About
TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brit (Sometimes just TB) is the alias for the British video game critic, commentator, professional Youtuber[1] and “let’s player” John Bain. He was originally known as TotalHalibut on YouTube and since his channel creation in 2006, has gained over 2 million subscribers, over 650 million views, and over 2000 videos as of July 2015.
Online History
Origin
Bain began his internet broadcasting career In 2004, originally he had worked as a DJ in talk radio for various services and from that he branched out as the owner and host of the online WoW Radio channel[2][3]. Here, he hosted a variety of shows revolving around World of Warcraft, which ran for roughly 5 years, until 2010, when he changed from World of Warcraft and started casting Starcraft 2 matches[4].
TB uploaded his first video to Youtube on July 27th, 2006, of his antics in a World of Warcraft area (shown below, left). His YouTube career began in full haste in 2010 after Bain’s employment with a financial advisory company ended[5]. He began with YouTube commentaries of the Cataclysm Expansion for WoW (shown below, right) along with commentaries over other video games. These videos grew to be incredibly popular which caught the attention of the gaming channel network “The Game Station” (now known as Polaris) through the Starcraft 2 commentator HuskyStarcraft who offered Bain a place at the network.
Spread
After deciding to focus fully on Youtube and gaining a following, TB has modified his channel to include different video formats and branched out to different locations on the web. On Steam TB is the largest curator with over 500,000 followers[6]. One of the more popular videos on his channel include a Magicka LP featuring the Yogscast which gained over 2 million views on the first episode (shown below, left), and a LP of Terraria featuring Jesse Cox / OMFGcata which gained nearly a million views on the first episode (shown below, right).
On the channel many other series exist such as “The Content Patch”, a gaming focused news show, “The Sale Box”, a video series about Steam Sales and the best deals, “15 Minutes of Game”, a series that takes brief looks at smaller indie games, and the “Co-Optional Podcast”, a podcast featuring Dodger / presshearttocontinue and Jeese Cox as co hosts along with a random guest. TotalBiscuit makes an appearance in the game Airmech (shown below, left) as a premium pilot and voice acted the character Vinnie & Spike in Awesomenauts (shown below, right).
“WTF is…”
WTF is… is TotalBiscuit’s most popular series of Youtube videos that is his first impressions and critique series of a video game that first began on Sept 14th, 2010 on a game titled R.U.S.E. (shown below, left). The most popular game WTF is.. is of League of Legends that was uploaded on December 2nd of 2010 gaining over 3 million views (shown below, right). The most popular non-video game related WTF is… was a video explaining the Stop Online Piracy Act gaining just over half a million views of the LoL video[7]. Spinoffs of the series have spawned such as “Why do I own…”, “Steam sells…”, and “Let’s NOT Play…”
Starcraft
Ever since the TotalBiscuit focused on Youtube, he has been constantly getting involved in the Starcraft scene. In June of 2011, he announced his SHOUTcraft Invitational Tournament[8], a self-funded less-serious tournament with many differences compared to default Starcraft. The first tournament took place shortly after and in the following months three more events were organised, with larger prize pools and a differing format each time.
On 21st of February 2011, TotalBiscuit uploaded a video titled “I Suck at Starcraft 2 – Episode 1 – The Suckening” (shown below, left) of him playing through ranked Starcraft 2 games. Another show “Showcraft” was also started which was described as a Starcraft 2 Variety show, featuring segments of the game including casting, coaching, custom games and community interaction during a Twitch stream. However TotalBiscuit’s other obligations forced the show into hiatus with only 20 episodes being released by the end of 2012. TotalBiscuit also owns the Axiom eSports team that specializes in Starcraft[9].
Controversies and Copyright Claims
Sometime around late 2012, TotalBiscuit had received various copyright claims and strikes on some videos on Shining Force from Sega of Japan. TotalBiscuit reported on the issue in a Content Patch (shown below, left) and issued a channel wide boycott[10] on all Sega video games and content ever since. On March 18th, 2013, TB had removed all the strikes from his channel[11]. In Feburary of 2014, TotalBiscuit reviewed the game “Guise of the Wolf” (shown below, right) and FUN had both his stream and review taken down. A Reddit post[12] was made on r/Games about the removal and received over 3,900 points with 95% upvoted. Gaming news sites such as the Escapist[13], Talk Amongst Yourselves[14], N4G[15], and many others. On Feburary 26th, 2014, TotalBiscuit made a tweet confirming that both videos were back and both strikes were gone[16].
Day One: Garry’s Incident Controversy
The Day One: Garry’s Incident was the largest controversy to have taken place that involved DMCA takedowns and took place on his channel. TB had released a WTF is… on the game in question and gave it a negative review (shown below, left). Shortly afterwards, Wild Games Studio made a copyright claim, giving the channel a strike and taking down the video. TB released a response video analyzing the situation which, as of June 2015, is his most viewed video with over 4 million views (shown below, right).
Personal Life
John met his wife Genna at Blizzcon 2005 and married soon after, and has a stepson named Orion. But because of visa and immigration problems, TB was unable to move to the United States and live with his family for nearly 2 years[17].
In April 2014, TotalBiscuit released a vlog titled “My Little Problem” (shown below, left) announcing to his audience that he had a precancerous mass in his colon, a month after this Bain then revealed that he had developed cancer and was to began chemotherapy and radiation treatment immediately. On May 12th, 2015, TB released another vlog titled “My Big Solution” (shown below, right) going over his treatments and that the mass had been removed.
Search Interest
Editor’s Note: Previous search results for John Bain may be referring to the football / soccer player
External References
[1]Youtube – TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brit
[3]Google Drive – The Auditory Works of TotalBiscuit
[4]Youtube – TotalBiscuit Starcraft and Axiom eSports
[5]Twitter – The first video I did after losing my job.
[6]Steam – Cynical Brit Gaming
[7]Youtube – WTF is SOPA ? aka The American Government trying to ruin the internet
[8]Liquipedia – The SHOUTcraft Invitational 1
[9]Axiom eSports – Axiom eSports Website
[10]Twitter – Due to fears of copyright action, the channel will boycott @Sega
[11]Twitter – I can confirm that SEGA has removed all copyright strikes on my account.
[12]Reddit – FUN Creators, developers of Guise of the Wolf, is demanding that TotalBiscuit remove all tweets and delete his YouTube channel, warning do not tweet this message or we’ll claim it is a fake.
[13]The Escapist – Guise of the Wolf Dev Takes Down Negative YouTube Review – Update 2
[14]TAY– TotalBiscuit Fights Against Total Boneheads [Update]
[15]N4G – FUN Censors TotalBiscuit’s Guise Of The Wolf Review
[16]Twitter – We’ve had both strikes removed
[17]TeamLiquid – TotalBiscuit on why he hasn’t seen his wife and kid for two years. Keep fighting TB.