Classic Game Room: Mark Bussler Q&A

Pause your game of Truxton and join us for a Q&A with Mark Bussler from CGR Publishing. Mark discusses his career and the history of the video game review show Classic Game Room as well as his documentaries, publishing work, and music. Hosted by Whitney Roberts from the Broken Token Classic Gaming Podcast.
You can find CGR Publishing online at cgrpublishing.com/
You can find the Broken Token Classic Gaming Podcast online at brokentoken.com/
This presentation is from Music City Multi Con in Nashville, TN on October 28, 2023. Music City Multi Con is Nashville's Largest Gaming, Comics, and Pop Culture Convention.
Visit our website at musiccitymulticon.com/

[@retroislandboy9708]

Mark is GOAT.

[@MaestroDrake]

Every video game content creator now and upcoming owes Mark a penny.

[@TheGamerTim]

Great interview, thank you ❤

[@belikewatersf1051]

EDF! Nice to see the man still doing his thing 😁

[@csmith3243]

CGR 4 life

[@DeformedConscience]

Wow, nice. I don't think I've ever seen a CGR interview before. Mark is such a recluse.

[@ksanchez3286]

EDF...EDF...EDF... CGR 4Ever

[@nothingsacred8684]

Listening to Mark always makes makes me feel sad because he always seems to miss what it was that made it difficult for his channel to survive, at least in terms as a solo project. It probably is true that there were probably a lot of people that watched him who otherwise wouldn’t because there simply wasn’t a lot of other quality gaming content early on. But there absolutely would have been a sizeable core audience left after that. It’s not that there was nobody left to watch this style of content, if there weren’t, then channels like Game Sack wouldn’t have survived yet here they are still going strong in 2024. The difference between Mark and other channels of his style is improvement in quality and adaptability. Yes he improved his production quality, but production quality does not improve the content itself in the same way that getting a better camera does not improve the photographer’s skills in how they use lighting and angles. Mark’s videos were extremely basic in comparison to the other channels of his style, filled with unnecessary awkward pauses that broke the pacing of the video. He tried to be both a content farm and personality based channel but the mid 2010’s favored quality over quantity when it came to long form videos. Getting better cameras and lighting and sound equipment isn’t what Classic Game Room needed. Better writing that sounds well thought out that produces more than what a Wikipedia article presents, better pacing reducing the awkward pauses, reducing the meandering he sometimes didn’t that extended video length but not in a way that would retain an audience. This is what CGR needed to survive. Other channels improved themselves in these ways, his did not. It’s not because kids want to watch kids on phones. It’s because Mark didnt and still doesn’t seem to understand what his audience wants. And how can he give an audience what it wants if he doesn’t know what that is? But he may never see what that is if he always takes the audience what it wants as a personal attack on him.

[@SilverShion]

I love CGR but most people nowaday isn't looking for good content, they want random giggles on tiktok or instagram.

[@nothingsacred8684]

I would disagree. I mean yes people like the giggles but also a lot of people like “good” content. If that weren’t the case, then channels like Gaming Historian and Game Sack wouldn’t be thriving, let alone surviving.