"The History of The Game Collection" Live Q&A Pt. 1

Channel:

SuperDerek RPGs

Subscribers:

65,800

Published on July 20, 2019 8:07:13 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDT7U6iaAQ

Game:

Secret of Mana (1993)

Duration: 10:01

3,321 views

291

During my 6-year anniversary Live Q&A, there were what I think are some really special moments. But the whole thing was 2 and a half hours long. I'm going to release some curated and edited moments from the Q&A for people who missed out! :)



Good evening and welcome to my 6th Anniversary Live Q&A Special!
6 years ago, I began embarking on a journey. A quest, if you will, to conquer my backlog, and to force myself to play and actually finish more games in the genre that I love. You see, I had a problem, I used to start to play new games, but would almost never finish them, because I’d always get sidetracked by playing a handful of RPGs that I already loved. Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound… The Classics. So how could I force myself to start sticking to these games in order to finish them off? And how could I force myself to stop replaying the same games over and over?
Straight out of high school, I went to college to study video game design, I wanted to be the artist behind a game, a designer behind the mechanics. A storyteller. But when that dream fell through, I fell back on the only thing that I could do that paid well: Tech support. I was working tech support for a fast food company. It was pretty soul-crushing work. It paid the bills, more or less, but it left me feeling unfulfilled.
We couldn’t afford cable TV then. And we still can’t to be honest. So, I found myself watching tons of YouTube. It was amazing the kinds of shows on the Internet that appealed to me. I was a huge fan of everything on ScrewAttack.com back in the day, so I was watching Clan of the Gray Wolf, The Angry Video Game Nerd, Classic Game Room, and probably most influentially, GameTrailers Retrospectives. I remember watching these shows, and distinctly asking myself the question of, “What exactly separates people like them from people like me?” People who were on YouTube, making awesome content, and people like me who just sit here and watch it? And in the end, the only real answer I could think of was just doing it.
That’s when I conceived of a project I called “The Game Collection”. I named it that because I envisioned a review show where I would talk about the games I’ve been collecting, the games that I loved most, and maybe tips and tricks about collecting video games. But In order to kill two birds with one stone, I would impose a stipulation upon myself: I may not review a game unless I have finished it. It was a perfect idea. It would force me to finish the games that I started, and unless people were cool with me reviewing the same game over and over, it would force me to break away from my usual rotation of The Classics. And lastly, it would of course give me the creative outlet that I needed to retain what was left of my sanity.
Of course, gradually over time it dawned on me that the only games I ever felt like playing were RPGs, and after a while The Game Collection became less about collecting games, and more about reviewing RPGs. If I had known then what I know now, I probably would have come up with a more descriptive name for my show. Like maybe, “Experience Points,” or something.
Well, that was 6 years, and 81 games ago. That’s an average of a little more than one RPG every month. But what I didn’t expect going into was how many amazing games awaited me on my journey. How many awesome friends I would make along the way, and how I could somehow be surrounded by the coolest, most chill community I have ever seen on the Internet.
So in this live stream tonight, I just wanted to thank everyone for having the patience to put up with my clumsy attempts to write reviews, for motivating me to become better, and for being an immense support to me during my struggles. And I hope that over the years to come, that I can make more content to help brighten your days, to convince you to try out some games that aren’t in your rotation of classics, and eventually find all of the games that belong… In The Game Collection!

Other Statistics