A Farewell to the Escapist
And a hello to Second Wind
“Allow me to hold your face under the putrescent waters of knowledge…”
-Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, in his review of Peggle
A few weeks ago, video game reviewer and internet personality Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw quit his job of sixteen years at the online gaming magazine The Escapist, bringing with him the publication’s entire video staff. The decision was sparked by the firing of editor-in-chief Nick Calandra by parent company, Gamurs, who thought he was “not achieving goals.” The walkout came so suddenly and was so notable that the news was even covered by the BBC.
In less than a week, the former Escapist video team formed a new company called Second Wind, and have been continuing to make content with only slight alterations to their original formula.
Yahtzee’s weekly review show, Zero Punctuation, has been the cornerstone of The Escapist since being picked up in 2008. While The Escapist has featured many articles, shows, and personalities over the years, none have come anywhere close to Yahtzee in popularity, not to mention sustainability.
Yahtzee’s departure, and the departure of the entire video team, represents a massive shift in the world of video game coverage. While I look forward to seeing what this new era of video content brings, I would like to take a moment to look back on Yahtzee’s career and why it means so much to the gaming world and to me personally.
Taking Games Seriously
I first discovered Zero Punctuation and The Escapist in the fall of 2012. I had just graduated high school and, more importantly, had just given up on my dream of working in the video game industry. I had no idea where to start, no sense that it could ever be profitable, and had given up all attempts to learn programming or game design. It seemed too difficult for a career in a “childish” profession. So when I left for college, I decided the “grown-up” thing to do would be to put video games behind me and pursue a more “mature” career in writing.
A month later, I discovered the show Extra Credits, and that resolution went up in smoke. Extra Credits is a show about the impact that games can have on our lives and the intense craft and philosophy that goes into game development. Their slogan is “because games matter.” They convinced me that there was something “grown-up” about video games after all.
This article is not about Extra Credits, though I could write for some time on the subject. The important thing is that Extra Credits modeled their show after Zero Punctuation, taking the simple character art, the bold color choices, and the fast-paced talking and using it to convey complex ideas in a simple and pleasing form.
When Extra Credits name-dropped Zero Punctuation, I knew I had to check it out. That is how I discovered Yahtzee.
Yahtzee also took video games seriously, though not in the same way that Extra Credits did. He was funny, he had well-thought-out opinions on video games, and he was full of endlessly creative “knob” jokes.
Yahtzee didn’t give games scores, he just gave his honest opinion about popular video games and felt no shame about finding fault in games that other critics praised. This could make it difficult to distinguish between games he liked and games he didn’t, but his quick wit and endlessly crude metaphors betrayed someone who thought deeply about the media he played. He criticized because he knew that games could do better.
My policy against scores is rooted in the fact that their meanings are so nebulous that they have no meaning at all, and they exist only for readers who aren’t willing to spare the time to do more than glance at a summary at the bottom of the page. And if a reader isn’t willing to read through the whole critique, then they clearly aren’t there to seek guidance on a purchase decision or to enter a higher cultural discussion on a game…
-Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, A Review Scoring System That Would Work
Golden Age of The Escapist
Yahtzee has been the cornerstone of The Escapist for nearly sixteen years, but he wasn’t the only good thing to come out of it. Soon after discovering Zero Punctuation, I started to explore The Escapist’s other big personalities.
There was Jim-Stephanie Sterling of the Jimquisition, who did not simply review games, but examined the companies that made them and was ruthless in their takedown of corporate misconduct (which has unfortunately not gotten any better in the last decade). Jim was the first individual I came across that focused on the people who make games rather than the games themselves.
My other favorite personality was Bob “MovieBob” Chipman of both Escape to the Movies and The Game Over-Thinker. He brought a sociopolitical lens to his reviews, examining movies and games in terms of cultural impact, and was the first to bring feminist criticism to my attention.
Bob and Jim moved away from The Escapist a long time ago, leaving Yahtzee to hold down the fort, and my opinions on them all have changed over the years, but the important thing to me back then was that these were individuals who saw video games as a form of artistic expression and treated them as such.
These video makers from The Escapist taught me how to look at video games critically from multiple lenses when most video game “journalists” were still concerned with how realistic the blood splatters in the latest first-person shooters were.
Zero Regrets
Support for the former Escapist video team has been staggering. At time of writing, their new venture, Second Wind, has already amassed more than 360,000 subscribers on YouTube, with tens of thousands of dollars pledged to their support on Patreon. The group has not even registered their company yet, though editor-in-chief turned content director Nick Calandra has expressed hopes of registering as a Co-Op in the near future.
The fact that the content mill has not even appreciably slowed speaks to both the talent and experience of the team involved, and serves as an example to others who may be thinking of throwing off the shackles of overbearing parent companies. Whether it will last is yet to be seen, but I certainly hope it does.
If there's one thing history has taught us besides not to piss off people called Ghengis or put lead in your water pipes it's that if you're going to make something incredibly good that becomes frighteningly popular, make sure it's the last thing you ever make in your entire life...
-Yahtzee, in his review of Spore
The Zero Punctuation trademark still belongs with The Escapist, so Yahtzee’s newest review show is called Fully Ramblomatic and has released two episodes at time of writing. Besides a few visual tweaks, Fully Ramblomatic is formatted exactly like Zero Punctuation. It is comforting to know that Yahtzee still shows no signs of slowing down after over a decade.
Other shows that started on The Escapist have been given new life on Second Wind. These include Cold Take, a thoughtful series ruminating on games industry trends; Designer Delve, which takes a close look at game design; and The Backdrop, a series about TV and movies. Many of the old live-streams that ran on The Escapist have found a home on Second Wind as well.
The move has given these shows more room to breathe, and the news generated by the walkout has attracted new viewers and encouraged old ones to try new shows, meaning that these shows are likely in a better place than they were at The Escapist. Nick Calandra has even shared his hopes of starting an indie game publishing label at some point.
A Second Chance
I hope that Gamurs, The Escapist’s parent company and the ones that fired Nick in the first place, feel the loss of this asset. I truly wish the best for Second Wind. May it continue to show to us that games can be more than childish entertainment.
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NEXT TIME…
I share my thoughts on the RuneQuest RPG Starter Set, a bronze-age fantasy game about life in a mythological world, before getting ready for the Holiday season.
Never heard of the show about gaming, "Extra Credits" - it's now on my list, thanks!