The Yogscast is a regularly produced double act vlog featuring Lewis Brindley and Simon Lane playing video games online, largely to humorous effect. The series and YouTube personality has attracted over one billion views^[1] on YouTube with over 2,100,000 subscribers as of the 28th of July 2012.^[2][3] As of January 2012, The Yogscast has more than 250 episodes over 8 series.^[4]

Video games featured include Minecraft,^[2] Trine, World of Warcraft, Fallout, Magicka, Rift, Final Fantasy XIV, Portal 2, Fable 3, The Witcher 2, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Dead Island, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Rage, Guild Wars 2, L.A. Noire and more. Also commentaries on new Heroes of Newerth characters.

They attended and covered Gamescom 2011 in Cologne, Germany.

Video Series

Minecraft series

One of the most popular video features of The Yogscast is the Minecraft Series.^[2] In December of 2010, Simon and Lewis began an ongoing series of Let's play-style Minecraft survival multiplayer videos. As the series progressed, however, it evolved into a partially scripted drama. The Yogscast then expanded to produce video coverage of Minecraft updates, and shorter series' consisting of Simon and Lewis taking on custom "challenge" and "adventure" maps. As their videos began to slowly rise in popularity, they branched out to review mods and custom fan-made adventure maps.

"Shadow of Israphel" Saga

The bulk of the Minecraft series is composed of a semi-improvised comedy drama, where Lewis and Simon play the parts of Xephos (portrayed as William Riker) and Honeydew, a dwarf. The series is set in the fictional land of Minecraftia, where Xephos and Honeydew engage NPCs (played by other members of the Yogscast crew) battle the forces of evil. Although the series began as a playthrough, the series has become partially scripted with a large number of creative contributors (including members of The Voxel Box and others).

Where the first episodes were made on a rather small scale involving only a handful of people, the popularity of the series have led to the newer episodes featuring the creative works of dozens of people building structures in Minecraft, creating animations and artwork, accompanied by Daniel Yount’s musical soundtrack written specifically for the Yogscast.

Non-canonical and Flashback videos

A variety of non-canoical Shadow of Israphel videos have been produced by the Yogscast team, including a funeral for the iconic series character "Granny Bacon." A series of flashbacks were also produced entitled "The Legend of Verigan" to raise funds for Child's Play^[5].

World of Warcraft series

The World of Warcraft videos are the first videos released by the Yogscast. These videos were largely how to videos. It wasn't until World of Warcraft: Cataclysm was released that Simon and Lewis began recording play-through videos.

Much of the Yogscast's popularity is due to media and blog coverage of these WoW videos. Joystiq regularly covered Yogscast Warcraft videos as they were released^[6].

Tekkit series

Following Duncan's Tekkit series' success, Lewis, Simon and Duncan began a series of videos using the popular Technic pack to achieve a vague goal of mass producing Jaffa Cakes (cookies). Guided by the much more experienced Duncan, the trio slowly establish a base of operations in which they plan to undergo production. They are quickly joined by Sjin, an employee of Sips Co, presumably owned by Sips himself. Although not present early on, he soon makes an appearance as the companies' demanding boss.

The YoGPoD

The Yogscast's podcast is an irregular feature of the Yogscast since the first episode "Snowcast" aired on May 2, 2009. Episodes have become popular among the Yogscast audience as they contain the unfiltered and uncensored humour and spontaneity that has become hallmark of the Yogscast. The episodes feature Simon and Lewis discussing games, movies, their daily lives, and current happenings, among other topics. In several episodes they are joined by Chris Lovasz (known as Sips), Hannah Rutherford (known as Lomadia), as well as other persona of varying fame.^[7]

'Letters from the Yognau(gh)ts' is a recurring theme in which Lewis reads correspondence to the show. The nature of the letters are often slightly disturbing.

YogTrailers

YogTrailers is a piece produced by Simon and Lewis in which the two provide a commentary over video game trailers.

Claims to Minecraft's success

In an October 2011 interview with EDGE, Lewis is quoted as saying, "The entire game has had $0 spent on PR yet has sold 3.5 million copies - I think a large part of that is due to us." Although Notch fails to identify The Yogscast as a key component in the sales of Minecraft, a large amount of them have been due their many videos related to the franchise. ^[8]

The Yogventures Video Game

In late February 2012, Kickstarter listed a new entry, the Yogventures! video game. In association with Winterkewl Games LLC, the Yogscast asked for $250,000 to develop this new game. Within a couple weeks, the goal had been reached, and by May 6th, 2012, over $500,000 had been raised.^[9]

The game is described as an open world sandbox game, designed as a multiplayer experience where players can create and shape worlds.

unfortunately a release date has not been set as of 4/10/13

Controversies

Minecon 2011

The Yogscast team attended MineCon and had their very own panel,^[2] where they were set to answer questions but instead showed videos. After their stay at Minecon, Notch criticised The Yogscast team over profanity they had used in the Minecon videos in front of some younger fans and for unprofessional behavior^[10]. The Yogscast responded to the accusations on Reddit and via a YouTube video. ^[11]

Notch later redacted his accusations and attributed his statements to stress. Many Yogscast fans remained angry with Notch and his allegations towards the popular group. ^{[12] [13]}

2012 Staff controversy

In March of 2012, Peva and Pirate Tinman---two Yogscast crew members---were terminated by Yogscast crew member and Voxelbox director Ridgedog. Peva accused Yogscast staff of unprofessional behavior and claimed that his removal was the result of a miscommunication.

Ridgedog responded to Peva's claims with accusations that Peva did not contribute to the team. When faced with termination, Peva threatened to release private Yogscast information and passwords and began posting private conversations and disparaging remarks about the Yogscast management on Reddit and Twitter. ^[14] These posts have since been removed.

Lewis Brindley has since provided a full writeup on the Yogscast website. He claims that evidence exists that Pirate Tinman stole over $18,000 from the Yogcast by funneling advertising and site membership fees into his personal AdSense and PayPal accounts. Lewis also claims that Peva was dismissed for "repeatedly being abusive to other members of staff and threatening to release our passwords and personal information." ^[15]

Charity

In April, 2011, Simon and Lewis held a telethon-style livestreaming event to raise money for Child's Play through QubeTubers^[16].

For the 2011 holiday season, the Yogscast team raised money for Oxfam to "send locally sourced and vaccinated goats to families living in poverty" ^[17] through livestreams of a variety of video games. As of May 2012, a total of £63,779.61 was raised, exceeding the target goal of £60,000.^[18]

The Yogscast was named JustGiving's 2012 Most Popular Fundraiser.^[19]

Lewis and Simon took part in a Team Fortress 2 Celebrity Showmatch to raise money for charity mid July 2012.

References

External Links

• The Yogscast homepage
• The Yogscast wiki
• The BlueXephos YouTube channel