About Me

My name is Pete, I like games. Ever since I was young I had always been fascinated with video games. My first game system was my Dad's Colecovision which I regularly enjoyed playing games such as Donkey Kong Jr., Congo Bongo, Zaxxon, and Mouse Trap. I grew up playing an NES on visits to my Uncle's house,  discovering classics such as The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros 3 among others. Visiting my Grandparents meant being able to play the Sega Genesis and games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, and Golden Axe 2. I was lucky enough to have family members like this who made visits to their homes that much more enjoyable when games were involved.

I would eventually go on to receive my very own Sega Genesis one Christmas morning and from there my love for video games continued to grow. Though I primarily grew up playing a Sega Genesis, I did have access to a friends Super Nintendo, and soon enough my Grandpa's Playstation and Sega CD. I set out to acquire more systems beyond my Genesis and Colecovision such as a Game Boy Pocket, Atari Jaguar, Sega 32X, Super Nintendo, and as time went on the Playstation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Playstation 2 and eventually I would finally get around to owning an NES of my own years later.

When I was around the age of 13 I had discovered that there were video game "collectors" out there after finding some collection pictures online. I was blown away by peoples dedication to their hobby. Entire rooms filled to the brim with library like shelving adorned with complete copies of games, collectibles, posters, it was like nothing I had even seen before. I became inspired to look at the games I had in a new way, I looked at them as my "collection".

I already had a head start to my game collection, because ever since I was young I always held onto all of my games with a few exceptions of trading away some Genesis games or losing boxes for games on my 32X, Gameboy, and N64. I started doing my research on all of the systems that I had missed out on over the years, and with the help of my parents credit card and finding out how to buy on eBay, I was on my way to expanding my collection like never before. 

I shopped smart, researching the average selling prices of games and systems and aiming to pay well below those prices. Doing this required time and patience, but in the end it payed off when I was able to acquire some really great deals for single games, systems, or lots of games. During this time I added systems like the Atari 2600, Sega Saturn, Sega CD, 3DO, Virtual Boy, Sega Master System, and more.

It started to become more of an obsession. I started buying store display signs, posters, and certain games just because they were deemed "rare" by other collectors. There was a thrill in the hunt that was unbearably addictive, however, nothing beats finding a box filled with retro game systems at a garage sale for $5, getting a winning bid on eBay for a really rare game for a fraction of its cost, or simply anticipating the next buy 2 get 1 free sale at Gamestop.

The problem is many people assume that if you collect games you don't actually play the games you buy. While it is true that there are some collectors out there who collect for investment reasons, rarely touching their games, there are plenty collectors out there who still use most of their free time to play the games they buy. I myself have played a majority of the games I own, dedicating hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours to particular titles (usually with online play involved). While the majority of games I play today are from the new generation of titles from systems like Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS, and PSP, I still find time to revisit the classics which I still enjoy playing 'til this day.

So what led to my involvement and success with where I am today with YouTube?  I guess you can say it started with my ealry involvement with creating websites themed around video games. I made websites based on anything from Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Nintendo, Klonoa, RPG's, General game news, and much more. It was my way of getting involved in video games beyond my own personal use, I wanted to share my opinions with others even if barely anyone was reading what I wrote.

I had the privilege of being a Moderator for the now Gamespot owned Gamerankings.com site. I was tasked with writing reviews and having to read and approve user submitted reviews as well. It was all volunteer work, but it truly got me involved in looking at games in a different, more analyitic way.

I would go on to trying many different things such as blogging, podcasting, joining tons of forums, but all seemed to eventually fall flat for me. It felt as though nobody was listening or reading to my work and I needed to try something new.

In 2006 I decided to give YouTube a try, I posted 2 video reviews using a headset for my audio and my Xbox Live camera for the video. The quality was terrible and yet again it seemed as though this was yet another failed attempt to somehow break onto the scene of getting my opinions out there are seen by others.

In October 2008 I thought I would give YouTube just one more try, I was anxious to do something for fun with my extra free time. I went out and bought a good quality web camera and started making videos such as "4 RPG's to check out on the Wii", "Games I bought recently", "My Top 10 Most Addicting Games of All Time", and "A Look Back at the Playstation 2". The audio and video quality were not as good as I could have made them, but they were leaps and bounds above the quality of what I had previously done in 2006. I was finally on track of doing what I had envisioned myself doing so many years ago.

The views on my videos started off at a crawling pace, I was stuggling to hit 100 views on my videos but I stuck with it because this is what I wanted to do and was having fun doing it, and just the thought that only a handful of people were listening to my opinions was more than enough encouragement to continue. I had 4 Subscribers left over from my 2006 videos and by November 16th 2008 I had hit 100 subscribers. It just kept growing at a rapid rate that simply amazed me as eventualy thousands of people were watching my videos and listening to my opinions on games and enjoying the different types of videos I was making. Fast forward to today and I am now widely recognized around the YouTube gaming community as an inspiration for others looking grow their very own collections and to start their own similarly themed channels.

It is an honor to be so widely recognized in this amazing community of gamers. I really want to thank anyone who has ever watched my videos, sent me a message, left a comment, subscribed, or cited me as the inspiration behind creating your very own YouTube channel, it really means a lot to me, thank you!

-Pete Dorr