Interview #6: Troubletcat

Hey dudes. I know that this interview is a day late, but I call that excusable, because of the awesomeness of the dude I've got an interview with. Tis none other than Troubletcat/TtC/Haig/the guy over at the Zombie Arcade, who is very cool, and has agreed to do an interview for me. So, let the awesome commence!


Firstly, for those who don't know you, who are you/what do you do?

I am a 21 year old human male, and my primary activities include vidya games and getting distracted from ever doing any work at university. I also have a little internet-based gaming-related project/website going, called the Zombie Arcade.

Essentially, what I’m interested in doing or trying to do is create content that contributes to gaming culture in some way. This started off as primarily text – game reviews and rants about gaming culture in general – and has progressed to being much more focused on video content, mostly YouTube (although hopefully with more Livestreaming coming again soon). Mostly I talk about Battlefield 3 – how to play the game successfully, as well as my opinions on developments with the game – but I also try to offer a little bit more breadth, throwing in other, less well known games, and occasionally talking about new releases or gaming news.

Very broadly, I consider myself an entertainer, and my main goal is always that people get a laugh or at least a mildly-amused-smirk out of my content. [Which he has done many times, in my case at least.]


Why did you decide to start a blog?

Primarily the original reason was boredom. I needed something to do. I was near the end of a year off after high-school and before university, I was having a hard time finding a job (or adequate motivation to spend enough energy job-hunting to make it effective) [I know that feeling...], and I really needed something to do.

I chose what I did because I’ve always had a small interest in journalism, I love games, and I thought it would be fun, and because I thought it might be useful to have a portfolio of some gaming-related work if I was ever wanting to actually get into the industry in some capacity – again, at that point, thinking of becoming a journalist in the field.


Did the progression on to doing videos and livestream just occur naturally, or was there some sort of planning/decision involved?

It was fairly natural for me. The kinds of content that I was most interested in, that I tended to get the most enjoyment out of, was video content – people doing essentially what I’m doing on YouTube now, and a handful of streamers. Initially I was concerned about recording quality on my old computer, and about hating the sound of my own recorded voice (which is one of the stupidest hurdles that almost everybody doing this kind of thing has to overcome, when in reality there’s almost never any actual reason to be concerned about this) [tis true - was one of the weirdest things when I first recorded], neither of which turned out to be problems remotely. For the most part, I just decided to try it out one day, and although I got a little nervous at first, I enjoyed it and found it quickly became pretty natural to me.

As for the Livestream, that was actually something I had vaguely considered doing, but was unsure about. At some point Michael (of Theality Bites) [of whom, the plan is, to get an interview from soon] suggested that I do it, and seemed really enthusiastic about the idea/wanting to get involved, so that provided the extra bit of motivation to actually give it a shot. The Livestream is a lot of work, and it can be kind of exhausting, but it’s also a lot of fun, and I pretty much immediately fell in love with it. Again, not a whole lot of planning or forethought – just the decision to give something a shot, and it ended up working out pretty well.


How do you manage the blog/channel/stream and uni?

This is actually pretty easy for me, at least. If I don’t stream, I spend a couple of hours a day working on videos. It doesn’t honestly take a gigantic amount of work, although some stuff takes longer if it’s more highly edited or produced, such as the few video reviews I did. [Which were pretty darn epic, yeah. Worth that extra time.] Since I’m only part time at university at the moment, it’s fairly straightforward to balance a couple hours of work a day on the blog and a couple of hours of work on university stuff. This would be more challenging if I had a full course load, but I expect I’d still be able to get a video up almost every day.

Where things become difficult is with the livestream, as that can potentially take up a lot of time. But really, it’s just a matter of prioritising things and being disciplined about not spending so much time on one that the other becomes impossible. Essentially it’s the same as balancing a part-time job with university, which is the more standard thing to do, and is more or less how I think about my situation – I’m pretty committed to Zombie Arcade, and I’m also hoping to actually make it pay me at some point down the line.

I guess the one piece of advice I’d give on this front is that there are plenty of hours in the day, it’s just a matter of exerting the willpower to make the most of them, instead of spending a lot of time spinning your wheels with the myriad of time-wasters the internet offers. [No kidding. It's just so annoying when the internet wastes your time with all these pointless....oh, look, Line Rider!]


What's been the best thing about doing the blog/channel/stream so far?

In short, the people. I really like Livestreaming because I get to interact with my viewers in real-time, and it always puts me in a good mood when I get up in the morning and check my YouTube comments. Gamers are a cool bunch of people, and I like being able to interact with them on a fairly wide scale, as well as sort of getting to know my regular viewers, most of whom are pretty cool dudes.

Any ideas how you could further expand it out? (i.e. you've got a blog, a channel, a stream - any other things possibly happening at some point as well?)


In terms of mediums I think I’ve pretty much got it covered. I’ve got text and video and I mean, I guess I could do pure podcasts, but if I’m doing something like that I might as well put some gameplay to it or at least my face on webcam.

I’ve got something cooking quietly in the background, and idea for something that’s more... internet television than the sort of thing I’m doing now, and I think a desire to do that kind of thing – something more highly scripted and edited, essentially of a more professional quality – comes through in a few of the things I’ve done over the past year.

[Tell me more....tell me all your secrets, all your plans, Agent Bond...]

I don’t want to talk too much about it though, because in reality I haven’t gotten very far, and I don’t want to be the guy talking about that screenplay he’s working on who never actually shows anybody anything or (probably) even sets pen to paper. [Ha...ha...ha....yeah. I know that feeling too.] I’m hoping to do something like that eventually, but I’m somewhat limited by time, budget, and technical ability at the moment. It’s brewing away at the back of my mind, and when I think I can really make it work, I’ll do it.


And lastly, why is it called the Zombie Arcade? (I believe you told me this once, but I forgot. :P)

Because I have no life, and I must game. Almost everything I do is targeted most heavily at hardcore, dedicated gamers who (regardless of the truth of this) are stereotyped as having no lives. Hence, an arcade for the undead. [I'm not quite what I'd call a hardcore gamer, not even that dedicated. But tis still awesome.]




If you guys want to see more awesome, I have links to TtC's various pages, including his blog, YouTube channel, Livestream and Facebook page just below. Big thanks to Mister Trouble for taking some time to answer these questions for me!

Blog - http://www.thezombiearcade.net/
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/user/troubletcat
Livestream - http://www.twitch.tv/troubletcat
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zombie-Arcade/177523882261240