The Escapist Classic Videos: Apocalypse Lane Ep. 01

[Mr.Mattress]

Edit: Just watched the episode. I think this one was better left buried.

Yeah, the first couple episodes of Apocalypse Lane are really really rough. By Episode 10 the show starts getting better, though. Wish I could say the same thing about Gamer Dogs, though.

If you're bringing back the Classics, I demand you bring back Unforgotten Realms!

 

[Veldel]

Edit: Just watched the episode. I think this one was better left buried.

Yeah, the first couple episodes of Apocalypse Lane are really really rough. By Episode 10 the show starts getting better, though. Wish I could say the same thing about Gamer Dogs, though.

If you're bringing back the Classics, I demand you bring back Unforgotten Realms!

it has never left tho http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/unforgotten-realms?page=3

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

...A staff member. They do exist...

But hopefully this is a start of at least maybe hopefully hinting that new stuff is on the way?
Please?
Pretty please?

I'd cut off my arm for something as good as Apocalypse Lane or There Will Be Brawl to be hosted here again.

 

[Sassafrass]

...A staff member. They do exist...

But hopefully this is a start of at least maybe hopefully hinting that new stuff is on the way?
Please?
Pretty please?

I'd cut off my arm for something as good as Apocalypse Lane or There Will Be Brawl to be hosted here again.

I'd also cut off your arm for good content. Maybe even your leg.
...Wait, how much are kidneys worth?

 

[bobdark]

i always liked the unskippable stuff

 

[JenSeven]

Eh, I kind of figured that people would complain ... it's like that saying "You just can't please everyone."
Great stuff, this content is so nostalgic and makes me adore what we had in the past. Thank you guys for uploading this.

Complain? Maybe.
I mean, I was with the Escapist the moment you signed Yahtzee. I noticed him when his Youtube things went up, the same as The Escapist and moved with him here.
I registered for the site at a later moment, when I felt the need to comment.

I have watched all of this content when it was fresh and new.
Reminding me of this only makes me remember the days when The Escapist was big and important and was a place for great content.
All that reminding me of this is doing is realizing how much The Escapist has lost over the years and how wrong it went. And reminding me that the only thing that really brings me here is Yahtzee, because that's really the only thing that is still here.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

So your idea is to remind us of how great The Escapist used to be? It was literally THE BEST gaming website in the world back then. It just makes me sad that the website's been reduced to this.

I still remember when the timeline of this episode was revealed. It was amazing

 

[martyrdrebel27]

just don't run old Jimquisitions, this site doesn't deserve that honor anymore, sorry to say...

i really wanna know what happened here. 5 years from now, i look forward to someone doing a post-mortem on Escapist. All the biggest names and talents in the industry, everything going for it, a decent community, at one point, then.... this.

is it just me, or did it start when they bafflingly added Captcha to solve a bot problem that didn't even exist?....

 

[KissingSunlight]

What the fuck did I just watched? That was silly, nonsensical, and kind of boring.

Escapist, I am begging you. There are some talented people who still visit this site that can provide some great content for you. People don't want to work for free and have somebody else profit off of them. If you are willing to make it worth while for people to create content for you. There is a chance that we can make The Escapist relevant again.

 

[JenSeven]

is it just me, or did it start when they bafflingly added Captcha to solve a bot problem that didn't even exist?....

What happened? Well, I can guess at what happened, from my own experience and perspective.
You see, The Escapist was rapidly growing after they signed Yahtzee. His series took off like a rocket and ad-revenue was pouring into The Escapist. They wanted to grow bigger, so they signed on a lot of talent. The Extra Credits team, Loading Ready Run, Jim Sterling, Lisa Foyles, Miracle Of Sound and so on and so on.
They were on top of the world. The Weekly Content schedule was full to bursting, with multiple high quality things being released each day. They expected to keep growing and that more money was going to come in. Heck, I myself subscribed to them, to make it all ad-free. Just a yearly payment to get rid of the ads, or in my case, to at least give them some money so that my ad blocker doesn't cheat them out of money.
So, they kept on growing and signing more people, expecting that the more people they sign, the more income they get. They never thought there was a ceiling. They never thought the growth would stop. Well, it did. And then they couldn't pay their content creators. So, most left. Leaving a LOT of bad blood and quite a lot of fans that were disillusioned by the mismanagement of The Escapist. And with the content creators, the fans also started to leave. I myself canceled that subscription. They did not deserve my money if it wasn't being used to pay for the content.

And that leads to where we are now. The empty shell of a decaying corpse that fell under its own ambition. Never stopping to take a look if there was ever a ceiling that they could collide with and be brought down by.


At least, that is my take on it.
It might be different from what happened, but I think this might be the most logical explanation of how The Escapist came to fall and end up in the state that it now is. With the information that is available to us.

If someone has a different take on what happened, I'd be happy to hear it and adjust my views on what happened based on that other information.

 

[IceForce]

If someone has a different take on what happened, I'd be happy to hear it and adjust my views on what happened based on that other information.

We've had entire threads dedicated to asking what the hell happened to the site, and in those threads a very common word starts to emerge again and again, - "Gamergate".

Escapist tried to ride the Gamergate bandwagon, thinking it was an untapped market and a huge potential cash-cow. In reality, it was none of these things and only crashed and burned, and the Escapist soon followed suit.

 

[IceForce]

is it just me, or did it start when they bafflingly added Captcha to solve a bot problem that didn't even exist?....

You've got this the wrong way around. There's currently a massive bot problem, and there's no captcha (or any technical solution) to fix it.

 

[Drathnoxis]

At least, that is my take on it.
It might be different from what happened, but I think this might be the most logical explanation of how The Escapist came to fall and end up in the state that it now is. With the information that is available to us.

If someone has a different take on what happened, I'd be happy to hear it and adjust my views on what happened based on that other information.

I'd add that a major contributor to the Escapists downfall was Youtube. Mainly that they put their main breadwinner (Zero Punctuation) onto Youtube, with no effort made to actually draw viewers to the site proper. One week delay for ZP videos and a short mention of the site in the description is nothing when ZPs aren't released in time with game launches anyway and nobody actually reads video descriptions. Numbers I collected show a correlation between the decline in forum activity and the time that they started hosting ZP on Youtube (July 2011). Forum activity had been rising until 2011, and then began falling drastically in 2012 onward.

What they should have done was delay each ZP a month and add a short teaser after the video showing clips from each of the upcoming episodes they could be watching right now on the Escapist proper with a clickable link in the video bringing them to the actual site. This would bring people in contact with all the other good content that was hosted exclusively on the site that they wouldn't have otherwise seen, and actually build up the Escapist brand rather than reducing it to yet another Youtube contributor.

What they did makes no sense, you don't bring people to your circus by putting your best act in the bigger and more convenient circus across the street, and you don't get to be an actual industry player by being a money leech in between that act and the circus that is paying them.

 

[Clankenbeard]

Escapist, I am begging you. There are some talented people who still visit this site that can provide some great content for you. People don't want to work for free and have somebody else profit off of them. If you are willing to make it worth while for people to create content for you. There is a chance that we can make The Escapist relevant again.

^^THIS!^^

I have posted at least three times that it would be great to have a new user WebComic contest. There were 210 entries for the contest in 2010 which spawned Critical Miss:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99026-Webcomic-Contest-Winner-Announced-and-Gallery-Is-Live

Or how about another Escapist Film Festival like the four previous ones (I found links to 2008 and 2010):
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/contests/register/filmfest_2008
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/4thAnnualFilmFestival

OT1: I miss Doraleous & Associates the most. Those guys took their series to Kickstarter to finish out.
OT2: Game Dogs was well intentioned and well-animated, but not funny. Don't bring that back. If I remember correctly, it was written and produced by The Escapist.

 

[Zydrate]

I think the stories of the downfall are missing a couple of details, but it would spark some nonsense.

I'm still in the market for migration. I'm poking RockPaperShotgun a bit more but I heard iffy things about them, too.

Truth is, I'll basically just follow Yahtzee wherever he goes.