the silence said:
What happened with Extra Credits and the Escapist? I never watched the former and only found the Escapist after they were gone.
Bob_McMillan said:
Always wanted to know this too.
Alrighty then- here you are.
<spoiler=History>Around the end of July 2011, there was a dispute between The Escapist and the team that provided content for the show Extra Credits. After not being paid for months, the Extra Credits team needed to pay for surgery for their artist, Allison Theus. They began a charity fund, separate from The Escapist, and received more than enough money. They planned to create a game publishing label with the money, where the revenue would go directly into funding subsequent projects.[17]
The Escapist stated the money should have been used to create more episodes of Extra Credits for The Escapist and to compensate Themis Media for donation incentives, such as premium memberships and T-shirts.[18] As a result, Extra Credits broke ties with The Escapist, and the show has since aired on Penny Arcade, ScrewAttack[19] and has its own channel on YouTube.
Source [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Escapist_%28magazine%29]
Long story short .... accident happens to EC's female artist. She needed a new arm in order to draw so EC threw in a fundraiser. Instead of getting say $25,000 ... they ended up getting over $150,000 in donations. Escapist wanted that extra money to be used on their show Extra Credits, but dude in charge of EC James Portnow, decided to use that money for personal favor like opening up an Indie Studio. This led to a dispute and eventually, EC leaving The Escapist.
What I don't appreciate is how it went down. EC made victim excuses, tried to lie, along with trying to rally users against The Escapist while our GM at the time was just honest. GM didn't hide around the bush- he admitted what went down and James (mainly James, not everyone in EC) tried to deny such facts. This caused countless Escapist users to think The Escapist was being greedy until near the end, the truth was shown causing EC to take their leave without even having the decency to try working things out with The Escapist.
Says a lot when the GM approached James with some questions, and automatically James summons lawyers to have a court battle ready. Like that's kind of sketchy already, and James never considered what was actually best for his OWN show or The Escapist fans.
The lies and betrayal stuck with me since and only a handful of people remember sadly. Extra Credits isn't even mentioned anywhere else now a days anyways ... but again, Jim Sterling left here just to spread his wings and MAN is he rocking it with views.
EDIT: I'll add this fact before anyone gets on me... that Escapist was behind in paying their employees. However, James (before the accident happened) was okay with the delay and forged more videos out anyways. It wasn't until this dispute came up when James told everyone that Escapist wasn't paying their employees despite earlier being okay with no pay for the time being. So yeah ....