Inside Mega64’s 20 12 months reign
The three of them have been making Mega64 — a foundational internet collection in American online game tradition — for nearly twenty years, and for those who handed by means of GameFAQs boards and IGN remark sections within the early 2000s, then you definately most likely found the troupe of their native state; risking humiliation and debilitation in psychedelic public stunts, a la “Jackass” or “The Tom Green Show,” besides drawn from the gamer’s canon.
In one classic sketch, Rocco scoots round a strip mall dressed as a cumbersome Tetris L-block — barely ambulatory, principally blind — whereas a cameraman soaks within the distressed reactions of the bystanders. In one other, Shawn fashions himself a “Katamari Damacy” costume, which clings to his lithe body like a moist go well with, and rolls an inflatable seaside ball round a park, guileless and free, earlier than getting tied up in a heated confrontation at a softball sport. In maybe Mega64’s masterpiece, the trio memorize the choreography to the whacked-out DS rhythm basic “Elite Beat Agents,” and carry out it with gusto at a Mexican restaurant earlier than getting escorted out by safety.
I watched these clips again and again in highschool, laughing and screaming at their audacity; the wondrously uncooked id of Mega64. But for those who rely your self as one of many gang’s earliest followers, then you definately, identical to them, are staring down the identical ultimatum. We’ve gotten previous, and video video games — particularly online game creator content material, notably inside the “Jackass” vein — are usually the terrain of younger women and men. Mega64 is trying to age gracefully. Perhaps they will mild the trail ahead, yet one more time.
“There’s been a shifting of the scales in what causes the anxiety of going out in public. When I was younger it was this fear of authority. Like, ‘I’m just this kid, and some older person is going to get mad at me,’ ” Acosta mentioned over a Zoom name from Mega64’s studio in San Diego. “Now that I’m older, it’s like, ‘I’m too old to be doing this s—. Society is going to look at me like I’m a loser.’
“I’ve always had to tell myself that this is the job. This is what we get paid to do. Trash men go take out the trash, and Mega64 go f— with the public.”
From ‘little stupid thing’ to a profession
The principal members of Mega64 met of their highschool theater division, in an age lengthy earlier than YouTube or Twitch. Botte owned a camcorder, and recorded all the behind-the-scenes excessive jinks that youngsters rise up to in the course of the canine days of Shakespeare rehearsals. At the wrap social gathering for every manufacturing, Botte would edit collectively a spotlight reel of the funniest candid moments he captured, which grew to become one thing of a category custom inside his grade.
“There was literally a talk in our group that was like, ‘After Rocco graduates, who’s going to make the videos?’” mentioned Acosta.
But Botte was not a digital native, and on the flip of the millennium there wasn’t but a pc in each American family. In these days, Botte spliced collectively his theater clips utilizing two VCRs.
“Derrick was a little younger and had a new technique,” Botte mentioned, remembering. “He’s like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, why aren’t you editing this on a computer?’ ”
Mega64 was born then. They simply didn’t comprehend it but.
“The infrastructure was already in place by the time we were out of high school. We had already made hours worth of content that was well-received among our friends,” Acosta mentioned. “We wanted to keep the project going, but we didn’t know what to do next.”
Just just a few years later, the reply might need been apparent. Acosta, Chatfield, and Botte would have uploaded their mission to YouTube, with excessive hopes that the algorithm would shine brightly upon them. But easy house video distribution was a lot more durable to return by in 2003, so the earliest model of Mega64 emanated from public-access tv in San Diego. You can nonetheless discover these broadcasts on the web: They’re scruffy and aggressively lo-fi — crackling with home-movie noise — clearly drawing from the kind of disestablishment VHS tapes you may discover at an area skate store. In explicit, Botte cites “The Tom Green Show” and the CKY movies launched by a really younger Bam Margera as main influences. It wasn’t a worthy prank except the specter of a beating — or an arrest — loomed. (Case in level: One of probably the most beloved public access-era Mega64 sketches known as “Aggressive Caroling.” The troupe sings “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” to serene onlookers, earlier than pivoting into an unsightly, violent mosh pit.)
But extra importantly, these public-access broadcasts allowed the troupe to stumble towards an overarching physique of fiction to buoy the stunts they have been releasing — a universe to name their very own. Botte took the function of an evil genius, who was forcing two captives, Chatfield and Acosta, to check his new online game console that implanted the minds of its gamers immediately into the code, which is why they may discover themselves immediately wandering round a plaza dressed as a Tetris block. The title of that imaginary console? The Mega64.
The first block of Mega64 programming was filmed with acutely low expectations. Chatfield, Acosta, and Botte have been barely out of highschool, and with none metadata to parse, they saved observe of the mission’s traction by means of their private webpages. If they managed to realize 20 guests in a day, that counted as a large success. (Botte would later pitch the present to G4, the nascent cable channel devoted to early-00s online game tradition, however was let down straightforward.)
Without any linear bankrolling, the gang launched a double-DVD set of their materials by means of the video publishing arm of Something Awful in 2004. It was referred to as “Mega64 Version One,” and it unfolded like a zero-budget sci-fi romp: gonzo sketches bracketed by the faint whiff of long-formj, anime-ish world-building. Those DVDs circulated throughout the nation, and earlier than lengthy Mega64 had a real nationwide viewers by means of word-of-mouth momentum.
“They were definitely part of an early wave of people making comedy about games in the 2000s, along with Electric Playground and a few other shows,” mentioned Merritt Ok, a sport maker and journalist who was an early Mega64 fan. “Their influence can’t be understated — while some magazines were experimenting with games-related comedy throughout the 80s and 90s, the explosion of people goofing around with the medium that happened on YouTube in the late 2000s can trace its lineage back to them.”
None of the members are certain why, precisely, Mega64 caught on, however Chatfield has a easy idea: There merely wasn’t a lot video content material about video games within the early 2000s. The presence of anybody celebrating the tradition as a fan — moderately than a critic or a developer — was novel. Mega64 was foolish and cheaply rendered, however the folks on display screen clearly beloved video games in the identical approach we did. Maybe that’s all it took.
“Before we knew it, there were magazine articles written about this thing we were doing, even though we weren’t pushing it that hard,” Chatfield mentioned. “We hit the sweet spot. We got noticed right away. Now, there’s 10,000 new YouTube channels a day.”
As the Mega64 model grew, so did their visitor record; immediately, Mega64 skits featured cameos by Hideo Kojima, Gabe Newell, and Shigeru Miyamoto. They held down cubicles at conventions world wide, and offered out theaters to debut new materials. The founding members nonetheless had day jobs — Chatfield was taking school lessons till 2007 — however ultimately it grew to become clear that regardless of Mega64’s inauspicious origins, it had remodeled into one thing near a legacy model.
“I never focused on making money,” Acosta mentioned. “We had day jobs, and Mega64 was something we did for fun. I was totally happy with that. And if people were watching? Cool. But maybe it was inevitable that it would grow and become more popular, and maybe it took years for that inevitability to take over.
“The only thing that really changed was the way I talked about Mega64. When I was younger, it was this stupid thing I did with my friends. But now it’s been my career for 20 years. I was still referring to it as this little stupid thing, but this little stupid thing was more of a career than a lot of people dream of having. We just kind of found ourselves.”
From stunts to sustainability
The troupe nonetheless delivers on the general public stunts that grew to become Mega64’s calling card. Just final 12 months Acosta slathered on some pretend gore to do his greatest Ethan Winters impression, a lot to the befuddlement of the locals of San Diego’s Old Town. But because the members received older, so too did the contours of Mega64. Today, Chatfield, Botte, Acosta, and longtime collaborator Garrett Hunter have principally ditched all of their grand television-esque narrative ambitions — an evil genius and his hapless prisoners — to lavish most of their consideration on the model’s weekly podcast. The present is lots humorous, but in addition much more sedate than the trollishness of, say, “Aggressive Caroling.” In normal, Botte tells me that creatively talking, he’s much less as of late within the shock worth of the group’s early work.
Yes, Mega64 nonetheless lands successful video every so often. The trio’s hilariously hostile tackle “Untitled Goose Game” racked up greater than 6 million views in 2019, and a breakneck parody of a “Dragon Ball Z” arc almost doubled that determine a 12 months prior. But general Mega64’s YouTube channel hosts 641,000 subscribers; a wholesome quantity, certain, however effectively under the thresholds of crossover icons like PewDiePie and Markiplier. The troupe doesn’t lose any sleep over their stature. They aren’t consistently devising new methods to overwhelm the algorithm, nor are they burdened by clout insecurity. These days, the Mega64 model appears particularly tuned to an viewers that was ingratiated into their philosophy years in the past.
“Our fans are dedicated,” Acosta mentioned. “We have less of them, but they’re more dedicated to our work. I think we accomplish more than a lot of bigger channels. We have less soldiers but they’re stronger soldiers.”
“Always outnumbered, never outgunned,” Botte added.
On Twitch and YouTube, new channels bloom out of skinny air as aspiring influencers — seated in entrance of neon PC instances and gray-foam microphones — publish an countless deluge of content material, determined to maintain the numbers going up. More subscribers, extra views, extra clicks, and extra donations necessitate a protracted catalogue of an identical video game-themed clips. Ubiquity is the first objective; artistic achievement takes a distant second.
Mega64 — maybe as a result of they belong to a distinct technology, or maybe as a result of they’re merely blessed with an alternate set of priorities — have chosen sustainability over growth. It seems, you can age gracefully in video games media.
“It’s very cool to know that these guys who I watched back when I was in college are still having fun,” mentioned Merritt.
“I work with bands who can’t even agree on what they want to be,” Acosta mentioned. “‘Do we want to make this kind of music? Or this kind of music?’ Mega64 has never been one thing. It can be a public access show where we go out and mess with people, and it can be a podcast where we talk about our lives.”