I maded a video thing about working in retail and why used games are fucking great.

What do you recon?

Have you bought used games knowing that you'd trade them in again to buy more stuff?

I know ya'll will be watching the GB stream, but YOU CAN STILL PLAY!

Right now I'm sitting in a rented apartment in San Francisco. It's sunny outside, there's baseball on the TV and I'm on a laptop trying my best to sum up what fucked up set of events landed me here. I'm also reminding myself of how bad I am at creative writing.

I arrived in San Francisco yesterday where I'm staying for about a month to work alongside the US video team in the run-up to E3. Back in 2005 when I used to stay up until midnight to watch On The Spot, I dreamed of another life where I could work in the GameSpot HQ, and be as good at talking about games as the people inside that 640 x 480 frame. I'm not sure if ever really thought it was a possibility. In fact, I'm sure it was just a pipe dream.

I'm sitting here, thinking about the past five years of work to get here, and the only emotion I have to describe this situation is bafflement. I am fucking baffled that I am sitting here.

I'm baffled that that super-green, idiot kid managed to get this done. I'm baffled that all those people took a risk with me and gave me opportunities. I'm baffled that my fiancé moved to the UK with me so I could try get a job in the industry, and then allowed me to live in a different country for another two years once I did. I'm baffled that anybody watches my videos at all. That my Irish accent carries, that my opinion of games matters, that my jokes are funny. I'm baffled that my professional heroes, the men and women who inspired me to try this line of work, actually know who the fuck I am. And that some of them even like me?!

But the most baffling part is that I'm not even the least bit anxious about tomorrow. I've been waiting years to work with the people inside that building, and sitting here with the baseball on, and the sun outside - it's like some strange version of Christmas Eve. Where on Christmas Day you work like a horse to collaborate with talented people to create amazing videos about fucking video games. I cannot wait.

Before posting this, I just spent a few minutes reading my old blogs and I spotted something. Tomorrow, the first day I walk into that office, is 3 hours shy of being exactly 7 years from my first blog post on GameSpot.

Baffling.

I've been chipping away on this video for about two months, and now I've spent the past 24 hours whoring it out to people. But it's worth it considering the subject matter.

I've suffered from depression and OCD at various points throughout my life, and have often used games as a coping mechanism. When I played Depression Quest on a GameSpot livestream a few months ago, we got like, almost a hundred emails and twitter messages from people who wanted more discussion around the topic. So together with the help of random internet people I put together this mini-doc about the links between games and mental health issues. It's sad that we still feel weird about talking about this stuff, but I'm hoping this will encourage a handful of people into opening up, and eventually looking for help.

Have any of you guys ever used games as a crutch to get through depression?

Shit son

I can feel it in my waters.

5 - Cheat codes for FIFA 13

4 - Theme Hospital 2

3 - Fable 4 Mountain Dew

2 - The cure for cancer

1 - Unreal Tournament 2013

What do you want in the cube?

[ I work for GameSpot - no I'm not evil - but yes I want all your money]

Ladies, gentlemen, and duders,

Playing video games for a day is the only way I know how to contribute to society and the lives of others. So on October 20th GameSpot will live-stream a 24 hour gaming marathon in support of gaming charity Extra Life. Extra Life is an annual event that raises funds for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals around the world, and this year myself and some of my most handsome friends will live-stream 24 of the best games ever made - each chosen from 24 years of gaming history. One per hour starting with the 1989 classic Prince of Persia. The entire event will be live-streamed on GameSpot and Twitch.TV with community interaction, online gaming sessions, prizes and special guests galore!

Last year, Extra Life raised more than 1.2 million dollars to save kids, but in 2012 our goals, just like the needs of the children, are much, much higher. Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin treats thousands of children each year, regardless of their family's ability to pay. These kids are facing scary things like cancer, cystic fibrosis, and injuries from accidents to name just a few.

So if you have anything to spare, your donations would be greatly appreciated. You can donate by visiting the link below. To receive updates on when the event goes live you can use the event's Facebook Page, or follow me on twitter.

Thank you.

EDIT: Apologies if this comes across as advertising or spamming, I've been a member of this community for years before I started work at GameSpot, so in my heart I don't see it as such. In any case, the Giant Bomb community has bunches of other livesteams that are worth getting behind also. Extra Life has passed over $1,000,000 already this year, so whoever you donate money to, be sure to donate. If you can!

EDIT 2: I've added text for some context!

[ I work for GameSpot - no I'm not evil - but yes I want all your money]

Ladies, gentlemen, and duders,

Playing video games for a day is the only way I know how to contribute to society and the lives of others. So on October 20th GameSpot will live-stream a 24 hour gaming marathon in support of gaming charity Extra Life. Extra Life is an annual event that raises funds for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals around the world, and this year myself and some of my most handsome friends will live-stream 24 of the best games ever made - each chosen from 24 years of gaming history. One per hour starting with the 1989 classic Prince of Persia. The entire event will be live-streamed on GameSpot and Twitch.TV with community interaction, online gaming sessions, prizes and special guests galore!

Last year, Extra Life raised more than 1.2 million dollars to save kids, but in 2012 our goals, just like the needs of the children, are much, much higher. Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin treats thousands of children each year, regardless of their family's ability to pay. These kids are facing scary things like cancer, cystic fibrosis, and injuries from accidents to name just a few.

So if you have anything to spare, your donations would be greatly appreciated. You can donate by visiting the link below. To receive updates on when the event goes live you can use the event's Facebook Page, or follow me on twitter.

DONATE NOW

EVENT PAGE ON FACEBOOK

I've nearly come to the end of the initial six-week run of my GameSpot show Secret Code. The show I decided to do after we wrapped the second season of Escape From Mount Stupid and I felt like talking about the reason I dumped a popular show to focus on games not many people know or care about.

I've always had a massive love and respect for the independent games development scene. For one I used to be a programmer. Mostly web-interface stuff but I tried my hand at games development on Actionscript and C# in various college projects. Secondly, I love the idea of small start-up companies. Before coming to GameSpot I ran a gaming website with a group of people across the world, and before that I was always working on small projects with friends. I love the camaraderie that comes from collaboration, and the fruits of passionate group projects are usually pretty damn tasty.

I did some counting last week and realised that Escape From Mount Stupid has been watched 1.6 million times. That's a lot of people. I try not to get focused on numbers too much, but the fact is they're an important part of gauging interest in videos you make. Sometimes other factors come into play. Specifically with my shows it's usually down to how much time they get on the homepage (exposure), the quality of games in the title (AAA get more clicks) and the length of the video (traditionally long videos don't get played).

So when EFMS did quite well, and I knew I wanted to do something else I decided to cash-in any and all goodwill I had with the community and my peers and do a show that broke the second rule.

So how do you get people to watch an indie show? Nobody had ever cracked the formula so I decided to ask as many people as possible. When I had the opportunity to visit PAX East earlier this year I spent a lot of time talking to indie developers of all shapes and sizes. Capy's Nathan Vella told me short-form, entertaining videos were the best way to show off a game without boring people. Interviews and features are fun, he explained, but most gamers don't care about the industry or the developers. I used a lot of this advice in the first few episodes of the series.

Another issue on my mind was how to get to expand the gaming palette of visitors to GameSpot who are only interested in AAA games. I had a great chat with everyones favourite ex GameSpot editor turned developer Greg Kasavin who interestingly told me he didn't care about trying to sell his games to that audience. He told me there are enough people who love the games that Supergiant want to make already. I was glad for his insight but I wasn't sure how to take it. Did that mean an indie show would do okay because fans of indie games would watch it? Or did it mean that trying to appeal to a wider audience was futile? I'd find out soon enough, it was three weeks to episode one.

In the end I decided on a formula that would attempt to appeal to both crowds. To create a show that championed indie games, but put a weird game front-and-center as a piece of bait on the GameSpot homepage. The first episode showed off The Splatters and Lone Survivor, but the image on the homepage carousel and the first item on the intro focused on the controversial simulation game JFK Reloaded.

The indie features were short-form, punchy and focused on entertainment and delivering core information about the game. In terms of style they were basically trailers. Over the course of the season I tried different lengths and combinations of episodes. Three games - five games - two games and a quick-fire round - one game and an indie everytime we kill fifteen people.

I still wasn't sure if people were watching because of the indie games or the weird games, so on episode five I decided to take a punt and focus on one single game. To my surprise and delight our Monaco episode is looking to be the second most popular episode we made. I still don't have any decisive answers, but the massive drop-off in views I had nightmares about didn't happen. So at the very least I know that the indie games aren't the weak link.

We haven't nailed the formula, but I feel a lot more clear about the desires of the audience. We've one more episode left in this six week run, but I'm looking to continue Secret Code in a less structured style.

It's not all about the numbers, but we've done 113,000 views on YouTube in five episodes, and that makes my job of justifying the show a lot, lot easier!

Special Thanks to all the indie developers who helped me out so much during the course of this show's initial run. We've got some amazing games like Thomas Was Alone, Natural selection 2 and Retro City Rampage coming on future episodes.

Yea....bloody hell. *pinches self*

I'll be presenting some of the GameSpot live stage on Tue/Wed/Thurs. Might see my big Irish head on the the Giant Bomb late night show at some stage too.

@dannyodwyer on Twitter if you fancy seeing pictures of dumbness as they happen.

Updates coming soon, in the meantime here's a photo of jet lagged/drunk Seb Ford trying to close an ironing board.