying but incidental gig to him, it's basically his day job at Tesco to fund his real passion. Does he still own that cafe by the way? the Mana Bar or whatever it was called? I wouldn't be surprised if he was using his pay from here as a regular cash injection and setting up either some serious savings or funding other businesses to eventually let him get out of the Zero Punctuation game.

He owned the Mana Bar? I went there for my drink fest the night before I got married. It was pretty boring and small. Never went back.

It closed some years ago. From what little he's said on the subject I gather it was not a pleasant experience for Yahtzee.

 

[IceForce]

EVERYTHING'S FINE, THAT'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.

 

[EscapistAccount]

He owned the Mana Bar? I went there for my drink fest the night before I got married. It was pretty boring and small. Never went back.

Think so, I'm a Brit and it was in Australia so couldn't swear to it but I'm pretty sure he did.

EDIT: OP Oly I hope you find this thread not too confronting. It's definitely not the Escapist of the past

You can say that again, honestly it's kind of sad. I came back here after years of not coming over and honestly I was shocked to see it still going at all, but it's not going in a good way.

 

[Oly J]

He owned the Mana Bar? I went there for my drink fest the night before I got married. It was pretty boring and small. Never went back.

Think so, I'm a Brit and it was in Australia so couldn't swear to it but I'm pretty sure he did.

EDIT: OP Oly I hope you find this thread not too confronting. It's definitely not the Escapist of the past

You can say that again, honestly it's kind of sad. I came back here after years of not coming over and honestly I was shocked to see it still going at all, but it's not going in a good way.

Gotta be honest guys I'm kind of in mourning right now, I have so much nostalgia tied to The Escapist, so much good content, so many nice and/or thoughtful discussions (as well as straight-talk when I needed it, but almost always in a respectful manner) and it seems like that's just...gone, I appreciate you guys filling me in, so thanks for that, but my god is this ever depressing. Is there any hope?

 

[Saelune]

EVERYTHING'S FINE, THAT'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.

 

[Drathnoxis]

So does anybody else find the state the site is in kind of funny? I mean, it's sad it's fallen so far from the glory days. But on the other hand it's kind of hilarious how far it's fallen from the glory days. I mean, we've abandoned a forum to escape from the spam! That's hilarious!

 

[DefunctTheory]

So does anybody else find the state the site is in kind of funny? I mean, it's sad it's fallen so far from the glory days. But on the other hand it's kind of hilarious how far it's fallen from the glory days. I mean, we've abandoned a forum to escape from the spam! That's hilarious!

There is something delightfully delicious about watching something fall apart, isn't there? Like watching someone get hit in the nads on youtube/AFV.

 

[xitel]

The IRC is still around, if you know where to look. Nearly dead, but that does mean you don't have to deal with the shit these forums ended up getting flooded with.

 

[Zen Bard]

- They sacked all the content creators except Yahtzee and one columnist. (Erin Dies Alone is continuing on its own site [http://dyingalone.net/].)

- They sacked all the staff except one news guy (who is currently away on family stuff).

- The news feed is now 90% ads.

- They sacked the tech team.

- The forums are overrun with spambots trying to sell you fake documents and magic spells to fix your marriage. The Gaming Discussion subforum has been completely abandoned to the spam. There's no tech team to do a permanent fix and the mods can't keep up.

- Oh, and if you have membership (which a lot of people got for free after the tech team left) then there's a new 'Wild West' subforum which isn't moderated. It's 80% generic unfunny forum drivel, 15% people being nasty and 5% actual conversation.

In short, this place is in its death throes. Just a few die-hards still hanging around out of habit, wading through the spam and having what essentially amounts to one long slow-burn argument over the usual shit.

This is a perfect summary. And the stuff in bold should go on the Escapist Masthead...

 

[Johnlives]

Whilst we are lacking in content creators the spirit of community has never been stronger, with indivduals stepping forward to offer their time to help out where they can. And do stop by the new forum [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/index/706-Wild-West], dedicated to intellictual discourse. Whilst there are a few bots about in gaming discussions solutions are well on there way.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I am a long time follower of this site in its heyday, only recently joined. I have seen the decline first hand, but I am glad Moviebob and Jim Sterling are gone, screw those guys.

 

[Mr Companion]

I remember the days when The Escapist was full of life, full of content and discussion. Now days or even weeks can go by without the front page changing at all. As that guy said mostly people stick around out of habit or for Yahtzee.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I am a long time follower of this site in its heyday, only recently joined. I have seen the decline first hand, but I am glad Moviebob and Jim Sterling are gone, screw those guys.

They were utterly toxic and cultivated massive, rabid, shit-posting fuckface fans. Half of the drama of the sight back in the day was people raging and shitposting about Jim Sterling.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I am a long time follower of this site in its heyday, only recently joined. I have seen the decline first hand, but I am glad Moviebob and Jim Sterling are gone, screw those guys.

They were utterly toxic and cultivated massive, rabid, shit-posting fuckface fans. Half of the drama of the sight back in the day was people raging and shitposting about Jim Sterling.

Don't forget PC Gaming is Dead fiasco because Tablets are a thing....than Steam happened.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I am a long time follower of this site in its heyday, only recently joined. I have seen the decline first hand, but I am glad Moviebob and Jim Sterling are gone, screw those guys.

They were utterly toxic and cultivated massive, rabid, shit-posting fuckface fans. Half of the drama of the sight back in the day was people raging and shitposting about Jim Sterling.

Don't forget PC Gaming is Dead fiasco because Tablets are a thing....than Steam happened.

Oh jeez, that's right. Its a wonder MovieBob wasn't fired years before he actually was.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

I am a long time follower of this site in its heyday, only recently joined. I have seen the decline first hand, but I am glad Moviebob and Jim Sterling are gone, screw those guys.

They were utterly toxic and cultivated massive, rabid, shit-posting fuckface fans. Half of the drama of the sight back in the day was people raging and shitposting about Jim Sterling.

Don't forget PC Gaming is Dead fiasco because Tablets are a thing....than Steam happened.

Oh jeez, that's right. Its a wonder MovieBob wasn't fired years before he actually was.

Why was there such an outcry about his Expendables review? I think both it and Scott Pilgrim vs the World sucks.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

90% of content creators left for one reason or another, the forums kept getting swamped by bots, and a lot of people were suddenly jumped up to the Pub Club. So yeah, it's been pretty rough. I still stick around for the forums. Oh, and Yahtzee.