This post was originally planned for Friday to coincide with the whole #FF thing, but (surprisingly) the Dragon's Crown review is taking a little longer and a bit more brain-power than previously anticipated. So in the interim I've decided to do a little something I've been considering for a bit. Below is a list of people in the video game journalism/lifestyle community "thing" that have inspired me and eventually lead me to start up Zero Tolerance Games. They're all awesome people that have great thoughts and insights to the gaming world and I highly suggest paying them some attention (on twitter or otherwise).
Jim Sterling (@JimSterling) - Introduced to me through his video series Jimquisition on The Escapist, Jim is also a journalist over at Destructoid, part of the weekly Podtoid group, and has his own Let's Play series called Now Bloody Playing on youtube. While most Jimquisitions are focused on negative or could-be-improved aspects of the gaming industry, the man does give some very fair scores in his reviews and does a great job of seeing the best in everything. He also waves around rubber sex toys on camera.
Grey Carter (@GreyTheTick) - Writer for the webcomic Critical Miss and freelance game journalist, Grey is a very cynical sarcastic individual who's humor I appreciate very much. His tweets are occasionally funny and often rather insightful. Most importantly, Grey is a harsh judge when it comes to gaming. Games don't deserve an instant 7/10 for just existing and his grading scale starts at 0 and goes up, instead of starting at 10 and marking down. Personally, I find harsh critiques to be the best, since it shows me the flaws in a game and allows me to ponder whether or not those particular flaws are things that I can overlook or embrace or if they're dealbreakers.
Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw (@YahtzeeCroshaw) - Famous for his Zero Punctuation series of audio/video reviews, Yahtzee is pretty much the singular reason I finally ended up getting Zero Tolerance off the ground. I figured that if some angry Brit could rant about games on the internet, pointing out each individual flaw and mocking them for it, that I could start a blog doing roughly the same thing. As my writing has developed, I've found that I've gotten a) a little less harsh and b) tend to play good games or games that I enjoy a lot more than shelling out money for crap that I can't stand just to blog about it.
Warren Ellis (@warrenellis) - British writer Warren Ellis is technically the other 50% of why I finally started Zero Tolerance. His comic series Transmetropolitan follows rogue journalist Spider Jerusalem on a quest for truth in a nameless city in a dystopian future. More absurd mockery and less gritty cyberpunk, Transmetropolitan also kick-started my desire to criticize the games industry as well as the games themselves.
With any luck, this piece has offered you some insight into the mind and origins of one of us driving forces here at Zero Tolerance Games. We're not corporately funded, we don't have any backing or make any money doing this. We do this for the love of gaming and the love of the industry, even when it's spending all its time and money fucking things up. These people are just a couple that help inspire that passion.
-Nik "Latency" Trumble
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