Gamerz Interview Part 1

Written by Nathan Murray on 9/15/2008 for AV  

You thought the Gamerz article was done? Not by a long shot my friend. Sean Colleli and I didn’t just sit on our butts and play a few games, we actually did some journalism. We interviewed Charlie the unofficial general manager, Barbara Jones Vice President, and Ken Jones President of Gamerz.

Part 1 Interview with Charlie
Charlie is the man to go to when Ken and Barbara aren’t around. He is the oldest of the staff at Gamerz and the most knowledgeable and I’ve found myself talking to him for a good time while I was supposed to be picking out a game to play.

[Nathan] What is the absolute best part of working at Gamerz? The one thing that really keeps you coming back?
For me it’s probably that I live literally right across the street. I can wake up like 15 minutes before I come to work, hop in the shower and then come over here and get things moving.


[Sean Colleli] It is a big advantage.
At the same time, I’m the oldest employee here so I don’t have to worry about my parents picking me up or dropping me off. There are nights where I’ll get off my shift, and I’ll literally be here playing games until 3 or 4 in the morning, because all I have to do is just go right across the street to get home and go to bed. The location is just perfect, I think it’s one of the reasons I got this job.

[Nathan] Do you do most of your gaming here?
Yeah, at home I have an original Xbox, but a couple days ago I tried to turn it on and it didn’t work anymore, so I had to throw that away. So yeah, I basically do all my gaming here.

[Nathan] What are some of your favorite titles?
Crackdown is one of my all time favorites, you’re basically Spider Man with a gun! Call of Duty 4 is always great if you’re playing with people. I’m ashamed to say this but recently I’ve been addicted to Oblivion; I’ve logged like over 75 hours on that game already.


[Nathan] Is that all? [laughs]
Yeah, but I’m nowhere close to being done, I’m like 2 missions into the main story.

[Sean Colleli] ...and all the sidequests too.
Yeah, you turn a corner and somebody wants to give you another quest.Part 2 Interview with Barbara Jones
Barbara Jones is a very kind woman who makes you feel at home even though sometimes Gamerz can feel like a buzz of electronic activity. She is a great host and is always friendly. You know that feeling you get when your mom bakes chocolate chip cookies (or other favorite food) just for you after you’ve had a bad day? She kind of makes you feel like that.

[Sean Colleli] Do you think you could organize tabletop gaming here, like Dungeons and Dragons?
We’re open to just about anything to be honest, as long as it doesn’t cost a lot [laugh], we’re still new so we’re trying to get out and there and such. We just had 10TV out here last night doing a story on the curfew. If you’re under 17 you have to be in by 9:30, so they were doing a story on places where kids can hang out, because we’re open 24 hrs starting June 1st.

[Nathan Murray] So 10TV news beat us [Gaming Nexus] here, huh? [laughs]
So what site are you guys from again?

[Nathan Murray] Gamingnexus.com. It’s a local site. We’re both staff writers, and most of our responsibilities entail doing news posts on the website.

[Sean Colleli] We do a lot of posts from all over the industry, people send us press releases, they’ll send us games and materials and we’ll review them.
Have you guys hears about a website called igames.org? It’s an organization for places like us from all over the country. They sponsor game nights, tournaments.


[Nathan Murray] It gives you the tools to run tournaments?
More of the people on their forum are PC LAN type, we’re the first console only group. Basically you go the site and you can list your center tournaments, or you can see what other centers are doing, but it’s all linked together. If you want to post tournaments or game launch day events, like we’re doing a Civilization thing coming up, the new one for consoles. My husband can’t wait! Igames is doing that one, and if your center helps launch it, they’ll send you free copies of the game. You might want to check it out. They have an event coming up in California, the igames expo in Santa Fe.

[Charlie] So I’m going, right?

Actually, we want to send someone. We also work with Twin Galaxies, the arcade authorities. They keep track of all the high scores. They have representatives in Ohio, and they come in here a lot. We had a Wii Sports tournament, Twin Galaxies was there and we had a couple people that made the record for bowling.