With the tragic passing
of Billy Hudson, aka Billy Chaser, I decided to share the interview I did with
him for CultureMap when The Game Chasers Movie—which ultimately became
Adventures in Game Chasing—starting filming, way back in November of 2019. Bill
was generous with his time and provided some interesting history on The Game Chasers’ YouTube channel and lots of background info on the film. RIP, Billy, you were
loved by many.
BRETT WEISS: How did you
meet Jay?
BILLY CHASER: Blockbuster Video. We worked together at a store in Grand Prairie.
WEISS: Were you guys
movie buffs?
CHASER: More gaming than
movies, but yeah, we liked movies, too. We’d work our shift then go play video
games. I lived in an apartment at the time and was studying at The Art
Institute in Dallas. This was in 1999.
WEISS: How long did you
work at Blockbuster?
CHASER: Less than a year.
After that, I got a job at a television station.
WEISS: When did you guys
start The Game Chasers channel?
CHASER: We started it in
2010 and began making videos in 2011.
WEISS: Was the channel
your idea, and you approached Jay with it?
CHASER: Yeah.
WEISS: Was he receptive
to the idea right away?
CHASER: Yeah, he’s
generally up for anything. He loves video games and that sort of thing.
WEISS: I assume you guys
were going around looking for video games long before you started the show?
CHASER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Three to four years before the show started, we would go out to flea markets
and pawnshops and Craigslist finds. It was a competition in a way. We didn’t go
out together as much as we would separately. After work, I’d hit a pawn shop
and show Jay what I had, and he’d get mad and say, “I can find better stuff.”
So he’d go to a Good Will or a Salvation Army and find stuff. He and his wife
at the time were double-teaming it and finding all those games at different
places and collecting them.
WEISS: Lots of good
finds, I’m guessing?
CHASER: During that
three-to-four-year time frame, we probably amassed about 70 percent of our
collection. It was much easier to find stuff back then.
WEISS. Oh, I can relate
to that for sure. What was the germ of the idea for the Game Chasers show? What
inspired you?
CHASER: I was already
making videos on YouTube. My professional background is in video and film. We
were watching a show called American Pickers. I don’t know why, we just liked
it. I’d go over and hang out, and we’d watch American Pickers. It was entertaining,
and one day it hit me that we should do a show like this, but make it about
video games.
We were watching one
episode, and they went to this place that had a bunch of junk, but in the
corner they had a Vectrex just sitting there. They never mentioned it, they
never touched on it, they never talked about it, and I’m sitting there like,
“Dude, there’s a Vectrex in there, why aren’t you picking that up? C’mon, man!”
WEISS: They probably
thought it was just a crappy old black-and-white TV or something.
CHASER: Yeah, the Vectrex
is amazing. It drove me crazy, so I’m like, “Dude, let’s just do this with
video games. We’ve got a Toy Chasers show as well. We collect toys, too. G.I.
Joes, Transformers—basically all the stuff we grew up with, because we’re still
big kids.
WEISS: What are some of
the challenges and annoying aspects of filming The Game Chasers?
CHASER: The annoying
aspect is that since we keep it 100% real, sometimes we go out and find
nothing, which is getting more and more common. Getting kicked out of flea
markets, the pressure to produce something that you have no control over is a
challenge because we can’t control if a flea market is going to have vendors
that carry games. A regular show like American Pickers has all these producers
and people who work on them. They can send them out to places to look for
stuff, because in TV, time is money. There’s no way that if we were on TV they
would do it the way we do it, because that’s a waste of resources, going out on
a weekend and potentially finding something or finding nothing. On TV, you have
to meet a schedule. It’s just us, and we have no control over what we’re going
to find.
WEISS: What is your
favorite aspect of creating the show?
CHASER: I like the
technical aspect. I hate going out and shooting because it’s stressful trying
to find something so we can make a decent video, but once I sit down in my cave
to edit it, I can relax and do my thing. Probably the best part is reading the
comments after we post a video. When people say that they love it. We get
messages from people saying they really appreciate the videos, that they helped
them when they were going through a rough time. It makes it all worth it.
WEISS: The show is
definitely entertaining. I find myself cracking up when I’m watching it. Do you
guys have a background in comedy? Do you enjoy comedy films?
CHASER: We grew up liking
the same type of 80s and 90s comedy road movies. We share the same type of
humor. We incorporated a lot of that into the show naturally. Our animated
cartoons are where we go really crazy, where we get as creative as we like. That’s
what I really enjoy doing. The more scripted stuff. I love creating something
out of thin air that never existed before. I can’t really do that with Game Chasers, because whatever happens, happens, depending on the situation. But
with cartoons and a movie, I can create something from my mind that never
existed.
WEISS: What is the movie
going to be about? Is it going to be similar to the show, or maybe something
completely different?
CHASER: Think of it as a
fictionalized retelling of the Game Chasers in a prequel kind of way. It’s kind
of how the Game Chasers came to be, but fictional. It’s a road trip comedy, but
with elements of…it’s deeper than that. It’s not an hour-and-a-half of raunchy
comedy with fart jokes. It’s got heart and soul and a lot of that kind of deep
stuff. It’s basically Jay and I tracking down the original NES that we used to
play as kids and how we use that to reconnect with our youth.
WEISS: But it’s fictional
and scripted.
CHASER: Right. It’s
fictional and scripted, but with elements of reality. Real life is boring. The
things that happen to us in real life are boring, so you’ve got to “movie it
up” and make an entertaining movie. The core soul elements of why we go and connect
with these games and why we play them—that’s there, the essence of the movie,
the heart and soul of the Game Chasers. While it may be in a different format,
the basics of the Game Chasers are still there at the epicenter of it all.
WEISS: What can you say
about casting at this point? Other than you and Jay, who is going to be in the
movie?
CHASER: It’s going to be
a combination of people fans have seen on The Game Chasers, people they’ve
grown to know and love. There will also be a few people fans haven’t seen that
will add a great deal of interest to the film. We’ve got our eyes set on one
well-known Hollywood actor for a role. I want people to know that the movie
won’t be just us taking the camera out and shooting the movie ourselves. We’re
going to be hiring a professional film crew, a cinematographer, a VX artist who
works on The Walking Dead and The Orville.
WEISS: What are some of
the challenges associated with putting on a video game convention?
CHASER: One challenge is
how many of these shows are popping up now. There’s over saturation to some
degree, which can be both good and bad. A good thing is that people are used to
them and know what they’re about. They can come out and have a good time and
know what to expect, but also the vendors only have a finite amount of things
to sell. If somebody visits one show, maybe they don’t want to go to another. A
“been there, done that” sort of thing.
WEISS: Did you and Jay
start Retropalooza because you noticed that the Dallas/Fort Worth area didn’t
have much in the way of retro gaming conventions?
CHASER: That’s something
we talked about. At this point, it’s mostly Jay who does it. Originally, we
tossed around the idea of doing a show…crap, at this point is was more than six
years ago. There was Screwattack Gaming Convention [in the Dallas area], but it
wasn’t really like the other conventions we went to. It was more like a party
for Screwattack fans. Sure, there was a vendor room where people could buy and
sell, but it was more of an afterthought. We wanted to do a really big
convention with a ton of vendors where people could come out and buy, sell,
find anything they want.
WEISS: Yeah, Retropalooza
is much more mainstream than Screwattack. That show was great fun, but they
definitely catered toward their audience. They didn’t really do that much
outreach to the community, at least for the first couple of shows.
CHASER: It was nothing
like what we had in mind for the area. We tossed around the idea for a
convention, and I kind of wavered on it at first, because I’m not a fan of
organizing things. I’m the “artsy” guy for lack of a better word. I hate making
calls and all that other stuff that goes into putting on a convention. I was
like, “If you want it done, you’re going to have to do most of it. He kind of
took it over and to where it is now.
WEISS: For you, what is
the retro gaming culture like in the Dallas/Fort Worth area?
CHASER: It’s still going
really, really strong. Every month, Facebook groups get together to buy, sell,
and trade at a store or whatever. There are so many stores that have popped up
in recent years. The DFW retro gaming scene is probably the best in the
country. It seems to have the most people, the most competition. It’s a hotbed
for buying, selling, and the overall celebration of it.