Trouble at Vice, hope Austin and co are ok!

.I wouldn't guess about the health a site like Vice has or could have or will have in the future. All I can say is Waypoint is cool, the people who work there are top notch. If Vice Media group is in trouble and has to or chooses to lets them go, Vice is not going to scoop up talent like that again. "Good luck to all" is the only thing I can say.

@kcin: I guess my expectations didn't match the reality of the site, originally. I thought it was going to be a more conscious Giant Bomb (the 72-hour marathon got me hype), but the site's design and resources kind of prevented that from happening (the centralized Giant Bomb part, not the socially conscious part). It sucks they aren't getting the help they needed. I remember the podcast had a lot of growing pains early on.

Also, I'm a little bummed when not everyone lives in NYC, especially when there was/is only 5 of them. It's a petty complaint, but I will always prefer the "hanging out" style of content instead of people being phoned in or doing solo streams.

Ultimately, I just don't have time anymore these days. I've had to cutback on GB content, too.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Their output is impressive, considering how small their staff is. Best of luck to everyone at Waypoint.

I felt like there were multiple weeks in september/october where they put no video out and articles are generally infrequent. I don't know how a videogame site can get away with that today.

The whining in this thread about their left leaning content is a testament to how needed they are right now. I would agree they're twitter-oriented leftists, who spend more time talking about people being harrassed in DMs than in the real world, but they're trying and I will continue to support them as long as I can.

If they stick around, maybe they could use a subscription model to make themselves more sustainable? I'd sign up for any giant-bombesque price.

Started listening to the Beastcast from the start and man, I miss Austin so much at GBE.

I just wish Patrick would continue Spookin' With Scoops.

Can't wait for the eventual downsizing with "waypoint watches ancient aliens"

Yep, absolutely. Have nothing but love for that crew.

@dasakamov:

• Vice was co-founded by Gavin McInnes - who since leaving has taken his money and founded the Proud Boys, who only last month where officially recognized as a hate group by the SPLC.
• Also last month it was discovered that Vice was taking money from Saudi Arabi to create videos to promote the country. Following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate, they decided to "review" that contract but have yet to decide if they want to continue taking the money or not.
• The very long lasting sexual harassment issues and boys club culture has been well documented.
• They fought against unionization in the UK. The union deal for the US branch is ending in December and Vice have been dragging their feet on meeting with the union to negotiate further arrangements.
• It's been fairly Islamophobic over the years and since it targets a younger demographic has been helping to spread Islamophobia to them. It's gone from being counter culture to being pretty neo-liberal.
• By his own admission - and decide if you think this is a problem or not - but Vice was built on Shane Smith being such a masterful liar and boaster. When it was getting started and looking for investors, they hired out the work-spaces of established firms and paid people to pretend to be working for them so they looked like they already had it all. They threw parties they knew they couldn't afford to trick investors.

I don't have time to play the video games I want to. I really don't have time to absorb GB content; I listen to every single podcast they put out and absorb hours of audio while driving/at the gym. I really really don't have time for any other video game themed website. I mostly absorb Waypoint by following Patrick and Austin on twitter and reading through a few of the written articles they sometimes link.

@jesus_phish:

Thanks for the references! Although your points are serious and are worthy of consideration, I'll offer a few counter-points (not counter-arguments, necessarily - just additional thoughts).

* Gavin McInnes is indeed a ultra-white-nationalist, mysogonist walking pile of trash. I would argue that's *why* he was kicked out of Vice Magazine's board in 2008, and most appearances indicate that Vice's general leitmotif runs counter to everything McInnes personally believes in. (FWIW, I started reading Vice Maganize in 2011, so McInnes wasn't even a speck on the horizon at that point.)

* Although promoting a country with as long of a history of human-rights abuses as Saudi Arabia has is questionable at best, I'd want to see specific examples of what *kind* of PR videos Vice was making before calling them to task. Making a video saying "Come visit our camel festival" isn't exactly insidious. (Making a PR video saying, "Donate Money to the al-Saud family because they sure are swell fellows" would be more sinister.)

* I've acknowledged the sexual harrassment allegations in my previous post, and I'll add that, while saying "everyone else was doing it" doesn't excuse Vice leadership in the slightest, it might have been a tad naive to imagine that Vice wouldn't fall victim to the same "boys club" culture.

* I haven't been anything about Vice and anti-union initiatives after a (brief) internet search; the most recent articles I've found have highlighted Vice Media's agreement to unionize in the US in 2016.

* I'm EXTREMELY doubtful about anything MintPress says, as they've been a pro-Bashar al-Assad, pro-Syrian/Russian Government publication that has a history of trying to misdirect people about the civil war in that country. Given that Vice magazine takes a public and impassioned stand against Islamaphobia spread by tabloids and gossip rags, it seems like MintPress' claims of Vice's Islamaphobia stems from a personal grudge between the two publications and doesn't have any real ground to stand on.

* Creating a facade-company to attract investors is, in my personal opinion, pretty sleazy, but again -- LOTS of startups do the exact same thing (and, again, I'm not excusing it). I wouldn't say it takes a "masterful liar" to create that sort of false image and (unfortunately) that sort of behavior is only frowned on if the investors end up losing money (c.f. the Fyre Festival).

@jesus_phish: All of that is true and they're all valid reasons for wanting to stay away from Vice. But it's also sensible to put your faith in Austin and the rest of the crew. They are all good people who I trust. Their parent organization might be shady, but none of that means that Waypoint is bad.

@jesus_phish: I admit I've always been uncomfortable with visiting Vice ever since I found out about McInnes. I also think that Austin Walker would not work for an organization that was still run by someone with McInnes' reprehensible ideas. By all means it should be pointed out how Vice was founded. Is it fair to hold one of the newer outlets under the Vice umbrella--an outlet which is specifically and explicitly liberal, pro-union, pro-equality, pro-representation--to the fire for what the long-departed founder of Vice is? I don't know. I'm not here to make that judgment for anyone else.

As of this post being written, the Twitter account for 60 Minutes, a prominent news show under the CBS umbrella, still has at least one tweet up that is effectively praising MBS and calling him a reformer.

If we're talking about the head (or former head) of a company being tied to awful behavior, we would be right to call out Vice and its connection to Gavin McInnes. We must also call out CBS and Lee Moonves.

As I said, I'm not here to tell anyone which websites to follow, to ignore, to consciously boycott, or anything like that. I just find it somewhat questionable for us, on a website owned by CBS, to throw stones at a few people who currently work at one small branch of Vice.

I know how this reads. It looks like cynical whataboutism. I'm not saying this stuff to absolve Vice--I'm saying it to suggest that we, as individuals, all have our own limits with what we can accept in our media and the people and organizations that deliver that media to us.

I, for one, would love for the entire Waypoint crew to wash their hands of Vice and strike out on their own. I believe that is neither possible, nor likely.

Outside of vice issues itself what do people not like about austin and patrick content now? Is it because its often political?

@bradbrains: to me it feels a bit like cable news. It’s predictable, it’s agenda driven, and it gets old fast. But the worst part is that snide jabs often come out of no where and sidetrack a normal convo about a video game. I don’t mind the political stuff when it’s measured and pointed but it’s so petty and cheap at times.

Hope it works out for the folks at Waypoint but I don't care for the Vice sites in general (tried due to Austin & Patrick's involvement, but meh) and won't miss them if they go.

@bradbrains: It's hard to say a specific problem, but the things I personally wanted out of Waypoint haven't quite panned out.

They haven't made anything else quite like that cool mini-documentary series on games culture for Disney Channel, which is a shame cause that stuff was cool and educational without a lot of mental overhead.

I also feel like the podcasts became sorta unfocused, or at least slower tempo. Austin during Giant Bomb's GOTY talks was a pretty amazing time; his enthusiasm and understanding of Invisible Inc made *me* enthusiastic about the game and its design. When Waypoint talks about a thing they like, though, there's something about everyone's cadence that just tunes me out.

I really do like what Austin and them are trying to do over there, but the above problems (combined with a pretty awful website) mean I only glance there every once in a while. I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't financially excusable, but it'd be a shame if they weren't able to progress happily from here, with or without Waypoint.

@bradbrains said:

Can only talk for myself but I stopped following them some time ago because of this.

Even though in a lot of points argued I would agree with their views it's not much of a value if people that all share similar political believes talk about a given subject from that perspective.

Haha this!

I wish Patrick would just knock all this off and start his own games media coverage out of Chicago(easier said than done I know). Him not being in NYC or CA always seemed to make him some sort of waylaid correspondent reporting in from the field or something to me. It would be nice to see him in physically in office and not disconnected from everyone, idk.

@theflamingo352: The cadence part really struck home with me. It's hard to put a finger around and to describe why it is like that, but it's definitely there. Compared to Giant Bomb's controlled chaos in both podcasts it seems so... formal(?), even with Rob's trolling and even when they do joke around. Like instead of them having a discussion, it's Austin interviewing all the members of the podcast one by one. To be clear, I'm not blaming Austin for it as it's not that he's doing the hosting, it's just the overall tone or cadence of the podcast.

There's also this way they do seem to avoid disagreeing with each other. As somebody who leans pretty hard on the left side, it's not that. I don't even think they all share the same opinions. It's just that they don't openly say they disagree. Heck, a good example of it is the Waypoints episode a few weeks back where Patrick goes full Yellow Peril when describing China and nobody calls him out. He literally compares China to Black Mirror and everyone just nods along. Thankfully the forums did call them out, but I'm not sure if they've addressed that as I haven't really listened to their content after that (not because of this incident, mostly because I haven't had the time). What perplexes me is that apparently nobody at any point had pointed out that maybe Patrick talking China with little to no actual knowledge of China is a good idea; not before the podcast, not during it or even after it. They just decided it was appropriate content. I'm not saying China shouldn't be criticised, far from it, but the segment was so black and white, demonising view of China that it was off putting. It especially doesn't fit on the site's stated goal of promoting critical thinking.

Also, I've got to say my interest in the site somewhat dropped when Danika left. Her brand of shitposting as Waypoint's social media manager was so good. Heck, the office streams without Danika just haven't been the same, but there's less of them now anyways.

It's still a shame if the site goes or gets downsized, because they do have some darn good content. The way they review games has really worked for me, especially the way it has both the written word and then the podcast discussion on it. Rob's interviewing in the voice part is very on point too. They've managed to make it so the two parts aren't competing (like it feels it does in Giant Bomb's current format), but supplementing each other.

Oh and as a last addendum: like people have said that site really does need a rehaul, it just doesn't work with the content they produce. It's such a hassle to consume what they put out.

@retris: I haven't paid attention in awhile but liked Danika. Where did she leave to?

@bradbrains: Yea I guess that is sort of the way to describe it. And it's not that I disagree with everything they say (which is probably what people assume when they read someone on here say they don't like Waypoint's approach to this stuff), some of it seems rational or whatever but like.. Video games are an escape for me. The real world sucks. So like, I like hearing Austin, Patrick, or even this Rob dude-- who I'm not really familiar with-- talk about a game.. Until it gets completely muddled with agendas and political stuff. I started to write out some sort of example of what I mean but it all just comes out wrong and its unnecessary anyway. I say just evaluate a game based on what it is and whats within the game and don't way overthink, look at every tiny detail with a microscope and complain about like.. a foreign name being pronounced wrong.. It's not big a deal. Move on. That doesn't ruin the game. Anyway, I've said more than I needed about it. It's whatever.

@retris That cadence you're talking about is probably because they seem to do all their podcasting over Skype or some other VOIP thing? Audio quality/levels vary with each person. Only one person talks at a time. It sounds like people raise their hand for the camera when they have something to say, so they don't talk over each other.. So, the usual complications with trying to do a podcast over the internet. I assume they are doing what they can within their situation and their budget.

I feel like Waypoint was the outlet for the parts of Austin and Patrick's output that many people around here didn't care for. And without getting into the question of how good or bad that is, I feel like that sort of speaks to how small the potential audience becomes when you target only the people who do care for it. So it doesn't surprise me that the market can't support a website built on social commentary surrounding video games.

@csl316: She's head of community development with whatever the production company is named that made The Dragon Prince for Netflix.

I really enjoyed Patrick and especially Austin at Giant Bomb primarily because of the contrast between them and the rest of the crew. Not that everyone else isn't intelligent or serious about games, but the intellectual take those two often had was usually very interesting and a welcome addition to the Bombcast/Bombin the AM/Beastcast. It also gave everyone else some good material to bounce off of and spurred good conversation at times. I fell off of their work at Waypoint mostly because of the lack of contrast there. When everyone takes that tact, it is a bit too serious for me.

I hope they end up ok. I loved Pat and Austin's work at GB, But I really haven't followed them much at Waypoint at all. No real reason other then GB is all the content I need and It is hard enough to even keep up with them

Waypoint is more than ok. They have a growing community and a popular podcast and is putting out good content. I see no need to worry about them.

I wonder how much of Vice's financial issues stem from economic decisions made on Facebook's now-known-to-be-fabricated video data.

Exactly how I feel. Waypoint is often so joyless and dry for me and even as someone very left and supportive of issues that are often talked about on that site and in games, it's just not what i want to hear and there is nothing funny or really thought provoking in it most times.

I tried to get back into them recently because they hired Rob Zacny, who I really like as well, but just in the combination of the whole staff and what they put out it is not enjoyable.

That's not how working for a big media company works though. If they decide they save a few dollars and they need to do that, they will axe the site quickly.

I was never a big fan, but 1up was so loved and respected and it got axed basically at the height of it. It's a repeated and common event in that business.

I'm not really a fan of Waypoint. I've been a fan of Patrick's since he worked at 1Up but I never really warmed up to Austin. Sucks for employees and fans of what they do over there but I tried and definitely wasn't a fan of it. In many ways, its the same reason I don't really give Polygon my patronage ever outside of the random Monster Factory video on YouTube.

@colourful_hippie: I have mixed opinions on Vice. Sometimes their content is amazing, such as anything Michael Moynihan does (consistently amazing, but he was awesome at Reason as well), and then sometimes its two steps shy of something like Vox...which is bad.

I love Austin and Patrick but the content I've enjoyed from Waypoint has entirely been the free-form streams where the focus is almost entirely on the game and casual conversations (which seem to have all but disappeared in the last little while). Their articles and podcasts are probably doing some important stuff around some big issues in the industry but aren't the sort of thing I want to consume.

@bladeofcreation: @gkhan: I've nothing against Austin or anyone at Waypoint. I was just responding to someone who asked for examples of controversy involving Vice. Austin isn't an idiot. Neither are Patrick, Danielle, Rob or anyone else who works/worked at Waypoint. They all knew who founded Vice, they all would've at least heard about it's culture and they decided it was still a worth while opportunity to do something there.

I'm not "throwing stones" at anyone. Six degrees of separation for any organization will find you one or two dodgy characters.

It'd be nice if the quote function wasn't broken 50% of the time so I could've quoted the OP and you guys would've seen I wasn't having a go at Waypoint.

@dasakamov: Only seeing your response now as it seems notifications are again broken on the site.

As I mentioned regarding Unionization - they've been dragging their heels on talking to the Vice Union representative members and the UK branch is still as far as I'm aware being denied a union.

As for Islamophobia, I wasn't aware of the reputation of that site, I just did a quick google search to grab something - but it's not the only example that comes up of it. One more clear example, at least in my opinion, is their work with Bill Maher who there are plenty of audio and video clips of him saying some pretty deplorable things about Islam and people from Islamic regions. I wonder if there's much of a difference between Vice in the US and in the UK - I always felt anytime I went on that there was, Vice UK seemed much more interesting and less about "How to smoke drugs in a closet". Waypoint almost feels like it fits in better with Vice UK.

I don't think Vice is the devil. I think there are some shitty people who operate at it, who have operated at it and who continue to. There are also some pretty quality people and things they do - that's undeniable.

@stephen_von_cloud: Man, I basically forgot about 1up. In a lot of ways, they were like a proto-Giant Bomb. Their shows and podcasts were great.

It was such a bummer when they closed doors...

I could listen to Rob read the ingredients on a shampoo bottle. Every time he speaks, I never want him to stop.

@cikame: Same really. I haven't listened to any of their stuff in almost a year now.

If you're literally serious about that, and is willing to replace "shampoo bottle" with "speedy race-cars", you should listen to Shift+F1, Drew and Danny's Formula 1 podcast. Turns out, Rob knows fucking everything about Formula 1 and he's been a cohost with those two for a couple of months now. He's a great addition to the show.

If you're not into Formula 1, the podcast might not be very interesting, but it's an excellent way to get more Rob Zacny in your life. Also: Formula 1 is awesome, and Drew and Danny are awesome, so why aren't you listening already? :)

@gkhan: Thanks! I knew he was on Three Moves Ahead, but didn't know about the F1 thing. I'm not really into F1, but I was being honest about listening to him speak haha Doesn't surprise me at all that he is super knowledgeable about F1, dude is super knowledgeable about so many things.

Individually speaking I wish them the best as each of them are great and I've enjoyed their work on GB and on YouTube.

Collectively, Waypoint has been a miss for me though.

It isn't that I object or even (usually) disagree with the politics put forth by the group.

GB staff drop improv into their podcasts or streams where one of them will put forward a humorous or preposterous situation and the others will run with it for comic effect. Waypoint staff do something similar, except the supposed scenarios they put forward are all to illustrate political points. Sometimes these scenarios are based in reality, sometimes they are flat out imagined. Like Chapo Trap House (for instance), Waypoint has the divisive tendency to descend into collective polemic (Austin being the only one to occasionally break that pattern through introspection and a stronger grasp of political ideologies that he doesn't hold personally).

Which is fine... if that's what you want. I understand that this kind of thing can work well in other contexts (Daily Show, Colbert, etc.) but it has been a huge turn off for me. I still wish them all well though and hope they have the audience they need to keep doing their thing.

I'm really not a fan of Waypoint or their way of covering games. A lot of their content comes across as a parody of itself (Though that article on Police Quest was a pretty great read). But people like their stuff, so I hope they stick around for their audience's sake.

It feels like ancient history by now man. Certainly ahead of their time. As i said, it never really clicked for me but I really respect what they did there.

I think he is really good as a podcaster as well. I actually really wanted Giant Bomb to hire him bad before Waypoint did.

Unfortunately since I am not a fan of Waypoint stuff I don't get as much as I could. Three Moves Ahead has been infrequent and not the best lately either. But I'm hoping it'll come back strong when the games to cover do.

While I'm fine with their political stances, and the fact that discussing the politics of games is their overt goal, I think there's a place for that, but this has always been what turns me away from Waypoint. They feel so afraid to step on each others toes when discussing social issues that whoever feels strongest about something ends up being the point of view adopted by everyone. They all defer to whoever is most angry, basically. This was most noticeable with the whole "The Red Strings Club" fiasco, but it happens pretty frequently, especially on the podcast. It wasn't the first time Waypoint completely botched their handling of transgender topics either.

It's not that they need to get some right wing trumper in there to provide an "opposing viewpoint" or some crap like that, it's that they need to have the courage to push back on each other when they go too far or make a mistake, even if it's in the name of a good cause. Austin is the best at pushing back on the others, but he still doesn't push hard enough a lot of the time.

I hope they can survive and improve on this. I still check in once in a while, but not nearly as often as I had thought I would when they first started up.

@dasakamov: Gavin McInnes