MovieBob leaving The Escapist

the_dramatica

New member
Dec 6, 2014
272
0
0
tippy2k2 said:
after his "Worst 10 movies" list where he put two of my favorite movies of last year on it ("Interstellar" and "American Sniper" if you were wondering), I have basically stopped watching his reviews.
I'm cool with everything else you said, but American sniper was one of your favorite movies? It's a pretty terrible movie, and I feel embarrassed for Chris Kyle and the United States that it sold so well in the middle east. The worst movie directed by Clint Eastwood. I still love the guy and i'd bet it was complicated trying to piece the movie together while not being too controversial.
 

Sylocat

Sci-Fi & Shakespeare
Nov 13, 2007
2,122
0
0
Yeesh... Jim, that last round of layoffs, they're going through editors like tissue paper, and now this?

The Escapist is coming apart at the seams.
 

tippy2k2

Beloved Tyrant
Legacy
Mar 15, 2008
14,316
1,492
118
the_dramatica said:
tippy2k2 said:
after his "Worst 10 movies" list where he put two of my favorite movies of last year on it ("Interstellar" and "American Sniper" if you were wondering), I have basically stopped watching his reviews.
I'm cool with everything else you said, but American sniper was one of your favorite movies? It's a pretty terrible movie, and I feel embarrassed for Chris Kyle and the United States that it sold so well in the middle east. The worst movie directed by Clint Eastwood. I still love the guy and i'd bet it was complicated trying to piece the movie together while not being too controversial.
That's a fair point. When I said Favorite, I was talking more about "Interstellar" than I was "American Sniper" ("Interstellar" might have been my favorite movie I saw last year). I did enjoy Sniper but it has no business being in the best picture category. It sure as hell isn't a "Black Hawk Down", "Saving Private Ryan", or any of the other classic war movies and I have no real intention of ever watching it again but to call it one of the worst movies of the year? That to me is too far as I found it to be good at what it was; one man's viewpoint as he experienced the war and how it kind of broke his brain. Although I swear everyone saw a different movie than I did [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.869780-Lets-prove-movie-bob-wrong-derive-a-moral-from-American-Sniper#21784462] so maybe it's all about how you interpret it...

I do agree that it is one of Eastwood's weaker films but I don't think it's a bad film (or at least not "Top Ten worst movies of the year"-bad).
 

Redd the Sock

New member
Apr 14, 2010
1,088
0
0
While I hate to see anyone lose their job, Bob has gone from opinionated, to holier than thou, to walking pile of fertilizer so much lately it's hard for me to care. I know enough about hiring to know that you have to really screw up to be canned without notice (even as a contractor) and how long these decisions can take, so while his recent twitter rant wasn't a factor, the last several months no doubt have been significant in the liability column for him. And rightly so. If the site is struggling, someone that only brings in a small fanbase while spending much of his off time, and a decent chunk of his on time, showing various levels of hoping everyone that doesn't think like him bursts into flame, probably is a net negative. For the longest time he's really only been good for recap, not analysis. Maybe he bought his own hype and thought that he'd have a long term career going "what's that internet celeb from Boston think" to whatever he wishes, but if this site wants to reclaim its identity as a game enthusiast's site, it needs to up its game to more intelegent commentary.

And if the Escapist wants suggestions as for some replacements, Liana Kerzner just wrote an excelent 5 part piece of her perspective on feminism in gaming for Metaleater, and would hardly scoff that more work. Plus, with the Canadian dollar, she might be a bargain.
 

VanQ

Casual Plebeian
Oct 23, 2009
2,729
0
0
Honestly, after discovering his Twitter and some of the things he said on there about 6 months ago, I've been boycotting his work entirely. I don't want to support somebody that hateful. I wish him the best of luck but the Escapist is no lesser without him to me.
 

Kinokohatake

New member
Jul 11, 2010
577
0
0
Well...besides getting into arguments on the Politics and Religion forum, I have no reason to keep coming here. And now that the Gamergate garbage has been dropped in there I try to avoid that as well. The escapist is slow in breaking stories, their articles are turning into Cracked "Top 9 bullshit list" articles and there don't seem to be any good contributors left. It's sad to see my time at this site winding down since this is a normal stop during the day but there is nothing to watch or worth reading here that hasn't broken over twitter 12 hours before it's posted here.
 

Alfador_VII

New member
Nov 2, 2009
1,326
0
0
I'm down to Yahtzee and the decreasing amount of Loading Ready Run content to keep coming here now.

Yeah, I read the forums but they aren't enough to justify the bookmark.
 

Carzinex

New member
Mar 29, 2011
44
0
0
MarsAtlas said:
Soviet Heavy said:
or another Top 8 list of meaningless faff that you could figure out by just thinking.
Today's best list - Top 26 letters of the alphabet!

Someone beat them too it

http://thedamper.com/filler/the-top-26-letters-of-the-english-alphabet/
 

Sleepy Sol

New member
Feb 15, 2011
1,831
0
0
Carzinex said:
MarsAtlas said:
Soviet Heavy said:
or another Top 8 list of meaningless faff that you could figure out by just thinking.
Today's best list - Top 26 letters of the alphabet!

Someone beat them too it

http://thedamper.com/filler/the-top-26-letters-of-the-english-alphabet/
Man, how the hell is G number one? These people really don't know their letters.
 

FirstNameLastName

Premium Fraud
Nov 6, 2014
1,080
0
0
I'm going to have to add to the ever growing pile of people saying that my only reason to come here anymore is Zero Punctuation and the forums.

I looked forward to his content regularly, but at the same time, I've always been rather mixed about his work overall. As far as fat guys with a strong social justice focus, Jim has always gain far more respect from me than Bob. Behind the shouty persona and crass humour, Jim always seemed to address both sides of the debate and actually explain his conclusion. And while I don't necessarily always agree with everything he says, I can respect someone who sincerely realises that most social issues are far more complex than the "idiots Vs Us" mentality that is far too common. Whereas Bob often seemed far more smug and condescending towards dissenting positions. Not always though, sometimes he would give a decent analysis on the topics, but overall he seemed a lot more hit and miss.

Either way, the list of content sure does seem to be changing, and I kind of hope he continues The Big Picture of some other site.
 

Augustine

New member
Jun 21, 2012
209
0
0
Yeah... Moviebob was the main reason I was coming back to the website. I may not have agreed with him on some things, but that's neither here, nor there.
Their journalism quality was taking quite a dive recently, with proliferation of clickbait articles. Mr. Croshaw is the only thing that I see going for the website now.
 

StriderShinryu

New member
Dec 8, 2009
4,987
0
0
Welcome to the new Escapist where we don't do opinions and it's all happy happy fun time, except in our blatant clickbait "news" stories!

Like him or not, Bob did provide a lot of content for a site that's already glaringly lacking in content. You may not think he's left big shoes to fill but he does definitely leave a pretty big content vacancy.
 

KazeAizen

New member
Jul 17, 2013
1,129
0
0
Johnny Novgorod said:
SNCommand said:
Patreon account incoming!
Indeed, but for now he's directing his Twitter followers to buy his book and tip him through PayPal.

So what's your point? Self promotion? That's how most of these internet guys live. Other than those two months or so after his book came out he didn't really promote is all that much. He's not commanding us to do anything. Like Jim didn't command people to donate to his patreon. Fans are fans for a reason and people like them understand fan culture enough to actually know that if people liked their work that much they would donate money or whatever.
 

Carzinex

New member
Mar 29, 2011
44
0
0
Solaire of Astora said:
Carzinex said:
MarsAtlas said:
Soviet Heavy said:
or another Top 8 list of meaningless faff that you could figure out by just thinking.
Today's best list - Top 26 letters of the alphabet!

Someone beat them too it

http://thedamper.com/filler/the-top-26-letters-of-the-english-alphabet/
Man, how the hell is G number one? These people really don't know their letters.

I could't believe Q got no 2, it's a pussy cant even go out without U's backup!

On topic, not gonna hide that i'm glad he's gone, i've gone over why in other posts and not gonna retread old ground.

But it has been pointed out to me in the past that most folks discovered the escapist through Yatzee and will stay for yatzee, Extra Credits, Lisa, Jim and now Bob have all come and gone but we will get more content.
There are so many great content providers out there that have not quite got the break to get their audience yet they would jump at the chance to appear on the Escapist.

Also as an aside, the new E-i-C has only been in power for a short time but i'm pleased with the David Braben interview. Showing my age but i lost hours of my childhood in Frontier and now im losing hours of my life in Elite: Dangerous. So if we are getting regular interviews with legends like this i chalk that up as a win for the new E-i-C.
 

KazeAizen

New member
Jul 17, 2013
1,129
0
0
StriderShinryu said:
Welcome to the new Escapist where we don't do opinions and it's all happy happy fun time, except in our blatant clickbait "news" stories!

Like him or not, Bob did provide a lot of content for a site that's already glaringly lacking in content. You may not think he's left big shoes to fill but he does definitely leave a pretty big content vacancy.
Seriously. Let's do a tally.
Video shows:
The Big Picture
Escape to the movies

Articles:
Intermission
Moviebob HD
Marvel Intermission aka their source of reviews for SHIELD and Carter.

That's 5 regular pieces of content just gone now. Not to mention the various news articles he would post.
 

RedDeadFred

Illusions, Michael!
May 13, 2009
4,896
0
0
Eh, I haven't watched or read any of his content in a while.

I don't even watch Yahtzee all that much anymore. Jim was really the only main contributor whose content I was watching regularly. I'm really only here for the forums now. Even, I am posting less and less.

I like this site, and don't want to see it die. Hopefully they land some top notch contributor.
 

bartholen_v1legacy

A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
Jan 24, 2009
3,056
0
0
Well, that's certainly not something I was expecting, and probably knocks one of the movie critics I follow on a regular basis off the list. While I certainly didn't agree with him many times, I generally enjoyed his content despite the occasional overindulgence in Marvel/Nintendo fanboyism or nostalgia of the 80's/hatred of the 90's. Geez, now I too am starting to wonder about the future of this forum.

Edit: just as I posted this, I went to update the Steam store page. The first game to pop up was called "Escapists", and it's about breaking out of prison. I think the universe is trying to tell me something.