In normal circumstances, doing something new is quite scary. However, deciding to create a podcast and website dedicated to the hobby you love that will be out in cyberspace for all to see, hear and no doubt judge, is unbelievably, mind numbingly, cock shrinkingly (yes, I made up this word, I felt it needed it ) terrifying.
The first glimmer of the idea came to me about six months ago. I approached Ben and said,
“Wouldn’t it be awesome to do our own podcast?”
To which he replied,
“Yes. Yes it would, but you live in Bournemouth and I in Portsmouth”
Just for the record, Ben doesn’t really speak like that, he’s from Essex.
I was living in Bournemouth due to work and had been there for about a year when I decided enough was enough and that I would move back to my home town, Portsmouth. It was about 3 months after moving, Ben called me to ask a question,
“Wouldn’t it be awesome to do our own podcast?”
To which I replied,
“Yes. Yes it would. I rather think we could do it, let’s give it a shot!”
Just for the record, I don’t speak like that either, I’m from Portsmouth.
It was three weeks ago we sat down and started to thrash out some ideas. What the content was going to be? Who was going to be involved? What should we call it? A lot of these decisions were fairly easy to make, all we wanted was us and some mates talking about our love of all things gaming but being complete amateurs though we needed to do some research on how to record and edit podcasts, there was also the problem of getting it out there when we had done it.
I often wonder how we survived before the internet came along, such a plethora of knowledge and porn, I mean ideas….yeah…. ideas.
Pretty much the structure, substance and participants were figured out in that one evening over Doritos, Pepsi Max and Dr Pepper. We had downloaded a free basic recording and editing program and set about recording sound bites and effects from some of our favourite games to use in the show. We then had to come up with a name that sounded good but hadn’t already been taken.
To say it was hard is a bit of an understatement. We soon took to scouring Ben’s extensive DVD collection for inspiration, for instance, Star Gamers, Back to the Gaming, Fellowship of the Gamers, you get the gist.
With no name in sight we decided to call it a night having been very pleased with how it was turning out, and it was only the first evening!
Even though I had left, both me and Ben were still racking our brains for a name, and when I arrived home and looked at my own DVD collection (which is probably a tenth of Bens) that a name struck me. I saw a film called A Matter Of Life And Death starring David Niven. Hey it’s a classic! All I had to do was drop Death for Gaming; show Ben, and A Matter Of Life And Gaming was born.
With the name in place, show structure sorted, we emailed all the guests and set a date for our first recording. Things were starting to move along at a good pace and I started to think that we might actually do this.
The day had finally arrived when we would record our first podcast and we all had decided that alcohol had to be involved. After filling our glasses (Jack and coke always goes down well!) we hit the record button and talked and talked and talked and…….well you understand I’m sure.
Ben had spoken to his mate Chris, who was one of the guests on the show, about doing a website and getting the podcast on iTunes so he had brought with him a mock-up of the site design to show us. You see, Chris is a bit of a legend in that field so it only seemed right to ask him, and what a job he has done so far! Cheers Chris!
So after much editing by Ben and myself our first podcast is up and waiting to be downloaded by all who wish to hear a bunch of geeks talking and laughing (loudly I might add!) about life and gaming.
It certainly has been an epic journey so far but to me life (and gaming) doesn’t get much better.