Rocco Botte

Rocco Botte (/ˈboʊti/; born December 20, 1983) is an American independent actor, director and comedian living in San Diego, California. He is best known for his work in Mega64, a web based comedy group founded in 2003. The group produces a self-titled series that has had three seasons released on DVD. ComplexGaming named Botte number 2 in a list of top 25 video game personalities you should know who aren't developers.^[1] In 2017, Botte won the A- List Acting Award at San Diego Film Week by the Film Consortium San Diego. ^[2]

Background

Botte was born and raised in the San Diego, California area. He is from an Italian-American family. Botte attended West Hills High School where he joined the school's theater department and met his future co-workers Derrick Acosta and Shawn Chatfield. He set up his first website in the early 2000s that chronicled stupid instant messages he had been sent, hosted his pictures, videos and various opinions & information on the television series Power Rangers.^[3] He worked at a video store for a few years, which he did not enjoy. Botte is an avid toy collector, he often posts updates about his purchases on his personal YouTube channel.

Career

On November 5, 2002 Botte wrote down a loose outline for what would become Mega64 during class.^[4] He eventually recruited friends Derrick Acosta and Shawn Chatfield to help create the show in 2003, which was intended to be released on public access television. Eventually, all episodes were released on DVD, published through Awful Video, the publishing arm of Something Awful in 2005. Subsequently seasons 2 and 3 of the show were released on DVD in 2006 and 2010 respectively. In early 2006 short skits from the series were uploaded to YouTube, usually featuring Botte or another member of Mega64 portraying a video game character causing chaos in a public setting. Several of these videos have gone on to garner millions of views.

With Mega64, he has produced videos for various websites including Penny Arcade, GameTrailers, and IGN. He has also created online ads for video game companies Ubisoft, The Behemoth, Armor Games and Perfect World Entertainment as well as television commercials for the online video game service GameTap. Mega64 were told by Kojima Productions to create the E3 announcement video for the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. The following year they created a video for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Mega64 produced a video for Konami's 2013 pre-E3 show in which Botte impersonated the main character of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. In 2014 Botte starred in the pre-E3 announcement video for Nintendo with Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. Botte has also produced and starred in several videos for The Game Developers Conference throughout the years. Many of the videos produced for the conference feature important figures in the video game industry, including Gabe Newell, Ken Kutaragi, Yu Suzuki, Cliff Bleszinski and Hironobu Sakaguchi.

Botte has been a part of various panels at San Diego Comic Con, Penny Arcade Expo Prime and East, Anime Expo, Fan Expo Canada and RTX. Botte and Mega64 attended Anime Conji, a brand new local anime convention in 2010. The group showed up on short notice, completely unannounced. With no prepared material, Botte and co. told Jeff Foxworthy jokes, danced to popular 90s songs and recited sports facts for 45 minutes. The group was permanently banned from the convention due to "in fighting" and "heckling", which was in reality just part of their act. Footage from the event was released as an exclusive DVD available at various conventions Mega64 attended. In 2013 ScrewAttack challenged Mega64 to a video game competition at the ScrewAttack Gaming Convention in Dallas, Texas. Botte and Mega64 responded in kind, setting the terms for the event. These tongue in cheek stipulations included the public execution of ScrewAttack content producer Brentalfloss should Mega64 be victorious, which the website promptly accepted.^[5] Botte won the contest for Mega64, surviving longer against Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson's Punchout than his opponent. Botte has also been on panels unrelated to Mega64. These include Dark Horse's Evangelion panel at Anime Expo and a "History of Voltage Vengerz" panel at the Power Rangers centric Power Morphicon.

Mega64 was asked to create segments for The Aquabats' television show The Aquabats! Super Show! on The Hub.^[6] Botte had been acquaintances with the Aquabats lead singer Christian Jacobs ever since they had gotten permission from the band to use their song "Sequence Erase" as the theme song for Mega64. The Aquabats have occasionally shown the segments created by Botte and Mega64 during their live shows. In a collaboration with composer Tommy Tallarico, Botte and Mega64 released the video series "Gamer Warz". Gamer Warz features various Mega64 members eating sushi off of Botte's Chest as he sings the American national anthem. A limited print two disc Gamer Warz DVD set was released in November 2012.^[7] Botte and Mega64 directed and starred in a music video for the band Freezepop's song "Brainpower" in which they parody Mark Gormley and the rest of The Uncharted Zone cast. Online computer hardware and software retailer Newegg had Botte build a customized video editing computer on their Newegg TV series.

Along with Mega64, Botte maintains a personal YouTube channel. The channel became was accepted into YouTube's partnership program shortly after Botte began frequently uploading videos in 2009. Most of the videos on the channel are short, random snippets from Botte's everyday life.^[8] In addition to these he also has several ongoing video series including the "Unboxing Ring" saga which spanned three years. In the videos Botte plays a bumbling YouTube personality filming DVD unboxings. The videos eventually descend into off screen improv arguments between Botte and his film crew. Botte has also conducted a few interviews for his YouTube channel with interviewees including Ashly Burch, Jon "JonTron" Jafari and Jason David Frank.

Since 2010 Botte has helped organize an annual gathering at Disneyland in Anaheim, California called "GameDays". The name is based on a video the group made in which two men misunderstand the "GayDays" gathering that occurs at the theme park. Botte and the rest of Mega64 meet and greet with the guests in an unstructured, casual setting with only a rough schedule to follow if one wishes to do so. Prior to the event shirts with the GameDays logo can be purchased at Mega64's online store. In 2012 GameDays attendees were given a discounted ticket prices and in 2013 a private panel & video screening event at the Anaheim Marriott Suites was added to the festivities. Tickets to the panel could be purchased on Mega64's online store. Free DVDs, T-shirts and posters were handed out to the attendees. Each year the event has gotten steadily larger in attendance. In 2014, Game Grumps attended the event as a guest panelist. The following year, The Aquabats and comedian Nathan Barnatt were featured guests at the event.

Filmography

References

External links

• Rocco Botte on IMDb