John Bain

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Bain (2012)

John Bain (born July 8, 1984 in Spennymoor , County Durham , England ; † May 24, 2018 ) alias TotalBiscuit and Cynical Brit was a British computer game critic and commentator, who was mainly active on the video platform YouTube . In addition, he was e-sports - shoutcaster and organizer of StarCraft II tournaments.

Life

YouTube career

Bain, who worked primarily in financial advisory , also began his podcasting career on World of Warcraft Radio from 2005 to 2010. After the group ended, he began soloing with Cynicalbrit.com, expanding the content to games in general. At that time, he and the financial advisory firm split. While he was looking for work, he hoped with videos about the then new expansion World of Warcraft: Cataclysm to attract enough visitors to his website to at least pay the rent with advertising income, but he got more video views than expected. Due to the success of his videos, the YouTube network GameStation - later renamed Polaris - noticed him and offered to monetize his videos. Since his first paycheck exceeded that of the employer at the time, he saw this as a unique opportunity and decided to take this new opportunity seriously. Bain sees his personality and honesty as reasons for his success. More traditional game receptions would be less trusted and modern gamers would turn away from them. He also saw the fact that he could afford to speak openly about his personal inclinations and incorporate them into his content as a strength that set him apart from the traditional critic, who as a journalist tries to have a neutral point of view.

The most successful format on the channel are the WTF is ... videos, in which Bain gave his first impressions of newly released computer games and could walk for up to an hour. This idea was inspired by Giant Bombs Quick Look previews, which could also last an hour with barely edited raw material. The length of his videos poses two problems. On the one hand, there would be the traditional rule that viewers would prefer short videos, which in his case would have turned out to be wrong. Also, companies that are unsure about the success of their product would not allow YouTubers like Bain to look into it before it appears in order to avoid potential PR damage and to keep pre-orders as high as possible. In addition to this series, Bain published Let's Play videos, gaming news and podcasts .

In March 2013, his YouTube account reached 1,000,000 subscribers, in June 2017 it was over 2.2 million. He has by far the most subscribers in Steam's curator system .

Cancer

In late May 2014, Bain announced that he had colon cancer . In April 2015, he announced via Twitter that his cancer was cured. On October 15, however, he announced, again via Twitter, that his liver was affected by end-stage cancer and that the disease was untreatable. In January 2016, he announced again via Twitter that the latest examinations had shown a significant reduction in the tumor. In May 2018, he announced via Reddit that his cancer could no longer be treated with conventional chemotherapy and that he would largely withdraw from day-to-day business. Bain said his liver was failing. His wife, who stood by him for most of his adult life, will continue to operate his YouTube channels even after his possible death.

On May 24, 2018, Bain died at the age of 33.

Esports

Axiom esports

Together with his wife Genna Bain, he ran the e-sports team Axiom from September 2012 to October 2015 , with which professional StarCraft 2 players were under contract. In cooperation with Team Acer (under the name Axiom-Acer ) the team won the Global StarCraft II Team League Season 2 2013 . Axiom also took second place in the Acer Teamstory Cup Season 2 (2013). The Axiom players also took top positions in individual tournaments, including Kim “Impact” Joon-hyuk 2014 at DreamHack Bucharest, second place .

The team had several sponsors, including Sony's PlanetSide 2 and the Bitcoin - subreddit .

former players
  • Korea SouthSouth Korea Choi "Crank" Jae-won (2012-2015)
  • Korea SouthSouth Korea Kim "Ryung" Dong-won (2012-2015)
  • Korea SouthSouth Korea Jun "Miya" Jong-bum (2012-2013)
  • Korea SouthSouth Korea Yang "Alicia" Joon-sik (2013-2015)
  • Korea SouthSouth Korea Kim "Heart" Min-hyuk (2013-2015)
  • Korea SouthSouth Korea Kim "Impact" Joon-hyuk (2013-2015)

ShoutCraft Invitationals

In addition to his involvement with Axiom, he organized StarCraft II tournaments under the name ShoutCraft Invitational at irregular intervals .

competition date Prize money winner Second
SHOUTcraft Invitational 1 Jun. 2011 0$ 1,500 PolandPoland Nerchio 4: 2 SwedenSweden MorroW
SHOUTcraft Invitational 2 Jul. 2011 0$ 2,600 GermanyGermany sock 4: 3 CanadaCanada dde
SHOUTcraft Invitational 3 Sep 2011 0$ 5,000 GermanyGermany sock 4: 2 CanadaCanada dde
SHOUTcraft Invitational 4 Jan. 2012 0$ 5,000 FranceFrance Stephano 4-0 SwedenSweden ThorZaIN
SHOUTcraft House of the Swarm Dec 2012 0$ 1,000 Korea SouthSouth Korea Ryung 3: 1 Korea SouthSouth Korea Crank
SHOUTcraft America May 2013 $ 10,000 CanadaCanada Kane 4: 1 United StatesUnited States State
SHOUTcraft America Winter Dec. 2013 0$ 5,000 CanadaCanada HuK 4: 1 CanadaCanada MaSa
Sandisk SHOUTcraft Invitational Jun. 2014 $ 10,000 Korea SouthSouth Korea herO 4: 2 Korea SouthSouth Korea Flash
Sandisk SHOUTcraft Invitational II Nov 2015 $ 20,000 Korea SouthSouth Korea Solar 4: 1 Korea SouthSouth Korea TY

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Hy Quan Quach: News - TotalBiscuit: Gaming personality John Bain is dead. In: Gamona. STRÖER Media Brands GmbH, May 25, 2018, accessed on May 25, 2018 .
  2. ↑ E-Sports: The Geek as Entertainer
  3. ↑ a b Alex Calvin: WTF is ... TotalBiscuit? In: MCV. NewBay Media, LLC, May 6, 2014, accessed March 15, 2018 .
  4. ^ VLOG - 1 million subscribers youtube.com
  5. ↑ Steam curators. In: Steam . Valve Corporation , accessed October 25, 2018 (display language depends on browser).
  6. ↑ Tobias Ritter: TotalBiscuit - YouTube star John Bain has cancer. In: GameStar . International Data Group , May 27, 2014, accessed April 11, 2015 .
  7. ↑ ibitimes: Youtuber Totalbiscuit diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer
  8. ↑ https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/689862075347238912
  9. ^ John Bain: [Official] - TotalBiscuits future. In: Cynical Brit. reddit inc., May 1, 2018, accessed May 1, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Nathan Grayson: Game Critic Total Biscuit Dies At 33. In: Kotaku. Gawker Media , May 24, 2018, accessed May 25, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Axiom comes to an end ( Memento from January 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), axiomesports.com, October 15, 2015.
  12. ↑ Planetside 2 Announced as Premier Sponsor ( March 16, 2016 memento in the Internet Archive ), axiomesports.com, March 18, 2013
  13. ↑ Announcing / r / Bitcoin Sponsorship! ( Memento of March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), axiomesports.com, April 5, 2014.
  14. ↑ Axiom wiki.teamliquid.net
  15. ↑ Shout Craft / Invitational wiki.teamliquid.net
  16. ↑ SHOUTcraft / Regional wiki.teamliquid.net
personal data
SURNAME Bain, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES TotalBiscuit (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British computer game critic and commentator
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1984
PLACE OF BIRTH Spennymoor , County Durham , England
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 2018