Gaming site fires you – Then everyone leaves, even the cool reviewer that reddit loves so much

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The gaming site “The Escapist” seems to be in crisis: after the editor-in-chief was fired, large parts of the team left the site. Also fan favorite Yahtzee Croshaw, who is so popular for his gaming reviews in the YouTube video format “Zero Punctuation”.

What kind of site is “The Escapist”? The gaming site “The Escapist” has existed since 2005. In addition to video games, they also cover movies, series and technology topics.

  • The site’s most popular format is game reviews in video form and through a cartoon character: Zero Punctuation. The series now has 834 episodes and is popular “among cool kids”: current games are torn apart in 5 to 7 minutes. The style of the comics and the stoic, sarcastic narrative voice have become iconic over the last 16 years.
  • On YouTube, Zero Punctuation’s clips repeatedly reach numbers of views in excess of 500,000.
  • The actual gaming site isn’t quite as significant: According to Similarweb, it reaches around 3 million sessions per month. This is low compared to large US gaming sites such as IGN (120 million), GameSpot (72 million) or Polygon (26 million) – although Similarweb’s numbers are only estimates.

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    Most of the team is leaving the gaming site out of solidarity

    What has messed up the page now? Editor-in-Chief Nick Calandrea wrote on November 6th (via Twitter): He was fired, received no severance pay and would not sign a non-disclosure agreement.

    He says he was fired because he “missed goals” that were not clearly defined. Many colleagues before him have been fired for this reason and today it is his turn.

    He was also locked out of his email account while he was fired.

    But this was the reaction: As a result of this termination, a large part of the team left the company out of solidarity with the editor-in-chief.

    Many of the people who left now thanked the fired editor-in-chief: He had given them a chance in the first place. They also praised the site’s team and expressed how proud they were of the work done there.

    Even the man who makes “Zero Punctuation,” Yahtzee Croshaw, announced his departure. He adds: Although he doesn’t have the rights to the “Zero Punctuation” format, he will continue elsewhere. His voice will not be silenced.

    As has now become known, this will probably be “Second Wind”, a YouTube channel where the former team from “The Escapist” will soon explain what will happen next (via Twitter).

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    A popular format for game reviews.

    How is this discussed? Everyone on reddit agrees: Yathzee’s departure ultimately means the death of the site. This gave The Escapist an identity and helped to introduce and introduce new people.

    With his departure, the site basically ended itself. The manager who fired the editor-in-chief might as well have fired himself.

    A tough time has apparently begun for gaming sites. We reported just 3 months ago about the end of a German project on MMORPGs:

    One of the last German fansites for WoW concludes: “You can’t live on these numbers”

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