TotalBiscuit retires - health failing

CritialGaming

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https://www.reddit.com/r/cynicalbritofficial/comments/8g4eoj/official_totalbiscuits_future/

Love him or hate him, TotalBiscuit has announced today that he has reached a point in his health in which he can no longer continue to do his job. This comes after a long up and down battle with liver cancer, in which he had been told a coupe of years ago it had a low survival chance. Now it looks like things are reaching endgame.

Personally I am saddened by this news. TB had been a big part of my life, even though he doesn't have any clue who I am. I listened to him on Wow-radio, watched the Co-Optional podcast since day one, every WTF is, I mean I have consumed everything he has ever put up on offer outside of Starcraft commentary. He kept me entertained on long commutes to and from work, kept my mind busy while playing endless hours of WoW, and I'll never forget any of it.

Like I said before, love him or hate him, it is hard to argue with the influence he has had in both the gaming world and the way Youtube has evolved throughout the years. His brutally honest opinions of dogshit PC ports have made developers improve the PC as a gaming platform, while his influence might not have been the deciding factor, the attention he brought to poor PC options and frame rates have impacted the improvement of PC games and ports over the years.

Frankly, I will miss him. I already do, considering he hasn't done have real content in months, I wish him and his family all the best.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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The only thing I remember about Biscuitdoughhandsman is that he took the PC gaming master race literally and only played games in 1080p, 60FPS PC release will full graphic options - everything else was just riffraff.
So I never really took what he said too seriously.

Also if I remember correctly, he was against pre-ordering, which is cool. That's a cool thing.
 

Aerosteam

Get out while you still can
Sep 22, 2011
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Huh, it's approaching exactly 6 years I've started watching his videos, the first being WTF Is... - Revelations 2012 ? on 11 May 2012. Since then he's been big influence on how I approach both playing games and developing them, and the podcast has kept me entertained for hundreds of hours. I'm going to be so upset when he goes.
 

CaitSeith

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I knew this was bound to happen sooner or later. But, damn! It doesn't make it less sad.

Does that mean I'm done with Youtube and Twitch? Nope, blokes gotta make a living. I have a family to consider and there's no such thing as "too much" when it comes to what I leave them when I go out kicking and screaming. I want to spend the rest of my time with the two things I love the most, my family and my work.

What about Co-optional? Well that's sticking around. The show must go on after all. We will be moving forward with our proposal to shorten the show to 2 hours per episode however.
Still, it seems the world hasn't yet heard the last of TB. He should quit from everything and do nothing but rest, or he may suffer liver failure at mid podcast.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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I am gonna be that guy and this is out of dissapointment.

Though I still pity him for his cancer and does not wish anyone to suffer it.

I have long since stopped caring about Totalbiscuit for awhile, especially when it comes to his content. This was the guy that used to push PC gaming out of the rut it was in the late 2000s. Every WTF games he reviewed was either games I am excited for and happy to see, and games that is just hilarious how broken it is.

But then his taste for games changed after awhile, like more and more and more he just started to review obscure as fuck indie games, most of them all these sprite based games with very simplistic gameplay and I am like, "What is this TB? I can play this on Xbox Live Arcade, why are you covering this?" it reached a catalyst when he then refuse to give Witcher 3 any ackwoledgement, the most highly anticipated PC game ever (even though it was multiplatform, its roots was in PC gaming) and he didn't even gave an award to it because of petty political reasons that I honestly don't care about (as in not politics regarding Social Justice mind you)

And then there is him shutting down comments, and to be frank it was one of the worst mistakes he has ever made and hypocritical of him at times, the official story of him doing that as far as I know was that Google was trying to merge Youtube and Google Accounts into one whole Mega-account and this caused a lot of ire in youtube, TB protested by shutting down comments, but since then, people stopped caring, but TB hasn't restored comments, instead prompting to use reddit instead making communication with him more inconviniant then it actually was.

And then there's his co-optional podcast and his friends and honestly, I never liked Jesse Cox and the female who's name eludes me at the moment, especially Cox because he talks way too much and TB doesn't talk at all, and Cox is no where near as cool as TB was.

In the end I just think Totalbiscuit lost his edge in recent times, he used to be cool, now he became lame as time went on, so I will miss the man he used to be, not the man he later became.
 

Bedinsis

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I'm sad to hear that his survival prospects have worsened. I stopped watching him when he stopped doing WTFs, but I'm still sad that he has reached this point. I hope he will live for many years still.

Samtemdo8 said:
it reached a catalyst when he then refuse to give Witcher 3 any ackwoledgement, the most highly anticipated PC game ever (even though it was multiplatform, its roots was in PC gaming) and he didn't even gave an award to it because of petty political reasons that I honestly don't care about (as in not politics regarding Social Justice mind you)
What reasons were they?
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Bedinsis said:
I'm sad to hear that his survival prospects have worsened. I stopped watching him when he stopped doing WTFs, but I'm still sad that he has reached this point. I hope he will live for many years still.

Samtemdo8 said:
it reached a catalyst when he then refuse to give Witcher 3 any ackwoledgement, the most highly anticipated PC game ever (even though it was multiplatform, its roots was in PC gaming) and he didn't even gave an award to it because of petty political reasons that I honestly don't care about (as in not politics regarding Social Justice mind you)
What reasons were they?
From his perspective, CD Projeckt RED/GOG.com is one of TB's advertisers, and he thinks reviwing the game or giving it GOTY or any awards would be considered un-ethical like those reviewers giving 10/10s while being paid off by by EA..


IMO, who cares, I wanna see you review this game in terms of specs and bugs, even paid off reviews still has to ackwoledge when a game is broken.
 

Hades

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Its a shame but not very surprising. I hadn't watched his content for a while when watching his end of the year video and I was startled with how weak his voice had gotten.
 

Elvis Starburst

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Samtemdo8 said:
From his perspective, CD Projeckt RED/GOG.com is one of TB's advertisers, and he thinks reviwing the game or giving it GOTY or any awards would be considered un-ethical like those reviewers giving 10/10s while being paid off by by EA..


IMO, who cares, I wanna see you review this game in terms of specs and bugs, even paid off reviews still has to acknowledge when a game is broken.
That sounds like he actually has enough character to acknowledge potential bias, and didn't want to give an award to a game that had the risk of that. I'd call that having plenty of integrity for his work, honestly. The video part is a bit whack though, I'll give you that
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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Elvis Starburst said:
Samtemdo8 said:
From his perspective, CD Projeckt RED/GOG.com is one of TB's advertisers, and he thinks reviwing the game or giving it GOTY or any awards would be considered un-ethical like those reviewers giving 10/10s while being paid off by by EA..


IMO, who cares, I wanna see you review this game in terms of specs and bugs, even paid off reviews still has to acknowledge when a game is broken.
That sounds like he actually has enough character to acknowledge potential bias, and didn't want to give an award to a game that had the risk of that. I'd call that having plenty of integrity for his work, honestly. The video part is a bit whack though, I'll give you that
To be fair I think he could have gotten away with an upfront acknowledgement that GOG is a sponsor, and he paid for the game out-of-pocket and his fans would have been okay with it.
I admire his desire to remain 'clean' as it were, but walling off the 2nd largest PC gaming store when you're a PC gaming reviewer seems a little much.
 

fix-the-spade

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I had assumed things were not going well when he stopped appearing on Co-Optional. Very sad that things have gotten to this point, although he pointed out on Reddit that he has already passed the normal life expectancy for bowel cancer by some margin. Small comfort that that is.


Silentpony said:
The only thing I remember about Biscuitdoughhandsman is that he took the PC gaming master race literally and only played games in 1080p, 60FPS PC release will full graphic options
The obsession with 60fps stems from his suffering motion sickness. In some games (like X-com, Hearthstone and so on) a lower frame rate didn't overly bother him. For any game that involves rapid motion like a First Person Shooter the frame rate becomes more critical, below 60 and he couldn't play for any length of time without feeling like keeling over. It's a relatively common issue and one of the critical one with VR, so he's hardly unique in that respect.
 

Callate

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I'm sorry to hear of it. He had a lot of insightful things to say, and his voice will be missed.

It feels like he's been keeping at work for longer than many had expected, given his diagnosis, but I suppose this day had to come eventually.

I hope he can spend his remaining time in comfort with his family and find peace.
 

Souplex

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That guy... I've heard he exists because Jim Sterling mentions him from time to time. As far as I can tell he's a lesser Jim. So long as Jim's health holds I'll be fine.
 

DarthCoercis

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undeadsuitor said:
Sad to see the guy go even if it's really ironic [https://twitter.com/totalbiscuit/status/5480297275]
I was going to say something rude and dismissive to you about digging up and replying to a 9 year old tweet, but really, that's just sad.

----------

On topic, I'm going to miss TB. Always enjoyed his content, even when I didn't agree with some of his opinions.
 
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It's a shame some people will remember TB as an asshole.

He was an asshole in a sea of assholes, where everyone is pretending they aren't assholes but the other guy is. He admitted he could not stop reading negative criticism, hence why he disabled comments. He admitted to hating his fanbase, to what degree depends on your opinion of him.

I remember when his subreddit turned on him when he tweeted "This is why we don't link to the subreddit anymore" for a thread of a DragonCon booth podcast, where almost every single comment was attacking a 10 year old child in the audience for her weird laugh. His fans went apeshit at the mere insinuation of a lecturing, and I don't know, maybe making such comments and upvoting them where said child could possibly see that thread, is an asshole thing to do?

But they dodged that shit, saying things like "How dare you generalize the whole subreddit community", or "We were complaining about the audio quality", or "We were complaining about letting a child into the audience of a pg-17 podcast", and saying all kinds of vile shit that was just safe enough to follow the subreddit rules.

Then when TB mentally broke down and apologized, the fans said shit like "TB needs to learn how to not overreact and ignore bad apples." These people have no ability for introspection. They are entitled, self-important pricks.

His enemies, holy shit, were they petty, deluded, and insane, denouncing him for linking to a charity, posting bullshit articles like "TB has an Axe to Grind with Minorities" on Polygon, and making up shit about him because he publicly supported GG. When he defended Laura against his subreddit, they still said TB was still a transphobe, the broken clock being right cliche. These people were so far down the GG rabbit hole, it's amazing the lengths they go to hate him. They made him the Leader of GG when he wasn't, and couldn't let it go.
 

bartholen_v1legacy

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Jan 24, 2009
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Can't say I ever watched his content. A couple of vids, didn't elicit much of a reaction from me in any direction. I do remember him going into weirdly specific and long-winded detail about graphics customization options in every video I watched. Love or hate him, he has been a central voice in the gaming community and has a large following, and that vacuum will be filled. By who remains to be seen.

I recently stumbled across this youtube channel called "The Completionist". At first it seemed like it was about trophy guides and how absurd some trophies can be. But no. It's just another review channel, and one I'm not sure isn't generated by an algorithm because the content is so banal, so by the books, so generic, so devoid of personality or creativity that it creates this paradox of mediocrity: the fact that the content creates no response whatsoever itself creates a very strong response of annoyance. Plus it's another example on my list of what constitutes corporate shill manchild hype culture. No original ideas, only reviewing the most well known games, overly excited voice, no personality... and this hack has 900k subscribers.