MovieBob leaving The Escapist

Estranged180

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2HF said:
I've heard a lot of people say "Now that X is leaving I have no reason to come to the escapist", never thought it'd be me. And it won't! At least not until Yahtzee gets the boot. And even then I'll probably come out of pure habit and for general gaming news. The only videos I watch at this point are ben and bob's. So weird to have lost all the shows I did come here for. What is it about this place that drives everyone away? Gonna miss ya bob, and by that I mean I'll probably have a hard time tracking you down but when I do we'll be back in full swing.
Extra Credits takes a powder: "Okay, they had to do what they had to do, it's understandable."
LoadingReadyRun exits: "Umm... that was unexpected, but still, people have to look out for themselves. It's understandable."
Jim Sterling leaves: "Uh. Okay, didn't see that happening. Hope everything works out."
MovieBob bolts under circumstances we don't understand: "If this continues, the escapist is almost finished."

If Yahtzee goes, there will be a revolt, and I'm going with it.
 

Callate

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So I've been doing a bit of looking at Bob's stuff, post-mortem (so to speak). And what strikes me as kind of tragic was how often he advanced an argument of "We, the geeks, are the mainstream, now! Video game players (and comic book fans, and role-playing gamers, and anime fans, etc., etc.) should accept criticism with stoicism and humility! We're the ones controlling the zeitgeist, and we can't afford to 'punch down'..."

But then he'd rage about The Millenium Trilogy. And Penny Arcade. And Gone Girl (the original novel). And American Sniper. And Total Biscuit.

And I know some might say he had particular grievances about PA or Total Biscuit, but I have to say a glance over their work suggests they don't seem to spend a fraction of the time or energy on the issues that enrage him that MB did hurling invective at them.

In short, while preaching "nerd culture rules, grow up and accept your place", an awful lot of his output suggests someone who viewed themselves as an under-represented outsider who felt the need to screech his hatred at the monoliths of the mainstream.

Somewhat to the detriment of both the man and his work, it might seem.

I'm still not one who thinks the site is better for his absence; I think his voluminous knowledge of things like comic book storylines and monster movies could be fascinating when brought to bear. But I have to wonder how things coming to this pass is going to influence his future work.

...I'm thinking, maybe not for the better. It might just re-enforce the sense of being an upstart trying to yell over the stupidity of the mainstream.
 

LazyAza

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So basically the escapist fired him over non-sensical bullshit from what I'm reading in to the situation.

A shame I use to think this website was proud to showcase a diverse range of opinions and content without censorship but alas I can only assume the suits in charge decided bob wasn't "to their taste" anymore since he's always been very opinionated but rightfully so as he freaking should be.

Wonder how long yahtzee and the critical miss guys will stick around now, the two soul remaining reasons for this website to exist, creators of great content each week so I'm sure at some point this websites suits will decide they have to go to.

Between this and channel awesome going to complete crap I have to wonder if these big nerd sites understand what quality content is anymore, they all seem to be going out of their way to kill it off.
 

Gennadios

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That leaves ZP and Critical Miss and No Right Answer when I'm in the mood. Interestingly enough, I didn't cancel my subscriber account when Jim left, but the loss of two weekly shows by Moviebob just kind of dropped the subscription into not worth it territory.

Just in time, too. If they'd waited a month I would have been auto-renewed, it was the Jimquisition three weeks ago last year that got me to sub in the first place.

What I don't understand is why social media antics are such a big grounds for purgings. Granted I'm a cave-dwelling troglodyte and I have no efing clue what the gamersgates and sjws are aside from the one paragraph urbandictionary definitions. The last big flame war I had anything to do with was the ME3 ending fiasco and then I just stopped caring.

Anyway, tl;dr, even if Bob was a generally horrible person on social media, he made good content for the site. The site needs content.

EDIT: Just saw his TotalBiscuit comment. Oh my.
 

rorychief

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Thunderous Cacophony said:
EDIT: Found this on Archon's Twitter: "So "master race" as a joke is offensive because Nazis used it, but "subhuman" as an insult is reasonable even though Nazis used it?"
https://twitter.com/archon/status/565974786740723712

So yeah, looks like the Big Man finally got sick of swatting Bob's nose with the proverbial newspaper and gave him to the pound.
Oh ok that makes some sense now. I suppose he was bringing a lot of personal baggage to his professional work and the association must have been affecting his employers.

I have checked in on Bob's twitter from time to time and it did seem like he had a habit of engaging with each and every troll who mentioned him. For some people that's the only way to handle trolls, they can be showmen and keep their cool while entertaining their fans with witty short putdowns. I don't think Bob was one of those people who could pick and choose his battles. With him every badly spelled fat joke was assigned an ideological undertone contrary to what he holds to be good and decent and so trolls weren't just trolls, but one arm of a vast multilimbed cancer of society made to inherit a thousand comments worth of accumulated bile from all previous encounters.
I can understand that impulse to show off one's progressive prowess by making a spectacle of regressive asshats. It starts with showing solidarity with a cause by dressing down its most inarticulate detractors, but quickly becomes something difficult to reign in.
The thrill of having a punching bag you consider objectively despicable can run away with people and make them feel like they have licence to behave despicably. Taking the highroad becomes a compromise because the enemy cloaks themselves in civility, being patient is playing into their hands. Ignorant children are treated as monsters and reference points to measure one's superiority against, using this superiority to educate and rehabilitate is never attempted then because feigning a desire to better themselves is yet another tactic the enemy uses to steal time from the cause. Every contradiction or criticism is met with disproportionate rage, fueled by borrowed indignation carried over and kept moving by constant self imposed exposure to the very worst your opponents can be. In this state of extreme sensitivity, righteousness and exasperation each frustration is the straw that broke the camels back, only this particular camel is given a thousand backs to break.

I don't have any particular right to analyze Bob in the condescending way I'm doing, or refer to him in the past tense like he's dead or something. I've just seen friends who've fought social justice causes and admit they might have absorbed the worst traits of their opponents, and it seems like Bob couldn't even one too many times and its a shame because he's a talented guy, just one who cares a bit too much. Which shouldn't even be a point against him, yet its become one in many people's eyes including my own. I just couldn't believe it cost the guy his job. Seems now it might have.

TLDR: Shame Bob's giving a shit couldn't have been more constructively applied given his talent/ twitters to blame.
 

Polarity27

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If this did have anything to do with his Twitter, I think that's a crappy decision. There are a ton of us who just come here for videos and don't generally give a toss what people say on Twitter-- I don't know if it's the format or the userbase, but Twitter seems to bring out the idiot in people. I care that the man has interesting things to say about movies, sometimes things I disagree with, sometimes things I'd never have considered at all, but interesting takes on movies. I've seen a couple of films I wouldn't have otherwise bothered with because something in an Escape to the Movies intrigued me, and I'm not a big filmgoer. I still love his video introducing the Guardians, and my husband and I re-watched it right before watching GotG. That kind of encyclopedic comics knowledge is definitely not something you get out of a standard movie critic.

On the SJ stuff... I'm a feminist and I guess I'd be seen as an SJW as I'm strongly opposed to GG, but that said, sometimes I do think Bob was on the wrong side of the performative rage line, especially for an ally (when you get that consistently hulk-ragey about non-life-and-death things that don't affect you, I start wondering if you're doing it mainly for the buzz of righteous anger). Some of his conclusions I think are just daffy, especially the Halo-blue-eyes thing. I think he lets himself get trolled too much, I think he'll take some kind of angle on something (like that Halo thing) and think it's persecution of people don't agree with him, and I hope he learns to moderate that. *Most* people I've seen get really into SJ eventually burn out into something more sensible and that early "mad at everything" thing passes. ...but all that said, the man has interesting opinions about movies, that's what makes him watchable, and I think the Escapist is shooting itself in the ass to lose this many good original content producers.

(Also, sign me up for the "if Yahtzee goes, so do I" brigade. Jim, Bob, EC, and Yahtzee kept me coming here too. With most of them gone, I only see coming here every week or two for Yahtzee. I miss when this place was a multiple-visits-a-day site for me but it hasn't been that for a long time.)
 

TheYellowCellPhone

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Well that's interesting.

MovieBob was that sort of polarizing figure that keeps people coming to The Escapist. When Sterling was still here, I'd say Bob, Sterling, and Yahtzee were the reason for a lot of traffic in this site. With two of the three substantial content contributors gone (including the three weekly content articles Bob made: Intermission, Escape to the Movies, and The Big Picture), this really is going to hurt the quantity of new content on this site. Even if you think Bob's columns are trash, you have to admit three less bits of content every week is a significant hit to this site.

I really wonder the circumstances behind this. As Bob said in his blog, his partnership with The Escapist has been long-standing, he's always enjoyed what he does, his content has become well-ingrained to the visitors, he describes some of his work as being freelance so he wasn't even asking to be paid all the time, and he doesn't house any resentment at The Escapist for his letting go. Given those reasons and the large number of people who pay attention to his work (whether or not they think his content is any good doesn't matter), I'd have thought he'd stay here until the end.

Obviously there's some confidentiality information that Bob hasn't told us about, and whether or not this has to do with his continuing involvement with GamerGate is still up to question, but I really did not expect this. Besides Yahtzee, I'd have thought he'd be the last person to go.

I feel bad for him. No matter how disagreeable he can be, I'd be devastated to be in his spot. Movie criticism was his dream job, the Escapist is a moderately popular website to get his opinions out there, he was seen on the same level as Sterling and Yahtzee in driving the site's relevance, and now he's lost it so suddenly that he'll have to cover himself financially before he can go back to making content. As he said in his FAQ, he's a film critic who isn't interested in movie screenings anymore because of his sudden lay off.
 

Basement Cat

Keeping the Peace is Relaxing
Jul 26, 2012
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Scorpid said:
Does anyone know how exactly you delete your Escapist account anyway?
Here's the truth: No one can delete their account. Why? Simple: The system is set up in such a way--with all of the forum connections, etc, that the Powers That Be truly--and I sincerely mean truly--cannot simply stroke a keyboard and erase ANY account on the Escapist.

To the best of my knowledge they've done it once or twice and that was largely a matter of discerning whether they could and how much effort it would take to do it.

It's all about how the system is set up.

WITH THAT SAID----

If you, personally, want to erase your account then this is how you can best do it yourself. Note: It is labor intensive!!!

1) De-Friend everyone you've friended.

2) Leave every User Group you've joined.

3) HERE'S THE KICKER: You have to go through every single post you've ever made in any thread ever that remains in your Post History Box and delete it.

Period: The way the system's set up there's no other way for you to erase your history here.

Hint: If you're truly interested in doing this then start at the very oldest posts and work your way towards the present.

There's a catch, of course. There's always a catch.

You cannot erase other peoples' posts which include "Quotes" of your own posts.

So if you truly want to erase your posting history on the Escapist....well....you'd better be one of those posters whom no one ever found interesting enough to quote.

That's just the way it is.

Hope you found this enlightening.
 

IceForce

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Basement Cat said:
Note: It is labor intensive!!!

1) De-Friend everyone you've friended.

2) Leave every User Group you've joined.

3) HERE'S THE KICKER: You have to go through every single post you've ever made in any thread ever that remains in your Post History Box and delete it.
Is this a joke post? I'm thinking it is.

Because there's no option to 'delete' a post. Unless I'm missing something obvious?
 

Basement Cat

Keeping the Peace is Relaxing
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IceForce said:
Basement Cat said:
Note: It is labor intensive!!!

1) De-Friend everyone you've friended.

2) Leave every User Group you've joined.

3) HERE'S THE KICKER: You have to go through every single post you've ever made in any thread ever that remains in your Post History Box and delete it.
Is this a joke post? I'm thinking it is.

Because there's no option to 'delete' a post. Unless I'm missing something obvious?
You've obviously never found yourself double posting here. :)

Or MAAAAAYYYYYYBEEEEEE I wasn't specific enough....

Just to maintain my personal sense of supreme self confidence I'll blame you for being ignorant! ;P

Seriously, though, here's how it is: No, you can't utterly "delete" an entry you've ever posted but you can go back and erase everything you wrote. You don't even need to leave a single "."

That's a period, BTW.

OTOH you've made me thing of one kind of post no one can erase: If you received a Warning for any particular Post you cannot erase it.

Sorry about the lack of semantic clarity.
 

AzrealMaximillion

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Not surprised. Most gaming websites are restructuring and laying off lots of people. I haven't been on the site too much due to how much shine Movie Bob and Sterling got here.

While I'm honestly not sad to see Movie Bob go (too many injections of political bias in his reviews), I don't wish him to suddenly become homeless. Though him shamelessly retweeting barbs directed at the Escapist has me wishing no success for him either. It proves through and through that he's kind of childish.

Honestly, I hope the next Escapist change is that they get rid of scored reviews like a bunch of other sites have.
 

Mave

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Marvel Bob leaving? sweeet! maybe I'll comeback more to check this place again.
 

IceForce

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@Basement Cat; In that case, you mean 'Edit', not 'Delete'

And if you did that, you'd be hit for low content. So I still believe you to be joking around.
 
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Ah, that sucks. He is one of main reasons I come here. That said, his non-escapist stuff isn't all that great. Overthinker was decent at one point but now I can't stand it, unless he somehow wants to continue Escape to the Movies and Big Picture on his own, I don't really see myself following him any more. I feel like an asshole for saying that.

Yahtzee is all that's left.
 

Ratty

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Signa said:
Ratty said:
Silvanus said:
Ratty said:
Sorry, as you can see in my post above if you like AAA games Bob has deemed unacceptable, you have been insulted. And you are a part of "The slime-pit that makes up the AAA-only/Dew/Doritos/pre-order base" and you do need to "slither off and find a new medium to fester in". Whether it's right or left wing, when your mentality is "with us or against us" like Bob's those tend to be the breaks.
Yep, he seems to have insulted me there, though a more generous interpretation would be that it's a lax generalisation-- stereotyping and lazy, sure, but no worse than a lot of stuff people come out with in average threads across the internet.

He still didn't call gamers sub-human, though.

Please understand, I'm not saying the stuff he came out with was fine. I'm only trying to get people to address what he really said, rather than building their own narrative and then letting every statement-- whether it fits or not-- feed into it.
He mentioned the "sub-human" bit when talking about the antagonists in SVU, who he described above as "a strain of gamers who exist and are a cancer on the hobby" don't pretend it was an unrelated tangent man. You're trying to deflect the specifics to draw away from the intention and spirit of what he has said. And come on be real, calling gamers who play core AAA games "slime" and saying they need to go "infest" somewhere else IS an insult. An insult to his readers and to the Escapists' readers.
I read that second string as talking about the AAA games industry as slime, and not gamers. I might have missed something though. Maybe if you want to interpret the "pit of slime" as the audience for the AAA industry, you might have something by citing that one, but it's a bit of a stretch. I don't know anything about SVU (or what it even stands for) but if it's as you describe, that's FAR more damning than the slime pit comment.
Well he said "The slime-pit that makes up the AAA-only/Dew/Doritos/pre-order base" As in the consumerbase.
He's calling people who buy games he doesn't approve of, i.e. most of the Escapist's audience, slime who "needs to be allowed to slither off...
...and find a new medium to fester in. Then, innovators, true (sane) longtime gamers and fresh audiences won by the mobile/indie scene..." ( https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/560025668797624320 ) so he can build gaming into what HE wants it to be. Of course this is the guy who predicted the death of PC gaming and dominance of Nintendo in 2011.
 

Signa

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Ratty said:
Signa said:
Ratty said:
Silvanus said:
Ratty said:
Sorry, as you can see in my post above if you like AAA games Bob has deemed unacceptable, you have been insulted. And you are a part of "The slime-pit that makes up the AAA-only/Dew/Doritos/pre-order base" and you do need to "slither off and find a new medium to fester in". Whether it's right or left wing, when your mentality is "with us or against us" like Bob's those tend to be the breaks.
Yep, he seems to have insulted me there, though a more generous interpretation would be that it's a lax generalisation-- stereotyping and lazy, sure, but no worse than a lot of stuff people come out with in average threads across the internet.

He still didn't call gamers sub-human, though.

Please understand, I'm not saying the stuff he came out with was fine. I'm only trying to get people to address what he really said, rather than building their own narrative and then letting every statement-- whether it fits or not-- feed into it.
He mentioned the "sub-human" bit when talking about the antagonists in SVU, who he described above as "a strain of gamers who exist and are a cancer on the hobby" don't pretend it was an unrelated tangent man. You're trying to deflect the specifics to draw away from the intention and spirit of what he has said. And come on be real, calling gamers who play core AAA games "slime" and saying they need to go "infest" somewhere else IS an insult. An insult to his readers and to the Escapists' readers.
I read that second string as talking about the AAA games industry as slime, and not gamers. I might have missed something though. Maybe if you want to interpret the "pit of slime" as the audience for the AAA industry, you might have something by citing that one, but it's a bit of a stretch. I don't know anything about SVU (or what it even stands for) but if it's as you describe, that's FAR more damning than the slime pit comment.
Well he said "The slime-pit that makes up the AAA-only/Dew/Doritos/pre-order base" As in the consumerbase.
He's calling people who buy games he doesn't approve of, i.e. most of the Escapist's audience, slime who "needs to be allowed to slither off...
...and find a new medium to fester in. Then, innovators, true (sane) longtime gamers and fresh audiences won by the mobile/indie scene..." (https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/560025668797624320) so he can build gaming into what HE wants it to be. Of course this is the guy who predicted the death of PC gaming and dominance of Nintendo in 2011.
I'm not trying to defend him, but that was an awkward time to mention gamers who pre-order. I can't help but interpret that as anger at the whole pre-order culture fostered by the AAA industry. I'd be happy to be wrong, but that's how I'm reading it. Twitter is so stupid that way.
 

Ratty

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Signa said:
Ratty said:
Signa said:
Ratty said:
Silvanus said:
Ratty said:
Sorry, as you can see in my post above if you like AAA games Bob has deemed unacceptable, you have been insulted. And you are a part of "The slime-pit that makes up the AAA-only/Dew/Doritos/pre-order base" and you do need to "slither off and find a new medium to fester in". Whether it's right or left wing, when your mentality is "with us or against us" like Bob's those tend to be the breaks.
Yep, he seems to have insulted me there, though a more generous interpretation would be that it's a lax generalisation-- stereotyping and lazy, sure, but no worse than a lot of stuff people come out with in average threads across the internet.

He still didn't call gamers sub-human, though.

Please understand, I'm not saying the stuff he came out with was fine. I'm only trying to get people to address what he really said, rather than building their own narrative and then letting every statement-- whether it fits or not-- feed into it.
He mentioned the "sub-human" bit when talking about the antagonists in SVU, who he described above as "a strain of gamers who exist and are a cancer on the hobby" don't pretend it was an unrelated tangent man. You're trying to deflect the specifics to draw away from the intention and spirit of what he has said. And come on be real, calling gamers who play core AAA games "slime" and saying they need to go "infest" somewhere else IS an insult. An insult to his readers and to the Escapists' readers.
I read that second string as talking about the AAA games industry as slime, and not gamers. I might have missed something though. Maybe if you want to interpret the "pit of slime" as the audience for the AAA industry, you might have something by citing that one, but it's a bit of a stretch. I don't know anything about SVU (or what it even stands for) but if it's as you describe, that's FAR more damning than the slime pit comment.
Well he said "The slime-pit that makes up the AAA-only/Dew/Doritos/pre-order base" As in the consumerbase.
He's calling people who buy games he doesn't approve of, i.e. most of the Escapist's audience, slime who "needs to be allowed to slither off...
...and find a new medium to fester in. Then, innovators, true (sane) longtime gamers and fresh audiences won by the mobile/indie scene..." (https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/560025668797624320) so he can build gaming into what HE wants it to be. Of course this is the guy who predicted the death of PC gaming and dominance of Nintendo in 2011.
I'm not trying to defend him, but that was an awkward time to mention gamers who pre-order. I can't help but interpret that as anger at the whole pre-order culture fostered by the AAA industry. I'd be happy to be wrong, but that's how I'm reading it. Twitter is so stupid that way.
Yeah, of course he's he's talking about that in the context of how he thinks the industry is headed for a crash and "maybe NEEDS" a crash so him and people who think like him "...can build a new gaming and a new gamer culture." He thinks every gamer except the ones he approves of need to "slither off".

I can understand how the Escapist would want to distance itself from someone sending out a message like that. "Hey welcome to the Escapist! Would you like to hear about the newest AAA games? THEN YOU NEED TO SLITHER OFF AND INFEST SOME OTHER HOBBY."

And yeah everyone should know pre-orders are bad news. I'm surprised so many are still suckered in but then marketing campaigns are very wily. "Pre-order or you won't get the whole game!" all that nonsense.
 

Basement Cat

Keeping the Peace is Relaxing
Jul 26, 2012
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IceForce said:
@Basement Cat; In that case, you mean 'Edit', not 'Delete'

And if you did that, you'd be hit for low content. So I still believe you to be joking around.
"Edit" rather than "delete"...yup.

As for joking:

1) Editing posts isn't the same thing as necro'ing, so the only posts you'd have to worry about are the ones within one month of the present day.

2) Anyone can edit their post to say "Post Deleted" or the like and there's no problem involved: Erasing what you wrote isn't the same thing as just posting "LOL" or something.
 

Gennadios

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SomeGuyOnHisComputer said:
... his non-escapist stuff isn't all that great. Overthinker was decent at one point but now I can't stand it, unless he somehow wants to continue Escape to the Movies and Big Picture on his own, I don't really see myself following him any more...
Yeah, his justification for Overthinker was that he already had set formats for Escape to the Movies and Big Picture, so he just ran wild with Overthinker, and the results weren't... impressive.

I think Bob's one of those people that need a contract to reign them in. I'll give his new content a shot but without corporate handlers I have a feeling that even the stuff that tries to follow the same formula will end up too extreme for me. And that's just based on the stuff I've read in the past ~2 hours.
 

Kameburger

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Apr 7, 2012
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Ratty said:
Signa said:
Ratty said:
Signa said:
Ratty said:
Silvanus said:
Ratty said:
Sorry, as you can see in my post above if you like AAA games Bob has deemed unacceptable, you have been insulted. And you are a part of "The slime-pit that makes up the AAA-only/Dew/Doritos/pre-order base" and you do need to "slither off and find a new medium to fester in". Whether it's right or left wing, when your mentality is "with us or against us" like Bob's those tend to be the breaks.
Yep, he seems to have insulted me there, though a more generous interpretation would be that it's a lax generalisation-- stereotyping and lazy, sure, but no worse than a lot of stuff people come out with in average threads across the internet.

He still didn't call gamers sub-human, though.

Please understand, I'm not saying the stuff he came out with was fine. I'm only trying to get people to address what he really said, rather than building their own narrative and then letting every statement-- whether it fits or not-- feed into it.
He mentioned the "sub-human" bit when talking about the antagonists in SVU, who he described above as "a strain of gamers who exist and are a cancer on the hobby" don't pretend it was an unrelated tangent man. You're trying to deflect the specifics to draw away from the intention and spirit of what he has said. And come on be real, calling gamers who play core AAA games "slime" and saying they need to go "infest" somewhere else IS an insult. An insult to his readers and to the Escapists' readers.
I read that second string as talking about the AAA games industry as slime, and not gamers. I might have missed something though. Maybe if you want to interpret the "pit of slime" as the audience for the AAA industry, you might have something by citing that one, but it's a bit of a stretch. I don't know anything about SVU (or what it even stands for) but if it's as you describe, that's FAR more damning than the slime pit comment.
Well he said "The slime-pit that makes up the AAA-only/Dew/Doritos/pre-order base" As in the consumerbase.
He's calling people who buy games he doesn't approve of, i.e. most of the Escapist's audience, slime who "needs to be allowed to slither off...
...and find a new medium to fester in. Then, innovators, true (sane) longtime gamers and fresh audiences won by the mobile/indie scene..." (https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/560025668797624320) so he can build gaming into what HE wants it to be. Of course this is the guy who predicted the death of PC gaming and dominance of Nintendo in 2011.
I'm not trying to defend him, but that was an awkward time to mention gamers who pre-order. I can't help but interpret that as anger at the whole pre-order culture fostered by the AAA industry. I'd be happy to be wrong, but that's how I'm reading it. Twitter is so stupid that way.
Yeah, of course he's he's talking about that in the context of how he thinks the industry is headed for a crash and "maybe NEEDS" a crash so him and people who think like him "...can build a new gaming and a new gamer culture." He thinks every gamer except the ones he approves of need to "slither off".

I can understand how the Escapist would want to distance itself from someone sending out a message like that. "Hey welcome to the Escapist! Would you like to hear about the newest AAA games? THEN YOU NEED TO SLITHER OFF AND INFEST SOME OTHER HOBBY."

And yeah everyone should know pre-orders are bad news. I'm surprised so many are still suckered in but then marketing campaigns are very wily. "Pre-order or you won't get the whole game!" all that nonsense.
I'm sorry to intrude on your back and forth, but I can kind of see how this would ultimately be large aspect of why he was let go. One of Bob's, in my view, biggest problems maybe from the standpoint of an employee, was that Bob, in all areas of his commentary has an utter contempt for people who disagree with him so much so that even if you take the stance like "I disagree but what he says is still entertaining" you'll eventually be driven away by the extremes to which he will drive home the point that he cannot stand dissenting opinion. And he not only understands this about himself but he views it as one of his most virtuous qualities and looks for it in others. He thinks that this is called bravery. He thinks that people on the other side are evil and worthy of his disdain, but also that neutral parties are almost worse in their enabling of those he disagree's with to exist at all.

I never cared too much about GamerGate, but his outspoken support for the harassment and bullying of those who might have been sympathetic (not even so far as support) was producing comments that made me completely cringe. He has on numerous occasions called South Park cowardly for more often then not entertaining the idea that there are two sides to some issues.

Unless you're company is marketing itself as being in the theater of the extreme (Like your Foxs and MSNBCs), and even then, you're probably going to find yourself without a job at one point or another when you start radicalizing too much in one direction. To defend that point, Both Fox news and MSNBC got rid of Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermen respectively at a point with the only possible conclusion being that they were more extreme then their respective employers were ready to stand 100% behind, and their loss of immediate revenue would pay off in the long run. I think similarly you'll notice about these layoffs as well is that there were a lot of the more outspoken voices among them. Ross Lincoln for example was certainly in this extreme category, and to a milder extent Greg Tito was the same. And that's not to position them good or bad, but for better or for worse these guys are guys who would be more at home discussing the political implications behind games as much as the games themselves, and I have to wonder if that's a safe position at the moment. After all a company has to secure sponsors, and while you could say well X company might be cowardly for not wanting to advertise a controversial figure who some see as "righteous" if you're a company that depends on these sponsors then likely you want to make their decision as painless and risk free as possible.