Zero Punctuation is Dead - Yahtzee quits the Escapist along with the rest of the staff

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[Hobknobling]

It is funny how they just copied the old structure from The Escapist where they have Yahtzee and then a bunch of completely talentless morons making throwaway content nobody watches. Even in Yahtzee's videos you get a hard cut to a low audio quality puff-piece because these mouthbreathers cannot do even the most basic things like audio recording correctly.

I guess Yahtzee is too much of a limp-wristed fedora redditor to actually take matters into his own hands and just part ways with these losers and do his own thing.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

He just can't win can he lol. All of his articles were about how employers misteat employees and how he felt uncomfortable working for certain personality types. Turns out that was projection.

 

[processdaemon]

I got the impression that Yahtzee is allergic to any kind of admin/ management stuff and just wants to focus on content production, which I can sympathise with but at some point he's got to realise that he could probably outsource all the stuff he doesn't like to some third party for 10% of the current cost of carrying an entire studio's worth of deadweight.

 

[Chuck Norris]

I got the impression that Yahtzee is allergic to any kind of admin/ management stuff and just wants to focus on content production, which I can sympathise with but at some point he's got to realise that he could probably outsource all the stuff he doesn't like to some third party for 10% of the current cost of carrying an entire studio's worth of deadweight.

That is true, but I think he also considers that if he drops all these people, it will be a bad look for him. He will look selfish and egoistic. He has done a lot of livestreams with these people and they are friends (or at least project that image).

 

[Fedora Master]

At the end of the day he is still a leftcuck and will act accordingly.

 

[Hagashager]

I actually really like Frost, moreso than Yahtzee. I can't say I'm surprised though. Nick, from the little I saw of him, struck me as not deserving the praise he apparently got.

Frost is less histronic than the other jackasses he worked with. Most of his stuff is legitimate criticism of the industry and he's willing to argue issues, even ones people disagree on in good faith. Apparently Nick is not this. He'll ban you for wrongthink, generally can't write for ahit and is noticably less educated than Yahtzee or Frost. Both Frost and Yahtzee have literary knowledge. Nick only knows video games and his college degree.

 

[Ebonsword]

It is funny how they just copied the old structure from The Escapist where they have Yahtzee and then a bunch of completely talentless morons making throwaway content nobody watches. Even in Yahtzee's videos you get a hard cut to a low audio quality puff-piece because these mouthbreathers cannot do even the most basic things like audio recording correctly.

I guess Yahtzee is too much of a limp-wristed fedora redditor to actually take matters into his own hands and just part ways with these losers and do his own thing.

Yes, Yahtzee is the most popular person at Second Wind, but I do think you underestimate how popular folks like Jack and Marty are.

Anyway, I do find Frost's departure pretty concerning. He seemed, by far, to be the most financially knowledgeable person there, so the fact that he (seemingly) left over financial mismanagement doesn't bode well for the future.

 

[PlanHex]

No interesting developments other than that tweet?
There was some weak ass "sad to see frost go, sorry im addicted to social media" PR statement from Nick on their youtube channel, but haven't seen anything else

 

[Caim]

So I checked out their Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/SecondWindGroup

Nearly 47k per month fucking hell.

But the real joke is that while there is a lot of stuff on their channel, people mostly just show up to see Yahtzee do his thing. I guess some things never change.

 

[Tyranicon]

Who the fuck are any of these people? I only know of Yahtzee and played his adventure game years and years ago.

Actually nevermind, I don't want to know. I'm sure it's just the standard mix of ex-journos, 'tubers and streamers. Absolutely of no interest to me whatsoever.

 

[PlanHex]

Looking at the view numbers on their channel, seems that Fully Ramblomatic pulls 200-300k per video, while Frost's Cold Take was around 100k, so he must have had some popularity there. Not much else gets above 100k, at least not consistently.

 

[Caim]

Looking at the view numbers on their channel, seems that Fully Ramblomatic pulls 200-300k per video, while Frost's Cold Take was around 100k, so he must have had some popularity there. Not much else gets above 100k, at least not consistently.

Yahtzee is to Second Wind (and Escapist before it) what Vampire: The Masquerade is to the World of Darkness. Sure he's not the ONLY thing that makes them money, but he's the biggest cashcow by far.

 

[PlanHex]

Looking at the view numbers on their channel, seems that Fully Ramblomatic pulls 200-300k per video, while Frost's Cold Take was around 100k, so he must have had some popularity there. Not much else gets above 100k, at least not consistently.

Yahtzee is to Second Wind (and Escapist before it) what Vampire: The Masquerade is to the World of Darkness. Sure he's not the ONLY thing that makes them money, but he's the biggest cashcow by far.

Sure, I mean I also only subscribe for yahtzee and only watched a few of those cold takes if the topic sounds interesting. Just saying, losing Frost is a bigger loss than losing some of the others.

 

[Ebonsword]

Frost has issued an update:

https://x.com/TheOtherFrost/status/1820905621333430659/photo/1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ye8rqLW5nY

When I read the letter, I thought that the "Moderator" he mentions was probably Jack, but they seem to be talking about Jack in the Youtube video, so it seems like it's someone else. Probably Marty?

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Looking at the view numbers on their channel, seems that Fully Ramblomatic pulls 200-300k per video, while Frost's Cold Take was around 100k, so he must have had some popularity there. Not much else gets above 100k, at least not consistently.

Yeah, but their paying Patreon audience is 13,317 people. The paying audience might be watching all their stuff, even if the general audience isn’t.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Fucking YIKES. Dude kept receipts.
Yeah this is classic start up behavior. Shits rampant throughout the games industry.

 

[Caim]

Remember that this is the guy whom a fair chunk of the Escapist staff resigned for in solidarity and followed off the site.

 

[Spukrian]

Remember that this is the guy whom a fair chunk of the Escapist staff resigned for in solidarity and followed off the site.

If I understood the video in the post above yours correctly, this wasn't true. They fired everyone except Yahtzee, Frost and one other...

EDIT: Frost repeatedly says Dan Vavra is alt-right. I feel that this is incorrect.

 

[Ebonsword]

Fucking YIKES. Dude kept receipts.
Yeah this is classic start up behavior. Shits rampant throughout the games industry.

Most of the Second Wind team has written individual responses to Frost's video.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SecondWindGroup/comments/1et11ve/response_from_2w_staff_to_frost/

I think KC's was the best:

KC Nwosu Frost and I spoke at length after his resignation (upwards of 6 hours) in the hopes of reaching an understanding as to why leaving was his only option.

I suggested and organized the moderated call between Nick and Frost in the hopes that they could come to a meaningful understanding with one another before parting ways with the pie in the sky chance of forgiveness and resolution (another 6 hours).

The majority of that talk went well, but sadly Frost used that call as fodder for YouTube drama. A lot of what Frost has said since has been a skewed version of the truth which I told him myself I found very disappointing. For example Frost is the one who called for the informal vote to fire Nick after the team met and agreed that we put Nick on probation for his social media behavior. Frost then went on to say in a Twitter post the vote wasn't representative of the entire group…(then why did you call for it??)

He has ignored all of the internal changes we've been making to address our complaints about leadership and direction, some of which he specifically came up with and we began to implement. Frost didn't want to wait around for us to do better; he doesn't believe we can. I find that upsetting but it’s within his rights. However the continued focus on Second Wind is unwarranted and baffling to me, it strikes me as his way of forcing us all to do what he wanted in that vote. Nick is not without fault.

Internally, I was one of his loudest critics, but I support giving him the chance to correct his mistakes which I can confirm he has been trying to do. Nick does right by the team for the most part and the picture Frost paints is one sided, inaccurate, and worst of all harms the group as a whole while claiming to be a defender of us creatives.

So, it sounds like, yes, Nick is kind of an asshole, but the rest of the team thinks he's improving. But Frost tried to use discontent with Nick to institute some kind of power grab that failed spectacularly.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Yahtzee's schtick stopped being novel like 20 years ago.

 

[Bad Sector]

Looking at the view numbers on their channel, seems that Fully Ramblomatic pulls 200-300k per video, while Frost's Cold Take was around 100k, so he must have had some popularity there. Not much else gets above 100k, at least not consistently.

I only knew about Yahtzee before Second Wind since i never liked any of the other videos in Escapist over the years to make me check them out, but after listening a couple of podcasts and watching a few videos, Frost is the only other person in that team i had any interest in hearing their takes - especially his back and forth discussions/arguments with Yahtzee.

Aside from Yahtzee and Frost i never found any other series in SWG interesting - even the gamedev stuff that in theory should be up my alley in practice is kinda boring and a single video of that dude making Bloodthief in Godot has more interesting information than all the gamedev videos in SWG combined (at least those i bothered to watch).