Looking Through a Snow Globe to One Last Poker Game

On January 18th 2006, struggling Ohio-based filmmaker Chris Bores opened a channel on the still young YouTube. Allowing him to post various videos including parodies of the popular show Mythbusters, a tribute to Back to the Future, and most prolific, his ghost hunting show Haunted Investigators. The channel did not get noticed, getting buried in the hundreds of newcomers signing up everyday. Discouraged, Chris looked to what was popular. What he found were several satirical videos of grown men complaining about video games from the 1980’s. Leading the pack was a series called The Angry Nintendo Nerd, later renamed The Angry Video Game Nerd. Created and produced by James Rolfe.

Inspired, Bores began work on a new series. Buying used NES games on eBay by the boatload, some used SNES games, some used consoles, and his effects & editing programs. Bores then consulted a thesaurus and found the perfect name. The Irate Gamer. He opened the separate “Irategamer” channel on April 23rd 2007, ten years ago to this day.
His first video was on Back to the Future for NES. In an effort to stand out from the other reviewers, Bores ended the review showing his “super special awesome” effects with a scene where he gets in his car and travels back in time to murder the CEO of LJN (classy). Bores stood by his effects as the reason he was successful.
Though the video was also loaded with similar jokes and points made in the AVGN’s video, and whatever new points he brought up were meaningless or poorly thought out (50 enemies? There’s not even 50 levels in Super Mario Bros!) the video went mostly unnoticed. Bores continued to make videos of poor (writing) quality, until he got to his eighth episode on Super Mario Bros. 2.

YouTube, seeing a video with higher than normal production values, but without the hard-R cussing Rolfe’s series was familiar with, took Bores’ Super Mario Bros. 2 video and featured it. Meaning front page and side-bar coverage all over the site. This lead to Bores getting a ton of new fans, and a lot of critics. His follow-up video on MUSCLE was also featured, leading to more fans. During this time, he sent an e-mail to Rolfe about how he was a major inspiration and how he’s sorry for “possibly copying” any of his reviews. Rolfe and his partner Mike Matei saw the letter and thought nothing of it. At least until his next video on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Though Bores looked at more than one game, his review of the first game on NES was almost exactly like Rolfe’s review. Furious with him, Matei posted the e-mail to show what a fraud he is on the ScrewAttack forum. Chris Bores became one of the most hated video makers on the internet.

This did not stop him though as he continued making videos. He also got noticed by a small gaming website called GotGame, and similar to ScrewAttack hiring Rolfe, they hired Bores to make content for them. Leading to the creation of “Irate Gamer Neo” and his reviews of modern games.
As the internet screamed plagiarism accusations at him, a few people looked beneath and noticed an even bigger problem. Bores had no idea what he was talking about, and the reviews were beyond poorly written. Saying classic games like Ghosts & Goblins, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and Contra were bad games. Realizing that there were people that actually believed him, people started posting videos pointing out the errors, and one person even made a blog. I won’t acknowledge them by name after they threatened my life, but I will say I was inspired by their blog to create Irate Gamer Sucks, and go even more in-depth into his videos and showcase how and why he’s wrong 98% of the time. I did so for 8 years, archiving his immense stupidity and slimy tactics (sub4sub, view cheating). I even convinced a lot of people that he was fraudulent.

I sat through the stupidity of 2008, the train wreck of Aladdin, the laughable attempt at looking legit with History of Video Games (didn’t even make it past Intellvision), the storyline with more holes than 9/11 theories, the absolute worst of IG Neo, the almost passable but still garbage I Rate the 80s, his attempt to bring back his ghost hunting career, his tell-all video that told even more lies and did nothing but throw Rolfe under the bus, his attempt at being a “professional” YouTube user with multiple videos a week, his first published book, and his utter devolution into shilling garbage before just giving up and going with toys and puppets.

Where am I going with this?  Well… I’m done. I don’t have anything else to say.
Chris isn’t making Irate Gamer videos anymore, and I don’t have anything new to say about Puppet Steve (it’s the same damn thing over and over again). No reason to keep going.

Not entirely at least, if anyone close to Chris is willing to do an interview about him, I’d be glad to do one. Whether it’s SWAGshow or Eric Allen or Brad Harp, or that guy from the TMNT Cereal video (who was he?) I’d be happy to listen. Maybe someone from the ghost community? Maybe even get answers for some of the big unsolved mysteries. Like the validity of LadyBuggin777, how hard Chris actually worked on his videos, Chris’ job outside of YouTube, the reason for countless delays and how it somehow took over 3 years to do his stupid storyline,  and how legitimate of a gamer he was (and considering his complete abandonment of games, it’s likely he wasn’t legit at all).
I’d also be glad to take more former fan testimonials, or even current fans that are likely upset that he’s abandoned you without any closure, instead focusing on an audience of 6 year olds in a show that’s essentially “dangling shiny things in front of you”.
If Chris does come back with actual content, you bet I’ll be back. Otherwise, I no longer have content myself.

Through all the years, trials, tribulations, fans, haters, drama, comedy, I hope you enjoyed reading every last bit, even the early posts that I don’t look back on too fondly.

Special Thanks:
- I’d like to thank my informants for keeping me in the loop with whatever bullshit Chris was up to.
- I’d like to thank Uatu the Watcher for finding a lot of information I never would have found myself, including Chris’ activity in an old Yahoo Group for a Beanie Baby knock-off called the Meanies.
- I’d like to thank Larry Bundy Jr for providing plenty of information about YouTube and Chris himself.
- I’d like to thank Mike Matei for providing evidence of Chris’ lies and for more information.
- I’d like thank Lewis Lovhaug and Brad Jones for reading my stupid ramblings and inspiring me to keep going.
- I’d like to thank the person that showed me Puppet Steve for the first time. I never mentioned him as I questioned his legitimacy, but he claimed to be related to Chris’ wife Nicole and provided some scathing information about him. Don’t take this as fact, but he claimed Chris didn’t hold a job, spending all his time looking up 80’s media. Nicole was angry that he wasn’t looking for a job. They were so cheap they didn’t buy soap, they made their own. The Skylanders stop-motion video was only done in a couple days, not weeks like he claimed. Plus some other info I don’t recall off the top of my head. Again, take with a major grain of salt. I didn’t post it until now as I doubt Chris himself cares at this point.
- I’d like to all the people that didn’t fall for his “Opening Up” video.
- Most of all, I’d like to thank you the readers. Even in the dark times you kept me going. I can’t thank you enough.

*turns off the light*