FaZe Clan still exists today and has established itself as one of the world’s most prominent and influential gaming organizations known for its disruptive original content and hyper-engaged global fanbase of over 510 million combined across social platforms since its inception.
The professional esports and entertainment organization headquartered in Los Angeles, California, USA was founded in 2010 with Zach Katz serving as the president, and Lee Trink as its Chief Executive Officer.
After 13 years of operating, FaZe Clan faced the biggest reduction yet as the company has reportedly dropped “roughly 20% of its employees,” according to Business Insider. The news hit the stock price of FaZe Holdings, which is listed on the NASDAQ exchange.
On February 17, an internal memo from CEO Lee Trink cited “uncertainty in the overall economy”. The decision was made despite the company experiencing “incredible growth,” according to Trink, who stressed that “financial discipline” will be a greater focus of the organization moving forward.
There are some members of Faze Clan who quit working with the company even before it faced this crisis leading to the layoff. From faking montage clips to getting kicked in only 24 hours, FaZe Clan has had a lot of interesting stories of members getting kicked or canceled. However, in this article, we will look at the best ones including Ferox, Jarvis, Kay, Nikan, Agony, Barker, Cented, Shift, BucketHeadNation, and Nudah, and find out what happened to them.
Were those crew fired? Did they quit willingly? TheVibely has gathered 10 of the top FaZe Clan employees who stopped working and why they did so.
Ferox
Ferox has been designing the gaming scene since 2010 and worked for 4 years with Faze Clan. His specialty was in branding and logo designs. He was also a right fit for content creation, marketing, and design experience
The FaZe logo was introduced in 2010 and has undergone several modifications and tweaks since then. Conceived by Faze Temper, the logo was created by Joe “Ferox” Ricciuto, a former graphic designer for FaZe Clan. Aside from the logo he made for the organization, he was mainly behind the T-Shirt designs, channel designs, and various creations for the team and its members.
While still a teen, he was never named in the team’s jet or roster but it never bothered although he felt been used without recognition. In April 2014, FaZe Clan announced the official people being the design of the logo and he was excluded. The company named Ali, Cohn, Alpaca, and Nikon as the brain behind the iconic logo, adding that they saw more potential in the aforementioned names but not Ferox which ended their relationship of over three years.
He uploaded a video on his YouTube channel titled “Why I Was Kicked From FaZe” which has garnered over 4 million views explaining his side of the story.
Shortly, FaZe Temperr took to social media to share his side of the story adding that Ferox lied about creating the logo “I created it, he designed it”.
Today, Ferox is still designing logos and super active on his YouTube channel of over 130K subscribers where he live-streams games and does reaction clips.
He has also operated his own graphic design studio, called Ferox Studios.
Jarvis, Kay, and Nikan
These three creators went viral when they were laid off from FaZe Clan. In June 2021, the trio got kicked off from the Faze team alongside Teeqo after they promoted a Crypto token called Safety Kits which was later revealed to be a scam.
Teego later got back with the team as he was proven innocent after a vigorous investigation, however, the others never returned. His return to the team was documented in a video titled “He’s back in FaZe Clan…“.
While Nikan is on a weight loss journey and beginning his boxing career, Jarvis and Kay are active on YouTube with over 5 million, and 7 million subscribers respectively.
Agony
The Faze Agony consists of two creators (actually twins) who have a good name in the Call of Duty community as they have played the game and created content for it since 2009.
The duo joined Faze in March 2011, providing the org. with crazy editing and crazy clip for the team. Kierran of Faze Agony was caught in his attempts to forge creations that he did not make which eventually led to the twins being fired to save their reputation in 2012.
That was not the end of the road for the Agony twins as they are still members of the team having over 1.6 million subscribers and doing their best to help the team.
Barker
Barker was one of the craziest editors for FaZe Clan. On June 6, 2020, the official Faze Clan Twitter page announced that Barker was no more a member of the team.
He was allegedly exposed to various acts that destroyed the reputation of the organization. Some of which was sexual harassment, faking lifestyles, sending unsolicited photos, talking to underage girls the way he shouldn’t, and asking girls for nudes, just to mention a few.
Barker since his exposure and getting hated by the media hasn’t been really active online. He deactivated his Instagram and Twitter and turned off his comment section on his YouTube channel with over 140K subscribers.
Cented
FaZe Clan fired Fortnite Pro Cented after a clip surfaced of him using the N-Word at his colleagues.
Faze Clan announced of Cented removal from the team on July 4, 2022, via the company’s official Twitter page. “We and the gaming community at large can’t tolerate discriminatory languages any longer”.
He shared his side of the sorry on January 2023, alleging that other members were against a movement he created while some bullied him. In February 2023, he tweeted selling his online paid masterclass pro and he is still competing in games.
Shift
Shift is one of the initial members of the FaZe Clan but his relationship with the team was cut short by his way of trash-talking.
On 12 May 2011, GFXLab released a video exposing FaZe Clan members insulting him. Later it was revealed that Shift alongside one other member was behind that. Even back then, Faze Clan had a strict rule against discrimination and that got him fired.
Former Faze Clan member Dyn was kicked out of the team because of his inactivity as he had to graduate from school but it turned out to be the biggest blessing to him. He made a video addresing his departure stating that “I’m not good enough for FaZe, they need some really good people who make some good content and I am just not there”.
Up until this point, he occasionally plays Call Oo Duty and used to make reactional videos with his dad who died of cancer on March 2022. He is known on YouTube for his channel BucketHeadNation where his style of content was dad-reacts videos.
Away from that, he has a child who was born on February 2020 with his girlfriend. His late dad was blessed to see his grandchild before he passed on.
BucketHeadNation
Virus
Faze Virus proved himself to be a valuable asset to the Faze ClanFaze Clan, but his tenure took a turn in 2022 when he publicly expressed his opposition to the LGBTQ+ community in response to a tweet from the FaZe showing support for the community. This statement drew significant criticism and backlash, and Virus ultimately deleted his tweet. Now, in a YouTube video, Virus has announced his departure from the Faze Clan, saying that he had been mistreated by the organization during his time there.
Virus further added that following the LGBTQ tweet event, he received a lot of hate specifically from one of the owners, and he felt like the owner wanted to kill him. Additionally, Virus mentioned that FaZe never seemed to be receptive to any of his ideas, like bringing FaZe to the Middle East and collaborating with a Saudi Arabian team, even when he directly pitched these plans to them.
Popular esports player Talal Almalki, better known as Virus is from Saudi Arabia and is considered one of the best first-person shooter players in the world. He joined FaZe Clan in 2020 and, since then, has become a prominent member of the organization’s competitive Call of Duty team. He is also known for his content creation on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch, where he streams and shares his gameplay, as well as his thoughts and opinions on the game and the esports scene.
Sway
On September 2022, Fortnite pro and content creator Josue Burgos, better known as Sway, decided to call time on his tenure with FaZe Clan, leaving the organization of his volition amid a mysterious blackout across social media, per Dexerto.
Amid the shift, Sway also blacked out a few of his social channels. His profile picture and banner on Twitter are now black along with his Instagram profile too. “Will explain when I’m ready,” he added in an Instagram reel sharing the news.
As a competitive player, Sway was accused of ‘teaming’ in Solo events, later apologizing and opening himself up to any repercussions that came as a result. Most recently, Sway was embroiled in account sharing controversy, seeing his Epic Games creator code stripped permanently.
Well, it happens that he is still a part of FaZe now. Sway still appears as a listed member on the official FaZe website for the time being.
At just 15 years of age, Sway was the youngest member of FaZe Clan at the time of his arrival in early 2019. Having built a following for his Fortnite skills and flashy edits, Sway soon jumped into the competitive mix too, going at it in many online events over the past few years but struggling to crack above a top-six placement.
On the verge of four million YouTube subscribers, Sway is still a relatively active personality to this day, posting a handful of videos a month. Elsewhere, he occasionally streams on Twitch to over 850,000 followers, and frequently shares on Instagram with over three million fans.
