Zero Punctuation star Yahtzee Croshaw quits after 16 years

1 year ago 63

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A cartoon character made up of simple white shapes with a bold black outline and two dots for eyes. His head has a white trilby hat on top. He's against a yellow sunburst background, his posture is very straight.

The star of long-running videogame review series Zero Punctuation has quit after 16 years.

Ben Croshaw, known as Yahtzee, was famous for his very fast, very rude, quickfire opinions on the latest games.

His five-minute videos featuring crude cartoon characters were a weekly feature on gaming site The Escapist.

But Yahtzee announced he was quitting the site with several colleagues after their editor-in-chief Nick Calandra was fired.

He said he wouldn't be taking the Zero Punctuation name with him, but fans would hear his voice again "soon, in a new place".

Zero Punctuation, launched in 2007, is The Escapist's most popular feature, with videos from the series comfortably outranking others on its YouTube channel.

It became popular thanks to Yahtzee's politically incorrect scripting and his swipes at games that were praised by other gaming sites.

Some people accused the British journalist of airing controversial opinions to be edgy, but many were fans of his no-holds-barred approach.

He received backlash for his views on certain titles, most notably The Last of Us: Part 2 and Super Smash Bros Brawl.

Yahtzee's departure followed Calandra's, who said he was fired by The Escapist's parent company Gamurs for "not achieving goals that were never properly set out for us".

The pair were followed out of the door by a number of colleagues, most of them from the site's video team.

After Yahtzee's announcement, many fans praised his contribution to The Escapist, with one saying: "You were the only part of the site i cared about."

Another added: "You've been carrying that whole brand for the better part of a decade."

Calandra later thanked followers for the "insane" outpouring of support shown since he announced his firing, and said the team would announce a new project soon.

BBC Newsbeat's contacted Gamurs for comment.

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