The former staff of The Escapist, a video game website and magazine, has formed a new gaming outlet called Second Wind. This comes after Nick Calandra, the editor-in-chief of The Escapist, was fired by parent company Gamurs Group, and several other employees also left the outlet in response.
Nick Calandra was terminated as editor-in-chief and took to X/Twitter on Monday, November 6, to share that he was fired for “not achieving goals” that were set up by the Gamurs Group after it acquired The Escapist in 2022.
Former The Escapist Employees Form a New Gaming Outlet
Nick Calandra stated on X/Twitter that he was fired from The Escapist, has declined to take severance pay, and will also not sign an NDA. He stated that he is very proud of what he and his team have achieved while he was editor-in-chief and will be figuring out what’s next for him. Calandra added:
I was let go for “not achieving goals” that were never properly set out for us, and lack of understanding of our audience and the team that built that audience. I’ve watched many colleagues let go for the same reasons, and today was my day!
Calandra also said that he was shut out of his email when he was fired. The “entire video team” of The Escapist also resigned in response to Calandra’s termination, as per the information shared by Calandra on Discord. The new outlet, Second Wind, looks like the next adventure for Calandra.
This also includes Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, the creator of the video review series called Zero Punctuation. Ben Croshaw also shared on X/Twitter that he has resigned. He said:
Today, I formally resigned from The Escapist and Gamurs. I don’t have the rights to Zero Punctuation, but whatever happens, you’ll be hearing from my voice again soon, in a new place.
Nick Calandra and Ben Croshaw, along with other former The Escapist employees, have now formed a new gaming outlet and announced it via X/Twitter on November 7. Calandra stated, “I’m very excited to announce the name of our next adventure, Second Wind.” Currently, Second Wind only has social media handles on X and YouTube and a Patreon page.
The outlet has been described as “focused on creating content that’s informative, interesting, and fun, and everything that you came to expect from the team behind The Escapist.” Calandra was reached out to by GamesIndustry.biz for further information about his termination from The Escapist.
Nick Calandra, while talking to GamesIndustry.biz, said:
We were given unattainable goals in a very short amount of time after being sold to Gamurs by Enthusiast Gaming. In addition to being editor-in-chief of The Escapist, I was a YouTube strategist for the last six months, tasked with helping build an entire video department from scratch that was asked to grow both in viewership and get profitable, but with no plan from upper management to actually do so.
He further added:
The entire Escapist team put their heart into every piece of work we put out, and the talent brought in was unmatched. That kind of talent isn’t cheap, and my mission with The Escapist was to not be driven primarily by views, but by direct funding through premium memberships and livestreams.
That was working, and we grew year-over-year for all four years I ran The Escapist. Unfortunately, while ultimately more sustainable in the long run and not being reliant on shifting ad revenue from quarter to quarter, that kind of growth wasn’t fast enough for Gamurs in the short term despite our model clearly growing year after year.
Second Wind will hold an introduction stream on YouTube today and has already crossed over 40,000 subscribers on the channel. The channel has zero content but got over 37k followers after it was live for about 17 hours. It’d be interesting to see what Nick Calandra and Co. bring to their audience with Second Wind.
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