Alright. I don't represent Totalbiscuit or anything, but it's good to understand his style and his merits before criticizing him.
Firstly, his content patches are done without script. Maybe he has points jotted down somewhere, or a list of important things he must talk about, but as far as I know and he claims, there is no script for his videos. I trust that as sometimes he repeats himself but in a paraphrase and other "live" commentary quirks.
Second, he makes his living off ad revenue(in youtube). Acknowledging this fact, he has to accommodate his fanbase. He dislikes and constantly puts down fanatic followers who deride others and defend their subscribed channels without substantiation(thus calling them "fanboys" - immaturity and fanaticism) but accepts feedback from the more opinionated and "intelligent"(at least, having some proper reasoning skills) fans. This is evident in his recent E3 videos, which were flops and he tried to grasp his viewership back by asking and in effect pleading with his viewers to tell him what's up. He knows youtube is a popularity contest. He avoids that by providing quality, with the popularity coming from the officiousness of his character(by attending events, commentating Starcraft 2 at invitationals and international events.) rather than pandering and creating a cult of personality like pewdiepie does.
Third, he leads an inherently risky life. Making money off advertising means retaining the 100k views on every video that he puts out. He has to support a family, an esports team(though also supported by his wife, genna) and further his career(which also costs money in trips, equipment.) It's not simple living as John Bain and you have to first respect his willpower for pulling through such circumstances(albeit with help, but more power to him.) He is the cynicalbrit to a point where it helps him maintain his quality. It's not forced where it's NYEH, everything is bad, bad, bad. It simply taking a critical point towards certain features a game should have and focusing down the bad points. Cynics tend to focus on negatives, and most people sub to see the negatives to the games he impressions or the negatives of certain gaming news.
Fourth, he has a framework. Assuming he has no script, there are certain things that are go-to for him. The options menu, for example, is one such thing. He, as a consumer, expects PC games to support FOV and other features to exploit the PC architecture, rather than LOW MED HIGH and BUTTON LAYOUT 1,2,3. He doesn't support this, and feels it cheapens how PC games should be. He wants improvement for PC games in general, and thus has his standards. The FOV argument is always valid no matter how you see it, the PC is much closer to your face, and you want to see more. You can't treat it like a console game with 70 FOV.
I personally support the critical aspect of his videos. I do wish that more people had some critical thinking in their lives, at least towards their own welfare. We all have to be a bit selfish to protect ourselves; that much is understandable. Too many people in my live take things for granted and that's why I feel there is a distinct lack of the kind of thinking more people should have.
Perhaps it would help people understand John Bain as a person if they took his kind of life into account. We all have our flaws, and in his line of work, there is no superior, there is only the audience. Who else can he turn to?
