Zero Punctuation: An Analysis of Corporate Failure
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- #zeropunctuation #yahtzee #secondwind
Extremally popular and long running series "Zero Punctuation" has come to an end, after sixteen years with online Magazine and site "The Escapist" - but not necessarily by the will of it's creator Yahtzee. Why is that? What happened, what can we learn, and why does Yahtzee keep making videos in this style after 16 years I AM IN PAIN -
Check out Second Wind - www.youtube.co...
I want to make a note here in case it wasn't clear in the video itself : *I do not condone any harassment of any of the current workers at the Escapist, or even Gamur's group.* Be as mean as you like about the executives and shareholders, but not the social media managers, article writers, or anyone else. At best it's harassing people who had nothing to do with this, at worst, it's deflecting blame away from the executives, which is exactly what they want. I cannot stress this enough - *Do not harass any of the workers* .
I have tons of stories of friends and family work for a company and the overhead broke down the entire company. I have a few stories where my friend saved the company and then the CEO bankrupted the company and sued my friend.
Riiiiiiiight, I get ya 😉😉
I just emailed an escapist employee saying this, "Hey, hang in there. It's rough when your boss is a bunch of twats. Believe me, I know. And if you could, pass this message to your bosses: 'you're all a bunch of twats.' Thanks, love!"
I disagree on the money part, i love money but hate the assholess that abuse the game mechanics to screw up others. I wont destroy a game i love because of power gamer...but I will gladly help you burn theit shit down tho because they are asking for a beat down for raping capitalism.
Cool video also
Hey there.
Been tinkering with some effects that i personally think makes ZP (and thus ramblomatic) funnier; Though contacting Yahtzee may or may not have an effect (and may or may not be wanted). Figure if you're interested i got a 10minute 2015 sample that encapsulates it.
*"Your father ruled this land for 70 years, and you've ground it to dust in a matter of days."*
Is that a line someone said during the Reconquista?
@@orboakin8074 it’s from a Warcraft game apparently. Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos
@@It-Will-All-Be-Okay-I-Promise thanks
@@orboakin8074yeah Uther says that when Death Knight Arthas came to get the urn containing his father’s ashes, said father’s ashes being Arthas’ father that Arthas had killed.
Mad props for recreating Yahtzee's entire show format for the purpose of honoring his legacy. Hopefully he and the blokes at Second Wind give you a shoutout for this video.
To correct you slightly, the recent firing of Nick and others and the subsequent mass resignation was not done by The Escapist. Nick was top dog at The Escapist, as well as a head figure for multiple other groups under Gamurs, the parent company. Gamurs executives were the one who fired Nick, for even more reasons than you know. The Escapist now consists only of a few article writers who post on the website, and they are entirely innocent in any of shenanigans here.
And Gamurs just recently acquire The Escapist (about a year). This is basically corporate takeover. Those who resign probably realize they also still in the layoff list
They fired Nick because growth was going up, just not up enough.
Yeah, I kinda feel like painting the storied history of the Escapist as a pattern of abuse ignores that the magazine had a number of corporate overlords in its time, which tended to be bad in their own special and unique ways. The people who were shitty to Extra Credits were not the same people who were shitty to Nick Calandra.
@@kiruppert Shitty people tend to all be the same type, though. They can't take no for an answer and if you dare say no to them, they'll take it personally. Beyond that, nothing else matters.
Are they gonna shut it down. Also why did gamers fire him
to add it's not even an overstatement that Zero Punctuation was the only thing that kept Escapist alive for as long as it has been, starting in 2015 Defy media started cutting staff, and by 2017 all that was left of the site was basically Yahtzee and 1-2 people to make sure it stayed online and that the weekly ZP went up on time
And Yahtzee has said in interviews afterward that one of the reasons he *did* pull the plug this time was because he didnt want to be in that same "lone survivor" position again. He really liked what Nick had done, and the team he now worked with, and he "couldn't see himself continuing without them" or something along those lines
I reminds me of a local TV station (as in this distopian story doesn't take place in the US) who's owners fired their last production crew of their only remaining original program not because of a lack of success, but because they didn't even want to pay for one team and the studio it required anymore. Now there's 2 workers handling multiple TV stations of the same mother company running almost fully automatic only playing adds and old content.
edit:
To be fair they didn't fire their last crew they just didn't renew their contracts for next year, while being completely transparent with their stingy, stingy reasoning I think.
@@Kaefer1973 Mind me asking which market this company was in?
That sounds to me like New York's "Regional News Network". That network's now nothing more than a paid ShopHQ relay broken up in the mornings with episodes of Richard French's news show, minus French since he retired back in May of 2021.
@@Code7Unltd The station in question was is a German national TV station. But the new parent company bought and automated stations in other european countries as well.
@@Kaefer1973 "they didn't fire their last crew they just didn't renew their contracts for next year"
...So they fired them.
I'm laughing at the realization that "Fully Ramblomatic" even has the same sylable count as "Zero Punctuation."
WAIT YOU'RE RIGHT THATS HYSTERICAL
I do miss the lighter yellow colour
@@wobblysauce it's just a matter of getting used to the new design.
That was true since before we even HAD ZP and it was just the first 2 FR episodes
It’s also the name of his old website from back when he started ZP
This is an AMAZING tribute to Zero Punctuation and Yahtzee's entire body of work. Incredible video.
gotta be honest with you, I have seen many people trying to imitate or copy how yatzhee does his shows, but you clearly became the closest to not only do it respectfully, but also almost perfectly.
I saw your previous 2 videos about Bullfrog and Big-D and this last one made me fully wants to follow your grow and your opinions in whatever you do in the future. Hope to see you in the 100K+ subscriber list sooner rather than later.
I guess all those hours of watching ZP while editing have finally paid off. Thank ye kindly - I've been having a lot of fun with these last three videos and the response has been encouraging. Thank you again!
Yep, the art style with the quips... Nailed it
he did a vid on bullfrog? know what Im watching next thx for tellin me.
Needs slightly more dick jokes. But it is a better attempt then almost any of the others.
I reckon the British accent helps too lol
I work in a very curious space where I get to hear a lot of 'ground opinions' from production level employees regarding their supervisors, managers, all the way up to the CEOs and owners.
One recurring theme I hear is how many people, in isolation, fantasize of stopping for a day just to affect the corporate types and punish them for misdeeds. More than once (more than several times in fact) I had to remind these employees that this action was known as 'striking' and had previously been a common union tactic. However, as modern American business culture has demonized unionization, I actually got pushback from these same employees for mentioning the very thing they wanted to do!
To my perception that’s because it’s a tossup (in the USA) whether any given union will do anything for an individual other than take their money and schedule a rep meeting which goes nowhere.
Hilarious.
@@electricfishfanhuh, it's almost like the unions were infiltrated and taken over by the same sorts of people who run corporations.
I think the solution to that problem is called "form new unions" and "only allow workers to join/lead the union"
@@ShuRugalThat would eventually fall back into Oligarchy which is the primary issue of these sorts of "come together" groups, eventually someone becomes leadership and yes running a union like a corporation while simultaneously encouraging workers to use violence and property damage to get what they want is rich and deeply ironic
@@dougneon9550 the oligarchy have a long and proud history of using violence to get where they are. There's nothing ironic about pointing out the fact that that game can be played both ways.
I’m glad you had that last section about the video aging well because Frost’s videos contextualizing his departure from Second Wind shed a lot of light on the inner workings of the Escapist’s losses and the habits and behaviors that had always bothered him with these people that had been taken into Second Wind without thinking things needed to change.
I think Second Wind will be alright but there’s clearly a crusade being led by one of their biggest creators against the head of the group, one with receipts and a great desire to see something through
Much of the problem with corporatism is that it fundamentally doesn't understand what consumer purchasing power is supposed to be. The idea is that a consumer will spend money to acquire personal property (material wealth) from a company. An industry, then, is supposed to make lots and lots of potential material wealth for the consumer in exchange for capital (currency). These corporations have fundamentally forgotten that they're supposed to be selling a product and are, in effect, renting out their material value while actively refusing to part with anything. I 100% believe that the endgame is a streaming-only game industry where you own absolutely nothing and merely subscribe to a probably ever-increasing price. Whether or not that endgame is possible largely depends if they can keep convincing the government to print more money (robbing the taxpayer in the process) for themselves.
This is very true, but applies to a whole lot more than just games. It's already happening across all entertainment media, and my bet would be that it is coming to cars next. It's a new form of debt slavery, and it will be applied to everything that it can be. Just wait until you have to rent time on your washing machine.
@@invalidusername9999 bro, it's called circuit laundry.
Democracy: the god that failed.
You voted for this and a thinly veiled oiligarchy, ever heard of lobbying?
It's not an issue with say capitalism but more a failure of the government to regulate entities in your interest, instead the government and conglomerates have slowly merged into an all-powerful syndicate.
The first world constantly decreases in it's free speech index,
the gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else is bigger than ever,
The cost of living and value of the dollar are greater & lesser than ever,
There are more regulations than ever and more new crimes as more things get outlawed, such as speech laws being passed.
They want to take your weapons away, what happened the last time this happened?
By being right or left you are a useful idiot for a false dicotomy, trying to vote for the lesser evil when you know damn well it's the same corpse puppet strung up by those actually in charge, a face to take the blame,
disconnect people from the real issues for made up ones.
Goods and SERVICES my friend. I am not saying the current system is good, but the way you describe it is poorly done. A company that provides a cleaning service adds value just like a company making cleaning products.
This is such a faithful (and funny) replication of Yahtzee's style that I'm putting this in my ZP playlist. And subscribing. Doesn't matter if this style is just a one-off gag: it's the best parody I've seen since that "Rhino loose in the city" one from Only Fools and Horses.
The "first" episode of Fully Ramblomatic got twice the views of the latest Zero Punctuation.
SecondWind got over 300K subscribers during it's first week, performing a record setting channel transition on RUclips by only losing 2/3rds of the subscriber count from the original channel.
Design Delve and Cold take got more views than ever before, I should know, I had never watched Design Delve until now.
And they are already getting sponsors.
The future as always remains uncertain... but it's safe to say, for now they are winning.
And I'm so fucking happy they are. Great video, plus you know Bruva and are a hardcore anti-capitalist? You've earned a new loyal subscriber.
for real, it feels like the escapist still rarely pushed much beyond ZP. Like I can't really even blame them that hard when ZP is practically the face of their company for over a decade, but even back when I used to go to their website it was always for ZP first and then maybe other stuff. And now with the rebrand and everything with a fresh start, I mean I'm not gonna lie I'm still gonna probably focus on FR, but at least now all these other creators are getting a lot more exposure and a lot more noticed
I genuinely cannot remember watching a video game review by anyone except Yahtzee in at least the last 4 years
I think this worked because you didn't just copy his style, you got the same kind of dry sarcasm that that always made Zero Punctuation unique. Well done, you got yourself a subscriber. This was fantastic
Thank you so much. It feels so gratifying seeing more and more people waking up to the absolute corporate dystopia we all find ourselves in and speaking up about it. I felt like I was going crazy thinking I was the only one since nobody was talking about it at the time.
And like you said, this whole situation with the Escapist and Second Wind is indicative of auch bigger problem that currently has it's filthy grip on society as a whole. But thankfully more and more people are talking about it now, and hopefully soon we all collectively learn that the people who bust their asses making suits their money are worth so much more than what they're being paid.
From what frost showed, with receipts, Nock was both an asshole and an issue, they just did not know how much at the time.
He both has a track record of past bad actions, most notably before he joined the escapist and even know, you can notice how second wind has become the escapist, again.
Once again making the case for worker ownership and keeping bumbling CEOs out of work they have no understanding of, nor any entitlement to the work of the creators ❤
I like to call it the "Keep Todd Howard in the basement" approach to economics
@@QosmicVoid lol
@@QosmicVoidthe retarded thing is it doesn’t even make good sense business wise. All the escapist has done is generate bad PR for itself and piss everyone off.
"Ownership" is not the issue here. At Second Wind, Nick is effectively the CEO who is making the whole business tick, while everyone else is effectively the Board. Yes, they "own" the company and can hold Nick to account, but he is the guy making the day to day executive decisions, and is doing the same exact job that he previously did as EiC at the The Escapist. Worker ownership really doesn't come into it; good leaders don't need to be owners, they need to be good leaders.
@@QosmicVoid Bonus points for you, because it makes zero difference whether Todd Howard owns Bethesda or not. His creative leadership on Morrowind etc was great, and he didn't need to own Bethesda for that. His creative leadership over the past decade has been awful and it would be equally awful whether he was an owner, an employee or first citizen of the Bethesda commune. In fact it's a good thing that he doesn't own BSG, because they can fire him and give someone else a shot at making the next Scrolls or Fallout game.
Thank you, Qosmic. I hasn't known about Second Wind; I withdrew from the discussion about The Escapist and Zero Punctuation because my pessimism convinced me that it was all over - that there was no rewinding the clock.
Not only did you tickle my nostalgia button with the ZP art style and humor, but you showed me that it isn't over. Thank you so much.
Anything done with a human being passionately and with earnestly going for it makes people feel things, even if it’s someone trying to do something someone else has done, or in their style.
Kudos, well done. I got the feels.
holy shit you fucking nailed it with the "this video wont age well"
The only take of his that made me a little angry was his opinion on the white phosphorus scene in Spec Ops: the Line. The essentials being that he didn’t see it as a condemnation of his actions because he only did what the game told him. And I wanted to reach through the screen to slap some sense and scream, “Yeah. You don’t feel bad because you were *just following orders* “
as much as I like Spec Ops the line as a critique of militaristic jingoism, the whole thing where it chastise you(the player) for following the railroaded plot line is still a negative for me.
@@crimsoncrusader4829 that kind of narrative fits for a military story though because people in the military frequently just do what they’re told, but their actions still have consequences, and it’s still can deeply affect them mentally, even if they were just following orders
Well, if game doesn't want me to play it I will not in this case.
The scene could have been set up better as it was kind of obvious and with no option around it, i know they had planned a harder fight originally but cut it.
As it stands none of them comment how its a very strange formation for 50 soldiers to be clumped up.
Also technically they made the choice, no one told them to use the weapon at that point, its more they were just so self assured they were the good guys but everything had told them this group was hostile
"Yeah, there was an option -- stop playing the game."
Oh sure, I'll toss out this *_sixty dollar investment that I made in order to relax and have some fun._* Honestly, once the game started preaching at me, I started going over the top on purpose to _spite_ it. Got the "massacre the rescue team" ending and felt fully satisfied.
...Though, I admit, I didn't exactly make that investment. Yar-Har Fiddle-Dee-Dee and all that -- just an extra middle finger to the pretentious cunts who made it.
Many have tried and failed to replicate what made Zero Punctuation great.
You nailed it.
I subscribed to you after your Big D and Bullfrog analysis videos and I don't plan on unsubbing anytime soon.
Your imitation of his style in this videos was very accurate, got a good chuckle out of me.
Good demonstration of how what Yahtzee does isn't easy to duplicate.
but also a good demonstration as to how to replicate the style of Yahtzee
How he's done this weekly for 16 years is a question that will haunt me to my deathbed
@@rory8182Imitate not replicate
Speaking as a ruthless bloody-minded capitalist pig, it warms my heart to know some purposeless seat-fillers in a bloated corporatist bureaucracy got undone by a bit of hard work and consumer goodwill. I wish them all the luck and every dollar they can grab. And you as well! You’ve earned a new subscriber!
That's going to be the antidote to the mess we're heading towards in the entertainment industry. Breakaway talent forming their own businesses, letting conglomerates take a bath in their worthless name purchases, and people getting used to the idea that no IP lasts forever. Art is alive and therefore must eventually die. The only thing I fear is government bailouts with the classic tagline "too big to fail".
@@RakaTwo13
Funnily a good chunk of these companies were once breakaways themselves like Activision.
I suspect the cycle will repeat with the breakaways becoming inflated messes that'll have breakaways
@@SudrianTales Yup. Nothing lasts forever, as it should be
Spoiler alert: Second Wind did not, in fact, die within a month.
It's like emperor who constantly murdering the nobels who even slightly annoyed him. Then got confused when suddenly the economy crumble and the empire scattred
First time I see someone replicating Yahtzee's style (visuals, writing, delivery, etc) so faithfully, and in an overview of his work no less. It's also really nice how you smoothly transitioned away of the homage and into your own writing style and tempo in time with the shift in subject.
I remember seeing that comment where someone was asking Nick if they could use the music for a video, it's nice to now watch the video in question and find it to be significantly better than what I expected.
Great Video! I didn't know any of this, found your video; while I was looking for new Zero Punctuation videos.
🎶 I detect a little communism 🎶
Guy with hood is a communist, this just in the sky is blue
I wager this channel's creator played CIV 5 to the modern age and just decided 'autocracy' is whatever he doesn't like. As if socialism has EVER provided for the needs of the people.
>Communist
>Advocates for private ownership and the personal collection of capital.
I don't think that's how it works comrade.
😂
You don't know what economics are in general.
This was a really good video in the hole Gamurs debacle. I do have one nitpick: you should have mentioned Gamergate. That played a key role in the first implosion of The Escapist back in 2014. Nevertheless good video and you nailed Yahtzees style.
Well, specifically, it was Escapist hiring GG-aligned journalists that caused Sterling to leave in a huff and make a dishonest video criticizing the idea of ethical gaming journalism on his way out. And there were rampant and frothing calls from anti-GG advocates for Escapist to shutdown their forum discussions of the matter even though it had brought the site a lot of attention.
Thanks, I was wondering where yahtzee went. Also "the workers control the means of production" that kind of rings a bell....and one more thing, being a worker owned company can be difficult but it can and does work.
I appreciate your works and efforts on the review of how a review channel blew itself up.
It's a two way street baby! Power and control has to be given. Has to be given. (Usually through threats and intimidation, but that detracts from the point)
I was what was then known as a Department of the {USA} Army Civilian for over 25 years. For a long time, we were paid every other Wednesday. One year the Federal Civil Service payday was changed to alternate Thursdays just before the fiscal year ended so that Congress could claim they'd saved a lot of money. We workers were not amused.
What companies and shareholders can't seem to comprehend is that infinite growth just isn't possible and no amount of fraud can make it possible. There will be spikes up and down and you can't blind yourself to those downs and only care about the ups.
i still remember watching his very first zero punctuation videos here on youtube.
I still watch Yahtzee's old stuff every day. Hero of comedy
Someone should send this video to the CGI artists and animators at Disney, I would so love to see what would happen.
I know that when these things happen, it comes down to greed and the lack of checks and balances to keep someone from riding a business rough shod just for the sake of money; it would be nice that some content creator or someone in general can do an analysis on what keeps giving some corporate heads the idea that they think this is okay; and I sense - keep thinking this is something they HAVE to strive for.
Like, what kind of mindset, or what's being taught in schools and colleges, or if this can come from some kind of corruption we 'might' not know about yet; is allowing this to be okay.
You were all put through their tomfoolery and I am glad you all struck out on your own and seem to be doing quite well on your own, it seems.
Many blessings and keep rambling, Ramblers!
It is worth reflecting on the fact that this sort of worker revolt was only possible in this case due to the low capital costs involved with production and publication in the modern world. RUclips (and similar services) in particular have removed the publication barrier that previously would have locked workers like this into working for one of a handful of oligarchs.
Hey! I was wondering why i wasn't seeing new Yahtzee videos for a while!
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
P.S. down with capitalism!!!!
"Ah, shit, here we go again"
Man you replicated his style perfectly
Fun fact: Extra credits has its origins in a pair of videos that the initial narrator, Daniel Floyd, made for his college classes. His main inspiration for the style of those videos was....Zero Punctuation.
This was a very impressive job at emulating Yahtzee's style, well done.
Reminder that this all started with the US government telling Henry Ford that he could not reinvest profits to improve working conditions because his sole was obligation to his shareholders. Can't really blame corporations for acting in the manner legally required of them.
States and corportions are like some sort of weird symbiotic parasite. Corporations can't exist without them.
yeah this is the clincher. the system of capitalism traps everyone. Workers are controlled by middle managers, who are controlled by social pressure and upper management, upper management is controlled by executives, who cater to shareholders, who are obligated , socially and career-wise, to make the line go up at all costs. Everyone loses and no one is in control
"the US government telling Henry Ford that he could not reinvest profits to improve working conditions because his sole was obligation to his shareholders"
No??
The case is literally "Dodge v. Ford Motor Co.", how the fuck did the "US Government" tell Henry Ford that?
It was another private capitalist company that did it, or are you blaming the judge as the "US Government" despite the independence of the judiciary being a thing?
I'm definitely checking out this video essay series some more at a later time. An Assassin's Creed fan making a video essay on Fully Ramblomatic in the style of Zero Punctuation with the same well deserved contempt for Microtransactions as The Jimquisition? Yes please!
Thanks to this video for making me learn about Fully Ramblomatic. God bless Yahtz for keeping it real for 16 goddamn years and counting.
Hey, can Second Wind get this guy on the team already? I forgot halfway through this wasn't even a Second Wind series I was watching.
Look man I hate big corpos as much as the next guy but describing “power coupons” and complaining how you need money to buy food just screams naïvete to me, like no shit we need money to survive it’s not like farming or manufacturing is free, there’s costs that need to be paid in order to keep the train running, is the whole lobbying politicians thing good no but it’s just basic fact that life aint free, handouts don’t keep society running the free market does
This comment fascinates me in so many ways. You seem to think money is like gravity, in that it's a force of reality, rather than a construct we made up for our own convenience that we could do away with, or enhance it's role in society even further if we wanted to. I don't think you're even aware that you're doing it. It's fascinating.
@@QosmicVoid so what’s your proposed solution then? We go back to bartering, my chicken for your PS5? How do you propose society progress without the concept of currency
@@jenkinsuu My solution is "We already produce more than enough food to feed the world three times over each year - Let's make is so people don't starve to death, and figure it out from there."
I'm not arrogant enough to presume to have the solve-everything solution - If I did, I wouldn't be doing media analysis. Reality doesn't work that way. It's built upon literally thousands of people, experimentations, theories, implementations, and structures based on material conditions, public perception, and political will. I don't believe in "Great man Theory".
What I do know is that if you actually believed in what you're saying, you wouldn't be dismissing the very real, actually existential issues with your ideology, and saying "Well there's nothing we can do and wanting things to be better is naïve". Attitudes like that guarantee the destruction of Capitalism, because that is of no assurance or comfort to the people who struggle with it on the daily. And then, assuming you're right and society breaks down - Congratulations. You get to be the smuggest person in the Mad-Max dystopia.
@@QosmicVoid So how do you propose we feed the world then? Producing doesn’t equate distribution, and there are still a lot of costs involved with that level of philanthropy. If we’ve abolished the dollar as you want then how are we to go about paying people to transport all that food, figure out a system for distributing said food to the masses? Everybody struggles and yeah starving to death sucks but it’s simply not feasible to feed all 7 however many billion of people on a centrally controlled plan. How do we decide what to feed people, how much, what if they don’t want what we offer? We have to fend for ourselves to at least some degree. Having a safety net is good and well and all, and for those that need food there’s services such as soup kitchens, however because they’re operated off volunteer work and not paid labor nobody wants to volunteer. Until we somehow figure out the impossible task of erasing humanity’s defining trait of craving wealth then idealism is the same thing as naïvete
You could get a job as assistant animator on fully ramblomatic, you emulated the style almost perfectly.
Yatzees taste in games is an age thing. I am in my late 30 and feel similar to yatzee. I would play monkey Island, myst or super mario over assassins creed or watch dogs any day.
I remember a few months after Sterling left The Escapist I checked in on the latter. It had some video about Clash of Clans which I thought, oh yeah, watch them tear this game to shreds. Took several minutes before I realised it was not a parody or a takedown, but a fully-fledged-microtransaction-apologising advertisement for the game. That's definitely what the viewers of this channel, who come to see angry British men pointing out the shitty underbelly of the gaming industry, want to see.
I got introduced in the same way. A friend had played an episode, I was curios and thought it was funny, and just kept watching every episode and would listen to the mega videos so long RUclips would play one of them after every other video I watched.
Even if a worker co-op is more efficient than a current "traditional" corporation, they still need managers to direct the workers for a unified goal. Especially for a complicated project like video game, you cant just bloat the project to be a passion project of a dozen individuals, especially if their interests clash. There will always be a need for a manager that has a final say and power to enforce an ultimate goal, if not tasks in general. And if the co-op grows, that manager will need a manager to manage multiple groups. And if the co-op grows horizontally - a manager, for the manager, that manages managers.
Completely flat hierarchy sounds cool, until you realize that we are all individuals with our own ambitions and plans, and a directionless world is a dead world.
How about democratically voting for a manager?
@@QosmicVoid thats just a popularity contest, irrespective of experience. Its a race to mediocrity, where the least controversial and most appealing canditate wins, and then theres a question of "term limits". The simple conclusion is - a company of any sort isnt a state, and its sole purpose is creating a product that consumers will want. The duties of the state are already filled by... the state. So the manager has to simply be extremely good at managing the company to get the most out of limited resources. If a mediocre leader is elected who only cares about their own image, the company will not succeed. The only answer, thus, remains meritocratic promotions - most experienced, talented or acknowledged get to run the company, rather than who ever is most charismatic but least capable.
Problem - we have now created grounds for a technocratic system, which kick starts the same process which in the past created stuff like Military-Industrial complexes, patent abuses and central banking, as well as many other issues.
The best option is simply making an experiment, see what works best - create 3 practically similiar companies, but each of them have different managerial systems. One has popular election, other has meritocratic electorate and the latter has seniority assignment. See which has more success, and draw conclusions from that.
how about not starving?@@QosmicVoid
Yo these comments are boot thirsty holy shit
So that's what happened to Extra Credits. Thanks for including that, I didn't know.
Anyone finds it ironic that Yahtzee and the escapist team basically did what he criticized crowd funded Kickstarter games for doing? Just doing the same thing again under a new legally distinct name because the parent company are being idiots. I mean I don’t blame them in the slightest I just find it funny.
"i can't be Zero Punctuation, ZP doesn't have a moustache!"
@@demy4176it’s funnier than that - It's like if ZP grew a moustache, shaved it off, then bought a fake one and said "ZP doesn’t have a moustache."
first video of yours I'm seeing, I also followed this whole mess closely, and I'm gonna be keeping an eye on the Escapist YT and website for a long while after this.
I think you did a great job recounting the events, though some more citations would be nice, like Nick's tweet about the whole thing.
being a bit late to the party hasn't diminished your video at all, and I think you've earned a sub
Personally I feel that the indie games scene rise is one of the factors that's been floating the games industry as it currently stands. At least that's my personal truth, they saved my joy in games.
As for "time savers" that's not necessarily a bad idea. The bad part of it was monetizing it, and making the game objectively worse in order to increase sales of it. The same reasons that works is also why pay to win mechanics in MMO's make so much money. Not all players have the time to grind it all out, but that doesn't mean they should give up gaming either. So really this kinda starts to edge into the complicated discussion of difficulty in games.
I can't say ZP's critiques were that harsh. They never really stood out as unreasonable, he was just much more critical than like IGN or something.
Being critical at all in videogame journalism is already a big thing.
The only videogames magazine critics ever shit on is games everyone already has agreed suck, lest they stop getting privileges and receiving bribes.
And look at what happened to The Escapist with... Sony was it? Yatzhee was honest one too many times and they never sent them press review codes ever again, it became a running gag.
"It's both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects" as another video game critic once said.
Favorite quote from ZP I remember best: _"There is no middle finger BIG enough!"_ 😹
This was a great video until it turned into the literal commie manifesto
Hey, nice work. FYI, Fully Ramblomatic is the name of Yahtzee's old website, Yahtzee was known for his adventure games, comics and articles on his old website, so the first videos were a video review for Fully Ramblomatic, not a fullyrambolmatic review
My favorite thing I've read about The Escapist boondoggle, "It's like they shot themselves in the foot. Then chambered another round and shot themselves in the other foot, before stumbling off a cliff." Yeah, that sums it up rather succinctly.
Also, the first Yahtzee review I saw was Painkiller in 2011.
I find it sad that people keep blaming corporation/capitalism when the problem is often just one or two twat with too much power and not enough comon sense.
Also, trying to make a link with microtransaction is a bit weird.
How do you account for this happening in every industry, everywhere in the world, constantly happening if its just "a few twats".
Clearly somethings has gone wrong somewhere for this to keep happening for 200 years, and we just keep ignoring it - or it can't be fixed. It's one of the two.
@@QosmicVoid
Every ? Nope.
I think it's time for you to look inward and ask yourself some important questions. But, then again people like you would prefer dying than to look in the godamn mirror and see what's wrong. You are the same kind of people that you depict here. The difference... they have power and you don't and that makes you furious.
I sure am paid correctly. I sure got decent work insurrance. I sure got a decent pension. I sure know many people like me in other corporation. I sure had to get an education and prove myself. I had to become bilingual. I sure am proud of my boss and the the culture of my corporation. Did we have lay off ? Yes, but everytimes we had learn from our mistakes and we have called out our lay off employe once the dark moment was gone.
Is there some corporation who fuck up. Yes... but don't put that on the back of every corporation.
You are just angry. The weird loot box argument and your speedy reaction are the biggest evidence of it.
Go get help
@@QosmicVoid Blaming it on capitalism isn't fair to every single business because it's implying the issue isn't fundamental. There is no golden alternative to run to when revolving an economic model around humans because the problem is that humans are dickheads, and dickish people gain power in systems because they'll either break them or exploit them.
If you're in some kind of anarchist commune, what happens if just... I dunno, someone doesn't redistribute? This would be a lot of people mind you, because your money doesn't mean much if it'll go away anyways. Well, you'd have to install a regime to reinforce distribution and... ahh, yeah. This comes off as kind of harsh but I think these are just dangerously naive perceptions of the world; if alternative systems worked better, we would have adopted them much, much faster. As it stands, the road to the solution is blaming the man rather than the system, because were a long way from coming up with a better model (nor capitalist or communist) that solves the issue of "humans suck and don't play fair" and assholes deserve to have their reputation marked rather than have some system be blamed rather than themselves, as it's actually a bit of a scapegoat IMO and they don't deserve that.
@@phancoom1087 "Humans are bad" is self aggrandizement.
"Humans are bad - But not me. I know Humans are bad. Therefore I'm good."
This logic has been used to justify some of the worst atrocities imaginable, because when you believe everyone else is a scumbag, you justify acting like a scumbag yourself, because you think everyone else is doing it. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And here's the honest truth - Humans like to think things are simple, and that one solution will fix everything. That's never the case.
I've never claimed to have the perfect solution, but I refuse to believe that things cannot improve. I refuse to accept the idea that we must live in systems we know encourage harmful behaviour because "Humans bad lmao". I'd rather be naïve and working towards something better than being a pessimist, seeing unfathomable amounts of suffering, shrugging, and then advocating we keep it because Humans suck. At least if we try, we might find something along the way. Conceding outright guarantees this mess continues.
@@QosmicVoid If you think that our argument is ''things cannot improve''. Then you are obviously lying to yourself.
We both never claim that.
Again... GET PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP ASAP
Put the playback speed on 1.25 and this becomes a Fully Ramblomatic-esque video.
What I find funny in this Capitalism dystopia rant the solution to the issue is actually capitalism. You are free to own your own labor and earn capital on it. Under socialism you are not allowed to leave and make your own company or competitor.
Socialism is the worker ownership of the means of production. You would collectively *own* the company you work at alongside everyone else. Why wouldn't you be allowed to leave it and start up a new one if you wished?
This comment confuses me - I never once said "Socialism" in this video. But you seem to interpret and recognize that socialism is simply worker ownership of the means of production (Eg, collective ownership of a company. This does not mean government owned. The Postal Service is not a socialist workplace, but that IS government owned), but also at the same time think that this means that socialism is when the government is stopping people from leaving their workplace?
I never said socialism, so you *must* have come to this conclusion on your own - But then said it was the exact opposite of it was so you could defend capitalism - I don't understand what you think socialism is? Is it government controlled or not?
@@QosmicVoid You are incorrect in your definition. Socialism is when the means of production is owned by the government (who is the collective representation of the people). You the individual do not actually own anything.
The reason you are not allowed to leave and make your own corporation is because the old corporation is actually owned by the government. That means you want to create a corporation outside of government ownership which is private property which is not owned by the people. If YOU own a corporation, that also means I as someone who do not work there do not own it. This means the people of the nation do not have collective ownership as you have more capital than I do.
A socialist government will not allow you to make your own corporation. It is in direct opposition of collective ownership as you want more than everyone else, and you are in direct competition with the older player on the market.
There is a reason there was only 1 soap you can buy in socialist countries. You do not need more than 1 soap brand and you are not allowed to compete.
What is funny is that if you want workers to own the production, that is actually solved with Capitalism. Just buy shares in the corporation. If you own shares you own parts in the means of the production. You can have collective ownership if you want to.
@@Cloud_Seeker Citation needed for.... Literally every single word you just said. I legitimately checked and not a single word you said here has any sources I can find. I have no idea what to call this other than enormously incorrect at best and mental illness at worst.
If any of this is true this should be very easy to provide an actual source for. You have google. You can use it.
@@QosmicVoid "socialism, social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources."
- Britiannica
What public ownership mean is government or state ownership. If you have a corporation with your friends, that should be private ownership. Under socialism you are not allowed to have private ownership or control over property or resources. What exactly separates you and your friends from a board or directors in a corporation?
I think you are not doing a goo enough job with your 0.5 seconds of google research. You are pretty much failing at understanding basic English words at this point.
@@Cloud_Seeker this is a joke, right?
This is the first paragraph. Literally the second paragraph goes on to say: "This conviction puts socialism in opposition to capitalism, which is based on private ownership of the means of production and allows individual choices in a free market to determine how goods and services are distributed."
Did you seriously think I wasn’t going to check your citation? You can’t even misrepresent your point correctly.
History repeats
The anti-capitalism here is a bit of misblaming. Is it a fault of the system that it permits people the freedom to screw up and face consequence? Seems self-correcting in this case. The governing board might not publicly admit mistake, but they're certainly suffering for their misjudgement.
So about that whole "Hoping it won't repeat itself" thing? What if part of the reason why history is so cyclic is because of those horrible events and catastrophe's causes those that suffered through it to kind of deeply surpress the memory of those events?
Why did I know the background would change when he started talking about Fully Ramblomatic lol
This was an absolutely wonderful homage/parody of ZP. Perfect. 👌🏻
Playback speed at 1.5 and we've got a Zero Punctuation episode right here, beautiful
Well, Second Wind got torn apart and Nick Calandra seems to be a major problem for the company
What an engaging watch! Your wit is excellent
brilliant video comrade
Something I've noticed is that the with all circular cycles, this is cyclical, regardless of the industry.
Workers get tired of working for dickheads, so they quit and strike it out on their own> In the "they do well route" the company lasts long enough for them to become old guard and then slowly phase out for the new blood coming into the company> Eventually an accountant or someone else money smart gets put in a position of power over the creative teams, and their only job description is make the big numbers bigger> These accountants are so far removed from what it takes to create the content the fans love, they seemingly have no idea that removing talent and workers is shooting themselves in the foot, a la killing the golden fuckin' goose trying to get the eggs out of it, rather than just letting the damn bird just lay the eggs.> Workers get tired of working for dickheads, so they quit and strike it out on their own.
Wash, rinse, and then repeat ad nauseam till the heat death of the universe, or we kill ourselves, whichever happens first. I'm willing to bet in another 10-15 years time we'll be hearing about Second Wind having a similar downfall, but hopefully that's just my inner cynic talking.
unionize.
I really loved the video and look forward to watching more from your channel! I couldn’t agree more. Also that we desperately need to rethink the way we run our society, especially around creative people doing work than riches all of our lives. There’s more value in that than our current society gives credit, and we need to fix it.
And then nick calantra and the frost debacle and your entire point becomes much more fusy and your straightforward narrative makes no sense. Things are never as simple as they seem
this comment needs a rewrite
“A worker wouldn’t cause this mess” with Extra Credits as an example, when Portnow was the reason most of the original staff left…
Thank you for this. I had no idea of all the drama, but I have been severely distraught by the lack of zero punctuation, and I was entirely unaware of their new channel.
Have you seen Frost's video about why he left Second Wind?
Whoa. What happened to Sterling, I haven’t heard that name if forever. also Zero Punctuation has been canceled? I look away for like a month and this is what happens?
Well well well, this has aged like milk left out in the hot summer sun.
Elaborate
@@QosmicVoidFrost, the guy behind Cold Take. He left Second Wind, and said it was because of Nick Calandra’s bad leadership.
Me when the President (a Fallout New Vegas developer) uses V.A.T.S. on me and quicksaves.
I genuinely had no idea about any of these scandals and i followed extra credits for a while.
While I'm no anarcho-communist I do lean left and have to agree the current economic model even allowing billionares to exist or possibly even trillionares if the Saudis ever let us check whats in their vaults seems like a pretty big problem when there are countires like Italy with populations so elderly and the 20-somethngs so unsure about their future that for 60 million people only 400k babies were born last year due to sheer financial constraints is at least a little horryfing. I'm better versed in geopolitics than demestic 1s but the system kinda fucks up on both of those fronts and short of WW3 I dont see how youd fix the demestic policy of the US, EU, UK and at least the rest of the west with anything short of that.
I just don’t believe in the reality that communism/socialism as people idealize can be realized in any meaningful way. Any time I hear it, it always seems to show a easy to exploit power vacuum that always gets filled by people the systems were supposed to get rid of. Communism in China is just a handful of dudes telling everyone what to do with threat of arrest or loss of basic freedoms. Total Socialism cannot work on a large scale due to lack of ability to adapt to quickly changing conditions.
Yes there are definite protections and socialist concepts that can help and can work, but those are not the entire idea of what communism and socialism is. Capitalism works because it is the basic premise of economics and it’s adaptable because who cares if a company fails, another will take its place.
Every industry is on the same roller-coaster into the sea right now. Arby's decided to sponsor a Good Burger sequel (on a streaming platform mind you) by selling a burger meal.
We don't have a grill.
Ummm, okay. Well, I was on The Escapist as a semi-regular all the way back when Zero Punctuation started, and remember a lot of their original launch schedule and so on. I won't claim to be an insider but I was a subscriber when that first started and did talk to certain people. In fact when a certain political clique tried to get me banned, in part for things I never actually said (among other things people got into my account and were posting as me to try and make this happen) my ban was revered by Alexander Macris when he was still running it, which was also the most successful era of The Escapist.
When it comes to things like the dispute with "Extra Credits", realize there are more than one side to these stories. From what I was hearing at the time it happened, there was a whole issue with a lot of the Escapist people wanting to do a politics over gaming coverage type thing. Extra Credits was getting increasingly political, and one of the issues they had was their viewership was dropping, and they were not covering the topics that they were brought on board to handle. The stuff they put up was being given credit for not being delinquent on contribution agreements, but they were not being compensated for it. Despite this dispute when one of their members had medical issues, The Escapist actually went all out for them in assisting with fund raising, including doing things like having T-shirts and things made to give to contributors. They actually made material and logistical contributions to the entire campaign. So when Extra Credits, who they were helping despite them not having honored their agreements and actually clashing with management, made substantially more money than the campaign required, The Escapist pretty much told them that they should either put that money into doing appropriate episodes for the site, or at least compensate the site for it's donations to the campaign. That said Extra Credits had it's own money making scheme at that point and didn't agree with this.... this is the OTHER side of the story as I remember it, and it's a lot less straightforward. Extra Credits, like several other people, left the site, because The Escapist was trying to be neutral and remain focused mostly on the subjects related to gaming itself. It should also be noted Extra Credits while seeming reliable has shall we say.... extremely questionable and slanted sources. For example they did this whole thing on the collapse of TSR and how WOTC took over here on RUclips and use Ryan Dancey of all people as a source when he was one of the people that was instrumental in the collapse according to other sources I heard, he's an amazingly controversial figure in that whole thing, trust me, I was right there in the RPGA talking to some of the actual writers when this all happened, and actually tried to go toe to toe with Ryan once to the cheers of a crowd screaming for his blood when this was actually happening. Even if he was right in what he told them, let's just say he's not someone anyone should be taking seriously as an impartial and informed source. That's before some of their political stuff like "stop normalizing the bad guys". Don't get me wrong, they do turn out good stuff a lot of the time, but a lot of their stuff was on the edge that you can see why a site focused on wanting to be both factual and as impartial as possible at the time might not really fit in with them..... they tend to get really bent out of shape when people point out when they are talking out of their butt or have biased sources, I remember some of the things they said back on The Escapist, and it was not a good look. Little of this was directed at me however.
I will also point out that Jim Sterling as they were called then, didn't just get nailed for not wanting to do a bad review of a sub-par game. See, Jim was becoming increasingly political himself, but that wasn't really the problem as he was always somewhat that way. He was doing his stuff in a fairly tasteless fashion, including one which had this sort of dream sequence where he shot it like a porno with him on a couch in a leather vest having sex with some doll that had a case for "Aliens Colonial Marines" on it. He also did things like play with Amiibos and have them perform sex acts if I recall. These were the stunts that were upsetting sponsors, remember they already had Yahtzee being a "slice and dice" reviewer, and few people were saying nice things about Unity at all at the time obviously. I don't know what he tried to do, but having heard what he was actually getting yelled at for at the time, albeit second and third hand, and having seen some of those videos, let's just say it wasn't a case where it was likely about him simply giving a bad review. In fact The Escapist called out other sites for selling out that way, such as during the whole "Kane and Lynch 2" Fiasco (yes we're getting really dated). Simply put there is a difference between a bad review, and having someone simulate sexually molesting your corporate products on video. Due to content guidelines when Jim move to RUclips seeking freedom, he actually chilled out (though still had his moments) compared to the type of videos he was doing that actually got him in trouble. Given that I believe a lot of this was pulled from the internets as much as possible by The Escapist when he left, it might be hard to prove, but he hardly strikes me as the type of guy that would deny that they existed, even if admitting this is what the dispute was about wouldn't be in his favor.
Simply put, I won't go on about the central problems with Capitalism as it stands now and Corporations, I bash the latter in particular all the time myself. The Escapist had a good eye for talent, but understand I think it's decline was heavily based around management that increasingly let the talent run the site and didn't hold them accountable. This created a spiral of less traffic leading to less revenue and then less quality people, not to mention the forums becoming a hostile political echo chamber more and more which meant it turned from a high traffic meeting ground for all kinds of pop culture enthusiasts, to nothing more than what you could increasingly find everywhere else like Twitter, and that core audience was increasingly just going to those places.
I know nothing of the current issues, but if I had to guess, as nice as he might have been, sometimes managers can't be nice. I figured Gamur group pretty much told the new, popular, community manager that he had to make the site profitable and bring in so much traffic in general sense. He did the best he could, but when they looked they just said "nope" and set out to replace him or just junk the site as a lost cause at that point. I do not have any idea what their traffic and revenue is like, but every person who talks about it says "not good, except for Yahtzee" or something like that. That right there is probably the reason he was canned, and I'd assume the lack of detailed reasons was simply that the situation was so deplorable to upper management they just didn't want to have excuses. I don't hang out there anymore, or have any of the sources I once did, the stuff I relay is mostly things I have gotten from multiple, consistent, second and third hand sources though so while not court-level evidence, seems pretty likely as the people involved had no vested interest (like a continuing E-personality career) to lie about it at the time.... it was just gossip that started oftentimes before the hammer dropped followed by "well we saw that coming". Unless they can show The Escapist was recovering in a tangible way that would have made it a worthy investment, it seems mostly like the last holders on jumped ship when the last friendly face got canned. You can't really say the corpos were the bad guys here I'd think, because it seems likely they were probably right, and with the site going down anyway, there was no reason for anyone to stay.
Did... did you just defend corporate greed because you didn't like that your old co-workers thought your political takes were trash?
...I'm gonna guess you're a Trump worshipper?
Were you also in the room when The Escapist was founded? At the very first E3? Were you perchance at John Bain's funeral wake? Please tell us more, this isn't nearly unbelievable enough. All this nonsense just to umm and err and go corporatism, yay! I hate corporations though! But they're right though! Please believe me, I'm a very important guy!
@@ExValeFor Actually I didn't say I was very important. All I claimed was that I spoke to a lot of the people who ran the site privately. This was not uncommon actually as when you were a subscriber at that time there was a message area for members only where part of the gimmick was you could trade messages with the staff and stuff. The site also had an internal instant messaging system where I, and a fair number of people discussed various things.
Having one's account hacked and things done in your name is not uncommon, or at least wasn't then, and you know as well as I do that there were staff and management changes, and as a result sometimes things like this were talked about privately.
In the case where I appealed a ban to the top for example, due to the hacking, the only reason why I even tried was that someone I knew suggested it, and mentioned that Alex wouldn't likely agree with the mod choices, but to actually succeed he was likely the only one who might do anything. It wasn't like I new him personally or we hung out, or even talked much beyond that, but we did talk about the overall situation and site management briefly. This was a big part of why I wound up leaving the site eventually, when at one point I was a donator and supporter.
It's similar but not identical to how I claim insider knowledge of a certain era of the PnP RPG industry. The reason for that is that things were different at the time, and you say had guys like David Pulver (and his gaming group) active on things like Fidonet RPG. You also had being able to talk to writers and such directly as a gimmick for certain services like say America Online, and pay for time to access those forums.
Later when this version of the internet developed, a lot of that kind of stuff transitioned to something called the RPGA which put on events at cons and stuff. It was another paid membership arrangement but on their groups and forums you generally saw writers, novelists, etc... active right alongside the fans as things were less compartmentalized and there wasn't quite the environment of hostility there is now. This is for example why when I say I actually went toe to toe with Ryan Dancey in public (unusual then) it's entirely plausible as he was highly vocal in RPGA, and giving a lot of the people there false promises and outright lying to them. I was not the only one that did it, I suspect such backlash is part of why such people backed way the heck off from the fans, and they established more superficial "community manager" positions to do anything like this at all.
But this is also how I talked to novelists like Elaine Cunningham and others, a lot of people did, and of course at that time, one of the thing a lot of novelists did was appeal to the fans via communities like that and point at what was going on and tell their actual fans they weren't being paid.
Now yes, if I claimed these kinds of things now, it would be absurd due to compartmentalization. Guys who act like Ryan did back then for example now hide from the public, and arrogant developers and such scream about toxic fans and pay some community manager to keep everyone on the othr side of a gate, especially when it's not want to hear. That said when you go as far back as some of my claims, including this time at The Escapist and how they were doing things, you have to realize, the only difference between me and a fair number of people in having that kind of access is that I'm being vocal about it. One thing about social media is that when it comes to certain things a lot of people who could say something don;t, as they are afraid of backlash. I on the other hand really give a crap to be honest, and I think nothing is going to change on how people try and create their own narrative, which leads to bigger problems, unless people who know better actually start saying things. People have been cowed too badly, and yes, part of my attitude is "if you don't like what I say, actually prove otherwise". The thing is, being there, I'm pretty sure they can't. That's the point.
It's sort of like when I commented on an old Con controversy back in the early 2000s (you might guess the one) "What are they going to do? Send David "Zeb" Cook to my house to try and break my knee caps?".
100 grand says Ben ends up carrying this new channel as well
What Yahtzee nails that all other reviewers does not , is the truth, even if he criticize a game I really like, I usually agree with his points of criticism.
He tries to point out both the good and bad in each game, despite his personal feelings.
Which is why its often hard to figure out if he likes something or not.
Also, he is on point, and gets through it all in about 5 minutes, while cramming in as many dick jokes as he can, while still making sense and pointing out all the important bits.
Most reviews take about 30 mintues to say less than he does.
oh this is dangerously based
this whole workers taking control of the means of production thing seems like a neat idea we should definitely expand that
You don’t know the first thing about capitalism if you think that’s what caused the Escapist debacle.
Just out of curiosity, because no-one complaining about my take seems to ever provide one of their own - What do you think *was* the cause of the decline?
@@QosmicVoid
Execs who didn’t understand their market and how fast a company can grow in said market.
Detachment from the market and those being served by it is not capitalism. In fact, understanding your market and how best to operate within it is an explicit principle of the capitalist system. This was greed, plain and simple, and greed is not caused by capitalism.
@@jackdaone6469 Ah, I see the problem here. You individualise systemic problems. This is frankly naive. All you're doing is looking for ways to avoid analysing broader issues.
I must ask - Why does this exact scenario of worker exploitation, underhanded scheming, and economic conflict keep repeating itself, over and over again, from movies, to video games, to advertising, to car manufacturers, to food production in every industry, to every country on the planet? EA, Warner brothers, Disney, Activision-Blizzard, BP oil, - Are all these companies just all by sheer coincidence run by the greediest human beings on the planet? Because to me, that means there are three options.
One - A certain kind of person is attracted to corporate structures, and those personality types cause an immeasurable amount of damage when given power. In which case, allowing those personality types easy access to these set ups is a bad idea.
Two - Human beings are fundamentally greed-driven - In which case, basing an entire economic system on greed and screwing one another over seems like a poor idea.
Or three - There are unforeseen outcomes to an economic system set up this way - in which case, it should change.
Economies are not their own forces - They are forces carried by people. Without any people, an economy doesn’t exist. Capitalism may not cause greed - But it enables greed on a scale that Humanity has never seen before.
@@QosmicVoid
Sorry, but voluntary employment and exchange of goods is not exploitation, nor is the mismanagement and greed inherent to capitalism.
Capitalism is literally just the fundamental principle of barter and exchange, it’s not some pathologizing or totalizing system causing problems. It’s not socialism.
@@jackdaone6469 I like that we're not even attempting to argue the points anymore. Look - Mismanagement implies it's a mistake. Do you seriously think we throw enough food to feed the entire world three times over into a ditch on a regular basis by accident? We don't feed the poor because that would - apparently - lower the price of food, and the poor won't be so desperate as to work for as little as possible - Something any capitalist should be able to understand.
And no, Capitalism is not voluntary - You work for a pay-check or you starve to death. You start up a business, you're at risk of being bought out, or priced out by larger corporations. And you don't get to opt out of corporations lobbying governments to give them economic benefits at the expense of the tax-payers. You can argue that that's fine - That can be a philosophically consistent position to hold - but don't pretend it's not coercion, because it definitionally is. It speaks to such an insecurity about your own beliefs that you aren't willing to defend them.
It never ceases to astound me the number of people who claim I know nothing about capitalism, while not understanding the basics of Capitalism themselves, and just quote its concepts like a bible.
It's not a mistake, it's a feature.
Now that there’s a lot more information (and criticism) about Calandra out there from the people who worked with him, it might be time for a follow up
Shame this video aged like milk
Well, it is a excellent summary of the information we had *at the time*.
The stuff said about the escapist is still true, they weren't good guys. But because they were easy targets, it was all too easy to create a narrative where Nick Calandra was just a victim and not part of the problem. As it turns out, in this specific instance, he actually was the root of the problem.
17:20 "For the love of god don't crash and burn Second Wind". How sad. But not surprising in hindsight...
What happened?
Wow. I had fallen so far off from Zero punctuation. I had grown tired of seeing him being the sole thing keeping Escapist alive. So initially hearing it had come to an end when I clicked this video made me very sad. But I'm glad it was of his own volition and it's because he's finally decided to go out on his own. Good for him. Just like Jim Sterling and so many others that were easily the best parts of that place, he deserved so much more. Best of luck to him and thank you for bringing this to light. I'm glad this came into my feed. Sometimes the youtube Algorithm does alright.
Just FYI, they go by Steph now. And have for quite some time.