TotalBiscuit
 |
John Bain | |
|---|---|
| File:John Bain Suit.jpeg | |
| Born | July 8, 1984 |
| Nationality | British |
| Other names | TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brit, TotalHalibut, El Poncho Grande |
| Occupation(s) | Professional Caster and game commentator |
| Known for | Electronic sports commentator, Video Game first impressions |
| Spouse | Genna Bain |
John Bain (born 8 July 1984), commonly known by his online alias TotalBiscuit, and The Cynical Brit, is a British gaming commentator on YouTube, and is most famous for being a professional caster for games such as StarCraft II and Planetside 2. His video commentary on newly-developed indie games and analysis of gaming news has led to him having a cult-like following on the internet according to Eurogamer.[1]
Biography
Bain's broadcasting career started off when he was studying law at De Montfort University, where he hosted an extreme metal music show. [2] In 2005, Bain produced the 'Blue Plz' podcast, which he described as being "the most popular solo hosted show about World of Warcraft on the internet".[3] Bain also ran "WoW Radio", an internet podcast website dedicated to World of Warcraft, from 2005 to 2010.[1] The radio got enough publicity to incite a reaction from Blizzard Entertainment, the developer and publisher of World of Warcraft, which invited him to the annual Blizzcon event in 2005, where he was tasked with providing coverage of the event.
During the 2005 Blizzcon event, Bain met Genna, an American woman whom he later married.[4]
During the height of the Great Recession in 2010, Bain was sacked by his employer, a financial advisory company, to save costs.[1] During his unemployment, which coincided with the beta release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Bain started producing and uploading videos of himself talking over gameplay on YouTube, hoping to earn money through the website's ad-revenue system. In the next few weeks, popularity of Bain's videos skyrocketed. [citation needed] A Starcraft 2 commentator by the online alias of "Husky" approached Bain and invited him to "The Game Station", which is a network of gaming channels on YouTube.[1]
Notable Series
WTF Is...
"WTF Is..." is a series of first impressions videos, where Bain gives his initial opinion of recently released games while explaining what the game is about and showing viewers gameplay footage.[1] The series' music was composed and performed by Charlie Parra del Riego.And answers the question "WTF is...".
Why do I own...
"Why do I own..." is almost an extension of the WTF is series, where instead of giving his impressions on games that are either released or close to release, he gives his first impressions on videogames he currently has in his Steam library, but that he has never played.
Terraria with Jesse Cox
On 22 May 2011, Bain began uploading a Let's Play of the game Terraria with Jesse Cox co-casting who has become a very close friend of Bain. Bain has recently said that he hates the series mainly due to the fact for creating terrible memes and catchphrases. The future of the series is currently unknown and presumed to be on hiatus.
The Mailbox
"The Mailbox" was a series of videos by Bain where he read questions sent to him by his viewers and tried to answer them. The audio for the videos was him reading the questions and giving answers while the video was footage from a game he had recently been playing. The series was discontinued in October 2012 at episode 200, when Bain decided most questions became repetitive in the way that they were becoming alternative forms of questions that were already answered in previous episodes. This series was replaced by Content Patch.
Content Patch
"Content Patch" is Bain's topical gaming news show, where he rounds up the day's events in the gaming scene and gives his opinion and insight on stories. Content Patch also features a selected piece of viewer commentary on one of the stories covered in the show, selected from the /r/Cynicalbrit subreddit. The first episode aired on 30 October 2012, after the conclusion of his previous series, The Mailbox.
DotA 2 - Hyper-incompetent Single Draft Disaster
"DotA 2 - Hyper-incompetent Single Draft Disaster" is a series of videos where Bain plays the "single draft" mode of DotA 2. He is restricted to a choice of three of the game's heros. As well as never playing the same hero twice Bain will only use the default build put into the game by DotA 2's developer Valve.
The Game Station Podcast
Bain is one of the hosts of The Game Station Podcast, a gaming news and discussion podcast featuring members of The Game Station YouTube network, along with Jesse Cox and Brooke Leigh "Dodger" Lawson. The podcast usually features one guest host, also from the Game Station network. Past guest hosts include Mike “Husky Starcraft” Lamond, Simon "Honeydew" Lane of the Yogscast, Eric "WoW Crendor" Smith, Jon "Jontron" Jafari, and actress Felicia Day.
Casting
Starcraft II
SHOUTcraft Invitational 1
An 8-man invitational tournament organised and cast by Bain. The event lasted a day, 12 June 2011, and used a single elimination, best of 5 format. The final game was a best of 7. 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th went to Nerchio, MorroW, MaNa and White-Ra respectively.Additional information.
SHOUTcraft Invitational 2
An 8-man invitational tournament organised and cast by Bain, with Apollo co-casting. The event lasted two days, 23–24 July 2011, and used a single elimination, best of 5 format. The final game was a best of 7. 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th went to Socke, dde, Sheth and MorroW respectively.Additional information.
SHOUTcraft Invitational 3
An 8-man invitational tournament organised and cast by Bain, with Apollo co-casting. The event lasted two days, 10–11 September 2011, and used a single elimination, best of 5 format. The final game was a best of 7. The tournament featured a "Tip Jar" allowing viewers to donate money towards the prize-pool or directly to players, $1314 were donated as tips. 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th went to Socke, dde, White-Ra and TLO respectively.Additional information.
SHOUTcraft Invitational 4
An 8-man invitational tournament organised and cast by Bain, with Apollo co-casting. The event lasted two days, 14–15 January 2012, and used a different format than the previous three. Instead of being single elimination the contestants were divided into two even groups, A and B, and every player played a best of 3 against every other player in their group. The top two from each group moved on to the next round with the bottom two being eliminated, the groups were then mixed for the semifinals, 1A against 2B and 2A against 1B, and the tournament continued as normal. The semifinals were played as best of 5s, while the final game was a best of 7. The tournament featured a "Tip Jar" allowing viewers to donate money towards the prize-pool or directly to players. 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th went to Stephano, ThorZaIN, Ret and Grubby respectively.Additional information.
Planetside 2
Bain partnered with Sony Online Entertainment for the 2012 E3 event where he cast show attendees playing Planetside 2 at the SOE booth.[5] He also broadcast the game at PAX 2012 and commentated the SOE Live Auraxian Challenge tournament in Las Vegas.
Popularity and Accolades
The main source of his publicity comes from his primary YouTube channel where he posts what he describes as "variety gaming content", as part of the YouTube gaming network TheGameStation. He has been described by a Eurogamer journalist as being "champion of indie gaming" and YouTube's foremost "love him or hate him" personality. The same critic suggested his online popularity is due to his voice having a "tone of authority".[1]
He was a runner-up in the Golden Joystick 2012, in category Greatest YouTube Gamer.[6] He has been recognized on several prominent gaming sites including Technorati[7] and Eurogamer.[8] Bain won the 2012 Battle Royale organised by King of the Web and donated his $47,000 winnings to charity: water.[9]
Notable Contributions
The bulk of Bain's contributions include the videos he uploads to his YouTube channel daily, in which he commentates over footage of both himself and of others playing video games.[10] He also has a separate YouTube channel for Starcraft 2 footage from both interesting public games and of professional matches. [11] He is also very active and a gaming community leader on Twitter. In December 2012, he was vocal in criticizing YouTube administration for not tallying his and other Content Producer's video view counts accurately.
Sponsorships
In February 2012, Bain announced that he would be sponsoring team-dignitas player BlinG, saying "The Starcraft community has given a lot to me and in turn I've had the opportunity to give back with SHOUTcraft Invitational. Now it is time to take it one step further and directly support a UK talent that I believe has the potential to be one of the best foreigners in the world.".[12]
In August 2012, Bain offered to sponsor CranK, formerly a member of team SlayerS, to compete in the MLG Pro Circuit 2012-Summer Championship.[13]
On 26 September 2012 Bain and Genna announced the creation of Axiom ESports, with Bain and HuskyStarcraft as the teams sponsors and CranK, now AxCrank, as their first player.[14]
The current Axiom eSports roster consists of AxCrank, AxAlicia, AxHeart, AxMiya and AxRyung and has banded together with Acer to form team Axiom-Acer, presumably to manage the costs. On February 25th, Axiom announced SC2links.com as a new community sponsor aswell.
References
- ^ a b c d e f Porter, Will. "The cult of TotalBiscuit". Euro Gamer. Retrieved 31 December 2012.
- ^ JP Mcdaniels (2012-06-23). "Real Talk with TotalBiscuit". Retrieved 2013-04-07.
- ^ "The Cynical Brit - Blue Plz". Callisto. Retrieved 31 December 2012.
- ^ Bain, John (2012-04-24). "The Mailbox: April 24th". Retrieved 2012-11-07.
- ^ "Planetside 2 teams up with TotalBiscuit". 2011-05-31. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
- ^ "Golden Joystick Award Winners 2012". Retrieved 2012-11-13.
- ^ http://technorati.com/entertainment/gaming/article/an-interview-with-john-totalbiscuit-bain
- ^ http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-14-the-cult-of-totalbiscuit
- ^ "Battle Royale 2012 results page". Retrieved 2012-11-07.
- ^ "TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brit - YouTube". Retrieved 2013-02-14.
- ^ "TotalBiscuit, StarCraft 2 - YouTube".
- ^ "TotalBiscuit to sponsor BlinG". Retrieved 2012-11-15.
- ^ "Crank Offered Sponsorship from TotalBiscuit for MLG Raleigh". Retrieved 2012-11-15.
- ^ "Definitive eSports news article- Axiom ESports announced". Retrieved 2012-11-15.
External links
- TotalBiscuit's YouTube channel
- TotalBiscuit's StarCraft II commentary channel
- TotalBiscuit's Liquipedia Page