With the tragic passingof Billy Hudson, aka Billy Chaser, I decided to share the interview I did withhim for CultureMap when The Game Chasers Movie—which ultimately becameAdventures in Game Chasing—starting filming, way back in November of 2019. Billwas 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 wereloved by many.

BRETT WEISS: How did youmeet Jay?

BILLY CHASER: Blockbuster Video. We worked together at a store in Grand Prairie.

WEISS: Were you guysmovie buffs?

CHASER: More gaming thanmovies, but yeah, we liked movies, too. We’d work our shift then go play videogames. I lived in an apartment at the time and was studying at The ArtInstitute in Dallas. This was in 1999.

WEISS: How long did youwork at Blockbuster?

CHASER: Less than a year.After that, I got a job at a television station.

WEISS: When did you guysstart The Game Chasers channel?

CHASER: We started it in2010 and began making videos in 2011.

WEISS: Was the channelyour idea, and you approached Jay with it?

CHASER: Yeah.

WEISS: Was he receptiveto the idea right away?

CHASER: Yeah, he’sgenerally up for anything. He loves video games and that sort of thing.

WEISS: I assume you guyswere 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 marketsand pawnshops and Craigslist finds. It was a competition in a way. We didn’t goout together as much as we would separately. After work, I’d hit a pawn shopand 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 wifeat the time were double-teaming it and finding all those games at differentplaces and collecting them.

WEISS: Lots of goodfinds, I’m guessing?

CHASER: During thatthree-to-four-year time frame, we probably amassed about 70 percent of ourcollection. It was much easier to find stuff back then.

WEISS. Oh, I can relateto that for sure. What was the germ of the idea for the Game Chasers show? Whatinspired you?

CHASER: I was alreadymaking videos on YouTube. My professional background is in video and film. Wewere watching a show called American Pickers. I don’t know why, we just likedit. 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 aboutvideo games.

We were watching oneepisode, and they went to this place that had a bunch of junk, but in thecorner they had a Vectrex just sitting there. They never mentioned it, theynever 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 probablythought it was just a crappy old black-and-white TV or something.

CHASER: Yeah, the Vectrexis amazing. It drove me crazy, so I’m like, “Dude, let’s just do this withvideo 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 stillbig kids.

WEISS: What are some ofthe challenges and annoying aspects of filming The Game Chasers?

CHASER: The annoyingaspect is that since we keep it 100% real, sometimes we go out and findnothing, which is getting more and more common. Getting kicked out of fleamarkets, the pressure to produce something that you have no control over is achallenge because we can’t control if a flea market is going to have vendorsthat carry games. A regular show like American Pickers has all these producersand people who work on them. They can send them out to places to look forstuff, because in TV, time is money. There’s no way that if we were on TV theywould do it the way we do it, because that’s a waste of resources, going out ona weekend and potentially finding something or finding nothing. On TV, you haveto meet a schedule. It’s just us, and we have no control over what we’re goingto find.

WEISS: What is yourfavorite aspect of creating the show?

CHASER: I like thetechnical aspect. I hate going out and shooting because it’s stressful tryingto find something so we can make a decent video, but once I sit down in my caveto edit it, I can relax and do my thing. Probably the best part is reading thecomments after we post a video. When people say that they love it. We getmessages from people saying they really appreciate the videos, that they helpedthem when they were going through a rough time. It makes it all worth it.

WEISS: The show isdefinitely entertaining. I find myself cracking up when I’m watching it. Do youguys have a background in comedy? Do you enjoy comedy films?

CHASER: We grew up likingthe same type of 80s and 90s comedy road movies. We share the same type ofhumor. We incorporated a lot of that into the show naturally. Our animatedcartoons are where we go really crazy, where we get as creative as we like. That’swhat I really enjoy doing. The more scripted stuff. I love creating somethingout of thin air that never existed before. I can’t really do that with Game Chasers, because whatever happens, happens, depending on the situation. Butwith cartoons and a movie, I can create something from my mind that neverexisted.

WEISS: What is the moviegoing to be about? Is it going to be similar to the show, or maybe somethingcompletely different?

CHASER: Think of it as afictionalized retelling of the Game Chasers in a prequel kind of way. It’s kindof how the Game Chasers came to be, but fictional. It’s a road trip comedy, butwith elements of…it’s deeper than that. It’s not an hour-and-a-half of raunchycomedy with fart jokes. It’s got heart and soul and a lot of that kind of deepstuff. It’s basically Jay and I tracking down the original NES that we used toplay as kids and how we use that to reconnect with our youth.

WEISS: But it’s fictionaland scripted.

CHASER: Right. It’sfictional and scripted, but with elements of reality. Real life is boring. Thethings that happen to us in real life are boring, so you’ve got to “movie itup” and make an entertaining movie. The core soul elements of why we go and connectwith 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 sayabout casting at this point? Other than you and Jay, who is going to be in themovie?

CHASER: It’s going to bea combination of people fans have seen on The Game Chasers, people they’vegrown to know and love. There will also be a few people fans haven’t seen thatwill add a great deal of interest to the film. We’ve got our eyes set on onewell-known Hollywood actor for a role. I want people to know that the moviewon’t be just us taking the camera out and shooting the movie ourselves. We’regoing to be hiring a professional film crew, a cinematographer, a VX artist whoworks on The Walking Dead and The Orville.

WEISS: What are some ofthe challenges associated with putting on a video game convention?

CHASER: One challenge ishow many of these shows are popping up now. There’s over saturation to somedegree, which can be both good and bad. A good thing is that people are used tothem and know what they’re about. They can come out and have a good time andknow what to expect, but also the vendors only have a finite amount of thingsto 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 Jaystart Retropalooza because you noticed that the Dallas/Fort Worth area didn’thave much in the way of retro gaming conventions?

CHASER: That’s somethingwe talked about. At this point, it’s mostly Jay who does it. Originally, wetossed around the idea of doing a show…crap, at this point is was more than sixyears ago. There was Screwattack Gaming Convention [in the Dallas area], but itwasn’t really like the other conventions we went to. It was more like a partyfor Screwattack fans. Sure, there was a vendor room where people could buy andsell, but it was more of an afterthought. We wanted to do a really bigconvention with a ton of vendors where people could come out and buy, sell,find anything they want.

WEISS: Yeah, Retropaloozais much more mainstream than Screwattack. That show was great fun, but theydefinitely catered toward their audience. They didn’t really do that muchoutreach to the community, at least for the first couple of shows.

CHASER: It was nothinglike what we had in mind for the area. We tossed around the idea for aconvention, and I kind of wavered on it at first, because I’m not a fan oforganizing things. I’m the “artsy” guy for lack of a better word. I hate makingcalls and all that other stuff that goes into putting on a convention. I waslike, “If you want it done, you’re going to have to do most of it. He kind oftook it over and to where it is now.

WEISS: For you, what isthe retro gaming culture like in the Dallas/Fort Worth area?

CHASER: It’s still goingreally, 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 upin recent years. The DFW retro gaming scene is probably the best in thecountry. It seems to have the most people, the most competition. It’s a hotbedfor buying, selling, and the overall celebration of it.