SHOUT OUT - Second Wind has already formed in the wake of the Escapist culling, and that’s a win for talented people
Fuck you Gamurs Group.
By Jonathan Garrett
07/11/23
NOTE: thatHITBOX Shout Out’s are not sponsored content. They’re games, developers, individuals, or issues that we want to highlight and share purely out of interest.
They say karma is a wonderful thing; a swift and uncompromising act of balance that ensures justice will be served. There’s nothing quite like delivering a decisive “screw you” to a callously metric driven and closed minded organisation whose approach to games journalism is clearly limited by their inability to see beyond the moment.
Nick Calandra, along with several prominent former crew members of The Escapist, have either been unceremoniously let go by parent company Gamurs Group, or have walked away in protest. Within mere hours, a new venture now exists (Second Wind), it already has 20,000 subs on YouTube without a single upload, and a Patreon is on the brew.
A clear push into crafting original content and deep diving into interesting development stories became a hallmark of the Escapist’s output in recent months, and the general perception of their work from the gaming community has been positive with a hunger for more. Now, with the formation of Second Wind, that journey looks set to continue and fans can continue to be satiated.
This is a victory for writers and creative folks, at a time when adjacent conversations in Hollywood centred around protecting workers rights are reaching a critical juncture. Everyone here at thatHITBOX would like to wish Nick and his team at Second Wind the very best of luck!
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
