The Escapist has lost its entire video team. The Escapist is a video game website that also produces video content – most well known for the short-form video reviews by Yahtzee Croshaw known as Zero Punctuation which has been ongoing since 2007.
The company has been owned by a trail of different parent companies since 2011 (with the company Gamurs Group being the latest). The company began to find stability when Nick Calandra was hired and began to bring in new talent and diversify the content.
And then last week he was fired, allegedly for: “’not achieving goals’ that were never properly set for us, and a lack of understanding of our audience and the team that built that audience.”
And the entire video team resigned. Within days of this mass exodus Calandra announced that he would be starting a new company with everyone who resigned, called Second Wind, a fully creator owned independent company. (which reached the 150K subscribers within 2 days of the channel’s creation)
While some of the creators retain the rights to their IP, Zero Punctuation is still owned by the escapist although Calandra and Croshaw have announced a legally distinct segment called Fully Ramblomatic (which when you’re listening to this will have premiered it’s first episode).
Love to see creators going independent and seeing such an outpouring of support from the community.
In other news Stray Gods and it’s composers (Montaine, Tripod and Austin Wintory) have been nominated for a grammy for Best Score Soundtrack For Video Games And Other Interactive Media in the 2024 Grammys. The other games up for the award are God of War: Ragnarok, Hogwarts Legacy, Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
I'm beyond honored to see STRAY GODS nominated at the Grammys, above all because I get to share this with my wonderful friends from @TripodActual and @actualmontaigne. This was a quintessential team effort. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/OHO8WVcT2o
— Austin Wintory (@awintory) November 10, 2023
Do you remember back in the ancient times of 2021 when the GameStop stocks (something to do with hedge funds) were memeing? Me either but there’s a movie about it to refresh your memory! Called ‘Dumb Money’ it was out in cinemas in September but if you’re like me and somehow missed it you can get it digitally.
Releases!
November 16
Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR -Quest 2
Astlibra Revision -Switch
Dredge: The Pale Reach DLC – PC, Playstation, Xbox
Flashback 2 – PC, Playstation, Xbox, Switch
Jagged Alliance 3 -Playstation, Xbox
The Kindeman Remedy -PC
Loddlenaut-PC
PowerWash Simulator: Back to the Future Special Pack DLC -PC, Playstation, Xbox, Switch
Tobor -PC
November 17
Naruto X Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections -PC, Playstation, Xbox, Switch
Persona 5 Tactica – PC, Xbox
Super Mario RPG -Switch
The Walking Dead: Destinies -PC, Playstation, Xbox, Switch
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin – PC, PS5, Xbox Series X
November 20
In Stars and Time -PC
November 21
Construction Simulator – Spaceport Expansion DLC -PC, Playstation, Xbox
Worldless -PC, Playstation, Xbox, Switch
