The Yogscast are a network of YouTube broadcasters who produce gaming-related video content focused around their main YouTube channel, "YOGSCAST Lewis & Simon" (previously known as "BlueXephos"). The channel initially gained popularity with its videos about the MMO World of Warcraft, but have more recently come to be associated with sandbox game Minecraft, which the group helped bring to widespread attention. They are well known for their role playing series 'Shadow of Israphel' which was extremely popular in the early days of Minecraft. The group was founded in July 2008 by Lewis "Hacky-Sack" Brindley. The name "The Yogscast" was derived from the title letters of his previous World of Warcraft guild, "Ye Olde Goone Squade". Videos posted on behalf of the guild were thus referred to as "Yogscasts", though the term eventually came to refer specifically to those posted by Brindley and co-host Simon Lane on the "BlueXephos" channel. With these videos gaining popularity, other "Yogs" guild mates and associates requested that Brindley and Lane help them create YouTube channels of their own. Hannah Rutherford (colloquially Lomadia), Duncan Jones (Lalna) or (LividCoffee) Paul Sykes (Sjin) and Chris "The Real Guy, The Best Guy" Lovasz (Sips) thus made channels alongside "BlueXephos" to form something of a Yogscast network. Since this point, many more content creators have joined the group, forming "The Yogscast Family". The Yogscast was officially incorporated into a registered company on the 3 May 2011 by company director Brindley. He, Lane and Rutherford then moved operations from their shared home office in Reading, to their new headquarters in Bristol, colloquially dubbed "YogTowers". The Yogscast team held their own panel at MineCon 2011, where they showcased some of the work of the Minecraft community. Following the event, the group came under fire from Minecraft creator Markus Persson, who stated that he would no longer work with the group, citing use of profanity and unprofessional behaviour. These claims were questioned by some MineCon attendees as well as game commentator John Bain. The Yogscast responded on Reddit and via a YouTube video, denying the accusations and expressing their disappointment and frustration with the organisation of MineCon, as well as their respect for Persson and the Minecraft community at large. Persson later apologised for the misunderstanding and retracted his accusations, attributing the statements to stress and miscommunication. To date, however, The Yogscast have not published further coverage of subsequent MineCons, nor have they ever worked professionally with Persson. In June 2012, The Yogscast's primary channel, YOGSCAST Lewis & Simon, became the first channel in the United Kingdom to reach one billion views. That same year, the group started a Kickstarter campaign to develop a video game called "Yogventures!". The goal of $250,000 was quickly reached, with a full total of $567,000 eventually being raised by 13,647 donators. The project was cancelled, however, in July 2014. Backers were compensated with a copy of the game "TUG" by Nerd Kingdom, who also took hold of all developmental Yogventures! artwork and source code. By the end of 2015, The Yogscast had: 15 members of staff; 20 officially noted networked channels; A total of 20,867,994 subscribers on YouTube; A total of 5,186,510,091 video views on YouTube Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.