WTF Is Going On At The Escapist?

[lisalover1]

Well, some rather shocking news came to light today at the video game news site "The Escapist", home of shows like Zero Punctuation, Moviebob, and most importantly, Extra Credits. Now, for those of you that have been following the show, you remember that the show's artist broke her arm a couple weeks back, and the show set up a donations site to help her. The Escapist also pitched in by promoting the show on the website. Due to the show's popularity, donations received FAR exceeded the goal amount. Since the show is produced for nonprofit, the rest of the money was set to go to charities. However, The Escapist contacted Extra Credits and said that they felt they were entitled to a whopping 75% of all the donations received. Extra Credits disagreed, and was only going to reimburse The Escapist for the promotional costs. EC hired a lawyer to negotiate with The Escapist, in which the staff of EC noted that The Escapist had not been paying the salary to them necessary to employ Extra Credits' artist, and that they had been paying her out of pocket for the past year or so. Soon after, several other Escapist employees/show producers came forward, saying that they also had not been payed, or at least had not been payed in a very long time. Things only escalated from there, and as of today, Extra Credits has left The Escapist website. Viewers only just found out about all of this today, as well, so things are pretty heated over at the site's forums right now.

Here's the full story: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/ ... COMMENTARY

[jfrost]

I saw this yesterday. What a load of bullshit. The Escapist is entitled to exactly zero of the donation money. Fuck them. They were donations for Extra Credits.

I feel the artists should've come forth sooner with this. If they are working without pay, they might as well set up their own website and live off donations directly (as it seems EC was more than able to pull off) instead of drawing pageviews to websites that don't respect them.

[lisalover1]

Wow, I just read that the EC team had to sign over the IP rights to the show for the site to promote it at all, under the assumption that they would get them back later. But because they now owned the IP rights, they realized they could hold them hostage for the exorbitant amount of money that they did.

[yomomma1]

According to the escapist, EC used some of the donation money for purposes other than what it was intended for. I hate stuff like this, mainly because I am tired of mobs forming before they hear the whole story.

[lisalover1]

According to the escapist, EC used some of the donation money for purposes other than what it was intended for. I hate stuff like this, mainly because I am tired of mobs forming before they hear the whole story.

But didn't the article say that this happened AFTER the incident?

[t0yrobo]

I don't know what's going on with their management but I really hope The Escapist doesn't just fall apart. I've been visiting that site since well before they had any videos, and now my girlfriend and I watch a handful of their shows every week.

But with this and things I've noticed recently I'm not feeling to positive. They've had some new shows that were just awful (Lisa Foiles Top 5 ). And apparently they've adding new shows while not being able to pay others. I hope all their contributors are able to secure their IP rights because they could all get screwed.

[ChuChu Flamingo]

From what I have been reading, the escapist are the ones in the right.

It doesn't really matter. Extra credits is hipster aids infested bullshit with games are art, mass effect 2 best story ever, and the like. No better than know your meme.

edited for great justice

[brunoafh]

It doesn't really matter. Extra credits is hipster aids infested bullshit with games are art, mass effect 2 best story ever, and the like. No better than know your meme.

Kind of have to agree with this.

[dsheinem]

extra credit are the jews.

Please tell me this is some inside Escapist joke and not just outright antisemitism.

[ChuChu Flamingo]

extra credit are the jews.

Please tell me this is some inside Escapist joke and not just outright antisemitism.

It has nothing to do with race. They went and used the money for things not related to the surgery. They needed 10k, they got 51k iirc.