Game Sleuth Farewell Post
Back at the start of 2010, we had a big editorial meeting at GameTrailers focusing on new show initiatives. At that point, GameTrailers earned a reputation for having really great shows, but many of them were produced by third parties like AVGN, ScrewAttack, and HAWP.
I had one and only one idea that I brought to the meeting, and it was something I had always had an interest in and felt would make a great video series; a show covering popular video game myths. I grew up on a bunch of 90s Nintendo myths - popular stuff like getting the Triforce or beating the Running Man in Ocarina of Time, playing as Luigi in Super Mario 64, and reviving Aerith in Final Fantasy VII.
After pitching the idea when it was my turn to present, the concept was greeted with praise and excitement. I think it might have been the first time in my life where an idea I had was so well received; for those who don't know, I have always had a self confidence problem, something that persists to this day despite sincere efforts from multiple parties to remedy the situation. It felt really good to have this much support for my idea, and it made me really excited to get the show in production.
I immediately had several ideas for the first episode, and ultimately went with one of the oldest ones in the book; could you jump over the flagpole in Super Mario Bros. By the show's current standards, it was a very quick and dirty look at the myth, a superficial glance with very little research put into it. The episode also lacked the current structure/format, too. In retrospect, it was kind of like a trivia type of video rather than an investigative/research piece.
This was the first real show I got to work on, and there was a lot to get done to get it off the ground, involving multiple people on the production end. When May 2010 rolled around, it was time for the first episode to go live. That's when I think panic set in. I believed in the show, and I put in a lot of work to get the first episode ready to go, and others had worked hard to make it look as awesome as it did. But I couldn't stop worrying about how well would it actually do. Back then, shows lived and died by views, so if it didn't perform well, it would likely get axed as it wasn't worth the time and effort.
Seeing the episode take off and race into the 100K+ views in a short time was one of the best feelings I ever had. I felt vindicated, I felt gratification, and I felt a strong sense of purpose. The follow-up episode covering the Chris Houlihan room in A Link to the Past did just as well, but it was the third episode about playing as Master Hand in Super Smash Bros. Melee that broke all expectations. This episode was actually written by the brother of Pop Fiction's first video editor, John Ondrey, with assistance from the person who discovered the trick. James Ondrey, the original editor, was also really into Nintendo and Nintendo myths like me. When we read the script, I doubted if the claim was legit at first, but upon trying it out and seeing it work, that's when I was on the receiving end of an episode and fully realized how awesome of a show this was.
James Ondrey not only served as the original editor of the series, but was a big believer in it, and he went the extra mile to make each episode a little more special with his personal touch. Eventually James left GameTrailers and the torch passed on to Don Casanova, a name you all love and know very well. I remember feeling like Don might be intimidated by inheriting this show, but as I talked with him about my expectations and my production process, the more I realized he was the perfect replacement. I still remember the crossover episode with AVGN when the morning of the day we were shooting with him, Don on the spot came up with a storyline for a live action component involving the AVGN. He storyboarded and shot it all with such a passion I hadn’t seen before, turning it into something great with the help of James Rolfe's awesome attitude and cooperation.
From 2010-2014, 45 episodes of Pop Fiction spread across 4 seasons released on an almost monthly schedule, and with the exception of the Master Hand and Animal Crossing episodes, all of them were written, captured, and produced by me. In addition to new episodes, several episode updates, some that ended up being longer than the original version of an episode, also came out on top of the almost monthly releases. Not to mention a few years later a supplementary show, Pop Facts, a weekly show about various easter eggs and secrets in games, joined the lineup.
There were definitely some low points, including making a wrong call on the Totaka's Song episode, and letting my personal goal of working with Mega64 in any capacity lead to a forced crossover episode that made little sense and ultimately upset Pop Fiction viewers (not to mention having to edit out the Mega64 parts was very disrespectful to them, especially when they were and still are one of my favorite content creators).
Yet despite those few missteps, there were so many great episodes. The Fire Temple chants episode is still probably my favorite, and to this day is probably the piece of content I am most proud of producing, not because of how much research I put into it, but how after putting the original episode out there, several people came forward with more info that lead to new discoveries. The most recent version of that episode is probably the most comprehensive amount of information on the topic in a single place anywhere, and everyone involved made that happen.
I also got to interview major industry figures who shared amazing personal stories shedding light on behind-the-scenes happenings, including Pokemon Director/Producer Junichi Masuda recalling a middle schooler informing him about how he used a glitch to get Mew, Naughty Dog's Evan Wells sharing how he and the team recreated a track from Diddy Kong Racing at an early stage of Crash Team Racing's development, or the legendary Ed Boon dishing out secrets on the real story behind famous Mortal Kombat myths like unlocking Reptile and Ermac in the original games.
Pop Fiction also evolved over the years to be less of a trivia type show about game myths to a deep dive into the history of the myth, investigating and researching the myth, trying to reproduce the claim, and when possible, trying to get in touch with people who worked on the game to get the definitive answer. What it ended up being is so much more than what it originally started out as, and it was an absolute pleasure to see it evolve over the years, and a wonderful experience to see first-hand how your work, no matter how good you think it is, always has room to improve and grow.
When I was let go from GameTrailers in 2015 during one of Defy Media's earlier waves of layoffs, I felt the premature end of my time working in the industry was being forced upon me. After Defy shuttered GameTrailers in 2016 and we were miraculously given a second chance through Easy Allies, I wanted to continue work on the show I created. During that one-year exodus, I felt torn away from something I really loved, and it was the first time in a long time I felt serious depression, and my anxiety hit an all time high. It was not good for me on any level, and I really shudder to think at what would have happened if I were forced to remain in that situation.
So when I was finally able to join up with Easy Allies (I couldn't be there for the initial launch due to previous obligations with my then employer, Funimation), it was just the relief I needed. It felt like being home again. However, I was panicking because the Patreon took off way faster than anyone had ever dreamed, and my timetable for launching the spiritual successor of Pop Fiction, Game Sleuth, had to be drastically accelerated. At that point in early 2016, I had spent a lot of time on the phone with a good friend and former GameTrailers colleague Marco Rosado to brainstorm the new show. I remember we spent two hours on the phone trying to come up with the name, we just kept pushing back and forth on various ideas and eventually it lead to the name Game Sleuth almost as if the whole process was natural.
Marco and his work partner Dan Racusin created the new show graphics and graciously allowed me to use their work space to have a quiet environment to focus on producing the first episode. It took roughly a month to get that episode ready to go, and as you probably know, Game Sleuth launched on Easy Allies, covering the Running Man myth in Ocarina of Time. From there, I got to revisit the Bigfoot mystery that continued from GTA San Andreas into GTA V, sharing my newfound passion for Dragon Ball in an episode, working with Boundary Break on perhaps the first ever collaborative episode that made sense (and yea that felt good finally), and correcting a longstanding misconception about a popular Resident Evil 2 myth by interviewing those who created the hoax in the first place.
Which brings us to today. It's been just about 9 years since Pop Fiction came to be, and I've been actively working on this series in some form for 8 years. The show became my life for a good part of that time, with almost everything else in my life taking a backseat. It was a lot of work, it was a lot of passion, and I feel incredibly proud to have worked on this show. However, all things come to an end. Yes, there are other mysteries out there to cover. But I've come to a point where I just don't feel as motivated to work on this show. I'm glad several other similar shows have sprung up in the years since that have also found a great deal of success, shows like Boundary Break, Did You Know Gaming, and Game Theory, as well as several others.
I could sit here and list off a bunch of excuses like every episode ended in false or how Japanese game myths almost always never get an official response when we reach out so they're left unsolved, but the core problem is that I no longer having a passion for this subject. Maybe someday something will renew that, I can't predict the future, but right now I can safely say I’d like to try my hand at something different.
Besides Pop Fiction, my other big project at GameTrailers was at the end of 2011 / start of 2012, convincing our department to get on board with streaming (Okay, yes, Timeline was another one, but that's not coming back). After hearing how expensive and difficult streaming would be, I had to bring in my own PC and capture setup and demonstrate in the office how we could be streaming for much cheaper than they thought, and with less resources than they thought. We started streaming on Ustream due to an issue with JustinTV/Twitch at the time (something similar to the issues Viacom had with YouTube/Google back then), but we eventually ended up on Twitch. Working with several people at GT, streaming got off the ground and became a serious initiative in 2012, and as you probably know, the rest is history...
Yes, GameTrailers and now Easy Allies got into the streaming scene at the right time, early enough to be near the ground level with the potential to become a huge component of our business. As you've seen at Easy Allies, streaming is a big deal for us, we are one of the biggest streams during E3, dwarfing other major players in the industry, and our live reactions have become one of our biggest draws (in fact, let's be honest, if we're going by numbers, it is the biggest thing we do at Easy Allies).
For over a year, I've been pushing for us to go harder on streaming, as have some of the others. It's something I feel we still have a window of time to capitalize on, and I take it very seriously. However, at Easy Allies, we're a bit of everything, and as I agree with some of the others, focus can sometimes be an issue. What is the focus of Easy Allies, and what should we be focusing more on to better our situation and content. After three years here, I can tell you this -- old school style of produced content like you saw from us at GameTrailers is not the future for us. There are others out there who stepped up and surpassed us, and we're not going to win that game.
That doesn't mean we should stop produced content altogether, but I think we need to bring our produced content into focus. Tapping into our personalities, not just individuals, but us as a group, is our biggest strength in my opinion. As you've probably seen already, we've adjusted our strategy here at Easy Allies to take better advantage of that, as well as doubling down on personality driven content. This means axing old style of content that no longer fits into our brand, and it's also a bit of it's time to let go of the past. I've said GameTrailers how many times now in this post? It's long past due that we stop playing that card, and shows and elements associated with that time period needs to end.
Streaming is one of the pillars of our future, and one we need to embrace more and become more proactive in the scene. I do not recall who came up with our 52K goal, if it was me, I apologize immensely, but it was a bad idea. By proxy of us moving into a studio space, more streams with us together should naturally just happen. It did at first, and then it stopped. I apologize again for not pushing back harder and calling us out for this shortcoming. Solo streams will obviously still exist as you read, but the core streaming focus of Easy Allies going forward is multi-person streams. They leverage our biggest strength and draw - multiple Allies together to hopefully have those moments you all love and desire so much.
I'm going to be helming this and taking an even larger role in our streaming initiative. It's something I am passionate about, it's something I firmly believe in, and it's something I think that will lead to further growth for the company. I will still be producing reviews and Friend Code, I will still be participating in other shows/podcasts as a guest, but a heavy focus for me going forward will be Easy Allies' streaming initiative. That means I’ll be in the office multiple days a week either on stream or behind the scenes operating the stream.
Which brings us to things I want for us streaming in the future. We will eventually be overhauling all aspects of our streams, from on-screen layout and graphics to the setup we use. This also means a two way dialogue with you, the community, on features you'd like to see us utilize. I understand there will be some of you who are upset about this; there were people in the survey who wanted more produced, GT style content, especially Game Sleuth. I apologize if this is a letdown, but I also ask you to please keep an open mind.
Ultimately, what I'm most excited about with this change is finally being able to be together with the other Allies more often. That is an element I dearly missed and wanted more of, and now with us streaming more together we’re not only satisfying a request many of you have had, but it's also gratifying on a personal level for me. I think you're going to see a better attitude/vibe from Easy Allies with this change, and I think you're going to get more of what you love the most from us.
As always, I do sincerely care about constructive criticism and welcome actionable feedback. Let us know what you hope to see come out of these new streams, and I'll see what we can do about it.
L&R, and be excellent to each other,
- Damiani