I'm curious to go through the thread and see when the first mention of "Youtube" comes up.
In my eyes, it's Youtube that is most responsible for what's happening at the Escapist. And I'm part of that problem; I go to Youtube for the content. I watch Jeremy Jahns and Schmoes Knows for movie stuff, I enjoy Emergency Awesome for other stuff, I like ComicGirl19's comic stuff, etc. I click on the "Related" links on a regular basis when things look interesting. I don't generally bother with content on the Escapist beyond some of the more fun ones like LRR/Feed Dump and No Right Answer (I used to watch Top 5 with Lisa every week, was sad to see her go), though I do watch the Big Picture regularly. I rarely read anything MovieBob wrote, stopped watching his movie reviews months ago, never read anything Yahtzee wrote, because I don't buy new games regularly I haven't watched ZP in 2015 yet. Sometimes I'll click on more interesting articles, but since the first three or four podcasts of the new format I've ignored the rest (particularly ones with MovieBob in them - too often they were the MovieBob and Moderator talk about stuff while a Guest says "Okay, yeah, that's right." every 3-5 minutes.) and generally just come here for the Forums.
Gamergate isn't helping matters, but neither did the Mass Effect 3 fiasco, nor other controversies where the Media has taken to protecting the Content Creators/Developers (mostly) and attacking their Audience. It's a fine line to walk, protecting the Developers from the Audience and respecting the feelings of the Audience, and the Escapist (along with most other Gaming media) is not walking that very well. With MovieBob and Jim gone, maybe that will change as neither of those two really stood up for the audience on a regular basis (except when it suited Jim's needs to sound like a consumer advocate, and he could take on the easy targets). I think alot of the negative feelings towards the media in the gaming community gets dumped on the Escapist unfairly, and much of that falls on the backs of Jim and Bob.
Lastly, the politicization of gaming has hurt the Escapist. Not so much as in "Liberal vs Conservative" but as in "My Side vs Your Side", where if you aren't completely on My Side, you're helping Their Side and must be attacked. Mass Effect 3 ending and Gamergate are perfect examples of this and when the Escapist tries to be neutral, too many people from both sides see neutrality as aiding the Enemy. GJP summed it up almost perfectly when Greg Tito was attacked for even allowing discussion of the ZQ situation on the site in any way. The site was as neutral as you could be on the matter, on one side allowing people to talk about it and on the other side, harshly moderating what was said, but just the fact that it was being allowed was enough to get Tito in trouble with one side. Because the Escapist has tried to stay neutral, it gets flack from both sides.
All in all, though, I don't see Doom and Gloom for the site. Jim was much more hated than loved when he first came here. Bob didn't catch on for a few months after Escape to the Movies debuted. Other content creators will take their places and will earn a following here, or on whatever form the Escapist takes in the future. The Forums, I hope, will remain open and as moderated as they are now since they're probably the biggest draw this place has. Leave the forums as they are and the users will create enough content for site clicks - though if you really want to get risky, open it up so that the top 10 forum topics are displayed, not just the top 5...
