The popular long-running video game review series Zero Punctuation seems to have been discontinued, after staff left the American video game website The Escapist, which featured the weekly series.
Zero Punctuation, which began in 2007 and had more than 800 episodes, developed a cult following. It attracted hundreds of thousands of views due to Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw's fast-paced and humorous reviews of various video games.
On Monday, November 6, Croshaw, who created Zero Punctuation, resigned from The Escapist, along with the rest of the outlet’s video team.
Their resignations are said to stem from The Escapist owners Gamurs Group’s decision to fire long-standing editor-in-chief, Nick Calandra.
He took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to announce his sacking.
I was fired from The Escapist today.
— Nick Calandra (@nickjcal) November 6, 2023
I have declined my severance pay and will not be signing an NDA.
I'm incredibly proud of everything my team and I achieved over the last four years, and the community that we built together.
Figuring out next steps now and moving forward.
"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," Calandra said in a thread on the social media platform."I've watched many colleagues let go for the same reasons, and today was my day!"
Elsewhere, however, he hinted that he and his team had new plans.
Calandra wrote on The Escapist’s Discord server: “Tomorrow you will know more about what our plans are for the future, along with a livestream on Wednesday at 11am CT (5pm BST). Our plan is to go independent, but we will share more plans on that later this week.”
Croshaw, a British-Australian video game journalist and humorist, also announced his resignation on X. He pointed out that he didn't have the rights to Zero Punctuation and promised his fans: "Whatever happens, you'll be hearing my voice again soon."
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 my voice again soon, in a new place. Join this discord for updates in the coming days: https://t.co/Kdmb5biPDN
— Yahtzee Croshaw (@YahtzeeCroshaw) November 7, 2023
Fans of the series took to social media to express their feelings about its demise.
you were the only part of the site i cared about. this is devastating.
— Steve (@ScubaSteve1219) November 7, 2023
I don't even know what else they do.
— Jeff Richman 🎃👻 (@jcrichman) November 7, 2023
Wait, the escapist had other stuff?
— Chris Nodima 🍄 (@chrisnodima) November 7, 2023
