The Escapist Officially Ends Zero Punctuation

[The_Mask]

Seems like Yahtzee and a few others got the boot, so Zero Punctuation is dead, and probably so is Yahtzee. If anyone cared.

I watched his reviews from time to time, whenever he covered something I was interested in.

Anyway... that's the news.

[WhiteShark]

I think Yahtzee is somewhat retarded, but I am curious what happened at The Escapist. Zero Punctuation must not have been doing so well to get the boot like this.

[Acrux]

Either something really bad happened, or that guy is absolutely retarded not to take a severance package. I don't know what involvement, if any, Alexander Macris has with the Escapist anymore, but I have a hunch this all might be related to ACKS II and garbage is being cleaned out.

[wndrbr]

It's not just Yahtzee who got booted. Looks like the whole Escapist is imploding.

[Gregz]

Just another sign that the hobby is dead. RPGs are now walking simulators to feed mouthbreathers globohomo commercials.

[WhiteShark]

I don't know what involvement, if any, Alexander Macris has with the Escapist anymore, but I have a hunch this all might be related to ACKS II and garbage is being cleaned out.

Maybe, but I'm not sure he's involved at all anymore. According to Wikipedia he sold the company back in 2012:

On November 15, 2012, it was announced that Themis Media had been acquired by Alloy Digital for an undisclosed sum.

And in 2018 it changed hands again:

In July 2018, The Escapist was purchased by Enthusiast Gaming, owner of Destructoid,[19] and a relaunch was announced with former editor-in-chief Russ Pitts at the helm.

Also, given how busy he seems to be with ACKS II and Ascendant (his superhero RPG), I don't see how he could possibly be doing anything for The Escapist anymore.

[madbringer]

Either something really bad happened, or that guy is absolutely retarded not to take a severance package.

I would not judge refusing severance so badly, because usually accepting one binds u legally to some nasty shit, which can haunt u for years down the road. If the guy is ok financially, it makes sense. The simple fact they force employees into NDAs for a payout in a worst case scenario implies to me something went bad. Really bad.

[Boontaker]

Were you guys consuming some different version of zero punctuation than I was? I stopped watching them years ago when they went full reddit.

[madbringer]

Were you guys consuming some different version of zero punctuation than I was? I stopped watching them years ago when they went full reddit.

I was ever only vaguely aware of The Escapist as an entity, and Zero Punctuation as a series. I am more aware of Yahtzee himself as an insufferable politically milquetoast cuck.

[Boontaker]

Were you guys consuming some different version of zero punctuation than I was? I stopped watching them years ago when they went full reddit.

I was ever only vaguely aware of The Escapist as an entity, and Zero Punctuation as a series. I am more aware of Yahtzee himself as an insufferable politically milquetoast cuck.

Maybe he "supported diversity" so hard that he replaced himself. At the last moment he probably had a racist meltdown, hence the sudden exit.

[madbringer]

Were you guys consuming some different version of zero punctuation than I was? I stopped watching them years ago when they went full reddit.

I was ever only vaguely aware of The Escapist as an entity, and Zero Punctuation as a series. I am more aware of Yahtzee himself as an insufferable politically milquetoast cuck.

Maybe he "supported diversity" so hard that he replaced himself. At the last moment he probably had a racist meltdown, hence the sudden exit.

These conflagrations tend to spark from rape, nigger jokes or antisemitism involved. Maybe a combo of 2 or all 3. Dont want to speculate but I know how these liberal workspaces operate.

[Vlajdimir Ermenović]

I was ever only vaguely aware of The Escapist as an entity, and Zero Punctuation as a series. I am more aware of Yahtzee himself as an insufferable politically milquetoast cuck.

Maybe he "supported diversity" so hard that he replaced himself. At the last moment he probably had a racist meltdown, hence the sudden exit.

These conflagrations tend to spark from rape, nigger jokes or antisemitism involved. Maybe a combo of 2 or all 3. Dont want to speculate but I know how these liberal workspaces operate.

Considering this came right before he was supposed to review that spider-man game, that could be correct.

[Roguey]

Were you guys consuming some different version of zero punctuation than I was? I stopped watching them years ago when they went full reddit.

Yeah, in the late 10s he moved to San Francisco and adopted their politics. His review of Hogwarts Legacy started by affirming his hatred of Rowling for being a TERF.

[H-H-Holmes]

Nothing of value was lost.

[Atlantico]

I wasn't aware of anything on the Escapist other than ZP and I was barely aware of that.

The ship is going down, trannies and xirs first.

[SoLong]

Yeah, in the late 10s he moved to San Francisco and adopted their politics. His review of Hogwarts Legacy started by affirming his hatred of Rowling for being a TERF.

That's when I stopped watching. Yahtzee has always been an insufferably smug leftist but he was a type of unicorn in that he managed to be funny more often than not.

After the Bad Orange Man got elected he got worse and worse, with Hogwarts Legacy being the final nail in the coffin; he got down and slobbered on that tranny peen so hard he almost sucked the transplanted skin right off.

I really, really love knowing that he doesn't own the rights to Zero Punctuation though. If you paid any attention to Yahtzee's other business ventures (bar ownership, game making, writing...) then you know that he doesn't have a good payout to effort ratio. Even his books relied on him plugging them on ZP to generate sales.

I always wonder what goes through the head of these mental midgets that they'd sell off the rights to their intellectual property like this. Whatever else his next project is I hope to sinks like a stone.

[Emphyrio]

haven't watched since Gaymergay. Man gayming culture is different now.

[gerey]

Game journalists aren't human, their suffering makes angels sing in Heaven.

I hope they all starve to death.

[SoLong]

haven't watched since Gaymergay. Man gayming culture is different now.

What now? Did I miss some recent controversy again?

[Emphyrio]

haven't watched since Gaymergay. Man gayming culture is different now.

What now? Did I miss some recent controversy again?

can't tell if joking or srs

[J1M]

Either something really bad happened, or that guy is absolutely retarded not to take a severance package. I don't know what involvement, if any, Alexander Macris has with the Escapist anymore, but I have a hunch this all might be related to ACKS II and garbage is being cleaned out.

Severance package was probably something miniscule like 2-4 weeks pay. Don't underestimate the value of being able to claim victimhood and virtual signal for those that live within walking distance of the coast.

[Humbaba]

Wtf?????? Yahtzee and ZP were literally the only thing worthwhile about the Escapist. For a stretch of at least 2 years, ZP was the only content uploaded to the Escapist youtube channel. Yahtzee was with that company for like 15 years. And that's the guy that gets booted???

Btw Yahtz has largely been completely apolitical in his content, only ever tangentially sharing some of his opinions in his reviews, most of which were only somewhat leftist at best. Calling him a commie cuck is undeserved. Yahtzee bashed The Lesbian of Us 2 heavily for relying on the main character being a minority. He also used the retard word, which is the mark of a Nazi in current year.



However, many of his later associates at the Escapist were caricatures of soy chugging fuckboys and as some have pointed out, they did rub off on him a bit.

I for one am very sad to see the series end, having watched it weekly for many years. Yahtzee is a trusted reviewer of mine with aligning tastes, the last remaining, after TB died of ass cancer. I do wonder what he's going to do next. Yahtzee is after all not actually a youtuber, earning his living via his employment as a journo. It's very likely he'll go freelance on the tube now but that income is all but stable and building a channel from the ground up is not something a 40+ year old father should have to be doing.

Someone should invite him to this site.



-Humbaba

[Roguey]

Calling him a commie cuck is undeserved. Yahtzee bashed The Lesbian of Us 2 heavily for relying on the main character being a minority. He also used the retard word, which is the mark of a Nazi in current year.

He and Rowling likely agree on 98% of politics but she said she supports transpeople's right to exist but doesn't support them invading women's space and that led to this chimpout:

So, as I'm sure you know, Hogwarts Legacy is based on the work of J. K. Rowling, who is a massive TERF-y C-word; as such, reviewing it puts one in an awkward position online, as the feeling in some circles is that even acknowledging it is giving oxygen to her and her horrible C-word opinions. But damnit, I have a job to do, and I feel bad for the no-doubt hundreds of ground-level people on the dev team who probably think she's a C-word as much as any of us at this point. So how about this? I'll review the game strictly on its own merits, but start out by affirming as clearly as possible that I think J. K. Rowling is a... we're past thirty seconds now, right? Cunt. Does that offset things enough?

[Humbaba]

Sounds to me more like an effort to appease the LGBTQ mafia, since Yahtzee's coworkers are Made Men Theythems.




-Humbaba

[Rand]

Here's the reason.
New owners "Gamurs" (barf) set ridiculous expansion metrics the video arm was expected to meet.
Except, no. The market is full. There's no expansion possible.
Editor In Chief was held responsible and fired.
The rest of the video unit quit in solidarity to go with the EIC and set up shop themselves.

The writers on the shitty(er) part of the site are still publishing. It was just the video production unit that almost entirely left of their own accord (which includes Yahtzee).

[SoLong]

Wtf?????? Yahtzee and ZP were literally the only thing worthwhile about the Escapist. For a stretch of at least 2 years, ZP was the only content uploaded to the Escapist youtube channel. Yahtzee was with that company for like 15 years. And that's the guy that gets booted???

You know, as much as I love this site I really wish people would read stuff before reacting to it.

Yahtzee wasn't fired. The Escapist (or rather, their owners) fired some hack editor who wasn't doing a good job. That editor was also a friend of Yahtzees. So He threw a fit that they'd fire his friend and quit in protest.

[Decline]

[WhiteShark]

You know, as much as I love this site I really wish people would read stuff before reacting to it.

Yahtzee wasn't fired. The Escapist (or rather, their owners) fired some hack editor who wasn't doing a good job. That editor was also a friend of Yahtzees. So He threw a fit that they'd fire his friend and quit in protest.

Do you know something more than what's in the OP? His tweet does say 'resign', but that's often code for 'resign <because the alternative is getting fired>'. I didn't look into it beyond that, though, so you may be totally correct.

[The_Mask]

Link to YT channel, if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1wZGo ... OqBUFCyIJA

[SoLong]

Do you know something more than what's in the OP? His tweet does say 'resign', but that's often code for 'resign <because the alternative is getting fired>'. I didn't look into it beyond that, though, so you may be totally correct.

It's on the Escaping the Escapist discord server, written by Nick Calandra and Yahtzee himself. A lot of people got fired and that left the video department with a skeleton department (and Yahtzee). The remaining staff then quit in protest and they plan to go independent under him.

The fly in the ointment is that Yahtzee is a tool who sold the rights to Zero Punctuation so he can't continue making it. On the other hand, the IP is near useless without him so the Escapist is now left without content.