92-672: Benjamin Richard " Yahtzee " Croshaw (born 24 May 1983) is a British journalist, video game critic, author, comedian, humourist, video game developer, and audiobook narrator. He is best known for his video game review series Zero Punctuation , which he produced for The Escapist from 2007 to 2023, and its spiritual successor Fully Ramblomatic , which he releases through Second Wind . Croshaw has developed and released over two dozen indie games , including both freeware and commercial titles. He has also published six novels through Dark Horse Books . Outside of creative works, Croshaw
184-529: A Creative Commons license. The resulting cultural product is then available to download free (generally accessible) to anyone with an Internet connection. Older, analog technologies such as the telephone or television have limitations on the kind of interaction users can have. Through various technologies such as peer-to-peer networks and blogs , cultural producers can take advantage of vast social networks to distribute their products. As opposed to traditional media distribution, redistributing digital media on
276-720: A derivative work —such as a copy of a software program modified to fix a bug or add a feature, or a remix of a song—but are unable or unwilling to pay the copyright holder for the right to do so. Being organized as effectively a " consumers' cooperative ", open source eliminates some of the access costs of consumers and creators of derivative works by reducing the restrictions of copyright. Basic economic theory predicts that lower costs would lead to higher consumption and also more frequent creation of derivative works. Organizations such as Creative Commons host websites where individuals can file for alternative "licenses", or levels of restriction, for their works. These self-made protections free
368-486: A subjective artistic standpoint." Today, I formally resigned from The Escapist and Gamurs . I don't have the rights to Zero Punctuation, but whatever happens you'll be hearing my voice again soon, in a new place. Join this discord for updates in the coming days: On 6 November 2023, Croshaw announced his resignation from The Escapist alongside other colleagues following the abrupt firing of editor-in-chief Nick Calandra that same day, effectively ending Zero Punctuation as
460-428: A 2014 Vice interview, Croshaw disclosed that he had been asked to pitch a script for the then-in-development Duke Nukem Forever by a producer. He did so, however the script was rejected due to not fitting the producer's vision of Duke Nukem as a character. Croshaw had earlier in 2003 made a horror-themed total conversion mod for the original Duke Nukem 3D called Age of Evil . In 2015, Croshaw released
552-482: A computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use for any (including commercial) purpose, or modification from its original design. Open-source code is meant to be a collaborative effort, where programmers improve upon the source code and share the changes within the community. Code is released under the terms of a software license . Depending on the license terms, others may then download, modify, and publish their version (fork) back to
644-422: A computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use or modification from its original design. Code is released under the terms of a software license . Depending on the license terms, others may then download, modify, and publish their version (fork) back to the community. Many large formal institutions have sprung up to support the development of the open-source movement, including
736-517: A game but rather saw it as "congealed failure." In his 2008 review of The Witcher , Croshaw sarcastically referred to the PC gaming community as "the glorious PC gaming master race ", intending to criticize the perceived elitist attitudes in that community. The phrase has since become an internet meme , and has been appropriated and championed by that community. In a 2018 review of Kingdom Come: Deliverance , Croshaw explained that he regretted calling
828-548: A game in a highly critical manner using rapid-fire speech delivery accompanied by minimalistic cartoon imagery and animation on a distinctive yellow background, which illustrates what is being said or provides an ironic counterpoint to it. Subtle references or jokes may be inserted to the visuals for comic effect or to add additional context to the narration. His reviews are intended to be humorous with constant usage of puns, analogies, metaphors, and dark humour accompanied by frequent use of profanity . Croshaw usually substitutes
920-514: A game. Video games, developers, countries, and other entities are often anthropomorphized as box arts, logos, or flags, respectively, with arms and legs. Croshaw often allegorizes jokes, game details, or video game industry activities with references to, or commentaries on popular culture , politics, and history. Zero Punctuation opens and closes with a theme song , a rock track composed and performed by Ian Dorsch. The ending credits usually feature humorous notes or other information relating to
1012-520: A meeting held at Palo Alto, California , in reaction to Netscape 's announcement in January 1998 of a source code release for Navigator . Linus Torvalds gave his support the following day, and Phil Hughes backed the term in Linux Journal . Richard Stallman , the founder of the free software foundation (FSF) in 1985, quickly decided against endorsing the term. The FSF's goal was to promote
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#17327649551271104-512: A metaphor that was viewed as transphobic . Croshaw agreed with the criticism and apologized, expressing regret towards making the statement. The offending remark was retroactively omitted from the video. Croshaw was one of the founders of the Mana Bar , a video gaming lounge in Brisbane that operated from 2010 until 2015. Croshaw's popularity through Zero Punctuation has been credited with
1196-465: A more commercially minded position. In addition, the ambiguity of the term "free software" was seen as discouraging business adoption. However, the ambiguity of the word "free" exists primarily in English as it can refer to cost. The group included Christine Peterson , Todd Anderson, Larry Augustin , Jon Hall , Sam Ockman , Michael Tiemann and Eric S. Raymond . Peterson suggested "open source" at
1288-452: A more nuanced position than corporations have traditionally sought. Instead of seeing intellectual property law as an expression of instrumental rules intended to uphold either natural rights or desirable outcomes, an argument for OSC takes into account diverse goods (as in "the Good life" ) and ends. Sites such as ccMixter offer up free web space for anyone willing to license their work under
1380-452: A new version of the game was released on Steam , which included new features. In May 2019, Croshaw began a new video series called Dev Diary , wherein he would develop 12 freeware games over the course of a year. His latest game, Starstruck Vagabond , was announced for a 2024 release, and ultimately came out on Steam on May 24, 2024. It received a positive review from Screen Rant , and a mixed review from Hardcore Gamer. Yahtzee does all
1472-483: A product (or service) of economic value, which they make available to contributors and noncontributors alike." This definition captures multiple instances, all joined by similar principles. For example, all of the elements – goods of economic value, open access to contribute and consume, interaction and exchange, purposeful yet loosely coordinated work – are present in an open-source software project, in Misplaced Pages, or in
1564-532: A product's design or blueprint, and universal redistribution of that design or blueprint. Before the phrase open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of other terms, such as free software , shareware , and public domain software . Open source gained hold with the rise of the Internet. The open-source software movement arose to clarify copyright , licensing , domain , and consumer issues. Generally, open source refers to
1656-406: A product's design or blueprint, and universal redistribution of that design or blueprint. Before the phrase open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of other terms. Open source gained hold in part due to the rise of the Internet. The open-source software movement arose to clarify copyright , licensing , domain , and consumer issues. An open-source license
1748-457: A product, movie or CD. By removing the cultural middlemen, messageboards help speed the flow of information and exchange of ideas. OpenDocument is an open document file format for saving and exchanging editable office documents such as text documents (including memos, reports, and books), spreadsheets , charts, and presentations. Organizations and individuals that store their data in an open format such as OpenDocument avoid being locked into
1840-420: A product. Copyright creates a monopoly so that the price charged to consumers can be significantly higher than the marginal cost of production. This allows the author to recoup the cost of making the original work. Copyright thus creates access costs for consumers who value the work more than the marginal cost but less than the initial production cost. Access costs also pose problems for authors who wish to create
1932-411: A proprietary license and charge for copies, or an open license. Some goods which require large amounts of professional research and development, such as the pharmaceutical industry (which depends largely on patents, not copyright for intellectual property protection) are almost exclusively proprietary, although increasingly sophisticated technologies are being developed on open-source principles. There
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#17327649551272024-524: A real time conversation online) and image uploading. Some messageboards use phpBB , which is a free open-source package. Where blogs are more about individual expression and tend to revolve around their authors, messageboards are about creating a conversation amongst its users where information can be shared freely and quickly. Messageboards are a way to remove intermediaries from everyday life—for instance, instead of relying on commercials and other forms of advertising, one can ask other users for frank reviews of
2116-484: A requirement to preserve the name of the authors and a copyright statement within the code, or a requirement to redistribute the licensed software only under the same license (as in a copyleft license). One popular set of open-source software licenses are those approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) based on their Open Source Definition (OSD). Social and political views have been affected by
2208-625: A series. Two days later, Calandra and Croshaw announced the creation of Second Wind , a new outlet on which Croshaw would continue weekly video-reviews under the title Fully Ramblomatic . Croshaw's first publicly released game was the Arthur Yahtzee trilogy created in Visual Basic 3 and released in 1998. He also wrote a selection of interactive fiction games through Z-Code , including Offensive Probing , Arthur Yahtzee: The Curse of Hell's Cheesecake , The Sorceror's Appraisal , and
2300-472: A single software vendor, leaving them free to switch software if their current vendor goes out of business, raises their prices, changes their software, or changes their licensing terms to something less favorable. Open-source movie production is either an open call system in which a changing crew and cast collaborate in movie production, a system in which the result is made available for re-use by others or in which exclusively open-source products are used in
2392-671: A software format, is published and made available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify and redistribute the hardware and source code without paying royalties or fees. Open-source hardware evolves through community cooperation. These communities are composed of individual hardware/software developers, hobbyists, as well as very large companies. Examples of open-source hardware initiatives are: Some publishers of open-access journals have argued that data from food science and gastronomy studies should be freely available to aid reproducibility . A number of people have published creative commons licensed recipe books. An open-source robot
2484-416: A technology that makes webpages easily updatable with no understanding of design, code, or file transfer required. While corporations, political campaigns and other formal institutions have begun using these tools to distribute information, many blogs are used by individuals for personal expression, political organizing, and socializing. Some, such as LiveJournal or WordPress , use open-source software that
2576-405: A user forum or community. They can also be present in a commercial website that is based on user-generated content . In all of these instances of open collaboration, anyone can contribute and anyone can freely partake in the fruits of sharing, which are produced by interacting participants who are loosely coordinated. An annual conference dedicated to the research and practice of open collaboration
2668-413: A vote, and the winner was announced at a press conference the same evening. Some economists agree that open-source is an information good or "knowledge good" with original work involving a significant amount of time, money, and effort. The cost of reproducing the work is low enough that additional users may be added at zero or near zero cost – this is referred to as the marginal cost of
2760-418: Is peer production , with products such as source code, blueprints , and documentation freely available to the public. The open source movement in software began as a response to the limitations of proprietary code . The model is used for projects such as in open source appropriate technology , and open source drug discovery. Open source promotes universal access via an open-source or free license to
2852-401: Is peer production , with products such as source code, blueprints , and documentation freely available to the public. The open-source movement in software began as a response to the limitations of proprietary code. The model is used for projects such as in open-source appropriate technology , and open-source drug discovery. The open-source model for software development inspired the use of
Yahtzee Croshaw - Misplaced Pages Continue
2944-409: Is a robot whose blueprints, schematics, or source code are released under an open-source model Free and open-source software (FOSS) or free/libre and open-source software (FLOSS) is openly shared source code that is licensed without any restrictions on usage, modification, or distribution. Confusion persists about this definition because the "free", also known as "libre", refers to the freedom of
3036-414: Is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code , blueprint or design to be used, modified or shared (with or without modification) under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial companies to review and modify the source code, blueprint or design for their own customization, curiosity or troubleshooting needs. Open-source licensed software
3128-404: Is evidence that open-source development creates enormous value. For example, in the context of open-source hardware design, digital designs are shared for free and anyone with access to digital manufacturing technologies (e.g. RepRap 3D printers) can replicate the product for the cost of materials. The original sharer may receive feedback and potentially improvements on the original design from
3220-401: Is mostly available free of charge, though this does not necessarily have to be the case. Licenses which only permit non-commercial redistribution or modification of the source code for personal use only are generally not considered as open-source licenses. However, open-source licenses may have some restrictions, particularly regarding the expression of respect to the origin of software, such as
3312-971: Is one of TV's main competitors". Croshaw was one of four founders of the Mana Bar, an Australian cocktail bar and video gaming lounge. The bar initially opened in Brisbane in 2010, with a second venue opening in Melbourne in 2011. By May 2015, both venues had closed. In the text these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡): Zero Punctuation Zero Punctuation is a series of video game reviews created by English comedy writer and video game journalist Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw . From its inception in 2007, episodes were published weekly by internet magazine The Escapist . Episodes typically range from five to six minutes in length. Videos provide caustic humour , rapid-fire delivery, visual gags and critical insight into recently released video games, with occasional reviews of older games and retrospectives of
3404-443: Is open to the public and can be modified by users to fit their own tastes. Whether the code is open or not, this format represents a nimble tool for people to borrow and re-present culture; whereas traditional websites made the illegal reproduction of culture difficult to regulate, the mutability of blogs makes "open sourcing" even more uncontrollable since it allows a larger portion of the population to replicate material more quickly in
3496-723: Is software which source code is published and made available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify and redistribute the source code without paying royalties or fees. LibreOffice and the GNU Image Manipulation Program are examples of open source software. As they do with proprietary software, users must accept the terms of a license when they use open source software—but the legal terms of open source licenses differ dramatically from those of proprietary licenses. Open-source code can evolve through community cooperation. These communities are composed of individual programmers as well as large companies. Some of
3588-600: Is the International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (OpenSym, formerly WikiSym). As per its website, the group defines open collaboration as "collaboration that is egalitarian (everyone can join, no principled or artificial barriers to participation exist), meritocratic (decisions and status are merit-based rather than imposed) and self-organizing (processes adapt to people rather than people adapt to pre-defined processes)." Open source promotes universal access via an open-source or free license to
3680-591: The Apache Software Foundation , which supports community projects such as the open-source framework Apache Hadoop and the open-source HTTP server Apache HTTP . The sharing of technical information predates the Internet and the personal computer considerably. For instance, in the early years of automobile development a group of capital monopolists owned the rights to a 2-cycle gasoline-engine patent originally filed by George B. Selden . By controlling this patent, they were able to monopolize
3772-701: The Countdown trilogy tied to his Chzo Mythos . Croshaw then developed many freeware games in Adventure Game Studio from 2000 to 2007, including the Rob Blanc trilogy, Lunchtime of the Damned (the inaugural episode of Reality-On-The-Norm ), The Trials of Odysseus Kent , the four part Chzo Mythos , Adventures In The Galaxy Of Fantabulous Wonderment , the 1213 series, and Trilby: The Art of Theft . The latter two games were noted for pushing
Yahtzee Croshaw - Misplaced Pages Continue
3864-518: The industry itself. In 2023, Zero Punctuation was discontinued following Croshaw's resignation from The Escapist and the formation of Second Wind , with new reviews being published by him under the rebranded series Fully Ramblomatic . Prior to Zero Punctuation , Croshaw primarily authored content for his blog, Fullyramblomatic , and would occasionally review video games, often with an emphasis on humor and criticism. In July 2007, Croshaw uploaded two game reviews in video format to YouTube in
3956-494: The minimalism of his animations." In November 2013, Croshaw released the beta version of the Lovecraftian horror roguelike The Consuming Shadow , On 30 July 2015, the full game was released. Destructoid ' s Stephen Turner scored the game 4/10, describing the game as "more Frankenstein's Monster than Eldritch Abomination, shambling along [...] with once fresh parts, dug up from here and there." On 20 November,
4048-425: The mobile game Hatfall in collaboration with Addicting Games and Defy Media . PC Magazine ' s Will Greenwald scored the game 3.5/5, describing the game as "a funny little take on casual mobile games that doesn't offer any depth or complexity," while adding that the game "does a good job of taking the piss out of games (and you as the player) with the sharp-tongued Britishness of Yahtzee's writing and
4140-564: The peer production community. Many open-source projects have a high economic value. According to the Battery Open Source Software Index (BOSS), the ten economically most important open-source projects are: The rank given is based on the activity regarding projects in online discussions, on GitHub, on search activity in search engines and on the influence on the labour market. Alternative arrangements have also been shown to result in good creation outside of
4232-480: The "Open Source Summit", the event was attended by the leaders of many of the most important free and open-source projects, including Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall , Brian Behlendorf , Eric Allman , Guido van Rossum , Michael Tiemann , Paul Vixie , Jamie Zawinski , and Eric Raymond. At that meeting, alternatives to the term "free software" were discussed. Tiemann argued for "sourceware" as a new term, while Raymond argued for "open source." The assembled developers took
4324-526: The Internet can be virtually costless. Technologies such as BitTorrent and Gnutella take advantage of various characteristics of the Internet protocol ( TCP/IP ) in an attempt to totally decentralize file distribution. Open-source ethics is split into two strands: Irish philosopher Richard Kearney has used the term "open-source Hinduism " to refer to the way historical figures such as Mohandas Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda worked upon this ancient tradition. Open-source journalism formerly referred to
4416-689: The artwork for his games himself in MS Paint , lending his games what Wonder How Two described as "a delightfully old-school Sierra look, like in King's Quest 3 ." The music in a number of his games was composed by Mark Lovegrove. In the 2000s Croshaw created a number of webcomics, namely Chris and Trilby , Cowboy Comics! , The Adventures of Angular Mike , and Yahtzee Takes On The World! , which ran from December 20, 2000, to September 22, 2002. He also uploaded two unpublished novels to his website, Fog Juice and Articulate Jim: A Search for Something . Croshaw
4508-511: The bad, because I reckon plenty of sources focus on the good already. Happily, the bad is also easier to make funny. Croshaw on a Reddit " Ask me Anything " thread in 2011 Although Zero Punctuation episodes are usually intended to highlight Croshaw's criticisms of video games, his opinions are not universally negative, and any positive feelings towards the aspects of a game will usually be explicitly stated. During his review of Portal , he admitted to being unable to find any faults with
4600-520: The coming of the eighth generation of consoles . Croshaw also dedicated certain episodes to covering events or periods in gaming history that he considered to have disparaged the industry or its reputation. These include the video game industry crash of 1983 , and the controversial Hot Coffee mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas . From 2009 to 2017, Croshaw authored a column on The Escapist known as Extra Punctuation . These articles were originally published every Tuesday and often supplemented
4692-565: The community "PC master race" instead of "dick-slurp all-stars," citing a continuation of the behavior that originally prompted the term. Croshaw's negative review of Super Smash Bros. Brawl in 2008 was poorly received by fans of the game. He claimed to have received a disproportionate amount of hate mail following the review, and dedicated an episode to highlight and respond to various e-mails that he had allegedly received in response to it. In 2009, Croshaw reviewed Prototype by comparing it to InFamous , attempting to decide which game
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#17327649551274784-409: The community. The rise of open-source culture in the 20th century resulted from a growing tension between creative practices that involve require access to content that is often copyrighted , and restrictive intellectual property laws and policies governing access to copyrighted content. The two main ways in which intellectual property laws became more restrictive in the 20th century were extensions to
4876-560: The critical and educational series Extra Credits and CGP Grey . Croshaw provides highly critical reviews of games, usually pointing out the faults that he implies other professional reviewers ignore in high-profile releases. He tends to disdain certain tropes and conventions in video games he feels have been overused, such as quick time events , highly common uses of motion controls , cover-based shooting , crafting systems, and an unbalanced emphasis on graphics over story or gameplay . Similarly, he has expressed cynicism of
4968-548: The development and use of free software, which they defined as software that grants users the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the code. This concept is similar to open source but places a greater emphasis on the ethical and political aspects of software freedom. Netscape released its source code under the Netscape Public License and later under the Mozilla Public License . Raymond
5060-671: The engine beyond what it was designed for. He had previously charged to access the special editions for several of these games, but released everything for free in 2009. Builds of the Chzo Mythos and other games were released in 2010 for Linux on icculus.org , later updated in 2015 to the now open source AGS runtime. In April 2012, Croshaw released the Cave Story inspired Poacher , developed in GameMaker Studio , which he would use to make all his subsequent games. In
5152-545: The exchange of money among all the manufacturers. By the time the US entered World War II , 92 Ford patents and 515 patents from other companies were being shared among these manufacturers, without any exchange of money (or lawsuits). Early instances of the free sharing of source code include IBM 's source releases of its operating systems and other programs in the 1950s and 1960s, and the SHARE user group that formed to facilitate
5244-430: The exchange of software. Beginning in the 1960s, ARPANET researchers used an open " Request for Comments " (RFC) process to encourage feedback in early telecommunication network protocols. This led to the birth of the early Internet in 1969. The sharing of source code on the Internet began when the Internet was relatively primitive, with software distributed via UUCP , Usenet , IRC , and Gopher . BSD , for example,
5336-466: The final book in the series Will Leave the Galaxy for Good was published on Audible, with print and ebook versions to follow. In 2018, Croshaw's fourth novel Differently Morphous was published as an audiobook, with a print version following on 10 April 2019. A sequel followed in 2021, titled Existentially Challenged . Game Damage was a planned video game-centred TV show co-starring Croshaw. A pilot
5428-531: The future of the series in doubt. Two days later, on November 8, Calandra and Croshaw announced that Croshaw would continue making weekly short-form reviews under the title of Fully Ramblomatic . This show is hosted on Second Wind , a new outlet formed by the staff who left The Escapist . The Escapist ' s parent company Gamurs published the final two episodes of Zero Punctuation —reviews of Sonic Superstars and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 —on November 21. In Zero Punctuation , Croshaw usually reviews
5520-518: The game. He opened his review of BioShock by saying "nobody likes it when I'm being nice to a game," referring to the negative reception of his favorable review of Psychonauts . Croshaw cites the work of British television critic and PC Zone journalist Charlie Brooker as the "main inspiration" for his own reviewing style, as well as the writings of Douglas Adams , Sean " Seanbaby " Riley, Victor Lewis-Smith , and Old Man Murray 's Chet Faliszek and Erik Wolpaw . He expressed respect towards
5612-469: The gaming community. Video game developers and publishers have occasionally acknowledged Croshaw's reviews of their games, and at least one internet meme has resulted from Zero Punctuation . At the end of each year, starting in 2008, Croshaw created special episodes of Zero Punctuation discussing what he believes were the best and worst games of the year. He occasionally dedicated episodes to new technologies or milestones in video gaming, such as E3 and
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#17327649551275704-446: The general society of the costs of policing copyright infringement. Others argue that since consumers do not pay for their copies, creators are unable to recoup the initial cost of production and thus have little economic incentive to create in the first place. By this argument, consumers would lose out because some of the goods they would otherwise purchase would not be available. In practice, content producers can choose whether to adopt
5796-443: The growth of the concept of open source. Advocates in one field often support the expansion of open source in other fields. But Eric Raymond and other founders of the open-source movement have sometimes publicly argued against speculation about applications outside software, saying that strong arguments for software openness should not be weakened by overreaching into areas where the story may be less compelling. The broader impact of
5888-429: The individual programmers who start an open-source project may end up establishing companies offering products or services incorporating open-source programs. Examples of open-source software products are: The Google Summer of Code , often abbreviated to GSoC, is an international annual program in which Google awards stipends to contributors who successfully complete a free and open-source software coding project during
5980-708: The industry and force car manufacturers to adhere to their demands, or risk a lawsuit. In 1911, independent automaker Henry Ford won a challenge to the Selden patent . The result was that the Selden patent became virtually worthless and a new association (which would eventually become the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association ) was formed. The new association instituted a cross-licensing agreement among all US automotive manufacturers: although each company would develop technology and file patents, these patents were shared openly and without
6072-437: The initial success of the establishment. Open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentralized software development model that encourages open collaboration . A main principle of open source software development
6164-460: The late Roger Ebert , noting that he "might one day aspire to being his videogaming equivalent". From 2008, Croshaw created annual, year-end episodes of Zero Punctuation which enumerate his favorite and least favorite games from that year. For 2008 and 2009, mock "awards" were given for games based on arbitrarily defined categories. Starting in 2010, the "awards" format was replaced with ordered lists of his five favorite and least favorite games of
6256-453: The main character or himself with his own avatar , a cartoon man distinguished by a trilby , with other cartoon people in the same style representing the main characters in a video game, celebrities, video game programmers, or friends of Croshaw. Another character used often is an imp -like creature (originally meant to resemble a "darkling" from The Darkness ) which represents antagonists, animals, children, or less important characters from
6348-642: The most popular episodes surpassing a million views. Throughout the series's lifetime, Croshaw became known for his rapid-fire delivery (from which the series's title is derived), along with his harsh critique of both the games he reviewed and the broader video game industry , as well as the crude humour and illustrations contained in his reviews. Additionally, Croshaw coined the term " PC Master Race " in one review, which then became common parlance among PC gamers . Reviews are roughly five minutes in length, and contained no numerical rating or score , as Croshaw called them "fucking nonsense when you're criticizing from
6440-468: The open-source movement, and the extent of its role in the development of new information sharing procedures, remain to be seen. The open-source movement has inspired increased transparency and liberty in biotechnology research, for example CAMBIA Even the research methodologies themselves can benefit from the application of open-source principles. It has also given rise to the rapidly-expanding open-source hardware movement. Open-source software
6532-898: The prevalence of specific game designs, including military-themed first-person shooters for being very similar in gameplay, poor in ethics, and contrived in story; open-world games including crafting, collectibles , and stealth mechanics that he feels bloats a game's content; cinematic games that consist of linear, uneventful sections separated by action sequences and brief exploration; and live service games with repetitive gameplay that incorporates grinding to unlock new content. He also disapproves of game franchises that release sequels in rapid succession, such as Final Fantasy , Assassin's Creed , and Call of Duty . Croshaw generally does not review certain genres of games, such as sports and racing games , and has openly admitted to not liking most JRPGs , real-time strategy games, fighting games , or simulation games . Certainly I focus on
6624-408: The previous week's review by discussing a certain topic or trend exhibited by that game. Croshaw resumed the series in 2021 in video format. On November 6, 2023, Croshaw announced he had resigned from The Escapist with other colleagues out of solidarity following the firing of editor-in-chief Nick Calandra that same day. He also confirmed that he did not own the rights to Zero Punctuation , leaving
6716-723: The product, not the price, expense, cost, or charge. For example, "being free to speak" is not the same as "free beer". Conversely, Richard Stallman argues the "obvious meaning" of term "open source" is that the source code is public/accessible for inspection, without necessarily any other rights granted, although the proponents of the term say the conditions in the Open Source Definition must be fulfilled. "Free and open" should not be confused with public ownership ( state ownership ), deprivatization ( nationalization ), anti-privatization ( anti-corporate activism ), or transparent behavior . Generally, open source refers to
6808-465: The proprietary license model. Examples include: The open-source model is a decentralized software development model that encourages open collaboration , meaning "any system of innovation or production that relies on goal-oriented yet loosely coordinated participants who interact to create a product (or service) of economic value, which they make available to contributors and noncontributors alike." A main principle of open-source software development
6900-482: The protective actions of copyright owners create what some call a " chilling effect " among cultural practitioners. The idea of an "open-source" culture runs parallel to " Free Culture ", but is substantively different. Free culture is a term derived from the free software movement , and in contrast to that vision of culture, proponents of open-source culture (OSC) maintain that some intellectual property law needs to exist to protect cultural producers. Yet they propose
6992-510: The public sphere. Messageboards are another platform for open-source culture. Messageboards (also known as discussion boards or forums), are places online where people with similar interests can congregate and post messages for the community to read and respond to. Messageboards sometimes have moderators who enforce community standards of etiquette such as banning spammers . Other common board features are private messages (where users can send messages to one another) as well as chat (a way to have
7084-596: The review, as well as imagery of characters from the review engaging in slapstick . Prior to mid-2008, Zero Punctuation featured commercial songs at the beginning and end of each episode, which were usually related to the context of, or at odds with the game in question, such as the Ramones ' " I Wanna Be Sedated " and Eric Johnson 's " Cliffs of Dover " at the beginning and end, respectively, of his review of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock . The series' format has proved inspirational for several other web series, such as
7176-529: The same style that would eventually be used for Zero Punctuation : one of the demo of The Darkness for the PlayStation 3 , and the other of Fable: The Lost Chapters for the PC . Both were well-received and The Escapist was one of several publishers to offer Croshaw a contract. The name "Zero Punctuation" refers to the speed of Croshaw's narration. Since its creation, the series has become popular in
7268-683: The standard journalistic techniques of news gathering and fact checking, reflecting open-source intelligence , a similar term used in military intelligence circles. Now, open-source journalism commonly refers to forms of innovative publishing of online journalism , rather than the sourcing of news stories by a professional journalist. In the 25 December 2006 issue of TIME magazine this is referred to as user created content and listed alongside more traditional open-source projects such as OpenSolaris and Linux . Weblogs , or blogs, are another significant platform for open-source culture. Blogs consist of periodic, reverse chronologically ordered posts, using
7360-754: The summer. GSoC is a large scale project with 202 participating organizations in 2021. There are similar smaller scale projects such as the Talawa Project run by the Palisadoes Foundation (a non profit based in California, originally to promote the use of information technology in Jamaica, but now also supporting underprivileged communities in the US) Open-source hardware is hardware which initial specification, usually in
7452-560: The term of copyright (particularly in the United States) and penalties, such as those articulated in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), placed on attempts to circumvent anti-piracy technologies. Although artistic appropriation is often permitted under fair-use doctrines, the complexity and ambiguity of these doctrines creates an atmosphere of uncertainty among cultural practitioners. Also,
7544-1099: The term to refer to other forms of open collaboration, such as in Internet forums , mailing lists and online communities . Open collaboration is also thought to be the operating principle underlining a gamut of diverse ventures, including TEDx and Misplaced Pages. Open collaboration is the principle underlying peer production , mass collaboration , and wikinomics . It was observed initially in open-source software, but can also be found in many other instances, such as in Internet forums , mailing lists , Internet communities, and many instances of open content , such as Creative Commons . It also explains some instances of crowdsourcing , collaborative consumption , and open innovation . Riehle et al. define open collaboration as collaboration based on three principles of egalitarianism , meritocracy , and self-organization . Levine and Prietula define open collaboration as "any system of innovation or production that relies on goal-oriented yet loosely coordinated participants who interact to create
7636-442: The year. For 2015, he added a new category for his choices of the blandest and least innovative games of the year. To commemorate the end of the 2010s, Croshaw ranked in order of preference the best and worst games he had awarded during the decade. In his 2013 lists, he awarded the "Lifetime Achievement Award for Total Abhorrence" to Ride to Hell: Retribution , expressing that it was so poor in quality that he hardly considered it
7728-511: Was better. Unable to determine a victor, he jokingly suggested that the developers of each game send him artwork of the opposing game's main character wearing lingerie in order to claim the award. Radical Entertainment and Sucker Punch – the respective developers – unexpectedly complied with the challenge, prompting Croshaw to declare InFamous the winner after judging the quality of the images. In 2013, Croshaw came under fire after an episode of Zero Punctuation on Papers, Please contained
7820-534: Was especially active in the effort to popularize the new term. He made the first public call to the free software community to adopt it in February 1998. Shortly after, he founded The Open Source Initiative in collaboration with Bruce Perens . The term gained further visibility through an event organized in April 1998 by technology publisher Tim O'Reilly . Originally titled the "Freeware Summit" and later known as
7912-454: Was first widely distributed by posts to comp.os.linux on the Usenet, which is also where its development was discussed. Linux followed in this model. Open source as a term emerged in the late 1990s by a group of people in the free software movement who were critical of the political agenda and moral philosophy implied in the term "free software" and sought to reframe the discourse to reflect
8004-422: Was hired to continue the series on The Escapist . Reviews were typically posted initially on The Escapist ' s site, then uploaded to The Escapist ' s YouTube channel a week later. The addition of the series to The Escapist led to a large growth in site traffic , and the series became the most popular feature on The Escapist , with each episode consistently receiving hundreds of thousands of views, and
8096-431: Was one of four founders of the Mana Bar , an Australian cocktail bar and video gaming lounge which opened in 2010, and had closed by 2015. Zero Punctuation is a video-review series Croshaw released every Wednesday on The Escapist between 2007 and 2023. The series began with his review of the demo of The Darkness , which quickly grew in popularity. After one more review covering Fable: The Lost Chapters , Croshaw
8188-507: Was previously a staff writer for the Adventure Gamers website. In 2010, Croshaw's first published novel Mogworld , was released by Dark Horse Books. Tor.com ' s Chris Greenland stated that the book "isn't going to bowl anyone over ," while adding that "Croshaw undoubtedly has a strong, unique voice and I would hate to see that limited to only critiques." Later that same year, the short story collection Machine of Death
8280-410: Was published later that year on October 10. The Quad ' s Kelly Baker described the book as "very funny, but [...] also surprisingly disturbing to boot." In 2017, Croshaw's third novel, the sci-fi comedy Will Save the Galaxy for Food was published. In 2019, its sequel Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash was published as an audiobook on Audible ; a print version followed in 2020. In April 2024,
8372-466: Was published, featuring a story by Croshaw titled "Exhaustion From Having Sex With a Minor". The Times Herald-Record ' s Jim Higgins described the story as "a talky tale of political intrigue that could be straight out of Isaac Asimov 's Foundation series , with a snappy twist at the end that O. Henry might appreciate." In 2012, an ebook version of Mogworld was released, which included an excerpt of Croshaw's second novel, Jam . The novel
8464-465: Was released on YouTube in December 2008. In October 2009, a trailer for the first season was released. In November 2009, CNET reported that the show was "looking for international funding". The show was ultimately never picked up. In a 2014 interview with Vice , Croshaw stated that he believed the show never saw success because "TV networks tend to be antsy about gaming content because video gaming
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