Extra Credits Leaves The Escapist Under Shocking Circumstances
Earlier this evening, with a simultaneous announcement through Facebook and Twitter, the crew of Extra Credits declared, “Last Thursday was our final episode on The Escapist.” Now, features come and go from websites all the time, but the unique circumstances surrounding this departure should elicit nothing but surprise and shock.
For the unfamiliar, Extra Credits was a weekly show published on The Escapist about the deeper issues in video games. They discussed everything from gender to metrics in highly informative five to ten minute segments which were partially animated by a young artist named Allison Theus. It was with Allison that all this chaos began.
A couple of months ago, the writers of Extra Credits, James Portnow and Daniel Floyd, put on an absurdly successful fundraiser for Allison, who needed an expensive surgery to allow her to continue drawing. This fundraiser made tens of thousands of dollars over their expected goal. This unexpected windfall was apparently a source of tension between the Escapist and Extra Credits.
Alongside their departure tweet, made earlier today, the Extra Credits crew explained that they chose to leave because “[The Escapist] demanded 75% of [the fundraiser] money”. They also expounded upon this astounding claim by further asserting that, “The Escapist had only paid us for four episodes the course of a year.”
As these tweets and status updates poured out from the computers of the Extra Credits crew, The Escapist quickly composed and posted a response. The rebuttal took the form a comprehensive list of claims which ran contrary to those made by the Extra Credits team. Alexander Marcus, the publisher of The Escapist, asserted in this post that “from November 2010 to June 2011, James told us to not worry about paying him and to focus on paying other people”. Marcis further claims that Portnow, “had decided to use the funds [raised for Allison's surgery] to create an indie publishing label rather than ‘save Extra Credits’”. Finally, Macris aggressively challenged the assertion that The Escapist demanded the fundraiser money by saying, “We did NOT ask James to send us the $9,500 – we said he should use the $9,500 to create more episodes of the show the money was supposed to save.”
By all means, this conflict constitutes the worst news to come out of The Escapist in its history. On its own forums and throughout the internet, fans of Extra Credits are discussing a possible boycott of the online magazine. Furthermore, one cannot help but imagine that the ensuing legal strife following this falling out will drastically redefine the word “clusterfuck.”
If you are a fan of Extra Credits, they have declared that they will continue to post weekly episodes on YouTube while they search for a new home.
Sounds to me like Extra Credits didn’t want to spend their money on the actual show. I can’t blame The Escapist a bit for being upset that money raised with the goal of keeping a webshow running is going to be used for something else which is non-beneficial to the publisher.
Also, if the stated purpose of the money raised was to allow Allison to have her surgery, what grounds do they have to utilize the extra money on something completely unrelated?
She can still use it to recover form her surgery, people don’t recover instantly and she may need physical therapy etc. and it’s doubtful that she is on payed leave to begin with. So now she has no income, is recovering from surgery, and still needs to pay for necessities. I am sure she could use the money.
The money was donated to help her, she should be the one to decide what happens with it.
Amazing how one little miscommunication can result in a custody battle over thousands of dollars, and the potential end of an entire company.