What's going on with The Escapist?

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

This isn't directly about games, so I'm not sure which forum is more appropriate, but my concern is piqued by this site's continuing crop of "games coverage".

At the time of writing, on the main page there's a preview blurb all about how great Watchdogs is shaping up to be and numerous articles relating to The Elder Scrolls Online. By numerous I really do mean an awful lot of different previews, reviews, guides and commentaries only one of which (Yahtzee's) is particularly negative.

There's so much more going on in the world of gaming right now and it doesn't feature anywhere. There's an (Open) Beta weekend coming up for Wildstar for all those who signed up but didn't get into a closed beta before, and not a mention or a peep of such big news on such an eagerly awaited MMO. Google [https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=wildstar+beta&oq=wildstar+beta] brings back tonnes of results of other gaming sites covering that in depth, but the Escapist only has eyes for TESO.

Other sites are also covering myriad stories such as speculation about Just Cause 3, today's release of Dark Souls 2 on PC, free games to look forward to on PSPlus/Live Gold, current top 10s, that tonnes of PSP/PS1 games appeared and disappeared on the Vita and more.

Don't mistake me, I realise there's only so many journalistic hours in a day and other sites don't have much of the content we do, but this is my go-to site and I feel like I'm missing out on what's going on out there since all this site does is make more TESO articles. I also miss all the offers and deals that used to be reported on, even if most were for my US based contemporaries.

TL;DR: I'm an Escapist of many years and starting to feel alienated by the site.

 

[tippy2k2]

I feel like it's always been like this.

You half answered your own question but a large part of it is due to the size of the staff and how big the website is.

Now this is going to sound mean to you Escapist but I promise I am saying this with the utmost respect; The Escapist has NEVER had previews and whatnot unless it was a huge title (or a quirky title would slip in every so often when Susan "Nerd Queen" Arendt was in charge of reviews). The staff is not big and frankly, compared to heavy hitters like IGN and whatnot, the site itself is tiny. The vast majority of the News on the site seem to be reported from other sites; the Escapist itself does not seem to have any of it's own sources for news.

The Escapist has always been more of a hangout than an actual gaming news website. While the occasional news/previews/reviews do occur (and it does seem to be picking up slightly), this site has always been an editorial (like "Critical Intel" and "Experienced Points") and content creation (like "Zero Punctuation" and "Jimquistion") rather than a good source for gaming news.

Again, please note that this is not a bad thing; stick with what makes you great. If I'm looking for gaming news, The Escapist is probably not going to be my first choice.

 

[Aerosteam]

Eh, I don't really get my gaming news from here, more like the nerdy stuff semi-related to it.

Think of it this way, if someone is really into TESO (not sure why), then the Escapist coverage is great for them at the moment, but if you want more variety I'd go somewhere else.

 

[josemlopes]

The Gamespot news section has a shitload of content that The Escapist should have covered too (the comment section in there is terrible and I wanted to discuss about it). And its weird since even in there its usually just game content while here its that plus cool random tech/comics/movie/art stuff, and yet they update more times with valid content.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I have no real issue with the positive previews myself. If the authors are legitimately excited about a game, I think they should want to tell us about it.

That said, I do think there's some real lacking content when it comes to actual news. I get that The Escapist is pushing itself forward as more of a "nerd-media" site than a gaming site but I'd still like to see more actual gaming news. I guess that's what the sister site Game Front is for these days?

 

[StormDragonZ]

I'm fairly certain other places talk about things that have yet to happen, or even go to such lengths to make up stuff that has nothing to do with a particular company or game. The Escapist is smart enough that content and factual information is more important than starting a Twitter war over a character's possible jeans style being offensive to Norwegians.

Yes, there is a Twitter war over that. You'd be surprised what you wish didn't exist.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The place has never been THAT focused on gaming, bar some funny reviews and lists. Peering at the bottom of the page right now the most popular news are how a college professor got suspended because of a t-shirt, apparently asteroids strike Earth "with nuclear force" every year, something about a flight captured by a drone and what may be leaked photos from Star Wars VII. Not exactly gripping, let alone game-oriented.

 

[dyre]

The Escapist seems to be more about "original content" than "news." Even when this place does provide news I usually take their "journalism" with a massive grain of salt, as it's often sensationalist or misleading. The original content, on the other hand, is pretty nice.

This place might not have the latest news on, well, anything, but it does have a bunch of cool shows.

 

[Voulan]

To me the Escapist is more of a site about gaming discussion than about news. Most of the content steers towards gaming articles and discussions about gaming culture and the gaming industry, and that's certainly where most of the attention is centred towards.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Gaming news sites are more often blog collections without a central focus. General nerd sites even worse. Be it news or editorial, there usually isn't a central drive to make sure everything that should be covered gets covered, so much as getting a varied group of people together to write about their interests and hoping the holes get filled. It doesn't work all that well all the time. I'm amazed the Vita thing didn't get coverage, either for the issue, or what is says about digital ownership and backward compatibility, but I guess no one's on the vita beat here. Hell, I continue to hope for more indy game coverage, but it seems to take a back seat to the rhymedown, which is a bit annoying. Games that need to press don't get it so Jim and Yahtzee can give opinions they've already given in verse.

 

[Baldr]

One of the reasons I love the escapist is because of their proximity and network of contacts on the East Coast game development scene, they cover a lot of news that would generally not be covered by one of the larger media sites. Although nothing on ECGC these past couple day(The conference was pretty boring this year.)

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

It sounds like one of your big gripes is the extent of content focused on TESO at the moment.

To be honest, that hype train ain't going to last and people will move on. Websites know where their traffic is going and once TESO doesn't get clicks, they will stop making it.

I'm sure they will move on to something new soon enough.

If you are going to put your main coverage on the 'big' titles, there isn't much else to focus on at the moment.

Hey, they are probably sick of the TESO content too.

 

[L. Declis]

The reason the Escapist is covering The Elder Scrolls Online is probably because that's all they're playing (judging by how obsessed they were with Skyrim).

And it's never really been the hard-hitting front of news. I mean, it takes them a week to put out a boardgame review. A week. To play a 4 hour board game. Maybe they had to play twice, or three times!?

If you want news, this isn't the place.

You come to the Escapist because of Jim Sterling, Yahtzee, unusual forums topics and (maybe) Moviebob. You stay for Jim Sterling and the same forum topics again and again.

 

[Someone Depressing]

This site... it's a lot more nerdy-general entertainment-y than a lot of other gaming sites, like Otaku and IGN. I suppose that's why the site has as many regulars as it does. As for TESO, I'm sick of all the news it's getting. Pretty much everyone has agreed that it's a greedy cash-grab, and that it's infinitely better just to install Skyrim's MMO mod. I'm annoyed at simply how much news it's getting. But oh well, it'll... maybe die down. It won't.

 

[SweetShark]

Honest truth, I always see The Escapist a Forum site, than gaming news in general.

 

[King of Asgaard]

Frankly, as much as I love this place, the news aspect is kind of an added bonus, rather than the reason for me joining. In terms of efficient coverage, other sites do it faster. What the Escapist has, which no other site can match IMO, is the community. The forums, the conversations and ironically the coverage said threads bring about sometimes is THE reason to come to the Escapist.

With that said, since Jim took over reviews they've been markedly better, and while the site may not have their own sources, it serves as a decent round up and the articles aren't usually hype trains or blatant advertisements.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Yeah, your bigger gaming news sites definitely have more in depth and varied coverage, but I come here mainly because all of the other bigger sites are firewalled from my laptop at work. This is the only site I can go to without getting blocked, so SOME gaming news is better than NONE, in my case, lol.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

To be clear, I wouldn't trade Yahtzee, Unskippable, Jim, Lisa or Moviebob for pretty much anything, but I think there's a lot of stuff going on that's simply not getting reported on. Maybe the change is related to the site's desire to cover more geek culture, but the game's coverage is really suffering.