ABOUT CHRIS

Me, Myself and I

I’m TheChrisD – I’m an Irish game streamer and videographer. I also maintain the websites and social media accounts of several other entities. But since you’ve come to the general page about me, I suppose I should give you a bit more info that just that small little snippet.

First name Chris, which can be gathered from the username. Live somewhere in the not-so-emerald isle of Ireland (it’s all a tourist trap, really).

In my mid-teens I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, part of which probably explains my devout love for video games (see various studies on Aspie behavioural patterns if you wish). I had some developmental issues during my school years, particularly through the secondary level, but the diagnosis was helpful as it made me finally understand all of the thoughts and issues I’d had over the previous ten years or so in the public schooling system.

I’m not as different as other people on the autism spectrum, as I have had some time to adjust my mannerisms to be able to act normal in society and with those I’ve gotten to know over the years both online and face-to-face in real life.

Gaming History

I first started gaming in the mid 90’s, with my first game being Wolfenstein 3D on DOS. After that when the computer I had played Wolfenstein on was given to me proper and moved into my bedroom, I started on a few rather weird games that would run on Windows 3.1, eventually culminating in Sim City 2000. Soon, for my 10th birthday, I received a proper (at the time) computer with Windows 95 as well as a copy of Theme Hospital, and with that I was on my way.

My first experience with proper online gaming came in the summer of 2003, when after I managed to “acquire” a laptop for a period of time, I started playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on various servers. Seeing how it was only ever me in the house for the vast portion of the day, my love for online gaming sprouted while my general love for video games blossomed.

I started proper console gaming in January 2005 when I bought my original Xbox with a copy of Goldeneye: Rogue Agent (worst game ever). Soon after that in April of the same year, I started my Xbox Live account with a free two month trial card and started playing Forza Motorsport online using the 1MB ADSL line we had.

Proper online PC gaming on the other hand is only a recent thing for me, which all started in October 2006 when I found EVE Online after being showed it by a couple of friends. A slight unhealthy obsession followed, forcing a lengthy hiatus from the game (before eventually cancelling altogether). However, after building my first proper gaming rig in September 2009 – dubbed The Almighty Bear – most of my current activities started up properly.

YouTubing and Streaming

Video editing and gameplay videos is still quite a new thing to me, however YouTubing is not, as I created my account back in June 2006 for browsing, and for uploading some very bad quality webcam videos. I first started uploading proper videos in January 2009, with a “camera LP” of the boss battles in Japanese Pokémon Platinum. While the camera (and eventually camcorder) quality videos stayed until December, properly recorded gaming videos cropped up in between and eventually became full-stage in 2010.

I purchased a Blackmagic Intensity Pro in mid-2010 and moved into streaming and creating videos of various Xbox games. Over the next couple of years, I started to dabble into PC gaming videos; and in 2012 switched fully to PC gaming, having become dis-encouraged by console gaming. Well, that and I kind of loaned out my console for an event and never really bothered to get it back afterwards.

I’ve begun acting as a full-time YouTube videographer in late 2014, and have since improved my workflow by building a much more powerful gaming PC in 2015 – dubbed The Rabid Grizzly – to allow for faster turnaround of content, and better streaming quality.

Switch to Twitch

After a brief period of creative burnout in 2018, and the YouTube adpocalypse around the same time, I moved over to Twitch. There were other factors included as well such as the better discoverability, as well as my YouTube channel dropping below the minimum required watch hours to remain eligible for monetisation.