Video games industry Twitter legend Nibel quits platform

“I don’t think Twitter has yet experienced good leadership, and this trend will not change with Musk.”

Games industry Twitter stalwart Nibel, who built a following of 450,000 for regularly tweeting breaking news and memes under the handle @Nibellion, has today quit the social media platform.

“After some introspection, I’ve made the decision to focus my time and energy elsewhere and move on from Twitter,” Nibel tweeted today, now from a locked account. “This marks the end of my video games coverage and my active participation in this platform. Thanks to everybody for the fun times!”

In recent days, Nibel had begun posting on Patreon and planned to launch a Discord channel for followers to join. Both of these have also been scrapped, however.

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Writing in a short blog posted to their now-defunct Patreon, Nibel criticised Twitter’s leadership, including its new billionaire owner Elon Musk’s “seemingly infinite immaturity”.

“Today, I will move on from both Twitter and Patreon. There won’t be any games coverage from me on either platform,” Nibel wrote.

Nibel acknowledged having difficulty growing a successful Patreon based on their previous work on Twitter, and that after a week it would now be closed and users refunded. The planned Discord server will also now not launch.

“Then there is the elephant in the room which is the platform itself,” Nibel continued. “I don’t think that Twitter has yet experienced good leadership, and this trend will not change with Musk either. I do not trust the platform. I do not trust Musk and seemingly infinite immaturity. I do not think Twitter will fall apart instantly but that it could die a slow death. Why waste more time?”

The Verge reported today that Twitter would soon start charging $20 a month for accounts to remain verified – where individuals and brands are confirmed as legitimate via the platform’s signature blue tick.

Under these plans, existing verified users will lose their blue tick after 90 days if they don’t pay up. Twitter engineers have reportedly been told by Musk to ensure this plan rolls out by 7th November – or be fired.