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Extra Credits (now at PATV!)

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:08
by JackSlack
Woah. This is rather huge for the Escapist: Extra Credits is leaving, citing not being paid enough. This is worrying, not just for them, but for LRR, I'd imagine, as it suggests financial troubles with The Escapist.

James:

Hi everyone...I've got a lot to say tonight, so I apologize in advance for the spam. -JP

I'm also sorry that I haven't been more communicative of late, I haven't been able to talk until just now. Last thursday was our final episode on the escapist. Dan and I work on it for free and I pay Allison’s salary out of pocket each month, then, in turn, The Escapist was supposed to pay us - not much, but enough to cover Allison’s wages - unfortunately they were never able to. That meant when Allison hurt her arm I was out over $20,000...which is why we had to turn to all of you. And that week really was one of the best of my life. Better than releasing games or speaking at GDC. Unfortunately, I had to ask the Escapist to send me some of our money then to help Allison (this was before I put up the Rockethub).

When, after a lot of wrangling they sent us $1000, we asked them if we could trade them some of what they owed us for our IP back. Because the contract they had us sign made us give up all the right to the show. We actually thought we were operating in good faith and getting the IP back so we could do things like make Tshirts would be easy. But they shot back informing us that they felt like they were entitled to 75% of the Rockethub money. [Me: THE FUCK?!] And that, despite having paid us once over a year, we actually owed them $9500.

Yeah. This was probably one of the most disappointing moments for me in quite some time. I thought we were all playing for the same team. After that there was a lot of ugliness that I won't go into. The short of it is we told them we wanted to discuss our IP and they gave us a long run around saying they magically found money. And wanted to make sure we got paid before we started to talk IP (which would have basically ensured that we didn't get our IP back). But the money never materialised and so we gave them notice two weeks ago and terminated our contract last Friday.

We're looking for other outlets at the moment, but we promise we'll keep doing the show on Youtube until we find one. I'll be on on Thursday to post a link. (But for legal reasons I haven't been able to talk about the show or the rockethub or anything for a while.) And that's really the worst part. All of this takes away from actual good things we could be doing...

Of course this means that the rockethub rewards will have to change (no Escapist Club memberships) but we promise we'll find something. I just hope everyone else on the escapist is getting better treatment than we did...

More coming soon.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:13
by JackSlack
I have to get going, but yeah... if the Escapist do not respond BLOODY WELL to this, there is no way I'm renewing a pub-club membership. I will be quitting their site post-bloody haste.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:15
by Trymantha
I would have already quit that site if it wasnt for extra credits and LRR

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:19
by JackSlack
I actually quite like them, but make no mistake: If this is true, and the Escapist can't refute it? I love Feed Dump, I love LRR, but I will be giving it all up in a heartbeat rather than give The Escapist more money. I won't even give them paid ads.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:22
by Ed.
jack I dont normally advocate add blockers but

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:25
by JackSlack
No. I consider them cheating as well. I will simply be having to, regrettably, give up LRR and Feed Dump until such time as LRR leaves The Escapist, should they do so. Although, from this example, if they decide to leave it may be ugly.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:25
by Duckay
I am statistically very bad at keeping to boycotts that I agree to. And I don't know, I'll have to see how it goes: I don't want the other contributors on the site (eg. LRR) to suffer because I think the people at The Escapist are tools.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:30
by Lyinginbedmon
If this ends badly, from my perspective they will be holding LRR hostage.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:35
by Trymantha
Lyinginbedmon wrote:If this ends badly, from my perspective they will be holding LRR hostage.


I can see this happening to be honest, I don't want it to be I can see it. at least according to what we have been told lrr still own their IP

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:35
by Ottoman
I fucking lol'd so hard, my lungs came up out of my mouth and my eyes sprang out of their sockets and swung around like those springy gag glasses. In fact, I almost want to die right now, because nothing else in my life could ever possibly be as hilarious.

Image

Yeah, I hope this is the end of them. ಠ_ಠ

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:35
by Niko
This story is pretty sickening. I can only hope that the Extra Credits team will move onto a host who appreciates them, that The Escapist learns from this ridiculous behaviour and that the rest of their content creators aren't being treated in this way.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:36
by Danzama
I saw this on twitter too. There's only two things, besides LRR, that I watch on the escapist. I shall be following this and thinking about not watching things one there, now.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:37
by PlasmaCow
where does this statement come from? It's got significantly different ordering and wording to the Facebook one.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:38
by epocalypse
.... The fuck? Extra credits is one of the best things on the internet, and they are such an Unbelievably understanding and laid back crew of folks. The escapist always seemed like a chill group, but the idea that the escapist would claim rights to the rocket hub money WHICH WASN'T FOR THE SHOW, is obscene. If I'm calculating correctly. this actually means that the escapist owes extra credits ~$63K.

for perspective, that would be like them claiming DB4H owed them upwards of a quarter million.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:41
by Trymantha
PlasmaCow wrote:where does this statement come from? It's got significantly different ordering and wording to the Facebook one.


their twitter, James is updating both at the same time.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:42
by thatlaurachick
If I didn't already hate the Escapist staff, yet one more reason.

This is atrocious. Of all the other great Escapist content that's "mysteriously" disappeared, the forum always rumored that it was the content makers defaulting on their contract. Something tells me this isn't the first time the scenario described here has played out.

I gave up my Escapist forum membership before pub club was invented. Now I watch sexist Slim Jim ads and game trailers only because I'd do the same thing on LRR's site. (except I assume LRR wouldn't run exclusively sexist ads)

Very full of rage right now.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:45
by Trymantha
I wouldn't be surprised if this topic gets locked, we must remember that the escapist are paying lrr, i think we need to be careful on what we say

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:47
by Theremin
Just an FYI:

Boycotting the Escapist would end up hurting LRR more than it would the actual Escapist staff.

You want to help? Donate to Extra Credits, or buy a DVD from here.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:50
by Danzama
@Sam I think we're entitled to our opinions. I wouldn't be surprised if one, or more, of the LRR crew isn't happy about this.

EC said that they could sink the Escapist, if they don't have enough to pay them.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:51
by thatlaurachick
You know what? As much as I love LRR and you guys, if The Crew doesn't want us to talk about how the Escapist screwed another show, well, there are other forums. And I'd be sad to not watch LRR but if they're being that hypocritical, it won't be funny anymore.

E.G. - I doubt the thread will be locked.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:52
by empath
Me? Not so much with the raeg...

I guess I got burnt out at proselytizing pointlessly about the evils of the Limited Liability Corporation and its ability to absolve individuals (e.g. board directors) of blame or consequences for their actions (e.g. business decisions) to an indifferent audience, and I just really am neither surprised nor moved by this turn of events.

Sorry to hear this about James and the E.C. crew, and hope this sort of thing doesn't play out to other content providers to the Escapist, but *meh* never joined PubClub and on the other hand, never engaged an adblocker when going to the e's site (and for the record, I've started reliably getting pre-video ads from there for maybe a month now...I'm *really* sick of El Shaddai ;) )

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 16:54
by Tycherin
If this were coming from another source, I might look at it differently. But since it's coming from the Extra Credits guys, one of the few groups on the internet I place any trust in... Greed is a terrible motivator. None of the other motivators work as consistently as greed, which is why we use it, but greed is still a terrible motivator.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 17:00
by JackSlack
I have to say, part of me thinks this sounds a LOT like a company facing bankrupt status, to be honest. LRR may need to be looking for new digs no matter what.

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 17:01
by Matt
Hi everybody.

I am not going to lock the thread, because this turn of events was unforeseen and it bears discussion. I'd appreciate it if you could refrain from too much speculation, and please understand that we in LRR are not in a position to comment on the situation, nor can we answer any of your questions at this time.

I'll be watching this thread, and I may lock it if I feel it's necessary, but I'm disinclined to do so unless it gets clearly out of hand. We're as saddened by the departure of Extra Credits as you are.


-m

Re: Breaking: Extra Credits leaves Escapist

Posted: 09 Aug 2011, 17:02
by thatlaurachick
@Tycherin
Do you ever wonder why Doraleous and Assoc. never came back from their "time off"? Ever wonder why Doomsday Arcade ran short? Never thought about why There Will Be Brawl didn't renew for a second season?

The Escapist forums always hinted that the content creators "defaulted" on their contracts or didn't want to come back. The implication was they were all unmotivated/lazy/didn't provide the E with what was promised.

After reading this, I'm beginning to suspect that wasn't really the case. The LRR Crew has also stated that they made sure to protect their IP and rights in their contract. So we can be sure LRR isn't going to have this happen to them.

I agree that boycotting the Escapist isn't the answer, but playing like this didn't happen isn't the answer either.