Zero Punctuation was independent for exactly two episodes, back when Yahtzee was a broke nobody who then-recently immigrated from the UK to Australia just to see his online gf (who ended up breaking up with him). He uploaded those videos on July 2007, which back then you had to be with a YouTube Partner like Machinima to get any ad revenue. It started purely as a hobby.
As for his novels, I didn't do all that much research, but the first book that actually got published was in 2010, Mogworld, after he was already established with the Escapist and a household name. He worked with a publishing house, so any expenses would've been covered by them. Before that, he mostly dabbled in (unpaid) freeware games and webcomics.
Zero Punctuation was independent for exactly two episodes, back when Yahtzee was a broke nobody who then-recently immigrated from the UK to Australia just to see his online gf (who ended up breaking up with him). He uploaded those videos on July 2007, which back then you had to be with a YouTube Partner like Machinima to get any ad revenue. It started purely as a hobby.
As for his novels, I didn't do all that much research, but the first book that actually got published was in 2010, Mogworld, after he was already established with the Escapist and a household name. He worked with a publishing house, so any expenses would've been covered by them. Before that, he mostly dabbled in (unpaid) freeware games and webcomics.
Sounds pretty independent to me.
An independent hobby that had no taxes or expenses to worry about, unlike the job it currently is.
But I see you're just fishing for gotchas instead of having a good-faith discussion, so I'll leave it there.