Psykoboy2
02-04-2012, 09:42 AM
"And welcome to In-Game Chat for the past 5 years...."
It's actually been longer than 5 years, but February 2, 2012 marked the 5th anniversary of In-Game Chat/Evil Avatar Radio/In-Game Chat. That is to say that more than we've been doing this show, you've been listening to it. If no one listened or cared, if we ever felt this wasn't worth doing (and at times, we have come close), we'd have stopped already.
Years before we ever did our first broadcast, James and I would sit around the house while visiting to watch some stupid episode of Lost or Amazing Race, Survivor, or something else that was actually good and is no longer on television, and talk about games. Jeremy from time to time would also join in those conversations when a group of us were out at dinner some random weekend night.
At first, it was just talking about games. Then it grew into an idea. I can remember some night in 2006 where James and I were sitting around thinking it would be great if we could do this for a living - talk about video games. But how? I worked at a radio station but there was no way in living hell that the powers that be would go for something like this.
Time passed and in early 2007, on a whim, I decided to talk to the general manager of the radio stations I worked at. I'd been there, at that time, for about 7 years and thought....what the hell? Wouldn't hurt to ask.
My initial approach wasn't for gaming only. I honestly didn't think that would fly and that in the minds of those powers, the show would have to encompass more than just gaming. I went with an electronics/tech show. Some extremely stupid idea that would get us on the air so we could then just talk about games. This was some lowly AM station that went to like...2% power after the sun went down. There's no way they'd care what we were talking about or even listen to it. And we didn't care about that. The station was being streamed over the internet so the quality would always be clear, even if the content wasn't.
Regardless, to my surprise, I was granted a show based on that idea. And on Friday, February 2nd 2007 at 7pm Central, our first show was broadcast.
We've lost that episode (thankfully, really...I'm not even sure it wasn't intentional, honestly - it was shit) and the few episodes that followed. Our earliest episode, so far that we know of, is from March 9th of 2007. You can listen to that episode here (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=689), if you like.
We started, if I remember right, with myself, James, and Jeremy. Dana sat in the producer's booth and screened our phone calls, which surprisingly we got a lot of - both local and long distance from the stream. During our run we had people come in and out of the show. Matt joined us, Arjay, Dennis, Dave on occasion, and then Daniel for a long stint. An honorary and often invisible fourth member who's likely been with us on every episode is Kevin. Sometimes I think we've done 5 years just to keep going so he can be on the show with us live if he ever makes it back into town.
We also started without a name. For like a month almost. We held a poll on Evil Avatar as to what our name should be. I don't remember the choices but when the final results were in, we said screw democracy and took IGC as our name. Then, of course, in August of that same year, we took over the reigns of Evil Avatar Radio from (fuck you) Phil Kollar. An honor at the time and something that actually kind of scared us as to what might happen. Most of you know what happened.
The show exploded into one with actual guest interviews of people in the industry and we began pulling in people on the show we'd never have ever thought we'd get the opportunity to speak with. Our very first interview (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=640) is also one of our proudest. We spoke with Keith Fuller at Raven Software on the passing of an artist of theirs, Glen Angus who died suddenly earlier in the week. One of our first achievements of interviews wasn't as big at the time as we thought it was, mainly because the game had only released that Tuesday and we were doing a show that Friday (or Monday - point being, it was quick). But somehow or another we were able to book both Ellen McClain as well as Jonathan Coulton on the same show (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=640).
As time went on we would interview (http://www.ingamechat.net/?cat=6) more and more people every episode, from Major Nelson, Neil Druckmann from Naughty Dog who talked to us about a new game for the PS3 called Uncharted (he's now the lead on their newest IP, The Last Of Us), Jonathan Blow, Cheapy D, numerous people multiple times from Penny Arcade, Metanet Software (N+), the guys from Ironclad games (Sins Of A Solar Empire), Steve Scott from Bungie who gets to blow shit up all day, Denis Dyack, Crow & Tom Servo from MST3K (I know, right?), Nolan Fucking North, Amy Hennig, friends of the show Twisted Pixel, and of course Mark Hamill, David Hayter, and astronaut Charlie Duke (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=131).
As Evil Avatar Radio we crossed the 100th episode (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=140) threshold with a huge show full of previous callers wishing us well and a ton of people from the community.
Then, in September of 2008, we once again returned as In-Game Chat at almost the same time this site, Colony Of Gamers, was born. James put it best (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=206), I think: We’ve been here before, and it’s time come round at last for the second cast of Evil Avatar Radio to retake its one true name. We owe a great deal to the men and women of Evil Avatar, and we’ve come further for the association than we could have hoped to on our own. But it turns out that to move forward we need to look back. Community exists beyond name or URL – community is people, and we can assure you that the podcast is intact, in good company, and in high spirits.
Stay tuned. Good things are close at hand.
And they were. We would go on to discontinue our broadcast live on the air and settle for a recorded format. It gave us the liberty to record when we wanted as well as say what we wanted without having to censor ourselves due to rules of the FCC (and even then that didn't stop us sometimes...unknowingly or otherwise *coughoctobercough2010cough*).
In 5 years, things are willingly and unwillingly forced to change. If this were a job where we were paid (as we'd originally hoped for so long ago), we'd have probably been fired by now or quit.
You've been patient with us through the years with cast changes, name changes, location changes, recording changes, format changes, and long gaps of silence from us. And yet, you're still here. Waiting for a new episode and writing to us with questions and thoughts. The show really belongs to you now and it has for a long time. We start every show with our short introduction and move on to things you've written us - either through twitter or email or now in the chat room. My point is...these 5 years mean nothing without all of you listening and supporting us. None of those names I mentioned earlier amount to anything if you weren't here to listen to it and enjoy it. The support is huge, honestly, and something that always surprises us given the amount of other shows out there who do this much better than we think we do and given how slow we are to bring you a show from time to time. We've said this before at times and we mean it each time - we cannot thank you enough for listening to what we do and supporting it.
It has been beyond a great 5 years and it means more to us than you know that you've stuck with us for them all.
As always, thanks for listening and enjoy the show.
It's actually been longer than 5 years, but February 2, 2012 marked the 5th anniversary of In-Game Chat/Evil Avatar Radio/In-Game Chat. That is to say that more than we've been doing this show, you've been listening to it. If no one listened or cared, if we ever felt this wasn't worth doing (and at times, we have come close), we'd have stopped already.
Years before we ever did our first broadcast, James and I would sit around the house while visiting to watch some stupid episode of Lost or Amazing Race, Survivor, or something else that was actually good and is no longer on television, and talk about games. Jeremy from time to time would also join in those conversations when a group of us were out at dinner some random weekend night.
At first, it was just talking about games. Then it grew into an idea. I can remember some night in 2006 where James and I were sitting around thinking it would be great if we could do this for a living - talk about video games. But how? I worked at a radio station but there was no way in living hell that the powers that be would go for something like this.
Time passed and in early 2007, on a whim, I decided to talk to the general manager of the radio stations I worked at. I'd been there, at that time, for about 7 years and thought....what the hell? Wouldn't hurt to ask.
My initial approach wasn't for gaming only. I honestly didn't think that would fly and that in the minds of those powers, the show would have to encompass more than just gaming. I went with an electronics/tech show. Some extremely stupid idea that would get us on the air so we could then just talk about games. This was some lowly AM station that went to like...2% power after the sun went down. There's no way they'd care what we were talking about or even listen to it. And we didn't care about that. The station was being streamed over the internet so the quality would always be clear, even if the content wasn't.
Regardless, to my surprise, I was granted a show based on that idea. And on Friday, February 2nd 2007 at 7pm Central, our first show was broadcast.
We've lost that episode (thankfully, really...I'm not even sure it wasn't intentional, honestly - it was shit) and the few episodes that followed. Our earliest episode, so far that we know of, is from March 9th of 2007. You can listen to that episode here (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=689), if you like.
We started, if I remember right, with myself, James, and Jeremy. Dana sat in the producer's booth and screened our phone calls, which surprisingly we got a lot of - both local and long distance from the stream. During our run we had people come in and out of the show. Matt joined us, Arjay, Dennis, Dave on occasion, and then Daniel for a long stint. An honorary and often invisible fourth member who's likely been with us on every episode is Kevin. Sometimes I think we've done 5 years just to keep going so he can be on the show with us live if he ever makes it back into town.
We also started without a name. For like a month almost. We held a poll on Evil Avatar as to what our name should be. I don't remember the choices but when the final results were in, we said screw democracy and took IGC as our name. Then, of course, in August of that same year, we took over the reigns of Evil Avatar Radio from (fuck you) Phil Kollar. An honor at the time and something that actually kind of scared us as to what might happen. Most of you know what happened.
The show exploded into one with actual guest interviews of people in the industry and we began pulling in people on the show we'd never have ever thought we'd get the opportunity to speak with. Our very first interview (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=640) is also one of our proudest. We spoke with Keith Fuller at Raven Software on the passing of an artist of theirs, Glen Angus who died suddenly earlier in the week. One of our first achievements of interviews wasn't as big at the time as we thought it was, mainly because the game had only released that Tuesday and we were doing a show that Friday (or Monday - point being, it was quick). But somehow or another we were able to book both Ellen McClain as well as Jonathan Coulton on the same show (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=640).
As time went on we would interview (http://www.ingamechat.net/?cat=6) more and more people every episode, from Major Nelson, Neil Druckmann from Naughty Dog who talked to us about a new game for the PS3 called Uncharted (he's now the lead on their newest IP, The Last Of Us), Jonathan Blow, Cheapy D, numerous people multiple times from Penny Arcade, Metanet Software (N+), the guys from Ironclad games (Sins Of A Solar Empire), Steve Scott from Bungie who gets to blow shit up all day, Denis Dyack, Crow & Tom Servo from MST3K (I know, right?), Nolan Fucking North, Amy Hennig, friends of the show Twisted Pixel, and of course Mark Hamill, David Hayter, and astronaut Charlie Duke (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=131).
As Evil Avatar Radio we crossed the 100th episode (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=140) threshold with a huge show full of previous callers wishing us well and a ton of people from the community.
Then, in September of 2008, we once again returned as In-Game Chat at almost the same time this site, Colony Of Gamers, was born. James put it best (http://www.ingamechat.net/?p=206), I think: We’ve been here before, and it’s time come round at last for the second cast of Evil Avatar Radio to retake its one true name. We owe a great deal to the men and women of Evil Avatar, and we’ve come further for the association than we could have hoped to on our own. But it turns out that to move forward we need to look back. Community exists beyond name or URL – community is people, and we can assure you that the podcast is intact, in good company, and in high spirits.
Stay tuned. Good things are close at hand.
And they were. We would go on to discontinue our broadcast live on the air and settle for a recorded format. It gave us the liberty to record when we wanted as well as say what we wanted without having to censor ourselves due to rules of the FCC (and even then that didn't stop us sometimes...unknowingly or otherwise *coughoctobercough2010cough*).
In 5 years, things are willingly and unwillingly forced to change. If this were a job where we were paid (as we'd originally hoped for so long ago), we'd have probably been fired by now or quit.
You've been patient with us through the years with cast changes, name changes, location changes, recording changes, format changes, and long gaps of silence from us. And yet, you're still here. Waiting for a new episode and writing to us with questions and thoughts. The show really belongs to you now and it has for a long time. We start every show with our short introduction and move on to things you've written us - either through twitter or email or now in the chat room. My point is...these 5 years mean nothing without all of you listening and supporting us. None of those names I mentioned earlier amount to anything if you weren't here to listen to it and enjoy it. The support is huge, honestly, and something that always surprises us given the amount of other shows out there who do this much better than we think we do and given how slow we are to bring you a show from time to time. We've said this before at times and we mean it each time - we cannot thank you enough for listening to what we do and supporting it.
It has been beyond a great 5 years and it means more to us than you know that you've stuck with us for them all.
As always, thanks for listening and enjoy the show.