River City Retro - The Next Level?

Hey everyone!

While you would normally expect me to be rambling on about the obscene amount of games that I bought on Friday, I thought I would hit the pause button for a moment and let everyone know about some of our plans for the future of River City Retro. Also, the only thing I bought on Friday was a copy of Blades of Steel for original Game Boy and no one needs to see a picture of that.

Recently I signed up for Twitter (@SuperRobotTyson) to connect with more individuals in the retro gaming community and it really opened my eyes to the unreal amount of people out there talking about and collecting video games. I've always followed the exploits of the crew at Retroware TV and I think everyone can admit to loving the Angry Video Game Nerd, but the way social media and the online communities have blown up, everyone can share their content with the world. 

I'm a busy person and I only have so much time to devote to watching and reading things on the internet, so I have to pick and choose what I follow. I've got a full time job, a wife, and way too many video games that I should be playing.   

Me trying to choose what to play next.

It made me think about why we started this blog and what we'd like to do with it in the future. We started this mainly as a way to entertain each other. Tommy and I have been friends for over 15 years and a huge portion of that has been spent driving around in my car, looking for unique things for our collections. While we do enjoy beer, music, sports, and boobs just as much as a regular dude does, nothing is more fun that the "thrill of the hunt" at a garage sale, flea market, or pawn shop. We've had a few collecting diseases over the years (DVDs, Comics, Heroclix, Hockey Cards, Action Figures, etc.) that I'm not always proud of, but the one thing that has always remained constant is our love of video games.

I still recall hooking up my Coleco Gemini in Tommy's parent's basement in 1999 and when the screen flickered to life, I raised my arms slowly, and euphorically chanted "Whooo Whoo Wooo Woooooo!!" like Ric Flair having a seizure. 

We are very experienced game collectors and while our exploits have not been broadcast to the world, this blog is the beginning of us sharing some of our stories. When I watch some online videos of pretty impressive game collections, I'm in awe of the sheer size and uniqueness, until I realize that Tommy's collection is larger and more bizarre. We really need to let more people peek behind the curtain that covers our mental illness of game hoarding... 

So what's next for River City Retro?

1. PODCAST

Tommy and I have hosted a podcast before that actually covered sports and wrestling and we were on the air for 60-80 hours over 27 different episodes. It was a moderate success and we were lucky to interview some amazing people from that industry. I'm very excited about hosting a video game podcast as we have years of stories to tell, collecting tips, immature jokes, and video game passion to share. We will host the show live with both us in "studio" and being in the same room helps capture the tone that we have when we drive around chasing games and ripping on each other.

2. VIDEOS

I'm less experienced in the video department, but in today's day and age, everything is filmed and put on You Tube. Honestly, watching some of these "unboxing" videos from kids that can't use the English language properly and just say "Hurrrrh...Herp....Derp..." while taking the wrapping off a PS3 game makes me think that we can't fail too badly. I don't know if we will actually take a camera on the road while we look for games, but I'm sure that something filmed in the game cave in my house will make it online. I'd really like to capture some of the audio and game footage from the nights we drink a dozen beers each and play a stack of terrible games...

3. COMPETITION 

One of the main things Tommy and I have going is the natural instinct to compete with each other. Honestly, I know it sounds cliche, but "He who dies with the most games, wins!" When I said that we enjoy the thrill of the hunt, I also meant that we love catching the other guy slipping and snagging a rare game out from right under his nose...and then bragging about it all night until all you hear is whispered swearing from the other side of the car. This competition will extend to gaming and I can see us participating in gaming challenges like the ones on the Nintendo Age site, or creating our own that we can talk about on the podcast, or on film. 

4. CANADIAN CONTENT

This seems kind of silly, but out of a lot of the collectors and gamers I follow or interact with online, I can't think of any that are Canadian. There has to be more Canadian collectors and game players that we have not found yet. Finding and contributing to a Canadian community of retro gamers would be awesome and it would even make online trades and gaming challenges more fun. 

I'm tempted to add more things to this list, but looking at how we can procrastinate sometimes, I think this will keep us busy. I'm tempted to mention something about becoming giant internet celebrities and using theoretical internet dollars and influence to attend every retro gaming convention in the world, (without having to pay airfare or hotel) but that might be aiming a little too high. When we do become giant viral internet celebrities, we can address our schedule at a formal press conference, or live webcast. 

 

So I guess I should set some type of goal to help us stay accountable, eh? I think it's realistic to say that hosting our first podcast in March 2013 is a good start. Tommy is also going to put a few irons in the fire on the video front and we are planning to be a little more loose with our blog content. While "Buyer's Remorse" is a fun way to show off our games, it's also kind of a big wank-fest for our own collections and can get boring pretty fast for other readers. Reviews and editorial pieces are crucial, as well as smaller bite size blogs with some news and jokes to help keep the RCR ball in the air and attract new readers. Looking at the "stats" for our blog shows that someone out there is actually checking out our site, but it's hard to say if they are actually reading it or if it's just an army of spam bots trying to sell us Viagra and wrinkle cream. 

So, if you are not a spam bot and you do read the blog, drop us a line, friend us on GameFaqs, follow us on Twitter, or comment on one of our blogs so we know that you are real. I'm pretty confident that most retro game collectors are hilarious and awesome, just like us, so let's be friends! 

Tyson

GameFaqs: espinz
Twitter: @SuperRobotTyson      

Tommy

GameFaqs: hitman_tommy
Twitter: @rcrhitmantommy