At the beginning of October, things were looking dire for Mega64; the internet comedy group that’s been making sketches, podcasts, and live shows for 21 years was running out of funds. Publishing videos acting like a Tetris block in public or recreating anime in incredibly low-budget detail wasn’t doing as well with the algorithm as it did years back. The troupe’s core members Rocco Botte, Derrick Acosta, and Shawn Chatfield had put all their faith in their fans before, transforming them from random kids on a surreal public access show to influencer pioneers, so they decided why not give it another shot.
So on October 29, they booted up a livestream on Twitch and YouTube to give one final plea: help save Mega64. “Let's just tell them what's going on, you know, let's just share the kind of trouble we're facing right now, and just let them know,” Botte told Complex in an interview. “If this is something you're okay with, then we'll go away.”
A Fanbase To The Rescue
But the fans weren’t ready to leave Mega64 and flooded the group with goodwill, heartfelt messages, and donations. According to Acosta, their Patreon subscribers increased “three-fold,” merchandise was flying off the shelves, and donations poured in on Ko-Fi. “Mega64 will live to see another day,” Acosta said. “You're going to see us in 2025 and beyond.”
Back in 2003, the trio was just a group of friends attending high school in San Diego, making funny movies about their theater class or fellow students. In the pre-YouTube era, these videos just ended up being passed around and couldn’t go anywhere, but they knew they were on to something. “After high school, we didn’t want to stop making videos together,” Chatfield told Complex. “That’s when Rocco and Derrick approached me with an idea to create a public access show.”
To a modern audience, public access is essentially nonexistent but it mattered a lot more in a world still reeling from the embarrassment of Y2K. Comics the three idolized like Tom Green and Mystery Science Theater 3000 got their start on public access, and San Diego had to give out free air time. So the group came up with a story about a super console that could transport you into any game you’d like called the Mega64.
Alongside a fairly convoluted plot, the group would create sketches about games they loved like Super Mario or Banjo-Kazooie. In what Botte describes as “the purest, happiest memory of Mega64,” the group reenacted the NES’ Paperboy by standing around in the dead of night with their friends waiting for the paper delivery person to show.
“It wasn't for YouTube because that still didn't exist,” Botte recalls. “It was just a bunch of people wanting to do something wild and creative and laugh hard. There's no more pure reason to do anything.”
Reflections On Greatness
Soon the group discovered they could upload a file to the internet and started spreading their sketches on message boards. But after 21,000 people downloaded their theme song and it cost them $1,000, they realized they needed a new approach. After spending a few years in the cesspool that is SomethingAwful.com, YouTube popped up and they uploaded their first video in February 2006.
From there, Mega64 took off like a rocket and became one of the biggest gaming channels on the platform. “I just made a personal account and put up our new Resident Evil video, and then that got, like, six million views,” Botte said. “It was like, ‘Oh, well, I guess we're posting stuff on here from now.’”
Soon, they were making videos for the Game Developers Conference, doing brand deals, and collaborating with video game icons like Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto.
Podcasts and live shows created a community while their sketches started to evolve, leading to their most popular videos to this day—abridged live-action recreations of arcs in Dragon Ball. The idea of “instead of using computer effects, but to do it all physically is antithetical to how loud and crazy anime is,” Botte said, but somehow using sports equipment as Saiyan armor and string lights as spirit energy created a viral masterpiece. “I put so much effort into creating the costumes and perfecting the in-camera effects, and it means so much to me that it was so well received,” Chatfield said.
But as algorithms shifted and tastes moved away from short-form, highly produced videos, Mega64 started to struggle. They became overly reliant on podcasts and their sketches weren’t pulling in the numbers the show needed to survive. Mega64 currently has seven full-time employees who were close to being out of a job. But now the group isn’t going anywhere, allowing a whole new generation of gamers and comedy fans a chance to witness greatness.
“I hope the legacy of Mega64 is one that people can look back on and remember as a time when we made them laugh or helped them forget their problems, even for a little while,” Chatfield said.