"Zero Punctuation" and "Dev Diary" by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw - The only thing worth watching on The Escapist

[Imperial Citizen]

To paraphrase one of Yahtzee’s games: “I just wanted to have funny game reviews!!!!”

 

[Hammerstein]

To paraphrase one of Yahtzee’s games: “I just wanted to have funny game reviews!!!!”

He stopped being funny at least a decade ago.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

I'm gonna be real here: You could've told me this was made by your run-of-the-mill millennial danger-hair CalArts hire and not Yahtzee and I would've believed you.

Because criticism is easy actually creating an interesting game is hard and that is why I do not take the man seriously looks like something that some danger hair would create on Tumblr.

Also anybody who's friends with thin skinned games journalist nick calandra and he thinks it's a good idea to make him your CEO of your new company you start with him has terrible judgment

 

[Fart Muncher]

Frost resignation video

Local Archive:

 

[p1138]

Channel Awesome at least had SOME creative people outside of Doug Walker.

Nobody really gives a fuck about anyone else EXCEPT Yatzee. It's a lamer #ChangeTheChannel because from the sound of it, it's an easily solve-able problem that everyone is purposefully avoiding.

At this point, let them all suffer. Yatzee has become a fucking insufferable bore over the years so honestly, nothing of value would be lost.

The simple truth of the matter is that Yahtzee didn't need any of these fucking people(no matter how boring he may have gotten over the past few years) and if his content is doing 90% of the work for their "co-op" then there's nothing "co-op" about it. If the posted salaries were even close to being true, he could have hired a manager to handle day to day business shit, 2 editors, and a part time accountant to manage finances and kept the rest of it for himself with everyone else able to be incredibly well paid for the amount of work required.

After years of basically all of these "co-ops" like channel awesome and others failing, trying to shove more content into a single source like RoosterTeeth, or the MCN dumpster fires that I figured everyone else would have finally realized an already successful content creator doesn't need, there is literally no reason for this second wind shit to exist.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The simple truth of the matter is that Yahtzee didn't need any of these fucking people(no matter how boring he may have gotten over the past few years) and if his content is doing 90% of the work for their "co-op" then there's nothing "co-op" about it. If the posted salaries were even close to being true, he could have hired a manager to handle day to day business shit, 2 editors, and a part time accountant to manage finances and kept the rest of it for himself with everyone else able to be incredibly well paid for the amount of work required.

After years of basically all of these "co-ops" like channel awesome and others failing, trying to shove more content into a single source like RoosterTeeth, or the MCN dumpster fires that I figured everyone else would have finally realized an already successful content creator doesn't need, there is literally no reason for this second wind shit to exist.

I could justify coops before the age of YouTube, when it was a literal website people went to look daily, so you do need the constant flow to have a semblance of life and choice.

But with that format gone, having a YouTube channel shared between 10 people makes it bloat like a motherfucker and people get unsubscribed because it isn't worth it having your feed spammed for the notice there's a new video (which you might actually miss because it will blend in will all the rest).

 

[Administrator Flotsam]

Its hilarious how this Nick guy managed to transplant journoscum cancer into a modern content creation business model so faithfully that he even brought over all the corruption and the drama that comes with it. Also hilarious that the staff and creators all probably knew about it and still went along with it for this long. Media across all industries is very interested in every kind of corruption and wrongdoing except when it is at their own job.

But with that format gone, having a YouTube channel shared between 10 people makes it bloat like a motherfucker and people get unsubscribed because it isn't worth it having your feed spammed for the notice there's a new

Yeah, their channel is too bloated. Anyone coming for just one creator (ie Yahtz and ZP) has to sort through all the shit from the thousand other "shows" that they have. The main reason I didn't sub myself despite being a fan of ZP.

 

[Evil Peter Griffin]

Yahtzee is either too lazy to go on his own or he is really loyal to these people.

 

[p1138]

Yahtzee is either too lazy to go on his own or he is really loyal to these people.

He's gotta be needlessly loyal to these people then, because hiring 3 people and a part time accountant like I mentioned previously would mean he doesn't have to deal with any of the day to day shit of running a business. He left the escapist when this Nick idiot managed to get fired, but he shouldn't have been wasting his time with the escapist for the past decade either, except for the whole not owning the concept of his own damned show thing. This second wind shit has been around for under a year and already has almost half a million subscribers on its own, but manages to have 547 videos, that's posting what twice a fucking a day? No one is there for anything else. If you sort by popularity, beyond a couple of videos from the channel's initial launch, it isn't till #29 that you finally get another video that isn't yahtzee being edited to sound like he doesn't pause between syllables. If you keep scrolling further and get to the end of the "yahtzee tries" shit(again, sorted by popularity) half the shit on the channel can't break 50k views a video.

I could justify coops before the age of YouTube, when it was a literal website people went to look daily, so you do need the constant flow to have a semblance of life and choice.

But with that format gone, having a YouTube channel shared between 10 people makes it bloat like a motherfucker and people get unsubscribed because it isn't worth it having your feed spammed for the notice there's a new video (which you might actually miss because it will blend in will all the rest).

Yeah the shit is painfully obvious sorting by popularity and looking at their library of "content".

Yeah, their channel is too bloated. Anyone coming for just one creator (ie Yahtz and ZP) has to sort through all the shit from the thousand other "shows" that they have. The main reason I didn't sub myself despite being a fan of ZP.

It looks like even most of their subsribers have given up due to that. 440k subs, and the only things breaking 200k views is fully ramblomatic and those videos are spread out with 4-7 videos of other random shit no one wants between. And even yahtzee's views are dropping, that's the opposite of channel growth. Considering the result when you sort by popularity, this means the channel started stagnating and hitting a decline 4-6 months ago. At this point they're worse off than escapist magazine's now dead youtube channel was back in 2023.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

Yahtzee is either too lazy to go on his own or he is really loyal to these people.

He's scared. A massive fucking pussy. He needs someone to shoulder the responsibilities that come with running and advertising your content on the net.

Frost resignation video

And here's responses from each non-aussie member of Second Fart.

Here are statements from 9 of the 11 owners of Second Wind regarding Frost’s recent comments. The two remaining owners, Matt and Javed, are Australian and (hopefully) asleep right now. If they have anything to add to these statements, we’ll include them in this message.



Yahtzee Croshaw

I've been asked to comment on this, and this is the first and last thing I will say: Frost does not speak for me, I am perfectly happy as part of Second Wind and with Nick as a coworker. I can't speak for Frost's experience but if he wasn't happy he was free to leave at any time, as are we all. I wish him well and that he'd focus on his future rather than trying to stoke petty drama in ways that reflect badly on him more than anyone else.



KC Nwosu

Frost and I spoke at length after his resignation (upwards of 6 hours) in the hopes of reaching an understanding as to why leaving was his only option. I suggested and organized the moderated call between Nick and Frost in the hopes that they could come to a meaningful understanding with one another before parting ways with the pie in the sky chance of forgiveness and resolution (another 6 hours). The majority of that talk went well, but sadly Frost used that call as fodder for YouTube drama. A lot of what Frost has said since has been a skewed version of the truth which I told him myself I found very disappointing. For example Frost is the one who called for the informal vote to fire Nick after the team met and agreed that we put Nick on probation for his social media behavior. Frost then went on to say in a Twitter post the vote wasn't representative of the entire group…(then why did you call for it??)

He has ignored all of the internal changes we've been making to address our complaints about leadership and direction, some of which he specifically came up with and we began to implement. Frost didn't want to wait around for us to do better; he doesn't believe we can. I find that upsetting but it’s within his rights. However the continued focus on Second Wind is unwarranted and baffling to me, it strikes me as his way of forcing us all to do what he wanted in that vote. Nick is not without fault. Internally, I was one of his loudest critics, but I support giving him the chance to correct his mistakes which I can confirm he has been trying to do. Nick does right by the team for the most part and the picture Frost paints is one sided, inaccurate, and worst of all harms the group as a whole while claiming to be a defender of us creatives.



JM8

A lot was raised in this video, but I can only speak to my own experience with Nick and being a co-owner of Second Wind. In my four years of working with him, Nick has NEVER told me what to do in regard to Design Delve. Conversations about what we think might work well for the show (topic- and episode-wise) were always happening, but I never did anything I didn't want to do; all creative decisions were completely up to me.

It’s true that I’ve had my grievances with Nick's management style in the past, but these issues have all been addressed through internal restructuring and reallocation of his responsibilities for the betterment of the company and the community. This was voted on by the entire team and was in motion two weeks before Frost left. Because of this, a lot of the sentiments in the video felt disingenuous. Many of Frost’s points were taken out of context or presented in a way that implies he speaks for people he simply does not, and I believe this was done to bolster the “evil Nick” narrative he’s trying to perpetuate. In reality, the situation is nowhere near as dramatic as it is being framed. At the end of the day, we’re a young co-op company, and we’ve been ironing details out as we go, but I have complete faith in this team and this community. <3

I wish Frost the best of luck with his future endeavors, as I consider him a good friend.



Jesse Galena

Frost brings up some concerning points. I don’t know everyone he’s talked to or every experience he’s had. However, the number of false statements, bad faith arguments, and out-of-context snippets in his claims that I know are untrue makes me suspicious of the things he says I was not privy to. Since I joined Second Wind earlier this year, the amount of work I’ve seen the folks here do to improve our personal and company-sided weaknesses gives me faith in them as individuals and us as a team. I encourage you to read what the rest of the team says to get a fuller picture. We all get one life with an unknown and finite amount of time with it, so I won’t spend any more of mine on this. I’ll spend my time doing important things… like figuring out how to animate a laughing door.



Jack Packard

Firstly, in Frost’s video I am the Lead who said “We’d be fine without Yahtzee.”

Frost and I were talking about hypothetical situations, so I treated the question the same as I would treat “what if Yahtzee gets hit by a bus?” To which my answer was “we would keep going.” Frost taking this out of context to “prove” my lack of judgment is ridiculous.

To me, the biggest issue I have with Frost’s video is the way he distances himself from any decision…as if he was not an owner and had no say in how we operated.

He was a part of the formation of the business from the start, and he was part of 2 weekly staff meetings and a monthly Owners meeting. His claims that Nick isolated staff are demonstrably false in that alone. His claims that Nick is an “anti-creative” iron fist is laughable as I’ve seen, first hand, the back and forth Nick takes with the creative staff…myself included.

The one claim that I will give him is that none of us are/were qualified to handle the business end of things. Yeah, I have a literal clowning degree.

But we’re still here working on it. When we heard from the staff that there were communication problems, we stepped up to fix them. When we (finally) heard from Frost that he wanted to try things with Cold Take (credits/thumbnails) we made it happen.

It’s a shame that Frost felt he couldn’t work with us, because we were working with him.



Marty Sliva

Goes without saying, but I can only speak to my personal experiences. In the ~5 years I worked with Nick and the team at The Escapist and now Second Wind, I never once felt pressured to sway my editorial coverage of a game positively or negatively for outside reasons, and never once heard of that from anyone else. The slightest whiff of anything like that would’ve raised a shitstorm from myself and the rest of the crew.

As far as Gamurs stuff goes, I still have a ton of love and respect for what the editorial team at The Escapist is doing with the site, coupling SEO that keeps the lights on in 2024 with some great original features, op-eds, and criticism. That said, I truly do not believe a future existed for the video side of things at The Escapist that would’ve been sustainable and creatively fulfilling without overworking the skeleton crew that would’ve hypothetically remained back in November.

I love Second Wind, enjoy working alongside the team we’ve put together, am proud of what we’ve made and what we’re continuing to make, and admire the hell out of this community. Are we perfect? No, of course not. We’re a group of passionate, creative humans who bring all of our individual flaws and baggage to the table, and we often disagree on things. But given the positive changes we’ve enacted over the past few months and continue to build upon, I truly believe our best days are ahead of us.



Jesse Schwab

I stand with Nick and Second Wind as a whole. I can only speak for meetings and conversations I was a part of. That said, a lot of the complaints regarding Nick or Second Wind's management, unless shown evidence proving otherwise, are contradicted by various hearsay between management, creatives, and employees thereof. While the most contentious point, that being Nick, does hold weight in regards to clear issues, these are concerns that have been addressed in staff meetings (which Frost did attend), and we as a company have been actively resolving. When these adjustments were brought up to Frost in said meetings, it was clear that his problems with Nick were beyond repair, despite the majority of Second Wind believing otherwise in Nick, the company's direction, and our treatment of employees. It's unfortunate how it went down, as well as how Frost continues his crusade. I hope he can move on from this ultimately petty drama, and continue to make his amazing content that we've all seen in the past- as we all at Second Wind will strive to accomplish ourselves.



Omar Ahmed

I was the lead editor for Gameumentary and The Escapist’s doc projects from Divinity to EVE, but over the years I began to realize that editing these wasn’t giving me the joy I sought from that job and I expressed this to Nick in a call. We had other talented editors more passionate about these things, whereas I found infinitely more enjoyment working on Adventure Is Nigh. It was a bit of an emotional call as the docs were Nick’s baby and he loved the pieces I made, however he was more than willing to allow me to fully focus on those things that I could pour my heart and passion into… and I’m not even an on-screen talent. I know for a fact that he has made the same concessions for others here.

The recorded call with the ex-Gameumentary team featured in Frost’s video is undoubtedly shitty and was a poor way for Nick to address any claims they had. I didn’t know that team, however, I have worked with Nick Calandra for over six years and can attest that the version of him in that call is not representative of the person I’ve known throughout my professional career. Nick has always been supportive of the creative and career goals of myself and those around us even when faced with corporate opposition. I’ve been fortunate to advance from a part time editor to head of video production in no small part due to Nick’s championing of my worth regardless of who we worked for, which has been something I’ve been incredibly cognizant of passing down to the other creators and talent that we’ve worked with.

When Nick’s rigidity in direction at Second Wind had become an issue, the team gathered to address it and Nick was open to redefining his role here. I truly believe that the changes we’ve made are good and healthy for Second Wind as a whole, and that includes Nick. He has his faults and we’re dealing with them, but I truly believe that he’s a good person and an important part of Second Wind.

Also as someone who went on all of those documentary trips, I can attest that none of them were paid for by the game companies aside from the EVE shoot which we were explicit about.



Nick Calandra

Regarding the Gameumentary call clip I absolutely should not have said what I said and there's no excuse for it. It was wrong of me to devalue someone's work in that way, and I regret it and learned from that experience.

Gameumentary was set up with no contracts as a project between friends, which should not have happened as we were dealing with money.

With the Kickstarter done, there was no money to continue Gameumentary. So, my plan was to sell the brand to Enthusiast Gaming, and in doing so, they would continue to invest in the documentaries and hire on the two main editors as I had locked in the Larian Documentary by that point.

At the time, all the business details were under my name. I paid the insurance for the gear, the taxes, the website hosting, had handled all of the Kickstarter finances, and more.

After that call, the four in that call decided to leave, Enthusiast Gaming purchased Gameumentary, and Omar was brought on to work on the Larian doc.



Final Statement from Second Wind

In our opinion, Frost has shown that he is no longer willing to work with us as a team therefore we will be permanently archiving the “Cold Take” Channel in the Discord.

While we’ll always be open to reasonable questions and concerns, we won't entertain muck-raking or re-hashing drama over Frost’s videos.

We’re looking forward to getting back to focusing on what you’re all here for — making silly, informative, and entertaining videos about toys.

Only bothered to read Nick's, Yahtz's and AIDS Moby's. Nick is a faggot, Yahtz is a faggot and a pussy, and AIDS Moby is a fucking delusional faggot. SW would sink like a lead balloon the moment Yahtz decided to leave.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

Why is anybody even remotely surprised about Yahtzee he literally left a good job for his scumbag probably sexual predator friend nick calandra

 

[Pissmaster]

AIDS Moby is a fucking delusional faggot.

"We'll be fine without Yahtzee"

Google Trends, 2004-present, graphs for "Escapist Magazine" and "Yahtzee Croshaw":

 

[A Watchful Ghost]

....he was free to leave at any time, as are we all. I wish him well and that he'd focus on his future rather than trying to stoke petty drama in ways that reflect badly on him more than anyone else.

Croshaw, you fucking cunt. I've heard this kind of passive-aggressive shit before from Nijisanji of all places. That reads like he doesn't care enough to know why Frost have grievances with Nick in the first place, but instead wants to be a good little soldier, and throw him under the bus. Yahtzee is such a fucking, dishonest sellout that he would side with the corrupt asshole.

.....When Nick’s rigidity in direction at Second Wind had become an issue, the team gathered to address it and Nick was open to redefining his role here. I truly believe that the changes we’ve made are good and healthy for Second Wind as a whole, and that includes Nick. He has his faults and we’re dealing with them, but I truly believe that he’s a good person and an important part of Second Wind.

.....When these adjustments were brought up to Frost in said meetings, it was clear that his problems with Nick were beyond repair, despite the majority of Second Wind believing otherwise in Nick, the company's direction, and our treatment of employees. It's unfortunate how it went down, as well as how Frost continues his crusade. I hope he can move on from this ultimately petty drama, and continue to make his amazing content that we've all seen in the past- as we all at Second Wind will strive to accomplish ourselves.

....As far as Gamurs stuff goes, I still have a ton of love and respect for what the editorial team at The Escapist is doing with the site, coupling SEO that keeps the lights on in 2024 with some great original features, op-eds, and criticism.

I think what gets me more annoyed about all of these responses is how clear they are throwing Frost under the bridge without actually addressing his issues while giving Nick a slap of the twist type of deal to try, and create the illusion that they are taking change of the situation. This reeks of PR, and Nick telling everyone to defend him because this is very fucking damning stuff. And the fact they never once tried to argue against it tells me that they are very much either too ignorant of what's actually going on.

Or don't want to accept the fact that their friend might be a piece of shit. I really hope they don't let SWG get a breather from this, and ACTUALLY addresses the shit being thrown at them rather than the typical 'nothing to see here', But I'm asking transparency to people that don't know it.

 

[Hassou Tobi]

I mean there was reasonable complaints about ethics like paying for reviews/dangling "consulting" work behind everyone's back to the indie devs but a lot of Frost's video was just complaining that Nick is an asshole and sucks at running a business. Which yeah, fair enough, seems true. But that's not really a scandal. People can choose to work there or not. Frost should probably move on from that.

 

[p1138]

Jack Packard

Firstly, in Frost’s video I am the Lead who said “We’d be fine without Yahtzee.”

Frost and I were talking about hypothetical situations, so I treated the question the same as I would treat “what if Yahtzee gets hit by a bus?” To which my answer was “we would keep going.” Frost taking this out of context to “prove” my lack of judgment is ridiculous.

Nah bro, you're a delusional idiot. Anyone can see the shit would fall apart without yahtzee just by looking at your views.

As far as Gamurs stuff goes, I still have a ton of love and respect for what the editorial team at The Escapist is doing with the site, coupling SEO that keeps the lights on in 2024 with some great original features, op-eds, and criticism. That said, I truly do not believe a future existed for the video side of things at The Escapist that would’ve been sustainable and creatively fulfilling without overworking the skeleton crew that would’ve hypothetically remained back in November.

Also fucking delusional. That side is dead as a doornail now.

I mean there was reasonable complaints about ethics like paying for reviews/dangling "consulting" work behind everyone's back to the indie devs but a lot of Frost's video was just complaining that Nick is an asshole and sucks at running a business. Which yeah, fair enough, seems true. But that's not really a scandal. People can choose to work there or not. Frost should probably move on from that.

That's just a more modern version of what happened with Channel Awesome, except there's fewer idiots involved this time around. Company was run like crap, people couldn't just leave and a lot to this day have still not bothered to move on either continuing to complain about CA, or even desperately trying to do the same content to an audience of fewer than 10k views. They're people who haven't dealt with actual grown up adult shit in the business world, or this is simply their first experience and think that some big change needs to happen or whatever so they never have to be sad about another job ever again.

 

[Hassou Tobi]

A third person left now because of Nick.

https://x.com/willcblogs/status/1824197664855982194

Idk not to be a faggot but to me this just doesn’t look good. Unless he was actually harming or stealing from you just leave professionally. A simple “I appreciated my time there but have decided to move in a different direction” works.

 

[Hassou Tobi]

Looking in the new Frost discord where he’s answering questions. Nothing too juicy yet.

 

[p1138]

A third person left now because of Nick.

https://x.com/willcblogs/status/1824197664855982194

Idk not to be a faggot but to me this just doesn’t look good. Unless he was actually harming or stealing from you just leave professionally.

wtf? If they knew Nick was the bad apple... why follow his stupid ass? And no, these people know nothing of professionalism, again not having an actual career outside of being able to get paid to fuck around most of the day shows that.

 

[Tanner Glass]

wtf? If they knew Nick was the bad apple... why follow his stupid ass? And no, these people know nothing of professionalism, again not having an actual career outside of being able to get paid to fuck around most of the day shows that.

The allegation is that for everyone who wasn't Nick, Yahtz, or Frost the mandate was "Your ass is getting fired - so better to gamble on SWG then try and hack it at the Escapist without Yahtz".

Even if they weren't getting fired (which is also alleged) - the Escapist without Yahtzee was going to die a horrible death.

 

[p1138]

The allegation is that for everyone who wasn't Nick, Yahtz, or Frost the mandate was "Your ass is getting fired - so better to gamble on SWG then try and hack it at the Escapist without Yahtz".

Even if they weren't getting fired (which is also alleged) - the Escapist without Yahtzee was going to die a horrible death.

Well sure, it absolutely was just going to die, and it has. But... go find another fucking job? Following a good boss/supervisor/manager/whatever makes sense, not following someone who you know to be a fuckup that you don't like.

Damn under developed children...