Yahtzee shrugs once and the entirety of the Escapist falls apart like a cartoon house
I'm surprised Yahtzee isn't the head of that whole operation, because doing anything to lose him is akin to closing the company. He's been the only one consistently keeping that company afloat since I was a wee child.
I'm surprised Yahtzee isn't the head of that whole operation
The largest reason why he stuck around as long as he did previously was precisely because he could just remain an employee. He could just make his weekly videos and spend the rest of his time writing novels, developing games and having a life without having to deal with the stress of managing a Youtube channel on his own
Man, this is wild as someone who's been watching ZP on and off since 2007. Through how many rounds of firings, near-collapses and changes of ownership has Yahtzee stuck with the Escapist until now?
In the past Yahtzee seemed mostly disconnected from the site and its other content creators, content to receive his steady paycheck even when others complained about pretty severe mismanagement and outright abuse. I got the feeling that he's become close friends with the current team (probably helps that he's moved to the US) and more active with the site overall which probably explains why he finally left this time.
I'm guessing that the management didn't expect he'd quit given his history of sticking with the company, especially now being a married man with children, or perhaps they just don't give a shit anymore.
BRB, downloading every episode of Zero Punctuation
He's been doing a lot of side content other than ZP on the Escapist for the past couple of years, like live stream discussions, DND, etc where he does actually interact with the other members of the channel, so I guess he was good friends with them. Fuckin wild that the Escapist thinks they can survive without him
Lmao the Escapist owns the rights to ZP? IP is such bullshit.
I legit hope they actually try to do zero punctuation without him. Train wrecks like that can be incredibly fun to witness.
I reckon you can use AI to do it.
I'm not joking. I do think ZP is that repetitive at this point that you could automate most of it, including his voice.
You used to get big, interesting analysis of industry trends in the middle of this or that ZP game review, but recently those have (or, had...) their own videos. The really good bits have been in Extra Punctuation for a while now.
Wait why?
Is there any backstory here?
They were basically making him the face of the company and he was showing up in increasingly more non ZP content so without any additional context I'm gonna guess new management and/or management direction forcing him to do more work for the same or less pay?
Edit: Ok this looks to stem from the editor in chief being fired
The other high ranking people leaving appear to have quit because of that rather than also being fired.
Seems like it's the case of the editor building relationships with fellow employees then taking his team with him to form a new venture after he gets terminated.
Which would also explain why Yahtzee didn't care about all the restructuring before but does now.
A) They sacked his friend
B) He can see the ship sinking
C) The sacked friend has a plan to strike out on his own to build a new media entity and wants to take some of the top talent with him he's built a rapport with to help him with the venture
D) Because of a&b, c actually seems like the best option. Which would explain why now when not before.Good that Yahtzee's finally moving on from a brand that could only really hold him back for a long time now. I'm excited to see what he gets up to next!
I've been watching Yahtzee's reviews for more than a decade pretty much every week, and that has been literally the only reason I've ever gone to the Escapist website... these guys are toast without him, this time for good
The fuck? What happen with the mass firing? Yahtzee basically carried escapist back when escapist is run by skeleton crew.
G!merGate either turned the leadership of The Escapist into cryptofascist chuds or they were already there and the mask peeled away.
Fuck The Escapist.
I lost track and stopped paying attention; I assumed it was the same libertarian ghouls on top.
It's always been a spark of joy to me that Yahtzee somehow never became a chud incel gamer fascist who whines about cancel culture, even though he was precisely the correct demographic at exactly the right time. He even wore a fedora.
He seems like he's become more mellow with age and seems like an overall nice guy. His videos about game design are really thoughtful and well made, more than his rantsona videos would suggest
Around the time of GamerGate he was kind of edging on that territory
I remember him getting mad at "Social Justice Warriors".
I think the specific criticism was that they were only posting online and without doing anything in real life.
I'm always surprised tomfind out he's not terrible. It's nice ya know for once to look at gamer content you enjoyed long ago and not just cringe at the chud transformation
He has been literally the only thing keeping the Escapist afloat for like a decade, what the fuck is up with that company
Yeesh, he's been the main spring in that engine for years now. Wonder what happens next...
ok, had to google "Gamurs". Didn't know Destructoid and The Escapist shared a parent company.
I’m more surprised to hear that The Escapist still exists, honestly thought they went bust like ten years ago.
Looks like it. The last time I paid attention to Escapist was when Sterling was still there, and that was about ten years ago.
Just like when Jeff left Giant Bomb, what's even left of the website?
