playerFIVE.com was founded in late 2007 by its Editor-in-Chief, Justin Meader. His goal was to provide an outlet for himself and a few close friends to talk about their experiences in gaming. An avid gamer since early childhood, Justin had become increasingly aware of the lack of culture around gaming’s early roots, watching his younger brother grow up in a generation of children who’s first videogame experiences were with a Nintendo 64 or a Sony Playstation.
“As I got older,” he recalls, “I started realizing that the generation of gamers that I grew up with were really part of the beginning of an era. We saw the real rise of the home console, and the steady decline of the arcade. My little brother was 11 or so at the time - he had never seen an arcade cabinet, and probably never would have. Something that was so integral to my youth in my formative years, and he wouldn’t ever get that same experience. I just felt like I needed to do something about it.”
It was with this mindset that Justin started playerFIVE.
“It started with the name, really,” he explains. “I remember growing up there were a lot of four-person arcade cabinets: X-Men, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, The Simpsons, the list goes on. But there were plenty of times where even those machines would be full, and someone – usually the unlucky younger brother of one of the players – would have to sit out and watch. And they did that sometimes for hours, just to learn what their older sibling and his friends were making such a fuss about.”
“So that was really the idea with the name. playerFIVE is essentially the observer, the little brother who’s watching to learn and trying to figure out what’s so special about this sort of arcade experience. And of course, that eventually became the norm on home consoles too – I think every major console since the N64 has supported up to four players.”
Focused originally on classic gaming and the 8-bit era, Justin began with a series of articles entitled This Month in Videogame History. The premise was simple: each month he would pick a game that had been released during that month in the United States and write a brief synopsis about why it was an important piece of gaming culture that young gamers today needed to experience.
“I think I started with Super Mario Bros. 3,” Justin reflected. “It was one of my first memorable gaming experiences, and the first videogame I ever played from start to finish on my own. It stands out after twenty years as one of the best games of all-time, and I needed to let a younger generation know about it as well as share memories and experiences with people my age who may feel similarly.”
What started as one man’s blog about classic gaming soon turned into a small group with varying interests and gaming histories. Justin enlisted friends to podcast and work with him under the playerFIVE name, including Chris Hamilton and Jake Cram, both of whom still contribute to the site four years later. While the sharp focus of the site may have broadened over the years, one thing has remained constant – and that is the passion for classic videogames.
In January, 2011, playerFIVE.com re-launched, adding the talent of Justin’s cousin Chris Abbott to the mix.
“I’ve never met anyone who rivals my passion for this kind of stuff like Chris does,” he says. “He’s really brought something special to this team, and really put the drive in me to broaden my scope and try to deliver more and more content. I’ve definitely wavered at times, but I feel like thanks to him we’re on the right track now.”
Adding to classic gaming focus, Justin began a second series entitled 8-bit 101 with a renewed focus on teaching a younger generation about games they should seek out and play. Alongside the continued This Month in Videogame History, playerFIVE is dedicated to becoming one of the web’s finest resources of classic gaming coverage.
Still, that’s not to say current generation gaming is unimportant. Alongside it’s roots of nostalgia, playerFIVE continues to deliver quality current content with it’s video feature GameReel, the insight into the industry that Chris Abbott brings with his news, and the ever-so-entertaining FIVEcast podcast that the team puts together bi-weekly.
Justin continued on to add, “We’ve branched out as a team, but we know where our home is. We’re doing things like GameReel to keep entertaining and current, and its fun for us, but at the end of the day playerFIVE is and will always be about educating a new generation and making sure gamers know their roots.”
