@woldmunster9244 I remember that, it wasn’t that he was pregnant so much as he claimed the hormones did something to his body that Jim described as “my body thinks it’s pregnant” which I took with a huge grain of salt because what does pregnancy even feel like specifically? (Apart from the live baby occasionally moving about part, all the symptoms nausea, excess weight, hormone spikes, cravings ecetera are non-unique) And what counts as a body “thinking” it’s pregnant? Plus nausea and vomiting is pretty serious. So just chalking it up to “aww my body is confused cause hormones” just seems like a good way to end up rushed to the ER with something serious that you ignored.
@@noonenowhere877 Pregnancy changes your physiognomy in a large and noticeable number of aspects- your hormones, the way it processes nutrients, your brain chemistry. It's a pretty radical shift in most of your natural processes, and can even generate permanent changes to your anatomy. False pregnancies are absolutely a known medical condition that have been observed since... forever (and can even be triggered solely by psychiatric conditions, let alone hormonal treatments). If something causes one, you absolutely need to have it treated-
That was the most unhinged thing I heard in the whole video. Yahtzee drew the entire crowd in. Everyone else is a fine creator but Yahtzee is still clearly the secret sauce. I can't imagine the channel would last a month without him.
That's just utterly delusional. There's some other good content creators there (minus one now that Frost is out) but anyone that looks at the channel for 10 minutes can see that Yahtzee's videos are the main draw by far. He's basically subsidizing a lot of the content there.
@@spvrda are you saying that people's reaction against gamergate is the cause for this guy who promotes gamergaters being allowed to work in the industry? that seems off
Economist here - I remember a month or two ago when the most recent quarterly finance report was published showing it to my wife and going on a 30 minute rant about how it was clear no one in SWG knew how to manage finances and that at this rate the company could be out of business as early as November. The salary structure alone seemed baffling, even more so when I saw the breakdown. It was evident to me that whoever was in charge had no idea what their revenue had to be to sustain their level of expenditure and was a classic example of a company overspending in its early days and rationalising inefficient and unnecessary spend as "investment". I love the idea of a good creator-led coop but never trust someone who can't manage money to manage your money.
I too was absolutely shocked when I saw those financials, they do not make sense at all. I was an early supporter on Patreon but since lapsed my subscription due to my own culling of expenditure, so I hadn't seen these latest figures since this video. For me that is a much bigger story as I believe in the project, I worry there is something much more serious coming as you suggested.
The thing that worries me is that costs have gone up for no obvious reason at all. It also seems foolish for them to have actually put people on salaries, rather than percentages of actual revenue. For a new company which is very much in financially perilous grounds, the fact that they are going to just pay people for not bringing in any ad-revenue is kinda outrageous. I understand that creators want a reliable salary, but you have to be sensible with this stuff.
I was absolutely floored by the fact that so many people in the comments were acting like there was some kind of crazy "transparency" behind those financial reports. They inform us of nearly NOTHING. What are any of those expenses? They could be anything. There's like 5 categories for expenses and they're nearly all so extremely vague, we have zero idea where the money is actually going. That made me think that there could be some shady spending, but for some reason, everyone there thought that it was the best financial report ever released. Absolutely insane how uneducated people are to think that was transparency at its finest.
But they didn't raise their own capital - Its their supporters money. The only penalty for Nick if the business fails is that he has to go work somewhere else. He does not have to pay the patreon subs back.
@@evraght I mean sure, but most of that new stuff isn't profitable yet, it's currently being propped up by Yahtzee's content. Yahtzee's style of humor and gaming-related insights have a fanbase that is willing to pay for Second Wind's patreon specifically to fund Yahtzee. I'd wager that the 53% number is actually slightly undercounted, and that while many people see the other content as "nice-to-haves" they wouldn't pay for it if it wasn't included in the price of getting Yahtzee videos. Not saying anything about quality here, just strictly looking at audience.
@@r.pizzamonkey7379 personally, I fund Yahtzee by buying his content (his books and games). To me it seems that ZP was the loss leader that exposed me to all the other creators that I have grown to love like Frost and JM8
Yes, but since he was forced to switch out his ZP brand with something more "same but not" it's definitely lost something, pushing people to watch other SWG content.
Oof, hearing that clip from his old company meeting where the person says "I've been here a year, contributed 30 videos to this channel, I don't feel respected, I'm out" and then being told "pfft, ONE YEAR, you've barely contributed anything, you won't be missed" is WILD to hear. FROM YOUR BOSS. I actively gasped when he said that.
Man was acting in a way that almost makes you wonder if his dream job was Head of Discovery's Intern hiring division before California made unpaid internships illegal.
That recording of Nick talking to his previous colleagues and telling one of them that all of his work means nothing becasue someone else did more just speaks volumes to his lack of management skills.
it basically is the proof for Frost's entire take on him. Entitled abuser who is only out for himself and takes everything as an attack because he can't handle the idea he'll have to give a little for a successful relationship to happen. That one sound bite is basically everything I need to know to know Nick Calandra is an asshat. Maybe he does good things too, but still an asshat. There's 0 excuse for that kind of response in that situation.
Yeah you hear something like that out of someones mouth on top of playing unreasonable defense on "you don't need to know the finances, Thats all me (even though your financial security rests on them going smoothly)".
He sounds an awful lot like Donny Dump himself. "Oh that guy? He was terrible, never did anything for me, he didn't quit, I fired him. Don't worry about the money, let me worry about the money. I'm a very, very smart man, okay? With a very large a-brain." Jeezus fucking christ... let's hope SWG has the sense to dump Nick's ass. You don't build a bright future by bringing some of the worst corpo shitbag with you and putting it in charge.
When Dropout went independent, they focused on just doing a few shows that were continuations of College Humor ones for a year or two, keeping costs as low as possible while providing fans with the content they already loved. It's only recently they've started adding in brand new shows and experimenting more because they've had time to establish themselves and grow as an indie brand. Second Wind was just putting out way too many shows. At the very least there should be a second channel to split up the scripted/high production content and the let's play/reaction content.
Yeah hard agree with the too many videos thing, one of the reasons I drifted away from escapist and from SW was that there are just so many videos between the ones I actually care about, I'm here for takes on the industry and game design videos, I don't really care about reviews (sorry yahtzee), so the choice is either subscribe and wade through a sea of stuff for the ones I care about, or don't and inevitably miss a bunch of stuff...
I know he was probably doing his mates a favour (and he seems like a great bloke) but after ZP fell apart, Yahtzee shouldve 100% just started his own channel - I know he doesn't like dealing with the backside of YT and he'd rather just be creative (trust me, I know that feeling) but he would've made a killing - and we would've all got the content we subscribed to secondwind for anyway.
from what he's said, he knows this but doesn't want to complicate his life by handling the business side on his own. the man values his routine, and being the load-bearing product at both of his companies for so many years, he's earned the luxury of not worrying about anything besides turning in his work (which u can see in his response to this video imo -- checked out, blissfully unaware of office politics, just doing his job. that's how i try to be at work, so i gotta respect it)
"Yahtz and I were the most profitable" YEAH NO DUH, The numbers on that are crazy. "the channel would do fine without yahtz" is also completely insane.
"The channel would do fine without Yahtz" - so it seems the very first thing SWG needs to do beyond even PR is get its employees the kind of medical benefits that cover psychotheraphy because this is some chair gnawing madness.
This is Jack (the person who said that)'s statement on this: 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.
I mean... That's kinda why they wanted a warchest. Seriously, it's a sign of a REALLY unhealthy organisation if it's totally reliant on one individual for over half its revenue. It may well be true at the moment, but it's an unsustainable position, particularly with Creatives as popular and talented as Yahtzee, who could decide to walk away at any moment and do their own thing.
16:32 The immediate dismissal of a man's work the moment he finally says "I need to draw a line on how little respect I can handle having shown to me for my efforts." As though it even mattered if that speaker specifically had been slacking when everyone working under him showed up with shared grievances.
It essentially seems to be excusing giving someone's work neither respect nor compensation because "your work wasn't that great, anyway". It smacks more than a bit of "Yertle the Turtle". (Dr. Seuss... Look it up.)
Yeah, I have to say this was a key moment for me as well. His stubborn attitude about information and the ease with which he lashed out while apparently being offended for little reason... I guess that is what happens when you play yourself into a corner like that.
I literally paused the video and came here to comment about that, what the fuck kind of thing is that to fucking say to someones face! He might be lucky that was a zoom call because i dont know what I would do if someone said that to me AS I WAS RESIGNING to my face, within grappling range no less...
seeing Nick make the worst ideas for uploading and tanking the actual creatives has always been such a shame, you're right that spamming content and making 394 new shows isnt a great idea I have a lot of respect for a lot of the team over there at swg but I don't think Nick should be the face of the company
Oh my good it's the that guy! I think what happened to nick is that he took this scattershot approach, what super eyepatch wolf calls the slot machine approach to content creation, and because he had the fortune of being propped up by a team of great creatives he saw returns of good quality. Can you imagine how crazy it'd be if I finish watching the video and realize I'm just repeating what frost said?
Ah yes, Sebastian "I'm not a journalist" Ruiz doing a very good journalist here. In all honesty, hearing all this is very eye-opening. Nick had always rubbed me the wrong way whenever he was on podcasts or doing his own videos. Something about his demeanor or his weird fixations or just the vibes I got from him. Hearing all this, especially the audio/video evidence, has really solidified that nebulous feeling I couldn't shake. I've already cancelled my Patreon subscription with Second Wind, and plan to restart once Nick is gone. Speaking of; Frost, if you are still perusing these comments, just know if you do decide on self-funding, you have my support.
I hate to be a hater, but same. Nick always ticked me the wrong way. Something about his inability to deliver or speak especially when paired with Yahtz and then realizing he was in charge so that's why he got to be in front of the camera really turned me off
Honestly, I didn't know anything about Nick before this whole mess. But the few snippets I saw (and heard) of him here left me with the same feeling of something being off. He strikes me as a person who shifts with the winds for his own advantage, lacking integrity.
Nick also gave me some bad vibes as well. I couldn't say it was anything that would've led me to hate the guy, but I did get this little nagging sense that he was the kind of person who really didn't like being in control of everything. It was also pretty clear, especially whenever anything broke down on a stream, that he wasn't very good at making things work nor handling it efficiently when it did break. I had also kept getting a feeling that the channel wasn't doing well just from people's general vibes (the best way to tell if there is a problem is to watch the people as a whole over time to see the differences) which conflicted with repeated statements that they were doing great, which was usually from Nick. The most others would say would be more of a non-commital "well whatever comes we'll deal with it then" kind of attitude, or they just stopped showing up as much. But I think at the end of it all, the main feeling I got from him was that he was very "corporate" which I mean to say that his mind was only ever on the big picture, on the profits, and didn't have the knowledge or respect for things down the chain that make the business work. It also is what a lot of the 'bad manager' characteristics we always hear about stems from, so I guess if I had known a bit more about the situation I would've been more likely to pinpoint exactly what kind of person Nick is.
During the Escapist, There would be live streams with KC, Jessie, Amy, and Jack where the vibes were infectious and fun to watch. And then Nick would join and you'd feel a mood shift. There was a period on The Escapist where they'd all poke fun at Nick whenever he brought up 'his girlfriend'. That's not damning, but you can suss out tension in a group by little things like that. And whenever Nick is playing a FPS with the other hosts, he would always eventually resort to team killing for his own amusement, and he would always do his monotone laugh. During a Helldivers stream, he's the guy melee-ing people off steep ledges for fun and leading hordes over to his scattered teammates. I think a person's behavior in a FPS/TPS is some of the most revealing info of their character you can get in a game.
What guys like Nick don't understand is when you blast a million videos onto RU-vid weekly, the subscribers get hit with all of those notifications and get supremely annoyed. What usually happens when someone gets annoyed by something...they unsubscribe or block notifications. Nick's one of those guys that would start a fried chicken shack then add about 20 totally different a much less quality items to the menu and wonder why there's now so much waste and profits are down even thought the chicken is still selling out.
It’s even worse. When you get that many notifications you don’t end up interacting with all of them. RU-vid sees this as a sign that people don’t interact with your videos as much so it stop promoting them. Over time this compounds on itself pretty soon you’ll have tanked your viewership because your videos aren’t coming up in recommended at all.
@@sleeplesson im guessing that secondary channels have become so popular because adding secondary content dilutes your main source of views and thus income and makes you feel like you cant upload whatever you want just for fun, it does kinda suck but if they wanna experiment with many different video formats and see how it performs then its best to do it on a secondary channel first and see if you can grow it from there in tandem
Because I can't subscribe without my feed being flooded with stuff I don't want to watch, my viewing pattern for both the Escapist channel and SW has always been not watching them for a month or two, randomly getting a FR video in my recommended which reminds me the channel exists, then binging the Cold Take, Fully Ramblomatic and Semi Ramblomatic (or Escapist equivalents) that I've not seen over the course of like, a day, and then not interacting with the channel for another couple months until I get it recommended again. I really can't imagine it's good for a channel to be interacted with in this way, not to speak of how bad it must feel for all the people working hard on other (pretty good, just not for me) content that simply doesn't get watched because it's not what anyone is there for.
Why should i get notifications about anything that is posted on this site? If im watching/listening something, i don't need to be "randomly" notified about something else. If im not watching/listening something on YT, i won't stop whatever im doing to hop on YT. As this is related to "gaming", that's especially a thing i do and you can imagine how "nice" my reaction would be. Would be amusing to know how many dislikes are caused by badly timed notifications...... Dunno if there has been a single video that i would consider "urgent" enough for getting notified. But i've subscribed almost 1000 channels, enabling notifications for all could be hilarious.
Former gameumentary volunteer: "I'm leaving because i feel my work isnt being appreciated." Nick: *Proceeds to yell at him telling him his work isnt appreciated*
@@Shiftdougler I don't like how the word "narcissist" is casually thrown around nowadays, but yeah, probably clinically is. Saying that as someone who is blessed/cursed with NPD self-awareness.This is what really worried me when I realized something off about Nick in livestreams, because not only is it a living hell to have the disorder, but it's not something you can just up and change, or have changed via punitive administrative action. The projection, the victim blaming, the I'm-never-wrong, the I'm-always-right, the "fuck everyone else" attitude, the inability to constructively take criticism, carefully constructing a fictitious "other" to keep up appearances, the pathological need to create a kingdom/benevolent dictatorship, the Forever Grudges, the paranoia, isolating/excluding others so no one person ever has the whole picture, the persecution complex, hell, even the need to constantly try to recreate your "glory days," the need to be either the "hero" or "sympathetic victim" in a narrative... Individually they can be any number of things. Taken together, though, it definitely points in the direction of NPD or at the very least on the spectrum of Cluster B traits. And the main difference between a person with NPD (pwNPD) and just narcissistic traits is that a pwNPD has it negatively affect various parts of their life: family, friends, colleagues, personal growth, career. Not hard to see those bits with Nick, given how many times he's had different types of "interventions."
@@OhkokuKishiI'm actually curious how it feels to be in your ppsition, if I'm not too blunt. Like, when you see something you have a narcissistic knee-jerk reaction (i.e. someone tells you you spout too much uninformed shit and your first reaction is an outraged "well no you're just too stupid to see I'm right") and have to rein yourseld in?
@@OhkokuKishi The thing is, psychologically, narcissism has been on the rise for multiple generations, and it seems to lead to antisocial behaviors when you get into a lot of power through it. When corporations set the culture rules, and don't value egalitarian values, you get narcissists or those with antisocial behaviors because it's seen as the "marketable personality". I overheard a couple executive bros in the background discuss their newest board member at a company I applied for seven years ago, they were "concerned" for the guy "having empathy for others, and not good for gains.". That simple exchange told me everything I needed for my next sociological term paper. The most powerful people in the business class WANT narcissists and those with Cluster B PDs among their ranks. It's not a coincidence: people without compassion/empathy make more money, needless amounts. This is probably why Nick is getting away with all this constantly, he really wants his golden parachute.
I was on Patreon for SWG from the start. When the announcement came down about Frost and the Head of Sales leaving due to different expectations, a nimber of people (myself included) wanted to at least hear what those different expectations were, given some of the allegations from outside. Nick diaregarded the reasonable desire for more information from people providing financial support in the wake of meaningful allegations as merely the desire for a more "exciting" announcement. The opacity and the dismissive attitude towards the deaire for transparency from a man who kept touting transparent he was being were the reasons I pupped the plug and walked away. I would love to be able to take what Frost is saying with some larger grains of salt, but when I explicitly asked for them to better inform myself as a supporter, I was flatly dismissed.
If there's any reason to trust frost, it's that he got incredibly good at smite just to call out an abuser who abused his friends cause he knew he wouldn't be listened to if he couldn't compare on a technical level of "success" because it would just be attributed to jealously. Frost isn't perfect, no one is, but he's a man who puts effort behind what he believes and is pretty fucking smart about how he does it. I'd say you can take his word as more than a large grain of salt. But maybe I'm being parasocial.
I mean you patreon guys are literally footing a big part of the bill at this point (50k a month is nothing to sneeze at), if he’s not willing to be transparent with you guys it makes sense he wouldn’t be transparent with those volunteers at his old site either. I’d be glad if Nick was a reasonable guy and this is all just a big misunderstanding but a lot of what Frost laid out makes too much sense for me to ignore.
I guess I should be thankful for this comment as well then. Wishing them the best but it turns out, a middle man is basically a PoS for SWG. Especially Nick... It sucks, but I'll have to withdraw my membership.
@@grievuspwn4g3 Yahtzee just likes making nob jokes, and his own other projects too. And honestly, I totally sympathise. Maybe Yahtz could have made more money, but that would come with him having to take on a lot more work himself, including things that he genuinely has no interest in. As long as he was living comfortably, and could write books and make games and all that, then that sounds like a good set up.
True but I don’t think Yahtz really wants to deal with the headache of independence. He’s got a family to take care of, and a lot of personal passion projects. He doesn’t want to dilute that time with worrying about how to manage yourself when you’re self-employed.
He LIKES supporting the smaller projects. Literally he’s talked repeatedly about how gaming companies using their money makers to support smaller projects and developers is a GOOD THING.
Am I hearing this right, The Escapist were going to cut Nick for incompetence, and give the rest of you more creative freedom and control? So instead he played the victim and created SWG to maintain his control and his vision, based on a lie?
This still has nothing on Games Studio shenannigans. I once saw once of our best coders deported because the studio didn't complete his paperwork. Immigration turned up at the studio and walked him out. Cheaper than paying him. That's reality.
I once got into a relatively heated argument with Nick in an escapist comment section about the validity of places like Gamespot and IGN in regards to giving honest criticism of products when their advertisements were covering the side banners. I think I know why he was so angry about defending it now. He was guilty of the exact same thing.
I made the guy fuck off lmao. Someone asked for receipts over another guy's claim of demanded lack of integrity, I cited the zp episode where yahtzee cites sony literally corpospeaking "fuck off for criticizing us" then nick hopped in with the attitude to make an example out of me, and after clarifying what he was doing I called him out on it, he denied it (obviously) and when I said that's what it comes across as, expecting a civil apology or even a backhanded "sorry you feel this way" type of deal he just stopped replying. If you're curious to look for it, it was in the cold take about journalism (lmao).
IGN has not got long left, IDK if gamespot is even a thing today. gamebanshee (good classic RPG guides/info) & GameFAQ are the only two 'game' sites I relay use, also PCgamingwiki~
Cold Take and Fully Ramblomatic were my favorite parts of Second Wind. I was also overwhelmed by the amount of various content that was flowing non stop. Noone who has a life would be able to consume all that output (assuming people also consome other content on yt and outside). Watching all this I wish Nick left SWG and Frost came back, but he probably set it all up in a way that makes him irreplaceble.
Even supporting them on Patreon, I considered unsubscribing on RU-vid a few times just because my subscription feed was getting glutted with series I had tried and found not worth watching.
That was my issue with The Escapist too, I just wanted to watch Yahtzee's stuff but I couldn't subscribe to the channel or I'd be blown up with RU-vid notifications from one channel that are 90% stuff I don't care about. I probably would have started watching Cold Take earlier but it was buried under a bunch of shows that weren't as good. Then Second Wind started up and it became a similar thing, where there were all these new shows being added that just weren't that good (Design Delve is pretty good, don’t want to knock it) Nothing exemplifies this more than Nick's show. He has absolutely nothing of interest to say, a voice for print, and writing talent for Twitter.
Hold up - 4-ish minutes in, I’m reading the screenshots - are you saying Nick would direct SW to turn down sponsors, then contact them himself to “consult”? Am I understanding that correctly? And this is while he’s pulling in $8k a month already? Just want to check to make sure I understand.
Wonder what hole he's pouring it all down... narcotics, gambling, NFTs? Yacht club memberships, perhaps? He did mention being "accustomed to a certain standard of living" or some shit, which is the usual rich-speak for "I deserve things none of you will ever have, and I deserve them continuously"...
When SWG was announced, I remember thinking " a documentary about EVE online? who wants to see that?" And seeing as the amount of ads has not de- but increased and we're back to Yatzee being forced to read ads it feels very similar to the "corporate hell" you all fled. Sorry to hear that you have not escaped the mismanagement but brought it with you.
@@StuHol-jb1hh From 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.
@@huma474 alright, while this looks legit. this push-back still doesn't clear the air. fact is that frost still has lots of actual ammo against nick in this video. if you want a serious opinion out of me, its a bit of a shit show. its clear frost has had a serious bone to pick (justified or not) with nick for a looong time now, given the extensiveness of his claims. some of this stuff is ironclad like the recording, which begs the question of why frost would include the things taken out of context, if hes in the right then this just means that some of this was hastily gathered together, which leads to my issue that this isnt the right time for this vid to be posted. again if frost is in the right, then he should have no issue playing it patiently and waiting for nick to eventually screw up again and earn more public ire. putting out this vid at this time was a bad move no matter what, all its going to do is make a mess. the only explanations here is that either A: frost is still mostly right and nick is a hyper scumbag and that second wind has to be just as fucked to let this go on for so long, B: nick is still an ass, but frost has mental problems and some delusional vendetta against nick, which s possible, but still seems kind of odd that this hasn't been a reoccurring issue that's bubbled up or been hinted at in the past, and leaves some other questions (like why the content structure is still garbage, which would be answered under possibility a). ultimately we are going to have to wait and see
@@huma474 That sounds more like Jack changed the context on his own, as if someone leaving is the same as them dying. One is a choice, the other is a tragedy. The idea that they're both the same is ridiculous. When Michael Jackson went solo, the Jackson 5 broke up. When he passed away, they reunited in his memory, and are still touring. I didn't know that, because they are just that obscure without Michael. Second Wind without Yahtzee is like the Jackson 5 without Michael. It could go on, but nobody would notice.
Honestly, that he sold the company and refused to disclose to the people that actually made the company worth selling the value of the sale is very red flaggy. That he then essentially said this guys work meant fuck all to him should be enough for him to no longer be employable in any sort of management position.
yeah that exact moment just solidified everything Frost presented. what a fucking awful way to act, this person was literally working for you for free, and you take them asking for clarity as an attack and attack them back like that? even if you're not the person being attacked, just imagine working for Nick for 6 months and having in the back of your mind "yeah my work means nothing to him"
@@deadhead4077 Not really since the video just shows blocks of text without any context or citation. Most of them don't even pretend to be anything other than Frost just writing stuff down and screenshotting them. Even the Discord messages or Excel spreadsheets though have nothing that even mildly verifies what they are.
Man, the visual at 4:40 says a lot. My biggest problem with the Escapist style of content was too many series that were about things that just felt like more noise. When I saw SW balloon their number of shows and it basically became Escapist again I felt like there back to square one...shame, Nick, shame...
@@CodecrafterArtemisThere are limits to how viable that is. No matter how locked in someone is they aren't going to be a hard-core fan of a dozen different series on the same channel.
Better to put out one or a couple of quality shows than a shotgun blast of mediocre ones. Standards and competition are crazy high in modern society. We live in a mad world where everyone expects top quality stuff. You give them random crap, they'll lose interest.
I’m legitimately terrified about what’s going to be in the next video. SWG’s going independent was such a breath of fresh air against greedy corporations. Discovering it was one greedy, unethical bastards’ manipulation of good intentions just to put himself on top of the heap is another gut punch. But terrified or not, unsavoury or not, unsettling or not, we need to hear this. Journalism should be about TRUTH. Even when the truth is a tough pill to swallow it’s the only way to move forwards, lest we find ourselves buried under a mountain of lies until the next brave and talented journalist takes it upon themselves to dig us out. You’ve been my favourite part of SWG since its inception Frost. I’m looking forward to your future work AND next video, no matter how painful it may be.
@@TDPlusPTThat makes no sense. Under that reasoning, every single charity, every mutual aid group, every book written about a subject someone feels passionately about, every *thing* done just to accomplish a goal someone cares about could never succeed. And there's minimal evidence of that being the case. It *sounds* like you're arguing that only ventures undertaken specifically to make money can work, which, given how much of the current problem in business is diaper-on-head idiots focused only on making money, also has minimal evidence to support it. The deciding factor is *always* management.
Videogame journalism will never be about truth. There's a huge conflict of interests at the core of it. You can't be both on the side of developers and on the side of gamers, they are conflicting interests.
@@kaisersoymilk6912 Only if the games are being made SOLELY for profit. Many developers, Especially in the Indie and mods scene, are 100% on the side of the gamers. You see this in EVERY medium. When art is made purely for profit it suffers. When art is made with talent and genuine love for the medium it flourishes.
The "frost is siding with the alt right" vibe is the funniest fucking attempt to be fair. I'm sure the *art critic* is a conservative, that's an extremely likely outcome.
Yeah as soon as I saw people making that claim I knew frost was probably right on the money and people had no idea how to respond. A single second of any of his videos would show that's not his speed. I honestly thought frost was a hard leftie if not a damn commie lol.
@@Taolan8472some were initially concerned bc some of the people attacking nick are known to be racist against sexist (see: grummz, bc nick had doxxed him at one point). personally im of the left persuasion and I just waited for more evidence to come out - as anyone should, hopefully... which, yeah, this is pretty damning. especially bc a lot of supposed "left/progressive" behavior of his seems to be just grifting
"This guy I don't like is alt right" is a classic move to try and demonise anyone you don't like. Second Wind has a very left wing audience, so if he can paint his enemies as being alt right and the audience buys it then he's won. Unfortunately for him, he's not as smart as he thinks he is and couldn't even fake some racist tweets or something to try and sell this.
Back when Yhatzee first left Escapist, I was shocked to learn that Nick being fired was the straw that broke the camel's back (or at least, that was what it seemed at the time). The guy's been a complete moron for years, and for all of the many flaws the Escapist had, sacking Calandra was actually probably justified, and I'm not at all surprised to see that being proven now.
tbf to middle managers, Nick was only a middle manager with the escapists, not Second Wind or OSP. For those he is technically the owner/lead. Either way it is his bad leadership that is ruining everything, and that is also what makes a bad middle manager.
@@hilkmeister1382 "Middlemen" is a more general term than just "middle managers", it refers to people who insert themselves between a product and its customers so they can take most of the profits.
@@theghosty99 I understand but Middle Managers makes more sense than Middlemen because Nick's role is of a manager/leader and was temporally a middle manager. He never acted or operated as a middle man as the unethical actions Frost alleges are all originate with and benefit Nick.
@@hilkmeister1382Well, no, the implication of the original comment is that, even as the co-founding CEO of SWG, he's still ultimately acting as a middleman between audience and creative. You've tacked on the middle manager descriptor, presumably because that's how you read the comment. It's clear he behaves this way purely based on the example of his thumbnail experimentation. He is the funnel through which the creatives' work reaches the audience. He seems to always be the filter through which conflict flows, which is how he sows division throughout the company, thus escaping personal accountability. I think middleman is an extremely apt characterisation of him.
@@GoldnDusty I see it as less of him being a funnel between the creators and the audience and more of a vice grip on the creator. He is not sitting in the way of them, but instead mandating that it is his way or the high way which is more emblematic of poor leadership.
@@ArchibaldClumpy whoops, you fell for the lies the Journalists who accused of being unethical used. Its funny, because people specifically called out ethics in games journalism, and the journalists just came back making up a bunch of obvious bullcrap... and people just believed them. For no reason. Even though they were specifically being called into question for their dishonesty. And now here we are years later and GG was totally right - almost all games journalists are sellouts and everyone knows it. Yet you're STILL parroting the lies they told all the way back then. I was there watching the whole sh*tshow from the sidelines. I don't even really care if you believe me, i just hope you question your beliefs even a little.
Gamergate was murdered. It was a real, genuine out cry against an authentic problem of something that was actually happening--or at the very least an issue that was causing real problems within the larger community of an entire industry--and it was brushed to the side by the most backwards and ignorant people ever who immediately derailed the entire subject so that they could make it all about some weird sexist bullshit. There are meaningful questions, that deserve worthwhile and important answers from various aspects of games journalism--such as it remains today--that we will never get to hear because a bunch of tiny dicked incels made it all about hair color and boob size.
There have been a number of reviews I've watched from the channel that seemed off-puttingly positive, like they didn't have the mental capacity to properly critique the game. It makes a lot of sense in retrospect that (at least some of) those reviews were paid positive "opinions"
The level of dishonest manipulation here is shocking. It really sounds like he's an entitled evil dictator that's stroking a fat cat while looking down his nose while spouting bull like "Neither of you are irreplaceable, and If you leave I will find better people than you and YOU will be sorry."
For me, this is a lesson in having no opinion or investment in strangers who have no direct connection to your life. "Nick, the worker's hero who lead the video team away from corporate exploitation towards independent, creative success" and "Nick, the lying, opportunistic middle-manager with more ego than good business sense" are both constructs I've had built for me by complete strangers with their own values, goals, intentions, biases, responsibilities, restraints, level of information, personal experiences, political opinions, relationships, etc. Neither of their respective validity has any impact on my life, nor does my current choice to believe affect them or anyone else involved. I don't need to have an opinion on this, and could probably benefit from having fewer opinions on other matters that are equally-if-not-even-further removed from my life.
Can we slap this sentiment on every billboard ever please? I have always held this same belief, but somehow I let myself get sucked into the vortex over these past few days, so thanks for the reminder to pull myself out and do something productive or fun instead.
It's definitely a weird thing to step back and realize that this stuff happens in a *lot* of companies, and it's only because the concerned company is on RU-vid that this has reached the court of public opinion. What's clear and agreed upon by remaining SWG staff is that they have management issues, and that's something they'll either figure out or it will take them down. Either way, I don't need to tie myself emotionally to the success of their company. That said, if there's proof of corruption, that ought to be brought to light.
I think this is a very important thought. However, I think it's healthy and good to be involved in public affairs in general. Combine these two sentiments and you get an adult who cares, but cares cautiously, and isn't looking for bandwagons to hop onto and fling shit at people he's been told to dislike. Nick sounds like a terrible manager and not a nice person. But the operative phrase there is sounds like, not is. I feel less inclined to support his endeavors now, but I'm not sitting here to pass any kind of blanket judgment on him as a man.
@@swguygardner I think it is only relevant to people who support on Patreon, because in that case they ARE impacted by SWG's decisions. It all comes down to "Am I giving money to a group who will spend it wisely?".
y’know that trope in “infection” stories where everyone works together to stop the parasite or disease only to find out someone selfishly hid information that results in the same infection flaring up all over again?
I'm gonna be real man, Cold Take was the sole reason I kept watching and supporting Second Wind. I'm glad to see you go indie, and will look forward to whatever you decide to do next.
Yyup, the video is on normal. However 'Serious AF Frost' is 2x speed of 'Smooth AF Frost' Heard some middle ground in livestreams. Faster than Clold Takes but still kinda chill, this was a surprise. Then again fitting. We are not hear to get practical not philosophical this round. The range of this man. Frost be packing the heat.
So, like, does this mean that the decision makers at Gamurs above Nick were, at the end of the day, supportive and pushing for a better Escapist and Nick really honest-to-god ruined a better future for everyone through misinfkrmstion? Or is it an equal blend of corporate culture and Nick's fragile ego?
Sounds like a blend of both. Nick was bad at his job, but he was the boots on the ground talking to staff. Isolating them and giving them spin. The executives had pronl3ms because what they were promised wasn't being met. A promise made by Nick. It is an impossible promise, but the executives don't know that, and since Nick is the only one talking to staff, he can say the impossible promise was a corporate thing and nothing to do with him. An executive body that does nothing, doesn't interact with their staff and isn't knowledgeable of their investment is easy to take advantage of, but it do3ent excuse that they should have managed the Escapist better so Nick wasn't in such a position of power to spin and run away with their staff.
The fact that the escapist was going to boot nick and give subscribers what we actually wanted-- less content for the sake of content, instead just letting the channel focus on a few people and giving them more creative freedom is so frustrating.
The escapist employees were so desperate to run away from the evil boogeyman of upper management that they missed the evil boogeyman standing in their midst. No but seriously there rough around the edges and crass and then there's just being a terrible person
Nah fr ppl are so braindead. He was their boss. No employee should be friends with their boss. Standard operation of not being a bootlicking capitalist.
Man, I remember posing a comment to "overwatch3 minute review" and Nick going on a complete Twitter style flamewar. I have even more reasons to be glad that his trolling "Job offer" was fake.
it's really hard to believe anything you read on the internet with the amount of unsubstantiated claims made literally every minute of every day@hosvet_animation
Holy shit dude. Nick always gave me bad vibes just from seeing his social media but I assumed that was me being unfair since the Second Wind crew seemed to vouch for him. Didn’t realize he was this much of a scumbag behind the scenes.
I heard him on the FPS Podcast (which is great), and while I came out wishing the group well, he did come off as a bit of a douche. Turns out it was a lot worse than that
Honestly i had the same experience... I tend to watch people who I like personally, who have good vibes, and he just wasn't it for me... Had the same deal with illuminaughty, before she was outed
@@deadhead4077 And when you put it into perspective, he’s taking the 2nd highest salary while tanking youtube viewership with upload strategies that even a casual like me knows are bad for the algorithm. But he then spends all his time on culture war twitter and gamergate 2 podcasts… like dude focus on helping your company
Holy cow. I had to take roughly twice as long as the run time to watch this to read all of your on screen citations and such. What an enormous bomb. Thank you for taking the time to do this.
@@lostalone9320 The comment about "SW will be fine without Yahtzee" is a bit misleading. Even listening to it in the video I assumed the person was saying that "they will find a way" rather than "we don't need him" kind of thing, but Frost seems to be implying that they meant "we don't need him". Not sure about anything else though
This all feels very familiar. I'm not in the games industry, but i work in martial arts, and there is a BIG problem with gym owners exploiting instructors' passion for the work in exchange for shitty treatment, no recognition, low-to-no pay and then tossing them aside whenever they finally get frustrated and speak up. My old gym paid me pennies while i developed a successful program from scratch for them, only to find out that they were giving away free memberships to masseuses and restaurant owners, etc. and getting freebies in return. I was basically told i was disposable and ultimately got fired for speaking up. I'd love to say I had the last laugh when the gym closed, but the owners just skipped on to open their next borderline-scam small business, as apparently they've been doing for a decade or so.
@@lw-ut7zk Most of the ones I know who are truly passionate people trying to make a living doing what they love and believe in, but there's definitely a whole subsection of them who wouldn't last a day working for someone else and are happy to leave everyone to deal with their mistakes while they hunt for their next attempt to get rich quick.
People think it's Frost's voice that got him so popular. It's great, but to me it's clearly only the bulb on the angler fish, what' really grabbing is how thorough he is, how he manages to scratch an extra layer below his peers and presents it so eloquently. Whether you agree with Frost or not, there's enough evidence presented here that you can't fault him for how he feels. Looking forward to the followup, I still enjoy several SW shows, but I'm hugely disappointed in Nick, and with such a community-focused brand, if any dodgy practices are going on, we deserve to know about it
Sexy voice is nice and all, but all he did content-wise was "wise-old-man" obtuse overly embellished, yet still surface level "deep thoughts". From a 20 something year old guy... And now he is stirring drama to achieve what exactly? Eh, I'll pass.
Yeah, seeing a lot of this information makes me go "Nick, you just can't do this, this behavior is just completely unacceptable." We know that there are parts of it that SWG is aware of, they've had to straighten him out more than once. It just keeps going deeper and deeper though, and it gives the impression that there's no end to it. Nick as a person has no desire to behave in an ethical manner. He only has a desire to behave just ethically enough to hide what he's doing unethically. You can't fix that kind of rot, you can only cut it out. He will always look for other ways to benefit to the detriment of others, and that is absolutely not the kind of person you want holding equal ownership in a company you just started, regardless of your standing at that company.
@@nelapsi.Causing drama for no clear purpose or goal is a red flag for me. Seems like he's trying to Garner as much support as possible for himself which is the best move he could make in this situation I guess but definitely not the most mature or professional.
Literally insane how the team would have had more creative control at Escapist post Nick's firing. A huge leap of faith to leave behind that income only for it to be based on a lie.. am I reading that correctly? Huge yikes.
This is infuriating. Stubbornly refusing to reveal financial details just stinks to covering something up. “It’s mine and mine alone”. Holy crap. And then dismissing that one guys effort like that. I hope the rest of SWG can regroup and get rid of Nick.
aaaarrrgghhh...... the thing is, the guy asked after he quit. should have done it beforehand. after he quit he is no longer entitled to privileged information. the financials are just that. oh and to be clear: i think nick is a c unt
Just so. Pretty clear he needs to go home and rethink his life. And also get off social media. Maybe become a plumber or something! I'm sure he can adjust his expectations for his "certain lifestyle"...
Spoiler alert: they didn't. They rallied behind Nick instead. It'll likely be a very slow and painful death, but I'm convinced now that SWG is doomed. I've worked in environments like this with bosses like him who are good at convincing people they're the good guy, but have no qualms tossing that alleged moral fiber out the window if they think they can keep it under wraps and gain advantage from it; and then rallying others against whoever sees through the facade and calls them out for it. It's beyond toxic and Frost is definitely not going to be the last victim of it. He was just one of the rare ones who was able to see through it and strong enough to speak out, even knowing that it would turn the rest of the team against him and lose him his paycheck. They won't see Nick for who and what he is until it's too late.
No clue who Nick is. But from this video I know about 5 people exactly like Nick that I've worked with in different fields and this is exactly what that personality would do in Nick's position. Dude needs therapy. Wish the best for him but if he keeps going into the world thinking it's working against him he will always be able to justify this behavior. Hes just surviving in his eyes.
If we go into life feeling that we deserve everything in the world, of course it will seem like the world is conspiring to deny us our noble birthright at every turn... but at the end of the day, that's just because we view reality from an unreasonable perspective which, among other faults, does not at all take into account that other people would also like at least a tolerable standard of living. We can't all be the protagonist. But we can choose to live as ourselves, and make that something to be proud of. Maybe one day Nick will figure that out, but I kind of doubt it.
I thought it was weird a little while back when I checked Second Wind's contact info on RU-vid so I could send a key to my game and instead of some sort of staff email it was just Nick's personalized Second Wind email address. I hope he wasn't too put off by the one short email I sent him since apparently small indie devs are a burden to him.
So, Yahtzee's content creates 77% of the revenue for SW... Why does he need all these people again? They're not riding his coat-tails, they're eating his food!
@@lnt305 That is all just an excuse for "I don't want to be responsible for making my own paycheck". He could very easily just hire an agent, lawyer, editor, accountant and just run his whole thing himself. The fact that he doesn't just means he is patently lazy and just wants to 'play around' creatively.
@@HeadCannonPrime If he can earn a living and "play around", why the hell not? There's more to life than working, you know. If he's comfortable with his income and gets to spend more time with his wife and kid(s), more power to him.
He commented on it several times - he doesn't want to be bothered with any management ot business stuff, he just wants to be creative, which comes very easily to him in copious ammounts, almost like to none other of us. I also don't think he wants to work with "faceless agents", he geniunely likes and treasures people he works now with in Second Wind and I don't think finding friends comes easy to him. I'm not sure how much (if any) he will get into Frost accusations - he seems to like and value Nick a lot and I think he considers him a true friend. So I would wager that considering all of this he will just avoid getting into the meat of it and Second Wind will just continue.
I felt sick by the end of this video. I worked for someone like Nick for four years and I have the PTSD to show for it. I would love to never have a boss (other than my wife) ever again after what I experienced. I'm appalled about what Ive seen and heard uncovered here. I really admire that you had all of your ducks in a row and came with evidence rather than approaching things the way Nick would have. What pisses me off beyond my own personal discomfort is that Second Wind was suuposedly built on "transparency." To see Nick take advantage of the Escapist situation and the good will of his supporters like this drives me crazy. I was so excited about a breakaway from the slow death of journalism caused by investment firms so this just really stings. I've rambled long enough. I totally understand what you left and why you felt that you had to reveal all of this. I'm also really sorry you had to go through this and for the misguided and/or disingenuous backlash you're going to face. You have my support. Take care of yourself.
so in short, Nick Calandra is what I feel like most sane people always imagined would happen/does happen/is happening when you give power to someone who perceives posting religiously on Twitter as fighting in some kind of culture war. It's not that using Twitter on its own should cause you to become somehow unsound, but it sure does seem to attract a lot of people that are. Best of luck to you Frost, if you post Cold Take here, I'll still watch it.
I don't know that I'd trust any post-departure good words about "we woulda coulda shoulda given you X if only the other guy had gotten out of the way," though. When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
It certainly seems like SW has such a huge glut of content that it smothers the individual creatives and the good series. Fully Ramblomatic and Cold Take get the attention, but something like Design Delve, which I believe to be at an equal quality level as those two, seems to just not get the recognition or views something of that caliber would get elsewhere.
@trishamiller7859 I agree. I gave every show a chance. Yahtzee and Frost were the reason I watched. Design Delve is good and got me interested. Guy knows his stuff. But I guess the show can be niche. I looked up the occasionaly Bytesized for a quick overview of some new Indies. Which only worked after they went back on the style where it was 5 minutes of personal fluff and one minute game explanation. As short reviews the roughly 3 minute ones worked well enough. But despite that it didn't seem like the other shows gave good insight. With stuff like Unpacked or Good Blood I always felt like they tried to create a new Yahtzee, but it also felt like these shows didn't have a lot of insight into the matter at hand and were just giving it a quick glance from the outside. They seemed like they were missing a lot of experience. Frost self-admittedly also got into gaming very late, but he seems to have caught up rather well. Does his research. And he has principles. Good Blood I deemed really quesitonable after the Outer Wilds episode where the guy literally said he basically went out in an attempt to prove that Outer Wilds isn't as good as everybody said without even having played the thing before. Backdrop seemed like it gave insight, but that's movies. First of all I probably can't judge how good it was, as I am not really that much into movies and then I think a gaming channel shouldn't be cluttered with all that movie stuff. Sure. Throw enough shows out and at some point you will land a hit. But who on earth is going to pay for the production of all of this when the shows themselves can't pay for themselves? I am all for creative freedom. And I hate it when people overmonetize stuff as they get greedy and can never get enough. But when you have a business at some point you need to say: "Ok. It's not worth it doing that!" And the point is reached when producing such a show consistentlyy only loses you money. In general SW lives on three shows: Yahtzee, Frost and DD. Could accept the occasionaly Adventure is Nigh if they have fun with it. But they should kinda accept their heavy hitters, focus on them and don't try to expand and expand all the time like a usual company.
I don't want to say they needed to cut all the other stuff besides those three, because I did somewhat enjoy some of the other stuff and it was a good idea to prop up other creators as well, but I'm not sure how those two ways aren't mutually exclusive.
from JM8 from their Discord (and other places): 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.
@@huma474 Again, read the statement - JM8 says, directly, that he too has had huge problems with Nick, so much so that even in the last six months the whole of SWG had to be restructured, and Nick's role had to be changed. He feels that this process was enough to fix things with Nick, which is fair enough, but Frost didn't and clearly felt that firing Cisco was a sign that nothing had really changed. Read the words people say, don't just copy and paste.
It's disappointing what's happening to SWG. I really wanted to see it succeed for multiple reasons. It checks all my boxes: Independent journalism untethered to a corporate owner, worker-owned and operated co-op, critical coverage of the industry, and just great quality work by people I respect. SWG for better or worse represents a lot, and if it fails, it will be a major blow to all of the above. If Calandra is responsible, it won't matter. Trust in this form of journalism will plummet and I don't think any other group in this business will be able to do what you all did in the near future. I hope this leads to significant changes at Second Wind, either with Calandra out or at least pressured into a position where his colleagues can overrule his bad practices. Whatever happens, it's a shame it came to this. Frost's work was one of the highlights of SWG and it will be worse off without him.
When Nick strongly denied there ever being cases of games journalists being pressured to give good coverage to games that pay the people in charge on an escapist live stream I just assumed he was an oblivious buffoon.
I love it when daddy comes back with the receipts. Yeah this guy can't really twist this into good PR. He was totally doing his best to screw you over and cash in his goods.
@@xan42O problem is that some of those receipts are bogus 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.
@@Liokae bruh its clear proof of how he views and treats his staff, and its absolutely insulting. this is damning evidence and because this information is in line with what others are saying as well, we have established a consistent pattern with nick. this video also explains why SW content has looked identical to when they were working for the escapist, its because nick has been using an identical content strategy both times. this evidence isnt just solid, it creates a better picture of whats going on and why.
I'm concerned for the future of Second Wind. So what happens now for them? Nobody... sorry, few of us.... expected that this would be all based on a lie. EDIT: So what happens now? They rally around him. Jack even took responsibility for the "we don't need Yahtzee" comment. This isn't over. I see this drama getting stretched out for awhile and I don't think I want a part in it. Maybe Nick coaxed them to defending him or maybe he's as actually more reformed. Who knows. If it's the former, then we'll back on this moment when Nick or Second Wind falls and laud Frost for warning us. If it's the latter, then Frost would lost significant credibility. Whatever the case, I'm getting out before things get too toxic.
It's hard to say, but I think a lot of it hinges on what Yahtzee decides to do. If he leaves Second Wind due to this it's just over. Alternatively, if he stays, I'm sure the channel will be able to scrape by on that alone, same as the escapist did for many years.
@@lutherholayeahme7449 no one ever implied he wouldn't; he's only stayed with The Escapist/Second Wind this long simply because he hates dealing with the legal/corporate/financial responsibilities of being a content creator. But if this rocks his faith in Nick enough to go somewhere else, go independent, or just quit altogether, Nick and the rest of SW would be irreparably screwed
Second Wind's Response (see subcomments on this comment for whole): 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 RU-vid 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.
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.
Two questions: 1. Where were these posted? 2. Did the final statement really end with "making [...] videos about toys" instead of "making [...] videos about games"? That is a little funny if it did that.
I got this response too from SWR folks, but what else could they say? They share ownership of the company with Caldara and the company pays their bills. Imagine what would happen to the one who says, "Frost has the right of it, but I'm staying here for the paycheck."
It is sad, but not a huge surprise after a few things he said during the initial SWG videos: “My Team”, “My vision”, “I, I, I, I”, “me” and not “we”. As a long time engineering lead and manager, it really put my back up. That is not how you build a team, especially one where you want creatives (yes I consider software engineers to be creatives) to flourish.
Q1: Is there any way we can help the other, smaller creators currently under fire at SWG? I really wanted SWG to work and am most worried about them. Yahtzee will be fine, they might not be. Q2: Does this mean we can get some more Frost reading Poe?
Too bad people are using it as an excuse to celebrate the death and subsequent over productification of games journalism. We attacked everyone we disagreed with for over a decade and lumped bloggers in with journalists, making the whole thing a farce. We get what we deserve
Check out what has been said from the other side- Frost took a lot of stuff completely out of context to start drama. Like the comment about Yahtzee - that was said entirely under the context of "What would happen to the channel if Yahtz got hit by a bus?".
@@huma474 I did actually read it, and no, "What if Yahtz got hit by a bus" was not the context. He wasn't refuting what Frost said he said, he just said it was meant as a "crazy hypothetical." So he was saying the scenario of Yahtz leaving was crazy, not that the idea of them surviving was crazy. He seriously thought that Second Wind would be fine without Yahtz. Now that your only example has been corrected, is there anything else? No. Because the statement didn't actually provide any evidence or specifically refute anything Frost said and showed. They opted to be as vague as humanly possible about everything... which is very strange. Until they actually provide evidence like Frost did, I'm going to have to disregard the majority of it, and you should too.
Nick sounds like a pos. That "I've grown accustomed to this lifestyle, so you should pay me more" crap would've been met with laughter if that's how he approached a raise with me.
some real "we need to tighten our belts and be prepared for hard times, but not for me, just you guys" kind of attitude with that statement. He only cared about his own expectations.
This is the guy that threatened people of violence for different opinions about videogames (and because he didn't like their politics), of course he's a POS.
@@kaisersoymilk6912 haha, he sounds like a Nick I know. He threatened to beat my ass because I wouldn't tell our boss that we (Nick, not our team) wanted the boss to pay for pizza. I told him to do it himself. Dude was a certified pos.
Absolutely so! In fact it's how Nick treats Marty and the lesser known creatives on stream that really rubs me the wrong way. It's as though he lacks fundamental respect for them because he doesn't fear them. He absolutely fears Yahtz and has openly given him a wide berth from day one. This has been bothering me for years now.
I know there's a lot of support for Yatz and Frost, but Marty and Jack are voices that I recognize and find entertaining. It's such a shame that such a talented team is being dragged down by one guy.
Well, this explains the ick factor I'd been getting surrounding the ad sponsorships SWG has been taking on. When you quit I spent HOURS scrolling through the Discord, trying to find more info. There was barely anything. Now Discord is EXPLODING.
@@ashuggtube It's currently a blend of rabid Nick fans, a lot of people who are wondering why SW hasn't said ANYTHING yet, one very very tired moderator (Eric) and a few Frost fans. The consensus among more level-headed participants is that the whole recording of Nick being an absolute turd to his former employees is cause for concern. Nick defenders are calling for more evidence, as they're not happy with the censorship in the video. Frost is defending the anonymity of his sources. It's all a bit much.
Frost? I don't really know a lot about the subject matter at hand, I am mostly a fan from Second Wind that stumbled across this channel because I was interested in more content from you specifically. Will you be going independent? I apologize if this video is the wrong place to voice this question, as I do not use twitter and the like, my options are limited.
@@TheOtherFrostYour content quickly became my favorite on escapist/second wind, so I'm definitely going to keep watching what you put out. I'm sorry you've had to go through all this. Hope things get better for you soon.
Damn I followed Escapist for Yahtzee and SWG later for Yahtzee and Cold Take. Design Delve can be a fun watch at times too. Well guess I should subscribe here if I ever want to hear Frosts deep ^ smooth voice again.
I also assumed that was referring to jack, due to the conversation clip that frost posted on twitter last week, some unlisted video iirc. Saying about how he (jack) was made to act as the HR role because nobody else wanted to do it - but he wasn't really doing it. If it is *that* HR manager, ie a Second Wind HR management (rather than it being messily communicated or misunderstood by us, and it actually being Escapist HR) then yikes, that is just a wild perspective lol, it feels wrong to describe him in such a way, but Yahtzee really is their golden goose. Pretty sure i've been consistently checking out his videos for like 15+ years now lol.
I don't think Frost can say who it was, neither do I think he wants to say it. I also don't think guessing or deducting who it was helps the situation. If the financial reports are withheld from the SWG members, they don't really have an idea how the business would do without yahtz or any other creative.
@@j.dicksonit’s Jack. Not only was he mentioning e.g. self-appointed HR which was confirmed by Nick and of course Jack himself - but also the comments about “growing pains” which Jack specifically said when Frost initially resigned.
I was personally dubious from the post split interviews he did. He kept getting questions about what being an independent creators co-op would look like and how their content would change having been freed from corporate shackles, and basically said he was just gonna keep running it like before with no clear plan on new directions to take or even just fixing glaring issues in his escapist formula (Even without backend, we can all see those escapist viewcounts. 3MR was barely crossing a couple thousand most of the time and took up 50% of the page). He came off as completely without a vision, riding the optics of a pro-creator movement breaking free of overbearing corpo interests so no one noticed he was the exact type of meddling middleman he was purporting to escape. Unsurprised. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
So, this may be unpopular here, but this is giving the feeling of a messy divorce. Between the statements issued via SWG and the discussion in this video, I'm going to take a hard pass on sides. The truth will likely bubble up sooner or later, and I'm not foolish enough to think that the statements of one group or another don't have something to gain from obfuscating certain things. I look forward to seeing where you go in the future, as I liked the content you've produced during your time there and the escapist. I hope you don't get too bogged down with this, but those are your decisions to make. Cheers
I'm trying to watch this with an open mind, but I'm troubled by the extent to which the 'evidence' feels cherry-picked. The examples jump around haphazardly, and several are re-used repeatedly. The detail flashes by much too fast to read, and although Frost calls that out, like... why? That's a weird choice to make. Why have you presented all your evidence in a way that ensured most people won't look at it very hard? I went to the trouble of pausing often to read the detail, and honestly, was uncomfortable with how often it barely supports the claim in the voiceover.
Only so many sources can be shown, as most need to stay anonymous. I did say at the start it would be best to pause. The video was getting so long it was crashing on Premiere Pro
@@TheOtherFrost Thanks for replying. I understand what you mean, but if you can't present the evidence, that seems functionally the same (for everyone except you) as not having it. I'm not sure it's a good look to make serious allegations like this without all the evidence. Honestly, though, I just hope you and SWG can move on in your respective directions with minimal aggro and make the stuff that makes you happy.
@@TheOtherFrost That's fair! I wasn't aware of this channel until a couple of weeks ago, so Frostbyte had felt like it would have been a good companion to your Cold Take videos, especially given that a couple of them veered more into being reviews.
@@TheOtherFrost In a similar vein, and forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere, but is that why The Stuff of Legends, (Chronicle), only got a couple of episodes on the new channel? It was always one of my favorite shows back on The Escapist, and looking back at the view count it seemed to still be doing decent, though not spectacularly, on Second Wind compared to other shows that are still ongoing. Was it due to decisions/actions on Nick's part, or was it just that the view count doesn't tell the whole story compared to the effort it took to produce? Or was it just that you had other stuff you'd rather focus on?
I had wonder what happen to Frostbyte and Chronicles, been waiting ages to hear news on merch tie-in like a ice-cube plushie and posters with hopes they be related to future videos being worked on... just a dream now. But I do hope you reconsider making both types of videos e.g. short videos and story-based videos, also I will miss Better with friends I love watching you goof with Will.
Second Wind is not long for this world if Nick remains. How can any of their members have faith in the co-op when Nick fought tooth-and-nail to keep his previous companies in the dark about finances and assert 100% control over all business decisions?
Still working through the video, but this is some in-depth research. I don't know what's going to come of all this, but whatever you intend to do in the future, Frost, know that you've garnered support and viewers from your time with Second Wind.
Depends, do any independent parties report on this? In my opinion, they won't because the independent sources have already created the narrative of "Escapists bad, Nick Good" and this information destroys that narrative. That would then destroy the credibility of those independent sources because they made and sold a false narrative. That is why I doubt this goes anywhere.
this was a deserved assassination. nick is done. if he survives the week at SWG, the whole thing will probably fall down fairly quickly. this will be because yahtz will probably quit. He won't want anything to do with this
So, having watched this video, as well as read the responses that the people in SWG gave, I have to say, I believe Frost. The tone in his voice reveals a lot. He doesn't sound like someone being petty, going on the attack, being predatory, or just out for attention. He sounds fed up. This is the tone of a man who is frustrated, of someone who has been dealing with nonsense for longer than he has wanted to, and hasn't been able to resolve it. The responses given by SWG members is also very revealing. Instead of coming up with any counter evidence, it's mostly been some denial of any wrongdoing from the company itself, some hits of disappointment with Frost for coming out with this, and also statements saying that problems in the company were being addressed already, but Frost wasn't patient enough to see things to fruition. There's also a lot of solidarity behind Nick. This really isn't all that surprising. After the meltdown with The Escapist, they had all put in their lot with him. This is how they are currently putting food on the table. The last thing they need is something that will sink the ship they are currently sailing on. So they are going to put up a united front, if at least to do some damage control. And damage control is pretty much what they are currently doing. I'm quite certain that there are some tense conversations going on behind closed doors, though. At least, they should be, if there's any level of intelligence among these people. I'm sure that at this point, there's going to be the usual picking of sides, name calling and finger pointing that goes on whenever something like this happens. I personally don't have a horse in this race, but as far as what I believe, well, I tend to follow established patterns and established evidence. All I will say, is that there are probably going to be some rather interesting statements from certain people one to three years down the line, if certain patterns of behavior continue to present themselves.
Had to scroll down a long time to find this. love to find someone who is pragmatic its been a mytery to me from the start. I lean towards both points of veiw are partialy corrwect. Many things can be forgiven if the times are going well... tbh thats not so unusual in bussiness a good boss is a boss that makes money for the company/ keeps the lights on. counter to that allot of people will flip out and pick every slight to justify demonising their boss. There is sadly no way to get an unbiased version of events. even a court of law will leave you with two courts of public opinion. Hope that helps you understand why i will support both sides untill i die. (also i am the devil)
I'm not so sure about that. Yes, it's clear Nick has done a bunch of concerning things, especially in the past, and he is still not great with money, _and_ until recently he was having huge trouble with social media. Frost hates Nick and thinks there is no recourse except to throw him out of the industry, whereas SW believes that things are getting better. Yes, SW's response also seems in part like damage control, but to assume it's _primarily_ done for image and not out of genuine beliefs among SW's owners doesn't seem right to me. Here's why I think so. There is a lot in this video where you have to just take Frost's word for it. A lot of "big if true." And a major part of what Frost is saying is that Nick is mistreating SW's creatives. Being that it is a co-op and they can vote Nick out, and Nick already wasn't very well-liked among viewers, SW had plenty reason to unite against Nick. But they didn't, even though they speak to being critical of Nick a lot and trying to get him to change. Given this, SW's owners' solidarity with Nick says a lot more, I think, than Frost's intense hit piece on an ex-coworker. This makes it seem more likely to me that SW's criticisms of Frost's response (like "this was taken way out of context" or "things were improving and Frost just didn't have the patience" or "actually, we creatives are doing fine working with Nick") are genuine. Frost is probably fed up for good reason, but it also seems like he has channeled that frustration in a biased and overly destructive manner. Will Nick end up causing more trouble for SW? Perhaps. Are there serious allegations towards him that are true? Perhaps. But if the rest of SW is willing to take a chance on keeping him around, so am I.
@@melephs_cap I honestly think that the main reason why the rest of SW is willing to take a chance on Nick is because, well, what other choice do they have? Frost stated that the only reason Nick ended up running SW is because no one else wanted the job. When you combine that with the fact that the rest SW don't want their current venture to crash and burn, it only make sense that they will stick with him. The question at this point is, will their reign in Nick's flaws to a point where he won't tank the company, and can they fix the systemic issues within the company itself. Frost obviously believes this isn't the case, while the team running SW think they can turn things around. Again, I believe they are standing behind him because, from their standpoint, they have to. To do otherwise would be to throw away all the work they have been doing since they left Escapist. Also, I don't think Frost is making up any of the things he stated in this video. The main reason is because, 1: there have been no direct refutation of his statements, and 2: Frost hasn't been known to just make stuff up when he's bringing up troubling issues. Granted, that's not a complete guarantee of falsehood, but he's certainly built up a reputation of being forthright and trustworthy. To suggest that Frost may be pulling a "Trust me bro" suggests bias in your argument against him. Considering all the fans and goodwill SW has gained, this is understandable. I certainly don't want SW to fail (and if you pay attention to what's been said in this video, Frost doesn't either). But my feelings for SW can't make me ignore the issues that have been brought up, and frankly, make sense considering the patterns of behavior that have already been established by Nick in all this time. I'm hoping for better, but I'm not depending on it.
Outlining Nick's content strategy and why it just isn't working really opened my eyes to something I've always kind of "known" but never really thought about. Internet Media Companies are, obviously, a fairly new thing in the grand scheme of mass media, but every high profile failure in the space has a very similar story of expanding too broad and too fast; in turn alienating their core audience and you'd really hope a veteran of the space with prior media-related qualifications would, at some point in their career, take that lesson to heart. Mad respect for choosing a different path, I've missed Cold Take on Mondays, but I'm obviously on board for and excited for what you choose to do in future.
I thought the constant begging and his spats on twitter were glaring red flags. There was a thread on Reddit where someone had that complaint as well and he just blew up on the dude. I don’t think that’s a way to gain any sort of fans. I unsubscribed from the Patreon after that since the begging was getting obnoxious and that’s what he thinks of any criticism. Those twitter fights as well should have gotten him fired or his account shut down. Being the “head” he sure is giving nothing but bad PR for the company. For someone with his experience you think he would know better but it just seems like his ego is more important. I don’t like nick at all and don’t understand how he got to where he is. Just seems like the perfect middle manager where others do all the work and he gets all the credit. Hope everything works out for you frost! Keep that energy!
Questions: - If Nick leaves/gets kicked out of SWG, would you go back there? - Do you think it would work at SWG with -1 Nick and +1 business manager other than Nick or are there other issues that might be detrimental?
@@grayshadowglade true but seeing how uncommitted some of the declarations are on SW it feela like there's could be stuff. I might be imagining things though.
@@Ulnarevern, frankly I really wish he could return, but the PR fallout is too damaging for the rest of the team to ever feel confident it won't happen a second time.
Ok done the video. Hoooo boy. I hope, if all of this is true, and given how exhaustive Frost is, I am going to give this cold take the edge unless proven otherwise, I hope Nick does the right thing and separates himself from SWG. A few questions for Frost that I don’t believe would be necessary for a followup: - If Nick resigns from SWG, would you consider rejoining the team? - Do you think the Escapist exodus was ENTIRELY based on what Nick said happened? - If Yahtzee was so secure in his position at The Escapist, why do you think he left? - What is in the future for you/Cold Take? Are you going to be uploading more vids just on this channel?
In regards to point 3, Nick and Yahtzee were on an episode of the FPS podcast right after starting Second Wind where Yahtzee explained that he rather enjoyed the social element of working at the Escapist when Nick became EIC. So either that was motivating enough or (possibly a combination of both or more, I'm no expert) he, like Frost and the others, did not know the full story
I wouldn't say that Frost has been exhaustive on the topic, a lot of it didn't exactly have conclusive evidence. Claims that Nick has been joyriding around on the company's dollar hasn't been validated here, for example. There's a reasonable amount of information and evidence that it absolutely should be looked into though by an impartial third party however. I'd say I'm more inclined to believe Frost here, the call with Nick that was being shown is REALLY BAD and shows Nick as someone who simply doesn't want to work with people who worked hard to build him a brand he could sell from under them, before compensating them in the first place. That isn't evidence for his current behavior at SWG though unfortunately, only evidence of past behavior. That is why it *should* be investigated further though, because this absolutely could be a rot that needs to be cut away from the business as a whole.
Artist integrity and capalist interest cannot coexist. Nick is no different from every other businessman and the fact nobody else wanted to take up the mantle meant this was doomed from the start.
💯 also he has no business starting a creative coop when he contributes absolutely nothing creatively. Ppl are stupid and just want the comfort of a job, they never shouldve left escapist.
TL;DR of Responses by Staff: Yahtzee Croshaw: I'm content with my role at Second Wind and Nick as a coworker. Frost's actions seem more about stirring drama than addressing real issues. I wish he'd move on. KC Nwosu: I tried to mediate between Frost and Nick, but Frost used the discussions for drama. Frost's criticisms are often misleading, and he ignored our efforts to address issues he raised. JM8: My creative decisions have always been my own, and Nick's management issues have been addressed. Frost's claims are exaggerated and don't represent the whole truth. Jesse Galena: While Frost raises some concerns, many of his claims are false or taken out of context. I've seen significant improvements at Second Wind since I joined, and I trust the team. Jack Packard: Frost took my words out of context to create drama. He was involved in company decisions but now distances himself. While none of us are perfect, we're working to improve. Marty Sliva: I've never felt pressured to change editorial content for external reasons. Despite challenges, Second Wind has made positive changes, and I'm optimistic about our future. Jesse Schwab: Many of Frost's complaints don't align with my experiences. While Nick has made mistakes, we're actively addressing issues. Frost's continued focus on this drama is unfortunate. Omar Ahmed: Nick supported my shift in focus at work and has made similar accommodations for others. While the Gameumentary call was mishandled, Nick has been supportive and is open to change. Nick Calandra: I regret my comments during the Gameumentary call. The project had financial and structural issues, but I've learned from the experience and continue to support my team.
Where did these responses appear? Could you please include where these responses were posted (not a link; just the name)? *EDIT:* I've seen their official response; it's on Patreon but it can be viewed by anyone.
Obviously I don't personally know, but iirc the big reason he left The Escapist was because he formed a good business relationship with Nick. So it's anyone's guess at this point.
@@Guymanbot97 I'd be surprised. From what I can tell from Yahtz, he seems to value a light touch: creative freedom, the business management side handled for him and a friendly working relationship. From his end I imagine Nick seemed to fulfil all three. I mean maybe Yahtz is a backstabbing bastard, but I've yet to see anything to suggest this.
@@Beutimus no public word from Yahtzee that i have seen so far. Hard to believe he hasn't caught up with goings on yet, but, I guess we'll see what he has to say when he's ready
The Only reason Nick isn't sleeping under an overpass sucking nutrients from car mufflers is cause he's friends with Yahtzee who SAVED him by agreeing to leave The Escapist after they FIRED NICK. He should never try to put down anyone about their "Worth" ever
Back at the escapist days it always baffled me the bizarre output of the channel, why sandbag the clearly beloved and established content with random and clearly unpopular pieces and themes? I concluded it had to be corporate pushing, then SWG happened and it seemingly confirmed it, but now that I look back I see that I was in denial and the rot was at the core, I hope this piece opens up a true way forward.
Yahtzee's statement on this from Second Wind's patreon: 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.
Typical cishet white man capitalist. Not wanting to disturb his own peace, calling it "petty" when he works for a terrible person whose behavior very much affects others livelihood. 0 empathy from the rest of the group clearly.
@@OuterCraft Yikes. Not a good look for Yahtzee. I've got a bad feeling this means Nick is going to take SWG (including Yahtzee, thanks to his blind loyalty) down with him.
@@OuterCraft So they're spineless. So what? I'm not particularly surprised given that their livelihoods are on the line. Nick's actions and statements speak for themselves. Even if Frost misrepresented some things, there is no context in which Nick's behavior is not toxic and unacceptable. And there are way too many people corroborating these anecdotes for me to feel inclined to believe the statements coming from the people that are still under his control. I'll still read them I guess, out of curiosity if nothing else, but I've lost all faith in the channel. The only way they could have survived and thrived after this was if they unanimously removed Nick. The fact that they rolled over to his demands instead shows that the channel is doomed. I see what Frost meant when he stated that the channel owners lacked the knowledge and/or spine to stand up to Nick's BS. I've unsubscribed for good.
@@aether388 The actual reality is that you've bought into a narrative. These nine statements of people who actually worked with both SWG and Nick are people corroborating in support of SWG and against Frost's attempt to make RU-vid drama. They admit Nick made dumb statements in the past, but Frost has a vendetta here. But you already made your judgement before even reading them, huh?
Woof. I pulled my patreon support in the crossfire on discord because I was decidedly unimpressed with how everything was handled, but it seems like they're not getting it back anytime soon. Damn shame. SWG as a unit, as a mission statement was exactly what I wanted in a video game journo group. If I had had Nick as a boss I would've keyed his car on my way out after learning all that. Man.
It's fine to be upset about it, but never go so far as to wanting to destroy someone else's property over the situation. You have to be a better person, not become the same vengeful person that you're upset about.
This definitely seems to go a lot deeper than the vast majority of us audience members ever realized. Honestly, the way it was all presented when you all left The Escapist made it seem as though Nick was a good friend, and everyone left because you were all upset with him being unreasonably fired. This paints things in a very different light in regards to both then and now. Obviously, this is just one side of the story, so anyone with any sense knows to take things with some speculation until we hear more directly from others involved, (in particular, I'm sure a lot of us would be curious to hear Yahtzee's take on all of this as well), but for my two cents at the moment and given what I've seen, I'm willing to take what you've presented at face value. I genuinely hope that some big change comes from all of this and that you and the other content creators involved have everything work out in the end. Your videos are some of the very few I would watch other than Yahtzee's back on the Escapist, and were generally some of the ones I looked forward to the most on SW. Regardless of what happens moving forward with all of this, I'm confident that you'll be successful if you decide to keep creating content.
So I have a few questions. 1. Did any1 have any doubts when Nick told you he is not at fault for the Escapist going down? 2. Why are others at Second Wind group not standing up and talking or even tweeting ? I am a fan of the channel so I noticed that Yahtzee isn't happy about Nick's culoture war thing. I also noticed there were less superchats on monday's podcast for the last 3 months, less videos, less reviews etc . I knew something was wrong. Not important but Nick blocked me on Twitter just for wishing you all the best. I hope the team kick him out and try to manage the channel on their own, would like to see you with them too. Cheers Frost!
My two cents on point 2 - most of the people at SW are just there to talk about video games. Airing out grievances publicly like this can be risky, and there's always a possibility Nick could try taking legal action to shut you up, whether he has a case or not. Even if he doesn't have a case, once a suit is filed, you better lawyer up, and lawyers are expensive and that's potentially life-ruining for many people. Furthermore, not to knock anyone talent, but most people at SW are replaceable. We saw the numbers and you could have intuited them yourself from views and audience discussion, the only people who could really cause a shakeup by leaving SW are Yahtzee and Frost, maybe J-M8. Frost's whole thing has been covering bullshit in the games industry, so it isn't surprising he'd be the one to bring this to light. Especially since being part of an organization that's participating in shady tactics that he's highlighting kinda undermines the thesis of his entire craft.
You know, I stopped watching Second Wind because of the clutter. I would never comment this on their channel of fear of offending creators, but now that you said it, I admit: Second Wind is looking exactly like The Escapist, filled with non sense and shows nobody watches. Talking of which, even some of your cold takes/reviews were getting a little bit stale, as if someone was forcing you to read a script just because your voice attracted more clicks. So it was really happening.
I beg your pardon but I think quite alot of people watch Design Delve, FR/SR abd Adventure is Nigh like I do. You Call it clutter, I call it great content.
@@RedPaganNetwork sorry, I didn't mean to offend the creators neither its target audience; I was trying to say that both channels already had a great variety of content, but lately it was as if it was never enough, with too many shows in a single channel. That usually divide the audience. Second Wind has enough content to fill a couple more new channels if they wanted, thus keeping each audience in its niche without compromising views and ad revenue.
@@RedPaganNetwork It's difficult to explain but it's mostly about the youtube algorithm, as well as how youtube tries to push videos to people subscribed to channels. If these shows were on other channels, it wouldn't "feel full of clutter" to people not interested in those shows. The fact that they also "underperformed" compared to the bigger shows also causes the algorithm to avoid showing the channel as a whole to more people as often as it otherwise would if those shows were on other channels. And when I say "underperformed", please don't take offense, I don't think they truly underperformed, that's just how the algorithm views it. If a channel puts out videos that get a certain level of viewership, but then also puts out videos that get a tiny fraction of that viewership, it considers that channel significantly less when promoting to potential viewers. It actively hurts the outreach of the channel as a whole. Essentially, the channel as a whole is being mismanaged. It needs to be split into multiple channels. For example, the film stuff should go to it's own SWG Filmgroup channel, and the main channel could often shout them out as something the film enjoyers can go check out. This maintains the main channel for the main series that pull in much more views which plays into the youtube algorithm to get it much more exposure to more people, while also providing a means for people interested in those Film focused videos to find the film focused team (who do great work!) It's not ideal, and I wish the youtube algorithm weren't so... frustrating, but that's the reality of a business running through youtube as a platform, you have to play their game and not your own. It's a complex issue. I understand that you view this "clutter" as great content, and I don't disagree. It's just that when it gets to a point that it hurts the channel as a whole, and makes people begin to view the channel as "cluttered", it needs to be moved around. There's plenty of channels that do this exact thing for these exact reasons. It helps the business overall. It may seem harsh to consider something as "not good enough for the main channel". Everything they've made in my opinion is absolutely good enough for the main channel, but they have to play by youtube's algorithm and that means that the "clutter" needs to be moved to a different channel(s).
@@RedPaganNetworkhaving a bunch of shows with 10k views will kill a channel. shit's a business, not just an art project, and SWG (like Escapist) was bleeding money because of this stuff.
It's all coming together now to me. What I mean by this is that I completely bought the story of the lot leaving because it's easy to believe "corp bad. stop wanting infinite growth." Frost has been unsubtly telling us that the search for infinite growth is a myth onto itself. On top of that the way second wind videos never shut up about the patreon gave a sense that they were somehow struggling, which made no sense to me since they hit the ground running with a community that was sympathetic to their situation. But what really raised my eyebrow about Nick is the beef he has and the way he carries himself with Smash JT.
Wow, as a casual fan of SW and ZP before (as in I don’t follow outside RU-vid or give money) I was skeptical going in, asking exactly “If Nick sucks why did the whole escapist video team leave with him, the videos at the time made him out to be the hero defending the creators from greedy corpos before they tried to get rid of him” But even without vetting every claim and reading every screenshotted post this does connect a few dots in my mind. For one the increase in livestream or gameplay videos with less editing. I like Yahtzee, but I’m not so big a fan to watch long game streams. And I’m no RU-vid wiz but when you pump out a lot of different content that is too different from your “cash cow” videos, that tanks your click through rate and makes RU-vid less likely to recommend other videos. If people want that content that’s fine, but you never want to smother your high production videos with things that people aren’t as into, and looking back as SW went on I remember being interested in less of the videos I got recommended. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there were Design Delves I missed exactly because of that. And second, I remember one of Nick’s mini reviews for a game called “A Highland Song” which he called it a “GOTY contender”. Don’t get me wrong I do like the game fine, wouldn’t of tried it if it didn’t interest me at all, but when I finished it I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been oversold on the experience. Now I don’t know if the developers had a backdoor deal with Nick or what (though the video is the 5th news post on their steam page), but the fact that he could have is enough to taint my impression it and of basically anything he had a hand in.
Firstly, SEO attention sucks ass. Second Wind is great because it cares about content, not "click through rates". Secondly, that was a Marty review. Marty tends to lean heavily on the superlatives and has particular preferences when it comes to games. Blaming Nick is a stretch.
Maybe but Nick is Editor-In-Chief. It's possible (though based on the evidence in this video, probably not guaranteed) that he left Yahtzee more or less alone creatively so it would not interfere with the revenue stream (though I do have doubts about that) but it's also possibly someone not quite as high-profile as Marty would be more subject to creative restrictions from higher up
@@mortenjensen1692 No, it was very obviously a Marty review. If you are going to blame Nick for anything in that instance, it's for letting Marty go too far.
I knew something was wrong when there wasn't a new Cold Take this past week but I wasn't expecting whatever the hell this is. *sigh* This is why we can't have nice things. Take care of yourself Frost.
I had a minor altercation with Nick on Reddit right after SWG got started. This was due to a comment I left on the SWG reddit that mentioned he had edited a Discord post to read differently to how it was initially posted, which hadn’t been acknowledged on the thread and I thought was worth mentioning. I was pretty stunned when Nick himself replied to me with a full-throated denial he had ever said what I claimed that initial post had said. At the time it struck me as him supremely over-reacting, and as it led to the rest of the reddit coming after me at the same time, it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. I eventually convinced myself I must have been in the wrong for putting out my thoughts in good faith, but this video gives strong reason to re-consider. Thank you
Good lord, I was not expecting another "Channel Awesome" fiasco. A lot of comments here are very split on what Frost and SWG are saying, and I'm not really sure where I stand. But I will take Frost's comment at the end to heart. Do I want to keep supporting SWG, and do I think they're still worthy of my time? I'm not so sure. I mean, potentially dodgy management issues aside, there has been an oversaturation of videos, and I've only been interested in a few. I understand the need to trial new shows and creators, and not all of them will be a hit. Design Delve was a pleasant surprise, which we would never have gotten if SWG *only* stuck to the heavy hitters. But it was too much too soon, and the content is all over the place. I'm not interested in long let's plays from SWG, I go to other channels dedicated to those. I'm not all that interested in film and TV critiques or breakdowns, and I'm confused as to why they're on a gaming-oriented channel. What is the purpose of having 2 separate series with a very similar premise, Unpacked and Cold Take? It screams of the same issues that plagued Machinima, Channel Awesome, Escapist, and ScrewAttack/RoosterTeeth. At least with Channel Awesome, each creator ended up making their own channel, and I could subscribe to exactly the ones I wanted to. Perhaps SWG should have gone the same route, and not piled everything into one channel? Or at the very least, worked on building a base around their big shows, and very slowly introduced new and interesting creators with their own unique content?
@@AquaticBagpipe One or two of them felt like it was just the Cold Take episode, but reworded to not be plagiarism... which is fine and all if it's not plagiarism, but for it to be on the same channel? It felt like Nick was just making the same series but worse.
I wish I could write something eloquent & hard hitting, but I'm tired, it's late & I can't. Just want to say, I'm with you. I'm convinced you're presenting the story the way you experienced it, without bending the truth or milking it for engagement. Thanks, Frost.
I missed most of the drama in the interim between Escapist and SWG, but I never expected it to have been that bad behind the scenes... yeesh. With Nick's tendency to weaponize his audience I hope you come out of this alright, I've always enjoyed your no-nonsense takes on things and your presentation style is top notch.
So this has me super curious-- how much of your work on Escapist or SWG would you say came genuinely from you and how much did you have to meet like, assignments from Nick or others? Just kinda fascinating hearing a little about how these monolithic outlets actually function (or don't function??)
This really hurts me to find out second wind turned out to be a bit of a sham. Design delve I have fallen in love with, cold take a great listen, of course Yahtzee and his series. And bite-size reviews which has opened the door to so many indie gems for me! There was nothing but win after win from them. And now I see that it's unraveling😢😢😢 I hope they can remove Nick and keep the rest of the company going because it is without question my favorite gaming content channel I have seen in the last 5 years come on RU-vid.
This is going to sound sad but I really don't want Second Wind to fail. I love it's branding and theme, I love it's creators. This is... frustrating but important to hear.
