State of the Escapist, Late 2015 Edition

[Dragonlayer]

Everyone continues to treat every single piece of gaming news with bile infused snark, and nobody can shut the fuck up about GamerGate/Anti-GamerGate/Feminism/Anti-Feminism/gender based internet slap-fight non-issue of the day, so its pretty much the same its been for the past few years, only somehow progressively worse regarding these issues.

But, like so many domestic abuse victims, I keep coming back for more.

Mostly because of the make-up sex.

 

[Kameburger]

I honestly can't seem to figure out what the escapist is even trying to be these days. I like a lot of the talent but the content is all over the place. I don't think the escapist is the best first stop for any sort of news right now where I didn't feel like this was the case before. I like the movie reviews, but I feel like while the quality is better, the entertainment value is lost a bit. Bob had this way of tearing apart a movie that he didn't like in such a way that would have you laughing the whole way through. Sometimes it was a bit too much but it had a charm to it that kept me watching. I also liked all the individual podcasts. And I don't much care for the current escapist one not because of any reason in particular, just too eclectic for me.

I like that the escapist isn't some kind of political bastion anymore but I feel a lot like it's lost any edge or bite at all. It doesn't matter who writes what anymore cause it all feels the same.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Looking at my join date, I'm amazed I've lasted this long. Five years is a good amount of time to devote to one site, and there have been times where I've been like "fuck this shit, I'm out" only to be drawn back in by something I couldn't quite explain (still can't actually).
The content has dipped and risen in the half-decade I've spent here, the arrival and departure of Jim was meteoric (and really best wishes to him for doing his own thing without oversight). The thing I refuse to refer to by any name or abbreviation has been a mild irritant to me personally but thanks to years of customer service experience I can ignore irritating things without conscious effort. But yeah it has been a bit annoying to wade through a sea of posts to find something I actually want to comment on.
Thankfully I've had a usergroup to hang out with and vent to (surprisingly they haven't given me the boot).

State of Escapist though? Its recovering I think from the loss of LRR, Jim and even Bob whom a lot of people seemed to hate but personally I didn't mind most of the time but he could be irritating. Marter has really done well picking up the movie review slack though, but I do miss his reviews on WWE. Yeah I'm a rope opera nerd, deal with it =P

 

[blue heartless]

I think you overestimate my influence... o.o

You're definitely a sight for bored eyes. You're the only name on my User friend's list that is still active. Cheers.

Looking at my join date, I'm amazed I've lasted this long.

It becomes a routine. You'll become used to it.

I do miss his reviews on WWE.

Was this actually a thing? If so, I missed all of it. Start to finish. Damn shame.

 

[RedDeadFred]

It's getting better now that GG has died down, but I think the site really misses Jim. Luckily, I'm enjoying Good Bad Flicks a lot more than Bob.

Unfortunately, it seems like a much larger portion of the content now concerns cosplay which I don't even remotely care about.

As far as the forums are concerned, the decline in users was really noticeable. You see the same topics on the front page for multiple days at a time.

I do think it's been getting better though, so I'm hopeful.

Edit: forum games are always fun too. I need to go through a binge of them again soon....

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I think you overestimate my influence... o.o

You're definitely a sight for bored eyes. You're the only name on my User friend's list that is still active. Cheers.

We don't get to talk much though. Have any comparisons about the Escapist of a decade ago to the one we have today? Besides the layouts. I've seen at least 4 layouts in my time and I wasn't around in the PDF days.

 

[Fat Hippo]

I still miss the weekly issue of articles. *sigh* Yeah yeah, I know they're never coming back.

At least things have calmed down a bit, and I hope they'll continue to improve steadily. I like some of the new content creators, and to be honest, I don't miss Bob and Jim that much. They were both getting pretty stale anyway, and Jim hasn't made a Jimquisition video about a truly original or interesting topic in months, it feels like.

The new head honcho Vanderwall seems like a cool and calm guy, probably the right kind of attitude to get The Escapist back on the right track after all these shitstorms.

 

[IceForce]

Jim hasn't made a Jimquisition video about a truly original or interesting topic in months, it feels like.

His video about walking simulators was something new and original, at least in the sense that it's something he hasn't covered before.

 

[Sassafrass]

I think we're still readjusting from the major content overhaul. I mean it's hard to not lose traffic when you lose some major contributors and hire in people that possibly only have a fraction of their fanbases. So yeah, just give it a while and things will go back to normal.

If not, well...I kinda like the slower forums. Means I can catch up on any shit I missed in a short sitting. Yeah, there's less topics going about but I attribute that down to the subforums we have now. I remember when we didn't have a R&P forum and Roleplay and FGs were lumped in together, god-dammit. *Rabble rabble rabble*

Plus the content calendar on the front is finally filling up again, thank fuck. That thing was empty at one point since the turn of the year.

 

[Steppin Razor]

Hmmm the site seems ok at the moment. The forums are certainly a lot deader than they were back when I was on the site every day.

Forums are a dry, traffic-starved husk of what they once were.

Doom I tell you! Dooooom and glooooom!

DOOOOOOOOOOM AND GLOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

[sub]echo[/sub]
[sub][sub]echo[/sub][/sub]
[sub][sub][sub]echo[/sub][/sub][/sub]
[sub][sub][sub][sub]echo[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]
[sub][sub][sub][sub][sub]echo[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]
[sub][sub][sub][sub][sub][sub]And so on and so forth[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Hmmm the site seems ok at the moment. The forums are certainly a lot deader than they were back when I was on the site every day.

They didn't have Alpha anymore, hence the lifelessness.

 

[blue heartless]

I think you overestimate my influence... o.o

You're definitely a sight for bored eyes. You're the only name on my User friend's list that is still active. Cheers.

We don't get to talk much though. Have any comparisons about the Escapist of a decade ago to the one we have today? Besides the layouts. I've seen at least 4 layouts in my time and I wasn't around in the PDF days.

Entirely my fault, rest assured.

The Escapist a decade ago? Can't say I remember much about it. I was originally a member of the WarCry.com Forums (specifically to visit Final Fantasy Discussion boards) before the latter was subsequently integrated into the WarCry network. The place doesn't exist anymore and I'm somewhat of a vagrant in that regard. There now lies many a RP never finished.

Bitterness cast aside, the forum community ten years ago was considerably smaller since much of the content on the site proper was localized to cater to the communities from which the staff came from. Few users I met online at the time were US based; the vast majority I found out were dwelling in the UK or one of its territories. Microsoft was growing massive interest in the gaming market and one of the biggest debates I remember being a part of was whether or not a company "who makes the things we play games on" could "make the things we play with" well. It was our Gamer Gate. That might have also been on the former WarCry forum before the transition, so don't quote me on where that thread is.

Nowadays, with what I consider an out-of-proportion emphasis on social media 'shares' and 'likes' the community has exploded with all sorts of... bodies. Bonds forged quickly. People enjoy the company of other people who share the same interests. In turn, new people brought with them new personalities into the mix. Slowly this trendy, "cultural cynicism" became a majority voice and as the saying goes, spoiled the broth. Don't misunderstand, people have always been dicks (and half of them, have them), it just was never pronounced as it is now. Mostly because of Zero Punctuation and its amazing viewership (which was added back in 2007, around a time I was more interested in girls than games).

Generally speaking, The Escapist is doing superlatively well. It's been around for ten years, has it not? I don't miss the weekly issues (for those unclear that The Escapist Magazine was in fact, a magazine once upon a time), I DO miss Unskippable and the Video Game Theater and the thing with Extra Credits was [if I could break the fourth wall] undeniably fucking stupid [/break] but all in all they have gone balls to the wall for us on multiple occasions to keep their current visitors happy and new ones to stay. What do I know about running a gaming mag? Pretty much nothing. The Escapist had been around for 47 days before I created this account.

That's like, a baker's dozen, or something.

 

[Vault101]

I don't come on as often as I did

but that's really because I've been preoccupied with other things, I was never big on the content

I'm less inclined to get into internet slap fights, I think GG was really the tipping point where I became disillusioned with pretty much all aspects of nerd culture

so I can't really say how things are or say it saddens me too much which ever way