What happened at The Escapist, and what it says about corporate BS

✔ SUPPORT ✔
Patreon: / councilofgeeks
KZbin Membership: / @councilofgeeks
Paypal tip jar: PayPal.me/councilofgeeks
Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/verawylde
Amazon Wishlist: www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls...
✔ OTHER CHANNELS ✔
Break Room of Geeks / @breakroomofgeeks
Vera Wylde: / verawylde
✔ SHOP ✔
Merch: www.teepublic.com/user/counci...
My Book on Gender Fluidity: a.co/d/atfibBA (Amazon Associate link, commissions earned)
My Fantasy Novel: amzn.to/2SCxB8j (Amason Associate link, commissions earned)
✔ SOCIAL MEDIA ✔
Twitter: / councilofgeeks
Facebook: / councilofgeeks
TikTok: / verawylde1
Instagram: council.of....
Twitch: / councilofgeeks
✔ OTHER PROJECTS ✔
Council of Geeks Podcast (home of What the Frell & Jumpgate): councilofgeeks.libsyn.com/
✔ CONTACT ✔
E-mail: [e-mail]
Mail:
Council of Geeks
PO Box 4429
St. Johnsbury, VT 05819

[@Bedinsis]

Nick Calandra, on the Second Wind Discord, had this to say about this video: "This video is basically PERFECT in its explanation of the whole Escapist situation. Very worth watching. It's almost like this person was in the room with us. Really worth watching if you want to understand it.".

[@localhearthian2387]

Let's all laugh an an industry that never learns anything, te he he...

[@sycoraxrock]

I came here to say that.

[@dragon1130]

Dang... ya beat me to it. Guess I'll just say: "This week in R word moments in G word H word."

[@voltijuice8576]

I was molested by the invisible hand of the market, and all I got was this stupid t-shirt

[@ornofthetalon1]

Perfect comment

[@a.harrington1634]

I love knowing that everyone who reads this comment will be singing it in Yahtzee's voice.

[@ghostporcupine]

Always a shock to my system when people talk about CollegeHumor. I worked there and we all got laid off bam. IAC had been trying to sell CH and there were no buyers so Sam had to desperately pull together money and buy it himself. I love what they've done, I'm so proud of them!!

[@catherineelmore2004]

I wasn't really watching them at the time all this went down - I just recently fell down the Dimension 20 rabbit hole, and so seeing this was *really surprising*. Good for Sam and the team being able to bring it back!

[@solhsa]

The story I heard was that facebook was inflating video view counts, so CH moved all their video content there thinking it was more popular there than on youtube, but this turned out not to be true and the actual views went down.. which was a contributing factor for the shutdown.

[@Wimpywoo16]

Corporate greed? Sure. But did you see how the Editor was running the channel? Asking their audience thousands of dollars to play games🤨 Blocking anyone who had anything bad to say, constructive criticism or not. #Justice #Karma

[@milktenders6219]

Colleghumor was a sad loss indeed, but I’m glad Sam and the team were able to pick it up, because Dropout really is fully worth the subscription, and everyone seems to be having a ton of fun. Always awful that corporate greed tries to kill anything that’s actually good and makes people happy because it’s not a clean and perfect product to sell to investors

[@zoggoth]

There was an Escapist stream scheduled for November 6th, a week later it's still up & people are just hanging out in the chat So with no new videos, no new posts & not even shutting down a dead stream, I really think that the parent company has lost the log-in details

[@peterclarke7240]

I think an important thing to mention is just how much respect and love Yahtzee has for both Nick and his co-workers. I think Gamurs thought Yahtzee would stick around regardless, but they thought that because they didn't understand him. Nick brought something out of Yahtzee that was genuinely lovely. Yahtzee realised he loved being a mentor for the younger, less experienced creators. He particularly views JM8 as his Padawan. Nick made that possible, and Yahtzee is a goddamn team player, despite his cynical, acerbic persona. So when the shit hit the fan, Yahtzee dumped the thing that had made him famous, ZP, which Gamurs owned the rights to, and just walked the fuck out of the door. He's also personally funding a bunch of Second Wind projects directly. He's put his money where his mouth is and making sure not just that all the creators are looked after, but that the projects us viewers had been promised by them come to fruition. Oh, and Sebastian, the guy who goes by the name of Frost, Wrote this when he quit: "I'm gonna put my faith in the guy who put his faith in me." Nick is a fucking legend.

[@Distortion0]

They challenged Yahtzee to act on his principles and he didn't even flinch.

[@margotpreston]

@@Distortion0 If only we were all so steadfast.

[@YellaChickenOG]

To add to that...I think Yahtzee is a true punk. I don't mean that in the context of "you little punk, get off my lawn", I mean it in a sense of his attitude and opinion of corporate culture and wealth and the sh*t that comes from it. He strikes me as someone that has that 1970's British punk spirit of "f*ck corps, eat the rich, etc" and I think that's also a large part of why he didn't stand for this and why it all blew up in Gamurs face.

[@noahbossier1131]

I respect him as a person

[@Kevin_2435]

More than that, Yahtzee and those other creators knew they had a winning team under Nick's leadership. From the sounds of it, The Escapist as a company was getting passed around by a number of entities and the only people that were there through it all and knew what the vision and the goals were, were Nick and his team. They created success together. They know the video business, probably better than whoever the big wigs at the parent company are because they are probably some corporate people from some conglomerate dealing in chemicals, oil, or real estate that don't understand the video business. From what it sounds like, Yahtzee knows that he is one of the original badass KZbinrs from the earliest days. He's been through it all. He's been creating content on his own since the very beginning. ZP didn't make Yahtzee famous. Yahtzee made ZP famous. It's about damn time that he gets the recognition and pay he deserves doing things his way in something he owns without some overlords looking over his shoulder the entire time worried about their cut of his success. I'm glad they made this decision. They were the driving force behind the recent successes of The Escapist. The parent company needed them more than they ever needed a parent company.

[@andrewphilos]

It's so weird that "We need to show sufficient profit, so we'll fire our workers" is a legitimate strategy. To me, it seems like trying to lose weight, and when your diet and exercise aren't enough, you cut off one of your arms. 🤨

[@TCHorwood-xq7mw]

Well, if you cut off arm arm you lose weight but not height, so it lowers your BMI.

[@aldenkahl8703]

Yea, it's a problem caused directly by the existence of share holding. To a share holder profits aren't enough because profits don't make a share increase in value, they need profits to increase. The economic assumption behind share holding is literally that profits can increase infinitely forever. Any reasonable person who hasn't made the brain damaging mistake of becoming an economist can clearly see that makes no sense. Finite resources will necessarily cap profits and once a company reaches maximum market saturation there is little they can do to increase profits without damaging long term stability

[@Desmaad]

​@@aldenkahl8703I think many economists are sensible enough to realize that.

[@aldenkahl8703]

@Desmaad There's no other way to say it. While some don't agree with the idea if infinite growth, the field is basically based on infinite growth.

[@pallingtontheshrike6374]

@@aldenkahl8703plenty of economists realize that, but sooner or later they’re called “commies” and relegated to the background regardless of whether or not they’re actually communists, because recognizing them interferes with making more profits

[@NateDHWT2023]

What always strikes me about all these stories is just... how many of these parent companies no one has ever heard of until a story like this. None of these companies seem to like... do anything or have any worthwhile contributions to the world outside turning up in stories like this. I look forward to 'I can't be Zero Punction, Zero Punction doesn't have a moustache!'

[@CouncilofGeeks]

That’s the thing though: these parent companies don’t make anything. They just own things. IAC (which had CollegeHumor) is literally a holdings company… all they do is hold or unload assets.

[@NateDHWT2023]

@@CouncilofGeeks It's always a harsh reminder when this stuff happens that companies you've never heard of and add nothing to the world... can just snuff creativity out for no good reason with a snap of their fingers. The description really reminds me of patent trolls and how they just... buy stuff and sit on it.

[@jthom0027]

These companies are essentially landlords. They do nothing of any sort of substance. They have no actual skill. They just owned enough capital to be able to own more capital and become a useless middleman. We need a lot less middlemen.

[@Crowley9]

To quote Jim Stephanie Fucking Sterling, Son (who I think has in turn attributed it to someone else): Companies don't just want some money, they want all of the money.

[@vuvuxelloss]

I think that quote came from Digital Homicide? When Steph and DH were doing the review the review of the reviewer etc etc

[@Crowley9]

@@vuvuxelloss Yes. Though Stephanie wasn't included back then.

[@phyphor]

I came here to say this!

[@pallingtontheshrike6374]

in a sense, it’s definitely the corpo’s fault for playing the game to a tee, but also, “all the money” is what’s needed to survive in this cutthroat hellscape, and that’s why some people created the concept of “communism”

[@aturchomicz821]

@@pallingtontheshrike6374 Rich coming from a CCP supporter LOL

[@kingdead42]

To futher your theory that no one at Escapist can upload videos to KZbin, there was a schedule livestream of Hidden Gems that was scheduled before the exodus but to take place after the exodus. This stream is still "active" and has ongoing chat almost a week later.

[@bobcooper82]

Did anyone else notice how Yahtzee NEVER did the ad reads? He wasn't having that.

[@manvslife271]

And Nick was very open about how he was the one that stopped corpos from forcing Yhatz from doing the ad reads and did them himself.

[@shinkicker404]

@@manvslife271 it’s really interesting how protective Nick is of Yahtzee. He goes out of his way to shield him from a lot.

[@SpoopySquid]

I'm suddenly reminded of the fact upper management has a disproportionate amount of sociopaths EDIT: fixed the terminology

[@subtlewhatssubtle]

The worst part about that fact is that, even if we were make an example of some of them by cutting the strings on their golden parachutes or issuing 'corporate capital punishment' the way that one judge in NY did, they'll *always* think 'it won't happen to me' and continue acting this way regardless.

[@BobNinjaCat]

@@subtlewhatssubtle They're like scammers from India and Africa in that way. You tell them that when the chips are down and they become a liability, there won't be anyone to hold their rope. They built and sustained a system of backstabbing and betrayal for profit and forgot that they're still playing the game even when they've reached the top. They seem to forget that history has shown that the king is never safe on his own throne.

[@AleksandarBell]

As someone who studies psychology “clinical psychopaths” are not a thing. Psychopathy is not a diagnosis. Hell, it’s barely a psychological construct. If you mean sociopaths, then yes, that is a real thing. Psychopathy is used in popular psychology and not used in clinical psychology

[@SpoopySquid]

@@AleksandarBell thanks for the correction. I'll edit my comment

[@tehBIGivan]

Facebook (meta) lied to Cracked's corporate heads, and convinced them that posting their videos to Facebook would increase engagement over KZbin which would lead to more profit. So, when Cracked's videos did not generate the profit that Facebook lied about, Cracked's corporate heads blamed the video production instead of blaming Facebook

[@ianstewart-vital]

Came to say this, thank you. Robert Evans talks about it occasionally, especially when he gets a former Cracked person on for Behind The Bastards.

[@SpoopySquid]

Zuckerberg has so much to answer for, and sadly he probably never will

[@noahbossier1131]

Makes sense

[@sethzard]

Also came here to say this. Fuck Facebook.

[@worland102688]

Corporate math is such bullshit. Company S made 200k last year, they expect to make 450k this year, but sadly they only made 300k. To any intelligent human being that's a 100k growth! Not to corporate, that's a 150k loss and you know what, you should be ashamed, you're all fired.

[@RosaFriend]

I've always felt that the pressure to make an exorbitant profit is an absolute cancer on any creative endeavor.

[@Ellie_deMayo]

Art thrives in spite of capitalism not because of it

[@francesconicoletti2547]

Any endeavour. I worked for a division of a company making decent profits in the market we were in and our staff were cut on a regular basis to hit manic profit targets from head office. Shrinking your way to profitability. That division doesn’t exist ant more.

[@COrraThereal0ne]

I mostly agree with what you are saying but please don't compare it to cancer.

[@SpoopySquid]

​@@Ellie_deMayosaving this line for later

[@luvhair255]

@@COrraThereal0ne In English, the word 'cancer' is also defined as 'an evil condition or thing that spreads destructively'. It doesn't always describe the pathology.

[@rosethunder3820]

My former workplace (a wilderness summer camp) did something similar. Corporate (located in a different state, and thoroughly resented by local staff and campers) told the *most* beloved counselor that they would have a full time position at the end of the summer. Then, a week before it was supposed to start, they said “well… it looks like you don’t have this type of driver’s license (that we previously said we could work around while you got it), so we can’t actually hire you for this position.” 40 people, all but one or two of the remaining old guard staff, quit in solidarity. Several of the camp themes lost almost all of their regular campers, as they wanted the counselors that quit. The camp that used to be so wonderful and unique is now all but an average summer camp. I can’t stand to see it.

[@Daelyah]

My partner and I are both happy for the folx at Second Wind. The unanimous walkout on Escapist corporate was awesome, and we're looking forward to what happens next with the new channel. 💗

[@allanjmcpherson]

So that's why it's called Some *More* News! I never knew that! Also, I remember being a fan of Stephanie back before she came out. I remember stumbling upon something more recent of hers. I saw that she was know presenting much more femme and going by her chosen name. I'm so glad that she was able to come out and continue creating! Gaming isn't known for always being the most welcoming place.

[@ianstewart-vital]

Seriously though, I think her content is much better now. It is obvious that she is in a much happier situation.

[@thenaiam]

I thought the same thing regarding Some More News!

[@Toberumono]

You can see the same thing happen with VTubers. While there have been *many* claims that companies could just fire the person behind the avatar and replace them, that happened once. And it went so poorly, that it hasn’t been tried again (and that was *without the original person quitting* - they were sharing the model between a few people). Similarly, there was initially an impression that corporate VTubers would lose their audience if they left… turns out that while their views definitely drop, what’s left is their personal audience, which is the most engaged segment (aka the ones that actually send superchats). In short, it doesn’t matter what the context is, it’s the *people* that matter.

[@Distortion0]

This is such a common occurrence in corporations. See also Target closing stores due to "shoplifting".

[@samiraperi467]

"Let's buy the brand and hollow it out" seems to be more common than I thought.

[@kalieris]

I didn’t know The Escapist existed, but just subscribed to Second Wind because, damn, gotta support a group like that! ETA: This whole thing makes me more appreciative of what happened to the company I’ve been working at for several decades. It got bought several times, at one point by a venture capital firm. Who proceeded to fire upper management, get rid of many corporate functions or made them direct-charge rather than overhead funded, and improved benefits and retention. After five years, we were competitive enough to be bought by another company that specifically wanted us for our talent and customer bases, and worked even harder on retention and benefits. That was about 5 years ago, and we’re still really stable. I didn’t realize how rare that was.

[@BoredPodcaster]

They pulled a "Konami" and fired the guy that made their business. Now they have to spend MORE money to hire a new team, while LOSING customers. These people only see the numbers, but their business sense is complete garbage. They're more likely to tank the business than they are to make more profit.

[@Fenikagegami]

Class solidarity in action lets GOOOO! Also, thank you for a new argument I can use to explain to my conservative family members on why what they think about Corporations and ownership is wrong.

[@Romanticoutlaw]

ever since steph left, I've been saying yahtzee was too good for the escapist. He was singlehandedly carrying the company, bet his quads are ripped now

[@nebufabu]

They may no longer talk about "visionaries," "process re-engineering," "nimbleness," and "right-sizing" but corporate execs still often conceptualize companies like it's the 90s: Genius visionaries in C-suites who do all the important work, and everything else being more or less fungible and disposable, even the consultants who "engineer" business processes to implement this vision, certainly the workforce who can be "right-sized" at any moment with no consequences, what those moochers do all day anyway, they just follow the process we envisioned, don't they? It never actually works. Even if the company is indeed sustained by a few people's genius vision, it's far more likely to be someone not all that high on the corporate ladder, and when that visionary is founder and CEO they tend to be terrible at actually running a business and succeed despite their lack of aptitude.

[@voltijuice8576]

"Even if the company is indeed sustained by a few people's genius vision, it's far more likely to be someone not all that high on the corporate ladder" Come on, you know that Shingy transcends hierarchies! That's what we pay him for, dammit!

[@nebufabu]

OpenAI: from the fastest growing company ever to total trainwreck in 3 days flat and they didn't even cook the books or lie about their products, all "achieved" through the sheer power of big visions and big egos clashing.

[@calebmarmon1310]

Following the Escapist and Yahtzee, it has been interesting to see his evolution, both generally maturing as a person, but also, since Nick took over, seeing him get more comfortable collaborating with others. It seems like a particularly big step for him considering he’s had the same job for so long, and in the past, has weathered the changes by just focusing on his work by himself. It’s hard not to think of the snarky loner character who finally chooses his found family over the lonesome road

[@bangormc3rd562]

I don't think you can talk about Cracked anymore without mentioning Jordan Breeding. He started making content for their video side when noone else really was, and it DID pull big numbers. It DID do well in the yt algorithm. His videos were getting on par with the pre-layoff stuff. And then the company that owned Cracked decided they needed to cut costs, and they fired him in spite of his profitability. Because these corporations don't learn, and they never will.

[@iantingen]

Jordans channel is pretty great, and the stuff he writes for The Modern Rogue is similarly awesome!

[@highvoltage7797]

Just makes it extra special that The Yogscast have been independent for 15 years.

[@Merdragoon]

This is exactly what's happening with Wizards of the Coast and their handling of Magic and DnD. Now that you put it into a wider picture with what happened with these video essays situations, it actually makes their "we didn't hit the bottom line so we need to squeeze out as much of our golden geese as possiable" makes sense. With Magic, they were able to make those crossover cards, but they can't do that with DnD, so they're trying to switch it purely to virtual (I don't mind virtual table top as a *tool* not as a pure thing though) so they can gatekeep properties and not handle third party. So while not one to one, it does actually put more context why they would try to change the OGL and when that failed, go headfirst into Virtual TTRPG purely in a pretty little garden wall, just with extra barbwires.

[@nothri]

I are correct but it isn’t Wizards. They are the subsidiary trying to please the holding company. Hasbro is the company deserving of your hate.

[@Merdragoon]

@@nothri That is true. But Hasbro did put someone into Wizards that was the reason why there are the boxes in Overwatch and thinks that DnD should have the same thing and making the same mistakes as what happened with 4th edition but putting *everything* on a Virtal Tabletop instead. So it's kinda both. I don't blame the people who do the art or even try to write the books. I'm more upset with the people above them stiffling their work overall.

[@fantasticalfascination]

Dropout is the best thing I've ever subscribed to, I can't recommend it highly enough. Hopefully Second Wind can pull off the same kind of phoenix maneuver.

[@MarquisdeL3]

I was mooching off a family member's subscription (as I do for every streaming service), but I enjoy Dropout so much that I got my own subscription.

[@danieljames6899]

The people behind these companies are greedy, they make me angry, but at the same time I pity them, like when you pity a child who feels grown up and wants to do something out of their reach and you already know they will fail. They don't understand that it's not just a logo or a name but the people and talents behind it that make these companies successful. For example, I didn't know all the background on College Humour, I follow Dropout and I assumed that they simply changed their name.

[@christineherrmann205]

This is horrible and awesome and absolutely what has to keep happening. They might lose IP, but they have to be willing to walk. Or, ideally, not sell in the first place.

[@GMSquared]

This is actually great to see. Maybe they can start a union based on this. Could you imagine a scenario where worker unions jooned together to provide temporary work for those that work in their industries. Wonder what that would look like...

[@MechaGai]

It's definitely more of a collective than a union. Either way it's good. Just that they don't need to fight for their fair share since they actually own it all.

[@aldenkahl8703]

Ideally Second Wind would be a worker coop, no union needed

[@The_Crimson_Witch]

​@@aldenkahl8703They may not need a union, but they could use their position to help others through giving them a union to join. Unions don't just protect you they protect an industry

[@aldenkahl8703]

@The_Crimson_Witch Yea that's just not quite how unions work. They don't protect industries they protect workplaces that join those unions. Big enough unions can effectively protect industries, but not really. The thing they should actually do is help others buyout their workplaces and turn them into coops. Unions are weak sauce, they accept the existence of the bourgeoisie, move beyond them.

[@gostowl]

Between this and the recent news about WBD shelving the Coyote and Roadrunner movie-which was finished, tested well, and a popular familiar property-I’m even more certain that corporate really doesn’t understand nor care about the company it buys.

[@JustLenny]

It can not be overstated just how ridiculous the fact that ZP was used as a benchmark to justify unreasonable expectations on the the other projects Nick was overseeing really is. It wasnt just a case of 'one of our series' has bigger numbers, make them all have bigger numbers', me and my mate would quote Yahtzee's limerick Wolfenstein review all day in high School, now we're fucking 30. ZP was there with James Rolf's AVGN series, the earliest machinama shorts and forum posted lets plays; a cornerstone of everything that has been built since, an institution of online gaming culture, the fish that grew legs and helped evolve us into what video content creation in the gaming niche is today. The fact that all they saw of that legacy was the viewer count in comparison to the growth of the rest of the channel not only shows a complete mishandling and lack of understanding of what they had but a complete lack of understanding of the online gaming culture and its history. The fact their company is called 'Gamurs' is a complete façade, they have no care or interest in its relevant culture, all they were ever interested in was the revenue streams they could tap from it.

[@galaxycamerata]

Hell, Yahtzee leaving was partly in solidarity with Nick, partly because he was tired of being their beast of burden before Nick, and saw he would be the beast of burden again. So he said "No saddles, thank you, you can just go ride yourselves ragged."

[@KiwiLombax15]

Yahtzee is the coelacanth of the internet. An ancient relic that nonetheless thrives in the modern day due to having found a niche that worked and never budging an inch in millions of years. (affectionate) He's been doing this for longer than many websites have been ALIVE. Of course he gets name recognition.

[@CatHasOpinions734]

Honestly I'm hoping this will increase the audience for Yahtzee and the other creators. I used to watch Zero Punctuation (along with Jimquisition and others) but stopped years ago because I heard about the way other creators were treated at the Escapist and, while I never made a conscious decision to boycott them or anything, seeing their name reminded me of that BS and there was enough other great stuff to watch that I just stopped watching Zero Punctuation. Now I can see hilarious game commentary WITHOUT also supporting a crappy parent company, and that's much more appealing!

[@Besmertnic]

There were people in the stream last night that were introduced to them by the media coverage, so, yes, it is giving them new coverage and awareness that did not previously exist.

[@kempolar9768]

​@@BesmertnicI remember yatzee saying in an interview with minn max that the escapist discord had 5K members, while the new second wind server has 20K.

[@wendyheatherwood]

I think another thing that sometimes happens with founders selling companies is that they're too successful. Someone starts a small company with half a dozen employees, thinking maybe they'll double that number eventually in a few years, and somehow find themselves looking at an incomprehensibly large number being shown to them by someone they don't even remember hiring, so they bail, hand the job that's way bigger than the one they wanted off to people that see continuous growth as a good thing and not an absolute nightmare to deal with.

[@culade]

The thought of no one left at the Escapist having access to the content is hilarious. Maybe Nick can leverage that password for some IP or art assets.😂

[@cullain3967]

This is why we shouldn't let people who are basically glorified accountants be involved in anything creative, they lack any appreciation or ability to understand what it is creatives do and the arts are always disposable to profit and loss types...

[@DonChups]

Adventure is Nigh started as a pilot experiment but the team chemistry was really fun and Jack packard is a great comedy / drama DM, and the animation team makes a wonderful work at cartooning the spoken action. The fact the audience raised money enough to fly the players together to play in person says how much it is loved.

[@Virtualblueart]

And then the corporate chucklehrads tried to kill it but accidentally ended up freeing their golden geese. And now they are just staring at the empty cage, wondering where their money will now come from.

[@peterclarke7240]

Anyone who hasn't heard of the Escapist, but are into pop culture movies and TV series, are missing out on Darren Mooney, possibly the most intelligent, articulate and informed film and TV reviewer out there other than The Good Doctor himself. Even if you're not a gamer, you need to check out his work if you're interested in film. Fortunately, he jumped ship with Nick and Yahtzee and everyone else to Second Wind, and his film series will be starting up again soon.

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

This happened with Smosh and Defy as well. Defy killed Smosh, GMM bought Smosh to keep it alive and then Smosh was recently bought back by the original owners.

[@n0etic_f0x]

When Yahtzee and Sterling are in full-on agreement... you have done something _severely_ wrong. I am not saying the two are totally at odds but they clearly have different outlooks unique to them. A lock step march away from them means something has gone wrong.

[@animorph17]

... really? From their videos they seem to constantly agree with each other, on everything, levying the same arguments at the same targets.

[@n0etic_f0x]

@@animorph17 they do but Yahtzee comes off as brazenly aloof and to not actually care to be bothered by politics even if he holds to good principles. Sterling appears to have left due to politics and how poorly her role was treated. She found that she brought them far more than they provided her with. I can see what you mean though, both of them are that weird abrasive kind of sarcastic that appears contrary to their politics (though it doesn’t) its just a way people label it as ultra accepting and unable to joke. Still what a massive L for the company. I watched the new team live stream and it was amazing they had fantastic chemistry and good interaction with fan.

[@SpoopySquid]

​@@animorph17I keep hoping for the day Yahtzee and Sterling team up once more to revive their poetry slams

[@mutantfreak48]

@@n0etic_f0x i think its more that yahtzee is just generally a more private and introverted person, he can still be impassioned about political topics. i remember in the post-zp stream of the game "fashion police squad" (which he incidentally streamed with nick) at about an hour and 15 minutes into the stream he goes on a little diatribe against conservatives and the abortion ban

[@OmiGundam777]

@@n0etic_f0xjust an fyi, Steph is nb, and I think uses they/them. I could be wrong, it’s honestly very confusing for me.

[@BlueAversion]

Nick, formerly of TheEscapist, says its like you were in the room with them.

[@StoryMode180]

This was a surprisingly detailed dive into the whys and hows of corporate asset murdering. I wasn't expecting that when I clicked on the video, I wasn't expecting to have as much fun watching, and I wasn't expecting to resonate so well with your view points. Rock on, Vera. I'll have to have a poke around and see what other content the council of geeks has goin for it.

[@sneakyskunk1]

I left the Escapist after Loading Ready Run departed. They were consistently entertaining and I knew something was very wrong with that site when they left. They deserve more success then they have and the Escapist deserves all the failure that is coming to them.

[@gatsbysdead]

This reminds me a lot of the Gametrailers situation from a while ago. They shut down the site since it was just an asset, only for the people who made it great to set off on their own to wild success with Easy Allies. It’s always great when the creators win, and I can’t help but root for their success.

[@Radar_of_the_Stars]

I really hope Second Wind really gets a chance to show off the other former escapist videomakers, like Frost, he's great, and I've been liking Cold Take more than Zero Punctuation for a while

[@OnyxAlchemyst]

I think they will, especially since Frost does actually still own Cold Take. I expect a significant part of why so many of the other showrunners so readily left the escapist was specifically because Nick fought hard to make sure new creators he was onboarding got contracts that let them keep the rights to their own IPs. Frost didn't lose Cold Take, JM8 didn't lose design delve. As far as I know, Yahtzee's the one on the team who was to worry about doing a legally distinct version of his show. Second Wind has also noted excitement that another benefit to being independent, is that they are now free to plug their side projects and stuff as much as they want. Yahtzee had noted he had to fight in order to promote his books, and his upcoming game, but now it's all fair game.

[@theshadowdirector]

Hostile takeovers can also be a bad idea for the company attempting the takeover because the exact same thing that has occurred with The Escapist, The talent might flee and that may or may not be perceived as part of the company value, depends on the buyer's foresight.

[@SloyXP]

I have to say, before watching your video, i saw "second wind" on yt suggested and immidiately told the platform to never recommend me "that Escapist crap" again. But now that you ecplained the situation i think i'll be going back and subscribing to the thing, as the prospect of it as a creator-run co-op is super promising!! Thank you for shedding Light on the situation!

[@420Travesty]

Isn't weird how such anti-competitive practices are so successful in a Capitalist system?

[@chrismorris6865]

Nick gave this video his blessing, said it was right on point!

[@aldenkahl8703]

A great example of the direct harm to consumers and workers done by shareholding. Only worker coops should be the legal way to create a business

[@PlayingGilly]

Brightside, Nick, Yahtzee and co are free now to do whatever they like, Second Wind is the perfect name.

[@Besmertnic]

Yahtzee literally said that the reason there was no ZP this week was ,"There is no one there to press the button." Ie release the existing, already uploaded video.

[@EmeralBookwise]

I've followed Yahtzee for years. Pretty sure I stumbled across his Fully Ramblomatic reviews before he joined the Esapist, because I can still remember his video where he proudly anoubced "selling out". I followed him to Escapist where I found so many other content creators like Steph Sterling, Bob Chipman, and Dan Floyd who I all still follow to this day. Funny thing is though, I never actually subscribed to the Escapist KZbin channel. Partly because I used to just watch everything directly off their own website, and by the time I considered switching over to KZbin, they had already jetsoned most of their tallent I would have subscribed for. It sort of became my own personal form of protest not to subscribe, although I did subscribe to thier movies channel during the brief stint Bob signed back on for as a show of support when it seemed like they were finally getting the old gang together again. So, yeah, I probably need to head on over to Second Wind and give them the subscription I never gave the Escapist.

[@CapriUni]

Okay, I cackled at the Zero Punctuation videos not going up...

[@johnnymillar9056]

So it's basically Monopoly, the board game. I, the player, owe money to something, so I just choose to sell one property, not caring which one, as long as it solves that problem

[@voltijuice8576]

I'd mostly stopped watching Sterling and Croshaw a few years back when I stopped gaming regularly and not keeping up with new releases, mostly due to eye problems. IIRC many such as Sterling and Chipman left in a big shakeup/exodus aroung the "sad alligator" fiasco. I knew that Jack Packard had been working on Escapist and hoped he'd do well, as he often had some of my fave perspectives on RLM back in the day. Indies, co-ops, and unions all the way!

[@seafridge]

Thanks for taking the time to explain this. And I love that you mentioned Dropout! Their new stuff is honestly such great and versatile content.

[@johnhmaloney]

I used to love Zero Punctuation, but I forgot about it in recent years. I'm going to have to check out Second Wind.

[@cynthmcgpoet]

Because Escapist owns the rights to the name of Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee has stated that he's going to do the same content under the name Fully Ramblomatic.

[@BlackHoleEye]

I think a large part of the issue is the American business model. It's not enough to make a profit, you have to make more profit than last year. Making money isn't enough, the money has to be made exponentially.

[@SaintDharma32]

Whenever someone in Middle TN complains about how Opryland the Theme Park was treated and I take no pleasure in pointing out that the park was just an asset to them.

[@drunkenfarmerjohn42]

The death of Cracked ended up creating a bunch of small, cool stuff, too. Cool Zone Media has several old Cracked staffers running podcasts, with Behind The Bastards frequently having familiar voices. And Some News became Some More News and Even More News.

[@FullOfLethons]

I'm grateful to learn about Second Wind.

[@tesnacloud]

We should also note that the heads of the Escapist were called in by Gamurs just before the Escapist fired Nick. This was certainly a case where the Escapist heads saw that a major mistake was being made, and have been caught in the lurch themselves. After all, what do you think is going to happen to them now that they "lost" the golden goose?

[@firemermaid1980]

I really appreciate that you understand and can explain corporate nonsense.

[@cynthmcgpoet]

I fully support the Second Wind crew. Long may the Phoenix fly!

[@1monki]

One of the original dreams of the Web was decentralization and getting around intermediaries and content channels. AOL was seen as antithetical to the people building the Web. Corporations have taken control of almost everything, but that wasn't the goal.

[@crapshot321]

The problem with decentralizing everything is that at some point there will be a need to gather resources, for some ONE person to make critical decisions. To do anything on a truly large scale takes organization, to make sure that the goal, whatever, that goal is, to be successful. Don't get me wrong. I believe that corporations having control over so much of our society is a very bad thing. I just don't know how decentralization would work on such a large scale.

[@1monki]

@@crapshot321 That goes back to Aristotle's issue with kings. A powerful, benevolent monarch can just as easily become a tyrant. They could quickly do a lot of good, but often they do a lot of evil. I'd rather have an open protocol for HTML than whatever Microsoft or Google decides is best for me. I'll take an ActivityPub instance over whatever Elon decides is best for himself today. And if I don't like the moderation of one Pub server, I can just move to another.

[@aarononeil9832]

Okay, this month's patreon shoutout got me chuckling hard I really do hope (and optimistically suspect) that Second Wind will be able to build back up decently, if only because the ZP audience is so massive that most of them will surely follow Yahtzee to his new home and will hopefully get on board with some of the other stuff there, in addition to the fans of those creators and projects that jump over for them specifically. Dropout has been a success story for great creators, hopefully this is too

[@Brilchan]

I really like your videos explaining corporate thinking and business backgrounds, yeah all those stockholders and corporate thinking is just cancer

[@jkitty542]

The Escapist is likely going to try and liquidate as much as they can, use that money to pad their books, and focus long term on having a downsized company that focuses on producing clickbaity articles and collecting ad revenue from old Zero Punction episodes. The fact of the matter is that Capitalism cannibalizes itself. When you're a publicly owned company, you need to grow every quarter. Profitability is not enough, in fact that's secondary at best. You need to be growing every quarter, and if you have one bad or disappointing quarter after years of growth, you get downsized or liquidated. This is why collectives, cooperatives, and privately held companies are the best business models when you are genuinely trying to make art. Whether it's making video content like Dropout or Nebula, or video games like Larian, holding an IPO can give you a big boost in the short term, but will ultimately stiffle you down the line.

[@cashnelson2306]

Always join or start a union, friends. Hope they don't make that mistake again at Second Wind.

[@nets9970]

From what I know it's a 100% employe owned company.

[@mwmheps]

Oh man, could really relate to this even as something within my own unconnected job and the weird corporate decisions that have been messing around with the team I'm in. Really interesting video as always!

[@DaeZey]

Sandy Peterson who was one of the Guys on the Original Age of empires talked about how Ensemble Studios died. Microsoft brought in a guy who had a target of X amount of money. He waited til Ensemble released halo wars. It made its money. Then he fired everyone. On the outside people thought halo wars must have done badly enough to kill it. But that wasn't it. Get the money from the project, then don't have to pay for the next project. Short term looks like massive profits. Even if it fucks with the long term.

[@jeffy1862]

All this tells me is that entertainment as a whole becomes bloated and unsustainable when it consolidates, and that it needs to be more dispersed.

[@meander112]

Lets not forget to mention LoadingReadyRun & their work on the Escapist. They're still going strong.

[@SpoopySquid]

Also Extra Credits

[@hickknight]

Man, that is the reality check. Corporations don't care, line needs to go up, assets need to be let go. I dearly hope the future is co-ops owned not by corpos... I'll listen to the enshittification video, why not? But I cant access doctor who so videos on that... companies are annoying with licenses. Specifically funimation and them hoarding licenses for USA when it comes to anime. It's like these companies are asking for everyone to sail the seven digital seas, hoisting a black flag.

[@Scottthespy13]

Its the time honored tradition of looking at numbers without context. "We're low on money!" "Quick, list all of our costs in descending order!" "Oh look, this thing is super expensive, we'd better get rid of it!" *Fires main source of income* This happens constantly in many businesses...people downsizing or axing the IT department, getting rid of 'pointless expenses' that were keeping moral from collapsing, saving ten cents on the unit without realizing the poorer quality makes you go through twice as many unites. My dad has a great story about how he wanted a photocopier at his work station when he was manager in a sign print shop. Didn't need to be fancy, just a normal $200 one you'd use at home would do the trick. Company said no, there was no need since there was a photocopier in the next warehouse over. So dad timed how long it took him to walk over there. 15 minutes. He had to do that roughly eight times a day, because of the timings that paperwork came in and needed to go out. He was spending two hours a day just walking. Getting paid $20/h, it would have taken less than two weeks for the photocopier to save it's own costs in dad's wages alone. Cooperate, company heads, CEOs...these people are shortsighted. They don't understand how the business works, they don't know how the costs are connected to the incomes, and they make catastrophic decisions all the time that are baffling to the people who work where they see these connections every day. A whole freaking show was made about it; Undercover Boss.

[@drakkenmensch]

"What do you mean, 100% growth each quarter isn't feasible?!?"

[@animorph17]

"The money has to come from somewhere" yeah, duh. It comes from the workers.

[@hagamablabla]

One example of a name being revived in a good way is Microprose. The various rightsholders of the name spent 20 years wasting it, but then it was bought by someone who's getting back in the spirit of publishing strategy games.

[@sephirothii13]

ZP started in November 2007, it's first showing was actually shown on X-play the first few in fact until the Escapist offered him a contract. It is sad that he signed his rights away. I know Movie Bob had to come back to get the rights to "The Big Picture" and it took over ten years for the guys at LRR to get the rights back of "UnSkipable". I remember they, The Escapist, use to do video contest and they won the would be able to show their stuff with help and pay from The Escapist. One of the biggest winners was some guy name Matthew Mercer doing a video series called "There will be Brawl". But ZP was there from the start as the video person. Even in the dark days when the new owners, at the time, were pro-gamergate, Yahtzee was there as a bright light. To see him leave is like I don't know having Mickey Mouse leave Disney or Captain America walk away from Marvel. In theory, seeing they own the rights to ZP they could have someone else do the series. It wouldn't work and the fans would lose their minds and it would be very bad. But this is a Corp and they aren't going to care. It is amazing what useless information you keep in your brain as an old. It is funny that I have most of the history of the Escapist in my head. (oh btw I am a huge fan of Movie Bob and will defend him so lets not fight about him, I understand his views and such can be a thing but I like 99% of what he says.)

[@polaris_draws]

I like MovieBob as a film Critic, I like his series like "Really that Good" and "The Big Picture", I find his current production line frustrating, and what I know of his personal opinions are... pretty fuckin' cringe imo

[@sephirothii13]

@@polaris_draws from all I have read he is very political left and I am ok with that.

[@ZipplyZane]

I found out his first couple of videos were under the Fully Ramblomatic name, and he talks about getting acquired by the Escapist. So I suspect thr Zero Punctuation stuff always belonged to them.

[@polaris_draws]

@@sephirothii13 Oh he is... but for someone who recently shit-talked Bill Mahur (which I fully support) he kind of has the same smart-person-in-the-room superior lib energy

[@Halauris]

​@@polaris_drawsHe's extremely cringe and I find him toxic at times. Although I have nothing but fond feelings for Stephanie, Sterling and Yahtzee. However, I do feel Stephanie Sterling's content has changed but it is her show after all. I do still respect anti-corporation and AAA shenanigans that sterling still brings to the table. Even if the direction wasn't quite for me, I can still respect that Sterling does quality content.

[@catherinecrawford3058]

I loved the escapist once upon a time. Sad to see it go, but glad for the integrity of the people who left after an unjust firing. Congrats, Gamur, you now own an empty shell.

[@ZipplyZane]

But it still seems stupid to jetrison an asset that is profitable, and thus making you money. That only makes sense if they think they can replace it with something that would make more money--more net profit. I suspect they really did think they could replace Nick with someone who would put up the numbers they wanted. I suspect they thought they could run the video department leaner, while maintaining the monetary value.

[@blakecook9266]

Ah but you see, that’s a problem for next quarter. Who cares about the steady income an asset will bring in when the profits or reduced costs are needed now?

[@SpoopySquid]

​@@blakecook9266shareholder-ism will fucking kill us

[@BlueAversion]

18:00 from my finance background, there’s some other methodology. Say the patent company has $50k to use to fund it’s business over the next year. It owns 3 profitable businesses and each need $25 of that money in funding to operate over the next year. So you can only afford to fund two of them, meaning you have to cull one and that’s always going to be the least profitable. The other, more cynical one, which is like what happened at TheEscapist, is the parent company had a target profit margin it needed to hit for shareholders, hypothetically lets say it 10%. The Escapist was hitting 5% profit margin, so whilst still profitable was below target so the parent decide to enact cost cutting to try and improve the margin.

[@PITAchic84]

Great timing as always. I stopped visiting The Escapist the first time around and when I saw the newest drama I was like, wait, Yahtzee left? Thanks for the explainer and great vid

[@Phantom6.6.6]

I'm going to miss zero punctuation 😢. I wish success to Yahtzee in all their future endeavors

[@ChromeColossus]

He is starting a new series called Fully Ramblomatic at Second Wind that will be the same format as Zero Punctuation! :)

[@carpevinum8645]

A sixth (?) reason is projects, especially those that have grown - potentially past the original creators' wildest dreams - and want/need someone to do the business side so they can continue doing the creative work they started with (this is why the game theorists sold - but with experience and research their contracts will supposedly protect then from corporate oversight).

[@calebmarmon1310]

I was wondering if/when you’d be covering this. For once, I’m actually in-the-know on an internet event.

[@ironwolf5802]

I had some a long video that said Secont Wind but was probably going to get around to it. Knowing them jumping right into that video after this. Thank you I had no idea about any of this.

[@marvellousm]

Thank you for this terrific video, I think you really hit the nail on the head. The owners really did screw themselves over, the resurgence of The Escapist on KZbin had been so much fun. Those talented folks are going to do just fine on their new venture.

[@SymbioteMullet]

It's mazlow's heirachy of needs & failure for companies. The C-suite takes in money and puts out bad decisions and sits at the top of the pyramid, making no profit, continually being the least important part of the company. Everyone else is on the lower steps of the pyramid, making profit and product and are thus far more important.

[@lordqwertythepyromancer3458]

I come here from Nick himself, and on his orders MEMBERS OF SECOND WIND, CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE

[@NotsoHardcore1]

Don't sell to corporate as soon as you do it's not yours anymore.

[@1monki]

Something people don't understand about investors and markets; being profitable isn't enough to be successful. Company A returns 2K to its investors, while Company B returns 1K. That 1K isn't viewed as +1K. It's -1K because it's 1K less than the investor would've made had they put their money into Company A. The ability to pay its bills by providing goods and services people want/need isn't enough to make Company B successful.

[@landsbyreview3420]

Thank you for making such a good talk about this while having a sober and loving tone about this topic.

[@jrdeborja0000]

Haaaah. I cannot believe :Dropout survived. It was effin slow in the beginning years. I remember when i still had stable income, and they released a global app, I bought a subscription and it was worth it despite the select options. I didnt know what they would release BUT I KNEW THEY WERE GOOD. They have good writers and creatives but it needed tracrion 😫😫😫 and Im so proud they managed to do so!!!

[@kerilithia]

This is what happened to critical role when geek and sundry got sold off and I love the story of drawfee that was a college humor show that went independant after the sale but before the dropout resurgence. They both had to buy out the branding rights to their shows from the parent companies but are now highly profitable.

[@r0kus]

You hinted that this sort of things happens outside of corporate owned KZbin channels. Here are some examples. 1) _City of Heroes_ was a profitable MMORPG owned by a Korean gaming company. Whoever championed having an American-based game eventually lost their voice, and the Korean company lost interest. They weren't willing to sell the IP, probably because keeping a now-competing MMORPG alive would mean customers spending less time on their MMORPGs (e.g. _Guild Wars_ ). 2) Saturn, an automotive division of GM was shutdown in 2009 due to the general economic downturn. The thing was, Penske Automotive would have bought Saturn, but again, GM did not want to let what would become a competitor live. 3) OS/2 was a popular operating system from IBM, developed and maintained by their software division in Florida. Less than a week before Windows 95 was released, IBM announced that it would cease development on OS/2, and only maintain it for a few more years. Why? The other, main, division of IBM only cared about corporate clients buying their mainframes and purely business-oriented software. They simply decided not to compete with Microsoft, even though they had the technically superior product. IBM completely closed down their software division in Florida.

[@ianstewart-vital]

I didn't know that is what happened to CoH/CoV. That sucks. I miss that game.

[@r0kus]

@@ianstewart-vital Look up City of Heroes Homecoming. It is a free to play version with a part-time development staff. For whatever reason, the Korean company is allowing them to run servers. They have even upgraded several aspects of the game over the years.