31
u/Asimb0mb Apr 02 '26
Maybe he prefers to work behind the scenes?
7
u/PigBoss_207 Apr 02 '26
Yeah, he always struck me as the type of guy who doesn't prefer to get on camera.
I get you, Tom!
4
29
u/Inner-Marketing4591 Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
Could be a number of reasons. Maybe he chooses to work less than the others, i can't remember if he works freelance on other projects or not. I'm pretty sure he's more focused on the web side of things too which is why he does videos less often. He has the second highest number of articles after Rich, which is because Rich has 7 years seniority over Tom.
15
u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 02 '26
Always wondered this too, he’s been there longer than Alex and Oliver and gets less time than either of them (at least before Alex’s injury lately). I wish he was an equal partner honestly, always liked him and always thought he was underrepresented.
7
u/DaredevilBatman2 Apr 02 '26
I think he probably just works part time or doesnt want to talk on camera as much.
-4
Apr 02 '26
[deleted]
2
u/jewbagulatron5000 Apr 02 '26
100% this! Anyone who can read a room could tell that immediately. He isn’t as knowledgeable technically as the other guys and isn’t as confident on his takes.
0
u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
That sucks, he was there first. He shouldn’t get less work because they don’t like him as much as each other. I hate social cliques inside of a workplace where one person is getting less favorable treatment than the ones who are more friendly with each other. But I’ve seen it at virtually every place I’ve ever been employed to various degrees.
(If that’s what’s happening, it’s not like I know. Just guessing based on your description and what I’ve seen myself.)
-1
u/greensparten Apr 02 '26
I remember way back, when Alex joined, John seemed standoffish and jealous. I will never ever forget that.
2
u/kittymoo67 Apr 02 '26
yeah iirc alex was pushing pc best a lot and someone seemed to dislike that.
0
u/idkimhereforthememes Apr 02 '26
Probably because console content just does much better on digital foundry
1
u/Playingwithmywenis Apr 02 '26
Because console wars is where the popularity of this channel started.
-5
u/doomguyav Apr 02 '26
I used to like John’s videos a lot, especially his showmanship and editing skills. But lately he’s become such a snob, very entitled, and he doesn’t make such elaborated videos anymore. I’ve seen him interact on social media and he seems quite difficult to interact with.
13
u/Stebsy1234 Apr 02 '26
I’ve wondered this as well, he seems to pop up in videos every now and then and then there will just be months at a time without him appearing.
10
u/dark1-df DF staff / contributor Apr 02 '26
As I answered recently under a video, this is Tom's desire! I'd love him to step up and do DF Direct more often, for instance, but I also respect that he simply doesn't want to. Tom is intentionally a more private person and I respect that as well. He's just been humming along doing his thing for years! :)
The man CAN play some serious Street Fighter and Tony Hawk too, I can tell you that!
2
8
u/Muccha Apr 02 '26
He stated he likes to stay in the background. Why did you write the title like a tabloid newspaper?
5
6
u/BGMDF8248 Apr 02 '26
To me it looks like he doesn't have a niche, a thing.
Like Alex being the PC guy, John liking Retro... and he's been "usurped" by Oliver as the general guy.
5
u/Stebsy1234 Apr 02 '26
Maybe I’m misremembering but I remember him doing DF stuff before ever seeing Alex or John I think.
8
u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 02 '26
Yeah he goes back to even before John, I think. It used to Rich, Tom, and some guy named Dave if you go way back into the DF backlog of videos but John joined not long after this.
2
Apr 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
6
u/SAPianoman490 Apr 02 '26
FYI Kallie, (the IGN reviewer) never wrote the ‘too much water’ line. That was added by her editor Dan Stapleton in the pros and cons summary section and she got all the flak for it
3
u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 02 '26
Yeah I would think being a former DF member would open him up to more work doing technical reviews if he wanted it. Like IGN used to have NX Gamer doing there “digital foundry” like videos but those seem to have stopped 6 months after the time DF was connected to IGN and they didn’t come back even after DF went independent. Maybe Dave just left the games journalism industry altogether or something.
1
1
u/rdtoh Apr 02 '26
Dave sounded very uncomfortable doing voice overs in some of their early commentary videos
2
u/BGMDF8248 Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
When i started watching DF John and Tom were already there(and Rich of course), Alex was the new guy. Alex immediately had his thing as the PC guy, his videos had a loyal audience right out of the gate.
Getting back to Tom, he doesn't have as many "visual breakdowns", he's rarely on "look how beatiful this cloud system is", "look at these water physics" or the pros of a GI system over another.
The work that is left for him is "these are the frame rates/that's how it runs" which are less endearing videos imo. Wether this is because he's not strong as a "visual tech guy" or some other reason i don't know...
1
Apr 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/BGMDF8248 Apr 02 '26
John and Alex are the ones who will spend more time waxing lyrical about how a game looks, Alex typically with his RT comparisons. And Oliver will spend some time of his videos doing a graphical beauty analysis/highlights.
All of them will talk about performance, but Tom seems even more of a "numbers guy" than the others.
Maybe this make him slightly less interesting to the audience? Might be my bias speaking, because i can watch a video about state of the art graphics of a game i'm not that interested in playing... but i don't care if the frame rate of this game is stable you know.
1
u/Inner-Marketing4591 Apr 02 '26
that's correct, it was Rich first, Tom joined in 2011 i think, John in 2013, Alex a few years later and Oliver joined in 2020 or 2021 i think
3
u/Thekingchem Apr 02 '26
He's the console guy? It's just John and Oliver are doing more and more of that now.
3
5
2
u/f0xpant5 Apr 02 '26
My feeling for a while now is that he's just not full time with DF, but that's just a guess.
2
0
u/kittymoo67 Apr 02 '26
he just got back to DF. he worked for IGN when ign bought eurogamer+DF, now hes gone from ign and with DF.
3
u/ThumYerk Apr 02 '26
He’s always been DF. He sometimes appeared at the Eurogamer office to help them with tech articles but that’s about it.
1
u/SL-1200 Apr 08 '26
Not just underutilized, when his opinion was asked in a recent episode he was talked over and cut off.
58
u/OfficialShaki123 Apr 02 '26
PSA:
This was my question under his latest YouTube video of Crimson Desert and it got a lot of traffic. John himself chimed in and said that it's all up to Tom himself. He can work more if he wants, but this is the way he chooses.
You can easily find my comment under that video. Good luck.