The Escapist implodes as entire video team resigns after parent company Gamurs Group fired editor-in-chief Nick Calandra

Armenius

Armenius

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The Escapist was part of a slew of acquisitions last year by the company that owns Prima Games and Dot Esports. Nick says that he was fired for "not meeting goals" that were never set by the company. He declined severance pay to avoid signing an NDA and accuses Gamurs Group of not understanding the team that helped build the audience for The Escapist. The number of resignations includes Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, host of Zero Punctuation.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-e...-termination-of-editor-in-chief-nick-calandra

On Monday, Calandra announced on X that he was fired for "not achieving goals" reportedly set by the Gamurs Group, which acquired The Escapist last year.

"I was let go for 'not achieving goals' that were never properly set for us, and a lack of understanding of our audience and the team that built that audience," Calandra wrote. "I've watched many colleagues let go for the same reasons, and today was my day."

GamesIndustry.biz has reached out to Calandra and the Gamurs Group for more clarification.

https://x.com/nickjcal/status/1721640314203464045
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https://x.com/YahtzeeCroshaw/status/1721687212541280425
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Feels weird considering a lot of people here are in their 30s-40s according to a recent GenMay poll. The Escapist launched when I first started university in 2005 and it was a big thing among the student body. This was before Youtube was even a thing.
Twisted Kidney said:
Aren't they the people that did that Zero Punctuation thing back in the olden times?

Edit: Yeah, that Yahtzee guy.
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Yahtzee started Zero Punctuation independently and later sold it to The Escapist for a cushy revenue stream.
 
Armenius said:
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Feels weird considering a lot of people here are in their 30s-40s according to a recent GenMay poll. The Escapist launched when I first started university in 2005 and it was a big thing among the student body. This was before Youtube was even a thing.

Yahtzee started Zero Punctuation independently and later sold it to The Escapist for a cushy revenue stream.
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Now I feel old. Remember when the Angry Video Game Nerd wasn't on youtube? And the only videos of him were when he was called the Angry Nintendo Nerd? Holy crap time flies. I didn't know that Zero Punctuation was making videos still.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Now I feel old. Remember when the Angry Video Game Nerd wasn't on youtube? And the only videos of him were when he was called the Angry Nintendo Nerd? Holy crap time flies. I didn't know that Zero Punctuation was making videos still.
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Time seems to go by faster the older you get. I'm about to turn 40 and it feels like a graduated university just a few years ago.
 
Armenius said:
View attachment 611678

Feels weird considering a lot of people here are in their 30s-40s according to a recent GenMay poll. The Escapist launched when I first started university in 2005 and it was a big thing among the student body. This was before Youtube was even a thing.

Yahtzee started Zero Punctuation independently and later sold it to The Escapist for a cushy revenue stream.
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Sometimes comfort is its own gradual smothering. Taking money from Epic to be an exclusive on their store is similar, you just lobbed your game down an abandoned mine. You survive, but you can never thrive.

Kudos to Calandra from turning down the payola and speaking out. When I left the blue co they held my severance hostage behind me signing a contract to train the (entire fucking) Indian company that was supposed to replace me. I told them to eat their own genitalia and had to win my severance (and damages) in court. I quit tech, started building homes and I have never looked back since. Through the window of today, being terminated was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
 
polonyc2 said:
referring to it as 'University' instead of college means you were either born or raised outside the USA...am I right or am I right?
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Would you prefer Post-Secondary Education? Learned that one from watching those wacky Canadians at Linus Media Group.
 
Armenius said:
View attachment 611678

Feels weird considering a lot of people here are in their 30s-40s according to a recent GenMay poll. The Escapist launched when I first started university in 2005 and it was a big thing among the student body. This was before Youtube was even a thing.

Yahtzee started Zero Punctuation independently and later sold it to The Escapist for a cushy revenue stream.
Click to expand...

I'm no boomer. I teeter on the edge between Gen X and Millennial.

I've never heard of Escapist.

Back in the day it was all HardOCP, Anandtech & in the early days (before Dr Pabst sold out) Toms Hardware.

There were a handful of secondary sites, but they were all hardware focused.

I don't think I've ever visited or read a games publication, any games publication. It's been all hardware all the time for me.

I've never even once intentionally read (or watched) a game review. I prefer making up my own mind.

In this industry, I've always considered the hardware publications king, and the game publications borderline retarded, and have just generally avoided them completely. This was only reinforced when the whole GamerGate stupidity happened.

I've still heard of many of them, but I had never heard of Escapist.
 
I remember watching a few Zero Punctuation videos years ago, but that was the extend of my interaction with that website.

In any case, I can't say that I've found "games journalism" to be particularly valuable. I did read PC Gamer periodically in the late 90s/early 2000s during the before-times, when "games journalists" actually talked about things like video games and not things like why I might not be interested in buying a PS5 because Donald Trump is president, or why I might want to think twice about playing the latest Mario game because Mario rescuing the princess reinforces negative gender stereotypes, and the game causes harm because Peach isn't portrayed appropriately enough as a strong, independent woman who don't need no man.
 
HockeyJon said:
I remember watching a few Zero Punctuation videos years ago, but that was the extend of my interaction with that website.

In any case, I can't say that I've found "games journalism" to be particularly valuable. I did read PC Gamer periodically in the late 90s/early 2000s during the before-times, when "games journalists" actually talked about things like video games and not things like why I might not be interested in buying a PS5 because Donald Trump is president, or why I might want to think twice about playing the latest Mario game because Mario rescuing the princess reinforces negative gender stereotypes, and the game causes harm because Peach isn't portrayed appropriately enough as a strong, independent woman who don't need no man.
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For me, game journalism stopped being of any value when I noticed games which were bordering on being objectively bad were getting 7/10 (or better) scores. Games that were universally panned by actual people were getting decent review scores. It became obvious to me that so called game journalists didn't have the balls to piss off the publishers and were therefore of no use.

This was a common practice well before the woke BS started. That being said, there are still some decent reviewers out there. Though the hyperbole in every fucking video title and thumbnail makes finding anything of value much harder than it needs to be.
 
Never heard of em. I was a GameTrailers and FiringSquad guy before YouTube destroyed the hosted web site business for anything that wasn't built around sales and commerce. I'm assuming these guys did something like that....(???)....... You know, back when Amazon sold mostly books......
 
Dan_D said:
For me, game journalism stopped being of any value when I noticed games which were bordering on being objectively bad were getting 7/10 (or better) scores. Games that were universally panned by actual people were getting decent review scores. It became obvious to me that so called game journalists didn't have the balls to piss off the publishers and were therefore of no use.

This was a common practice well before the woke BS started. That being said, there are still some decent reviewers out there. Though the hyperbole in every fucking video title and thumbnail makes finding anything of value much harder than it needs to be.
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Yep. That's the case with movies as well, which I find happens for what I suspect are a few reasons:

1) What critics want and what the audience wants don't always align. The critics want a "film", but the audience wants slapstick comedy and stuff going boom. These desires don't always align.
2) The critics have to please their clique or their partnerships and might not want to rock the boat. This is kind of like how stock market analysts don't want to rate anything a "sell" because then they lose access to the board and it's harder to do their jobs.
3) Critics might be hesitant to criticize popular IP due to fan backlash. I would point to Star Wars Episode 8 being a classic example of this, where I'm not convinced film critics felt they were "allowed" to hate that movie until the audience said they were, and Episode 9 ratings from the critics dropped precipitously after the fans let them know the previous movie sucked (spoiler alert, BOTH movies sucked).

Anyways, that's a trend I noticed as well, and I fully agree, it makes you question what the role of a reviewer or a critic is in the first place if their conclusions are basically worthless.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Kudos to Calandra from turning down the payola and speaking out.
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Yes. Ditto Yahtzee for quitting. Although Calandra not realizing he'd be locked out of his corporate email is a bit naive; that's just how it's done, to make sure he doesn't go for revenge.
 
Darunion said:
I've heard of the escapist but cant recall ever looking at it. Looking at it now it doesnt seem to bring anything to the table.
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Their best days were in the past. Shamus Young of Twenty Sided Tale used to do a column years ago. Escapist nearly died probably 4-5 years back, but I guess a new owner bought them and tried to revitalize it. I haven't really paid much attention since then.
 
You could see things were about to change when they they started pushing a Pateron sub.
 
erek said:
Never heard of it
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Zero Punctuation was literally the guy who came up with the now ubiquitous term "Glorious PC Gaming Master Race" as a backhanded sarcastic comment in his The Witcher review.

The Escapist was NEVER prime-time, but it had some very good 'flash in the pan' content that inevitably moved elsewhere because management was apparently atrocious from the beginning.
 
KazeoHin said:
Zero Punctuation was literally the guy who came up with the now ubiquitous term "Glorious PC Gaming Master Race" as a backhanded sarcastic comment in his The Witcher review.

The Escapist was NEVER prime-time, but it had some very good 'flash in the pan' content that inevitably moved elsewhere because management was apparently atrocious from the beginning.
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I loved his older videos where he opened up with older popular songs.

And then he switched to some generic rock guitar riffs and it was just… soulless.
 
I'm a year younger, and am firmly in GenX and clutch on to my LaserDisc players with my dying breath. And I used to follow Zero Punctuation.

More entertaining than informative as game reviews. But I agreed with Yahtzee more time than I didn't.
 
HockeyJon said:
Yep. That's the case with movies as well, which I find happens for what I suspect are a few reasons:

1) What critics want and what the audience wants don't always align. The critics want a "film", but the audience wants slapstick comedy and stuff going boom. These desires don't always align.
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It's true that what film critics and moviegoers want are worlds apart. Though I don't think modern critics are looking towards "film" the way Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin did back in the day. I think modern critics are looking at the identity politics checklist albeit for the same sort of pretentious reasoning. They feel like movies should say something and the identity politics are simply the hot thing in their view and its what movies should be about. (That's my take on it anyway.)
HockeyJon said:
2) The critics have to please their clique or their partnerships and might not want to rock the boat. This is kind of like how stock market analysts don't want to rate anything a "sell" because then they lose access to the board and it's harder to do their jobs.
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This is actually an issue for any reviewer. You end up with friends at these companies or at least, good working relationships. Once you have human faces to these companies its harder to call something crap because it can affect jobs and people you actually know. Few reviewers seem to have the integrity to push forward and tell it like it is in light of this.
HockeyJon said:
3) Critics might be hesitant to criticize popular IP due to fan backlash. I would point to Star Wars Episode 8 being a classic example of this, where I'm not convinced film critics felt they were "allowed" to hate that movie until the audience said they were, and Episode 9 ratings from the critics dropped precipitously after the fans let them know the previous movie sucked (spoiler alert, BOTH movies sucked).
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Yeah, I can see this. Anytime you go against the grain on something that's super popular you know you'll get flak. It's less of an issue reviewing hardware than some other products, but I know that I have some contrary opinions on firearms or firearm accessories in particular and people are sometimes taken back by that and you end up feeling like you have to justify your thinking to other people.
HockeyJon said:
Anyways, that's a trend I noticed as well, and I fully agree, it makes you question what the role of a reviewer or a critic is in the first place if their conclusions are basically worthless.
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Precisely. I don't bother with movie or game reviews anymore. They simply have no value to me. The only thing I do is look for gameplay video and I judge that to decide if something is worth the risk or not.
 
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