Supahewok said:
A lot (read: everyone) in this thread's lamenting the decline of video content on the Escapist. I'm not in the same boat. For me, the Escapist has been on the decline since they cut the newsletter (that nearly always had something interesting to read) and the numerous columns. Know how the Escapist has Shamus Young and Robert Rath writing columns? Back in the day the Escapist had at least 5 going at once that I can recall (including Shamus), along with a joke one. (that I can't recall the name of now; the writer's name was Marion or something?) All of them usually had something thoughtful and smart to say.
All of that starting getting the axe near the end of Russ Pitt's run, I think. It's probably why he left.
And those articles and columns covered the gamut of games criticism, positive and negative. A lot of them showed a love for games and the people who played them, not a desire to tear them down that has become a prevailing attitude over the past two years.
I miss that website. And I hate that the archives for the site it is today have absolutely horrible archives for anything that goes further back than a year, so I can't even find examples of what I'm talking about since I don't remember the specific names of articles and columns.
You and me both, brother.
The good news is, I've got some actual examples of the articles you're talking about here:
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/reliable-source/7286-Reliable-Source-I-Sometimes-Shoplift-From-GameStop>Marion Cox's "Reliable Source" column
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/6003-Dice-vs-D-Pad>Shamus Young's "Experienced Points"
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/ask-dr-mark/8726-Dating-Sims>Mark J. Kline's "Ask Dr. Mark"
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/firstperson/9763-On-The-Other-Side-of-Videogame-History>Dennis Scimeca's "First Person
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/view-from-the-road/7822-View-From-the-Road-Where-Everybody-Knows-Your-Name>John Funk's "Views from the Road
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_8/50-Death-to-the-Games-Industry-Part-I>some
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_273/8145-Confessions-of-a-GameStop-Employee-Part-One>representative
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_312/8978-The-Games-People-Don-t-Play>articles
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_292/8619-Ad-Wars>from
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_225/6702-Notorious-R-O-B>the
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_157/5023-The-Age-of-the-World-Builders>weekly
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_156/5006-The-Force-is-Strong-in-This-One>issue
<url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_96/538-Hero-Worship>era.
Bonus: an actual useable <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/newsletters/archive/1?news_searchsort=date_sent+desc&news_searchpage=1>archive for the weekly issues.
This is the kind of thing that drew me to this site. It was a celebration of a shared hobby. Ever since Extra Credits, though, this site has been moving away from that. In some ways I can't blame the management for following the money there, but unfortunately it looks like the whole self flagellation schtick isn't bringing in the cash anymore, and a lot of the people from the old days have been scared off because it's just not the site they joined. I really hope the site can recover.