And nothing of value was lost.
After dismissing various personnel, journalist publication The Escapist has witnessed a mass resignation, involving the departure of the lead from its only show of actual relevance, Zero Punctuation.
The Escapist originated as an online magazine in 2005, gaining significant traction during the 2010s. A substantial workforce reduction occurred in 2016-2017, leading to the website’s acquisition and relaunch under new ownership in 2018.
The Escapist sacked various figureheads, such as Nick Calandra, their editor-in-chief and one of their prominent authors. It was following his dismissal alongside other employees who got fired that resulted in a flurry of resignations.
He further proclaimed on Twitter that his resignation came from The Escapist “not achieving their goals”, because they like many other bastardized journalist platforms are phasing out of relevance post hast.
For Nick to decline his severance pay after being let go truly highlights that something big has happened behind closed doors at The Escapist who quite literally from this day onwards is most certainly fucked.
Additional departures or terminations involve contributors KC Nwosu, Will Cruz, Jesse Galena, Darren Mooney, Amy Campbell, and Sebastian Ruiz, alongside editors Parkes Harman and Jesse Schwab, and designer JM8.
Journalism hardly pays, unless of course your publication employs copywriting tactics, or uses itself to promote / shill for worthless Windows CD Keys or favorable game / tech reviews.
The Escapist died a long time ago, it was more or less a skeleton crew up until this point keeping the lights on, namely from the likes of Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, the voice and mind behind the Zero Punctuation video series.
Ben resigned in solidarity as have several other members of The Escapist.
Zero Punctuation is a “humorous” video game review series, consisting of rapid, quick-paced video reviews with comedic, and often scathing commentary about various video games, highlighting their pros, cons while tearing apart the negative aspects of the game in a comedic aspect with vulgar language.
The reviews are typically accentuated by quick-paced and witty animations.
Yahtzee leaves The Escapist leaving behind the only sort of relevance the publication outlet had, with Zero Punctuation originating back in 2007 and has since accumulated over 800 episodes. The Escapist’s YouTube channel boasts over 1.2 million subscribers but with over one billion total views, with Zero Punctuation reigning as their most watched series.
Its highest-viewed video has garnered 4.3 million views, a Zero Punctuation review of Minecraft.
Their mass resignation wasn’t merely a coincidence, as they intend on sticking together for the most part and going independent, The Escapist for that matter will undoubtedly fade into obscurity following the effective cancelation of its only valuable contribution with their journalism, Zero Punctuation.
