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The official podcast of Shoemaker Films. Every week we share content related to digital marketing, video production, and brand building; and frequently meet with local creatives, entrepreneurs, and business owners for in-depth conversations. Get to know local heavy hitters and influencers in the Greater Philadelphia region while picking up some tactical advice and tips on starting and running a business, being productive, creating content, and everything in between.
Hi. This is Dane Shoemaker. Welcome to the Shoemaker Lab. I'm joined here today with Derek Rodner of Uplink Studios. Derek, how are you today?
Derek Rodner:I'm good. How are you doing? Good.
Dane Shoemaker:Good. Chief gaming officer and owner. Correct? Chief gaming officer, owner,
Derek Rodner:chief bottle washer. I do the toilets, sweep, everything.
Dane Shoemaker:Excellent. As is the, entrepreneur that Yeah. That do everything. So tell us a little bit about Uplink Studios.
Derek Rodner:So Uplink is we, currently have 2 locations. Our whole mission was built on the idea of making not only making better gamers, but better humans.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:And so what we do is we are a primarily youth focused esports training center.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:As well as a family entertainment center that offers all sorts of sort of next generation entertainment, golf simulators, racing simulators.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:You see our arena here. We do lots of private events and karaoke parties and all sorts of different things. So kind of like a community local community, esports, and family entertainment center.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is a fabulous space here in King of Prussia, Wayne area. Your other locations in where is that?
Derek Rodner:Ludwig's Corner. So it's at the intersection of 401 and 100 Chester Springs Glenmore. That area.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay. Got it. And you established that location. That was first.
Derek Rodner:Yes. That was our what we called our proof of concept. That was Okay. Prove that parents were willing to spend money for their kids to play a video game they could play in their basement. Yeah.
Derek Rodner:Yeah. So we started that. The timing was fantastic on that. We started that in, February of 2020. We sold out our 1st league in 8 days.
Derek Rodner:We were well on our way and got a week and a half into practice and had to shut down due to COVID. So timing was impeccable.
Dane Shoemaker:Right. Right. So tell us about, you know, everything that you offer here. What are the programs? What are some things that you can do here?
Derek Rodner:Yeah. Certainly. So, we're open to the public basically all day every day. So you can come in and you can just rent a PC for $10 an hour or, you know, book the golf simulators, come in and golf, and we're a BYO facility as well. So, you know, bring a beer with you and and play around the golf with your friends.
Derek Rodner:We also have, racing simulator, same types of setups that, Max Verstappen would use if you were if you're a Formula 1 guy.
Dane Shoemaker:Wow.
Derek Rodner:And you're seeing committed race and play with your buddies. But that's sort of our hourly model, which is, what I consider sort of the icing on the cake from a business standpoint. Primarily, we offer programs that are more, repeatable and have value add beyond just, you know, playing on a gaming PC. So
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:For youth, we focus on, esports leagues. As I mentioned, we do 3 different leagues right now. Rocket League, which is RC cars playing soccer, basically, is the easy way to describe it. Overwatch, which is a 5 person first person shooter, but very team focused game, and Valorant, which just came out in, August of 2020, which is a 5 person a first person shooter as well, but a much different type of game than, say, an Overwatch would be. Okay.
Derek Rodner:So we do youth leagues. We have after school clubs. We're a STEM accredited facility. So we have, we do Minecraft Mondays. We have Fortnite Wednesdays, and then we do chess clubs and, LEGO STEM club where we learn to build things as well as code around these these Lego STEM, program that we have
Dane Shoemaker:Oh, that's fantastic.
Derek Rodner:Kinda cool.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:And then we do summer camps and birthday parties. And for the adults, we have, adult leagues for racing and golf. We do birthday parties, corporate events. We this whole room that we're in right now is we call our esports arena, which if you can see behind, we right now is configured for, a gaming tournament.
Dane Shoemaker:Right. Right.
Derek Rodner:So we have 5 PCs on either side. And Okay. What you see on the screens right now is just filler that during a game, you would see the screen of each competitor up there as well as we have a camera on them. So you see their faces because their faces are kinda hidden by the screens.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Derek Rodner:And you get to see sort of the facial reactions and the excitement in their faces and sometimes the disappointment as well. Right? Yeah. But we can reconfigure this room. We've had a live band on stage.
Derek Rodner:We have, karaoke setups that we can do. We have, a trivia setups. We've done trivia for corporate events.
Dane Shoemaker:So Okay.
Derek Rodner:This is sort of a multipurpose room. It can be used kind of for anything. Yeah. And our goal is to to fill it all the time.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. And it's outfitted with pretty state of the art technology, good sound, good lighting, good video.
Derek Rodner:I mean,
Dane Shoemaker:you could broadcast, from here. Yes. Potentially, yeah, you can live stream.
Derek Rodner:It didn't start with great audio. When we moved in, it was it was cavernous. And so we had to go in and add some foamware to the ceilings to sort of make the sound a little better, but we do have a full production set up in the back. We have, this thing, 32, matrix switch for video, so I can put video anywhere in the entire space, however we wanna configure it Yeah. Which is really cool.
Derek Rodner:And then we've got, you know, a professional audio and, and lighting system as well here. So we can do anything from here, and that room back there also enables us to take any of that and live stream it. So Yeah. We live stream our games for, our youth leagues Yeah. Which is great.
Derek Rodner:We're not our goal is not to become these big Twitch powerhouse or a streaming powerhouse, but it's more about kids today like to play video games. If you're a parent, you go watch your kid play soccer, you go watch them play baseball. Why not watch and play video games? It's what they're passionate about. So we encourage the parents to come.
Derek Rodner:Usually, they're all filling this arena and set up, but you have, you know, aunts and uncles and grandparents that live far away or can't be here in person. And so we live stream so that the rest of their family and friends can watch as well.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Are you are you a gamer yourself? How did you kinda get into this world, the esports?
Derek Rodner:I don't know if I'd call myself a gamer per se. I always had a game that I was playing, if you would. I mean but, you know, as I get older, it was Tiger Woods for a while. Yeah. But so this all came about.
Derek Rodner:I've worked in venture backed startups for most of my career.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:And, this is a bit of a long story. But so, as my last startup, I was ran product strategy, corporate strategy marketing. Okay. As that company was sort of reaching its its end, we sold that company in 21, I was looking for something new to do.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:But granted, you know, I'm at a position in my life where I'm not getting any younger. Right? I'm 52 years old now, and I wanted to do something that might have some positive impact on the world. Designing and selling software is great. It's awesome.
Derek Rodner:But, yeah, at the end of the day, what impact are you really having on the world except for maybe on somebody some corporation's bottom line? Right. And so I started looking for something that I could do next where there could be some sort of impact. My oldest daughter went to school for environmental studies, so she's very much into the environment, and I, you know, am as well. And I started looking in that space and just there wasn't anything there that that, I guess, called to me or where I felt I could add value.
Derek Rodner:At the same time, my middle daughter was playing travel soccer, and that's a bit of an aside. I'll come back to that in a second. And my young son at the time was playing Fortnite, and he got me to play Fortnite with him. And that's how this ball got rolling. We played a lot of Fortnite together, and then we started to follow Philadelphia had a professional Overwatch team called the Philly Fusion.
Derek Rodner:Yeah. And so we started watching them, and that's when I started realizing that there was this whole world of of competitive video gaming out there that was at the professional level, moved to the college level, and was now starting to infiltrate the high schools. And today, it's down at the middle school level.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. So incredible.
Derek Rodner:It is amazing how much it's grown.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:But there was no little league for video gaming. So kids play in their bedrooms or in their basements, and they're potentially watching streamers as my son was who were dropping f bombs, and he's 11 years old. I'm like, no. No. You can't can't be watching that guy.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:And he was starting to develop some toxic traits. Nothing bad, but just things that I wouldn't want him saying.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:And he would only do it when he was on a headset with his best friend, not when they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. I'm like, there's a whole different model here. When you're shoulder to shoulder playing with each other or against each other, you act a lot differently than when you're on a headset and you're anonymous per se. Right? Yeah.
Derek Rodner:So, and I think that that that's a statement that could be made about all of social media Oh, absolutely.
Dane Shoemaker:You have keyboard warriors. You know, there's things that people say, you know, with everything. Yeah. Yeah. That you wouldn't say in person.
Derek Rodner:That you'd never say in person. Right? Yeah. And so I was looking at that going, wow. There's gotta be a better way.
Derek Rodner:There's gotta be a little league for these kids to learn the right way to play these games and to learn those soft skills that'll take them through life that they're not getting if they're not playing on a sports team. So Yeah. Sportsmanship, teamwork, leadership, respect, all of those soft skills that they need to learn in addition to learning the right way just to put their fingers on the keyboard and the mouse to play the game. So that's how this all started. Yeah.
Derek Rodner:Going back to my daughter, my middle daughter for a second, she's playing on these travel teams for soccer. And there was a different organization all over the I think there were 8 different organizations just in our little area.
Dane Shoemaker:Mhmm.
Derek Rodner:And they would jump from organization to organization depending on where their friends were going or what soccer organization was, you know, in favor this week, you know, the flavor of the week. Yeah. And I thought, wow. If we could build a community gaming center where we could be little league, we could be
Dane Shoemaker:the the local youth association and the travel team all in one and do that in all the communities,
Derek Rodner:you don't need to have all these different facilities out there or these different companies. We could do all of it. Right. And so that's how this model came about. Okay.
Derek Rodner:Yeah. And that was that was off to the races.
Dane Shoemaker:That's that's incredible. Yeah. What were some, you know, some kinda early challenges and, you know, so you had the the proof of concept location Mhmm. In Chester Springs, and you had this one. What were some learn early learnings from opening up that facility, and then what did you learn to to kinda implement here?
Derek Rodner:Yeah. So oh, man. There's so much. But I Yeah. I think one of the funniest things was the beginning, the the the very start of the process.
Derek Rodner:Mhmm. You know, I came up with this concept, and I talked to my wife at the time, and she was like, that's horrible. Right? Like, that was her like, why would we do that? I don't want him playing video games.
Derek Rodner:And then she thought about it a little more and came back and goes, okay. I did some research. This could be something. And if anybody's gonna do it, you're the guy. You're a geek.
Derek Rodner:You play some video games.
Dane Shoemaker:You know?
Derek Rodner:You're a startup guy. But because of that and because of my friend base who I talked to and used as sort of a focus group and sat down with, they're all gen x. And we didn't grow up on video games. Yeah. There was Atari for a while, and there was Colecovision, stuff like that.
Derek Rodner:But by the time video game consoles came out and became prevalent, it was the NES, the the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:We were sort of in high school and beyond at that point, college actually. And so we didn't grow up with video games. So when I did our first information night to prospective customers, I had pages of objection handling of education I needed to do. And for the gen x parents, sure. There was something there.
Derek Rodner:Right? Yeah. For example, people probably don't know that last year, there was $50,000,000 in esports scholarships available at the college level. Over 300 schools now have esports programs. Even locally, Immaculata's got a program.
Derek Rodner:Saint Joe's has a program. Villanova is building out an entire facility for for esports.
Dane Shoemaker:Is that right?
Derek Rodner:Wow. It's big. And so for gen x parents, I had to go through all of that. But that next generation down, the parents who grew up with NES, there was no objection to handling. They were like, where was this when I was a kid?
Derek Rodner:That was their perspective of the whole thing. So Pretty
Dane Shoemaker:cool.
Derek Rodner:So I found that it was a much easier sell to the younger parents out of the gate. And so that was a learning that I think was a positive learning for us. Uh-huh. Negative side, obviously, was COVID. That just
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:That Right. Right. Put a wrench in things. But, and I think we're still, in many ways, recovering from that because we had investors ready to go to invest, and they disappear. They had proved the model, and we'll we'll invest.
Derek Rodner:COVID hit, and they are long gone. So Right. It took us a long time to find the right investors, to invest in us, to believe in what we're doing. And I understand that I mean, if you look at just look at the software space today. Right?
Derek Rodner:And look at venture capital in general. They're all looking for the next unicorn. Right? That $1,000,000,000 business. And all of the folks that I know in the venture community that I've worked with for years are all in that same space.
Derek Rodner:They're looking for a a SaaS software as a as a service application or an AI or something.
Dane Shoemaker:AI. Right?
Derek Rodner:It was first it was big data, now it's AI. Whatever the buzzword of the week is. Right. This is a whole different thing. Right?
Derek Rodner:This is definitely not a unicorn from that standpoint. Mhmm. This is bricks and mortar. And so it's a different type of investor. They understand the social impact that we're trying to to create.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:And they understand that there is a need for places like this, for kids, for adults. And so that's been a challenge for us was trying to figure out, you know, what type of investor we really wanted, a partner that was gonna help us grow this business.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:So I think that was key for us. But, you know, there's still things we don't have figured out even here. Right? So we've been open since May. Our other location has been at capacity for 2 years and continues to be.
Derek Rodner:We just launched our our new season our fall season of youth leagues
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:At the other location yesterday. And here we're delaying those because we don't have enough kids yet for the league. Yeah. So it's kinda different as we go from a proof of concept and in a space where I was already a known entity, I guess, in that local community Yeah. To here where we're not known.
Derek Rodner:And so, we're sort of starting all over again trying to build that base up and build that model up. And we're growing. It's just not growing as fast as I want. So Yeah. That's, that's probably the way it works with every start up.
Derek Rodner:Right? Sure. It's just Yeah. Always takes longer than you expect.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Would you say the business is seasonal a little bit, you know, with, like, summertime versus wintertime?
Derek Rodner:Oh, 100%. Okay. Yeah. And I think that's why and that's one of the reasons why we brought in sort of the golf simulators as part of the business. Right?
Derek Rodner:1, I have parents that that the other location that come in and their kids are practicing and during practice because we run a esports league like a sport. We practice twice a week. We have games on weekends. Parents come in and some drop their kids off, but others come in and just sit there and play on their phones or
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:On their laptops around. Like, there's a captive audience here for them to be doing something else. And that's why we brought in the racing simulators and the golf simulators. So Yeah. While your kids get, practicing, go play around the golf.
Derek Rodner:Right? But it is very much a seasonal thing. The summer camps, June to to end of August, that's you know, we have 30 kids a week in here for summer camps, and each week's a different game or or focus for us.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:So they're always different every week. So we we you know, that's a big business for us. And then in the wintertime, golf simulators will be the big business for us.
Dane Shoemaker:Right.
Derek Rodner:Spring and fall, that's where esports picks up. So Okay. Yeah. It's very much a seasonal business, has been at the other location, and that's why here with the golf simulators, we believe that will help sort of balance that out a little bit where summer camps are high. And during the wintertime, we're a little slower.
Derek Rodner:Golf simulators will help sort of balance that out so we don't have that sort of peaks and valleys.
Dane Shoemaker:Got it. Okay. That's great. I see you're wearing the extra life shirt and you're you're rocking your your chop hat. Tell us a little bit about the
Derek Rodner:philanthropy work you guys do. So, you know, part of making better gamers and better humans is, I believe, service to others. And so we were looking for something where we could sort of stay in our niche, which is video gaming, and do something for others. And around here, chop is is an integral part of our community.
Dane Shoemaker:Mhmm.
Derek Rodner:I personally have been lucky enough that I never had a child have to go to CHOP. Mhmm. But so many of our customers, the kids that we work with, have been to CHOP, or are continuing to go to CHOP. Mhmm. If not, it's a family member or a friend.
Derek Rodner:Like, everybody knows somebody who's who's at CHOP. And so when I learned about Extra Life, Extra Life is a a program that's part of Children's Miracle Network. Extra life is focused on gaming. It's a little hard to see, but that's a controller there, and you've got some dice, and they they focus on gaming. And so for me, that was a perfect opportunity for these kids to do something to raise money for Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and learn about service to others and learn about giving back to the community.
Derek Rodner:Right? Yeah. And so we started our 1st year. We did a 24 hour gaming event in January. We charged $10 an hour, and every penny we make that day goes right into to extra life right to chop.
Derek Rodner:Okay. And we also, at the same time, do a 24 hour, race for charity. So in our racing simulators, that week in iRacing is the 24 hours of Daytona race.
Dane Shoemaker:Right.
Derek Rodner:And so the 1st year, we had one team of of 4 of us, and we raced for 24 hours straight. I did 6 hours in the chair. Mhmm. This year, we actually had 2 teams. So I had to do 8 hours of the chair because we had a team of 3, which is exciting and fun and tiring all at the same time.
Derek Rodner:But, it's neither here nor there.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:So our 1st year, our goal was $2,000. Let's see if we can raise $2,000. We're open for 24 hours straight. The kids come in and game all through the night, not for 24 hours. Right?
Derek Rodner:Everything in moderation. But we had parents that were coming at 2 in the morning because their kids wanted to be there from 2 AM to 6 AM and come and do 4 hours of gaming. And so that's how we started this whole thing. Our 1st year, $2,000 goal, we hit $5,000. I cried.
Derek Rodner:I do that a lot. The second year is like, wow. If we can do 5, we can do 10. And that's when we started to expand, and kids started to raise money, through extra life from their friends and family as well. Right?
Derek Rodner:Asking their grandparents and their aunts and uncles, and we brought in a couple of business sponsors as well. Okay. And we did 15,000. That year, we got invited to participate in the Extra Life United tournament, which is an esports tournament that happens last year. This past year was in Kansas City.
Derek Rodner:The year before it was in Orlando. And so you we brought a bunch of kids down, and we competed at Extra Life to win more money for our local hospital. And last year, we won $8,000 there. So last year, we ended up at, like, 23, $24,000 raised for children's hospital. Amazing.
Derek Rodner:This year, I set up an audacious goal of $20,000. Again, this place wasn't here. We have just our proof of concept, 18 PCs, 2,000 square feet, small location. Yeah. And, and we beat the 2 the $20,000, which was phenomenal.
Derek Rodner:And then we went to extra life and raised another 12 or $13,000. So, you know, we're over $60,000 in 3 years rate in terms of money for CHOP. And, you know, CHOP has a fair amount of money, but the money we raise goes to, like, child life services.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:So things like making sure that they have game consoles and books and making sure that parents have a place to stay if they have to stay overnight. Is there is there accommodations for them? It's all those things that are that Quality of life. Quality of life. Right?
Derek Rodner:We you want kids to to you know, if they're stuck in a hospital for a long time, they need a way to find joy and to thrive in that, you know, in that environment where it's not very
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. You know,
Derek Rodner:it's not a great environment. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's the money we raise goes towards those child life services, which is phenomenal. Yeah.
Derek Rodner:And so now that we have 2 locations, we're hoping that we can start to expand that and raise even more.
Dane Shoemaker:So you talked a little bit about some of the, you know, the the objections, right, that you get from parents and things like that. What are some common questions that you get from from questions, you know, from from parents today? Maybe their kids asking about it or maybe their kids playing it, you know, playing games or video games at home, and maybe they're thinking about, oh, maybe I need to get them outside or something like that.
Derek Rodner:Yeah. Absolutely. So Yeah. Look. We believe everything in moderation.
Derek Rodner:Like, if you do summer camp here and you're an all day camp, it's 8 hours. We run a camp 9 AM to 5 PM during the summer.
Dane Shoemaker:Mhmm.
Derek Rodner:You're lucky if the kid gets 4 hours on the PC. Okay. We go outside and play Gaga Bowl. We do cornhole. We do walks.
Derek Rodner:We do nature things. Like, we and every day of camp, there's a different educational component. So it's digital citizenship. It's online safety, careers in video games because every kid wants to be a a streamer or a gamer today. Right?
Derek Rodner:That's what they wanna do. Their their hero is no longer Michael Jordan and LeBron James. It's Ninja and, you know, you name it. It's it's some streamer that I'm even losing touch with these days. Yeah.
Derek Rodner:That's who they look up to these days. And so we try to teach them about other careers around gaming and streaming that you know, something like this as an example. Right? Where where you could still be involved in the in the world that you wanna be involved in, but not necessarily, you know, go for it. Go for the brass ring.
Derek Rodner:Right? Go for being a a streamer. Go for being a a pro gamer, but have a fallback, and here's some of the things you can do. So Yeah. That's some of the stuff that even parents ask about.
Derek Rodner:You know, why would I why would I do this? Why would I pay money for my kid to play a video game here? And it's well, for a number of reasons. One is, yeah, there's a scout there's scholarships available. Right?
Derek Rodner:$50,000,000 in scholarships is nothing to sneeze at, and then that number continues to grow every year. So if you think your child has that capability and I'm not guaranteeing any kid's gonna get a scholarship, but at least, you know, give them the proper training to give them a a shot at that scholarship. Right? Yeah. It's I think it's 56% of kids that play video games in high school pursue a STEM degree, which is pretty cool.
Derek Rodner:We need more STEM, STEM graduates out there. And girls who game are 3 times as likely to pursue a degree in STEM than girls who don't. So there's, you know, definitely academic and educational benefits to video gaming. Right? But there's also a bunch of kids out there that that don't play sports.
Derek Rodner:What is their where are they gonna learn sportsmanship? Where are they gonna learn teamwork? It's not on a headset alone in their bedroom. They're not gonna learn any good skills that way. Right.
Derek Rodner:Right? So it's being here in person, and it's a whole it's a whole different vibe in this room when there's a when there's a game going. The parents, we do we do play by play for all the games, and we do it at a parent level. Right? We're not doing it at the pro level where they're, you know, rattling off all these stats and Yeah.
Derek Rodner:Calling picks and all the stuff that that parents are like, I just tell me what's going on in the game. Help me understand enough so that I can cheer. And that's what we do. And and by the 3rd game of the season, they're on the edge of their seats. They're cheering in Rocket League.
Derek Rodner:It's I mean, Rocket League's a little easier. Right? Ball goes in the goal. It's a score. Right.
Derek Rodner:Everybody knows that. But Yeah. But in Overwatch, one of the games is called payload payload, and they have to stay on the payload to move it through the map. And you'll hear parents yelling, get on the payload because the kids forget, and they run away from it. It's like, get on the payload.
Derek Rodner:You it's really exciting. And so Yeah. Part of it is look, parents. We agree that it's not all video games all the time. Like, there's gotta be more to it than that.
Derek Rodner:Right. Right. And, but with our player code of conduct and with the the soft skills that they can learn, this is an opportunity that an outlet for them to pursue something that they're passionate about Yeah. And for you as a parent to be a part of
Dane Shoemaker:it. Yep.
Derek Rodner:To come and cheer on your kid and and watch them thrive and grow and and see the the thrill of victory on their faces or the agony of defeat. It's just it they're only young for so long. So come support what their passions are and be a part of it and and join that excitement.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Yeah. Now you mentioned the player code of contact.
Derek Rodner:Yes.
Dane Shoemaker:Tell tell us a little about that.
Derek Rodner:So I think that, you know, if you look at at any youth sport, right, there's a player code of conduct, and a lot of them have a code of conduct for adults as well. Right? As a parent, what can you do and what you can't do on the sideline, which is necessary. Right? We don't have that issue here, by the way.
Derek Rodner:Like, parents are just struggling to know what's going on with the game, and there's no referee. Right? The game is the game, so there's no ref for them to yell at. Nobody's yelling at the at the ref in in East Texas.
Dane Shoemaker:That out.
Derek Rodner:It takes all of
Dane Shoemaker:that out
Derek Rodner:of it. Right? But the player code of conduct is all about focusing on, you know, helping each other up, helping each other, lifting each other up, not being toxic. Right? So
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:Working as a team and and self regulating, what that's one of the coolest things I've seen at at Uplink is that the kids on a team, if something starts going south and a kid starts to sway a little bit towards toxicity or whatever, they'll just they you you hear them all at once. Go player code player code, and they they self correct. Right? Like, that's. And kids are kids.
Derek Rodner:It's not a 100% all the time. Right? Kids, like, we all have kids. Yeah. They they, you know, they try our patience and test us whenever they can, but it's 99% of the time, these kids are really doing the right thing when it comes to video games.
Derek Rodner:They're not toxic. They're helping each other. To see the older kids helping the younger kids on the same team is just it's really cool to see how these kids become mentors without even knowing the term mentor. Right? Yeah.
Derek Rodner:And helping the younger kids out. And, ironically, in some cases, it's the younger kids helping the older kids because with video games, it's, you know, all about your experience and skill level.
Dane Shoemaker:Right. Right.
Derek Rodner:It's not as much about age, and it's certainly not about gender, which is the other part I love about this. You know, I I think that in esports, one of the reasons the NCAA has not adopted esports as a game or as a sport for them is because you have to have an offering for men and women. That's part of NCAA's charter. Right? Right.
Derek Rodner:So there are other organizations in the at the collegiate level that that do esports, but a lot of girls are not gaming today, not in competitive environments because it can be such a toxic environment.
Dane Shoemaker:Mhmm.
Derek Rodner:And we're trying to break that cycle. 1 kid at a time. Right? One kid, one team at a time. You know, we've got, you know, 50, 60 kids in our leagues at the other location, this season, and every one of those kids is learning not to be toxic, learning to have good sportsmanship, learning the leadership, learning to listen.
Derek Rodner:Right? Learning to listen and know what to do in a game when you have a a team leader and following that what he says or she says Yeah. Can mean the difference in winning and losing. And so they're learning to to fit in that whatever role it is that they have in that on that team, which is really cool to see.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. And those are critical skills. I mean, it's just, you know
Derek Rodner:Yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:That's that's amazing. Yeah. I remember growing up. So going back to kind of that parenting, like, my I grew up late late nineties, early 2000. We we had, what was it?
Dane Shoemaker:Everquest. Oh, EverQuest. Yeah. Diablo 2. I never really graduated from Nintendo 64 in the gaming.
Dane Shoemaker:So I haven't been up on esports and everything. But, like, obviously, this is a very big business. There's scholarships. There's professional level gaming now. I mean, where do you see esports going over the next 10, 15 years?
Dane Shoemaker:You know, do you think it do you see it being more integrated into schools? Bro you know, I don't know.
Derek Rodner:Oh, absolutely. So I think that, so esports has professional esports has gone through what I would call a bit of a winter the last couple years. Oh, okay. The professional scene kind of in many in many different games kind of imploded on itself as being reborn again. I think they went too big, too fast, and they they thought that the model was all about advertising.
Derek Rodner:Right?
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:BMW invested something like $1,000,000,000 in esports on all these different teams and all these different leagues. And what do you get to show for that? Right? If you don't show return on your investment Yeah. You know, the there's you know, it's not gonna survive.
Derek Rodner:So those the the professional level, it's being sort of rethought and reborn right now
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:For a lot of these different games, but you're seeing it to start to come back up again.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:What is thriving is the college level. The university level esports is just thriving, and that's having a long tail of dragging high school esports and, even middle school esports is is coming along. You're gonna see, you know, you're gonna see the professional space sort of grow again. It will you know, its first instantiation wasn't the right business model.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:And it's gotta be a business model. Right? So you're gonna see that that get reborn. But you're gonna see, VR and AR, the virtual reality and augmented reality, I think, take a bigger a bigger front seat in video gaming as we go forward. Right?
Derek Rodner:Right now, it's sort of you know, a lot of kids have an Oculus, and they they do some some VR stuff. But Okay.
Dane Shoemaker:You're
Derek Rodner:gonna see that, I think, in the next 10 years get much bigger. What I think is really interesting if you take sort of video games and set aside the esports for a second, just video games in general, there's been this this buzz for the last couple years about the the metaverse. Right?
Dane Shoemaker:Mhmm.
Derek Rodner:If you saw Ready Player 1 or read the book, and book is so much better. Yeah. It is the metaverse. It's where you get up in the morning and you put on your goggles and you live in this world, essentially. Right.
Derek Rodner:Right. We're not gonna get to that stage that you see in in ready player 1, but, there are a lot of companies pushing down this path of the metaverse. 2 of them that come to mind for me are Epic Games and Roblox. So Epic Games is heading down this path with these islands. So their first island was the battle royale.
Derek Rodner:Right?
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:And that was a 100 players drop in and fight to the fight to the death. And if you lose, you get kicked back to the lobby and you drop in again on the battle bus. Well, now they've added new islands. So they have, they have a they started off with an island that was all about entertainment. They would do live concerts in Fortnite on this one island.
Derek Rodner:Now they have built an island that's all about Rocket League. So it's Rocket Racing. So that's an island all about car racing.
Dane Shoemaker:So that's
Derek Rodner:you can go there if you love car racing and do that. They have Legos, a Lego Island. So you're building bricks. It's like Minecraft, but it's the Lego version
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:In Fortnite. They have a huge partnership and investment from Disney where they're building Disney worlds that are gonna start showing up now. So you're starting to see all these different reasons to come to Fortnite. Right? It's not just a battle royale now.
Derek Rodner:Now there's all these different reasons, and so they're collecting more and more. It's a long term vision
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:That when they have a a princess island, I mean, you know, you're gonna have every every girl on that princess island all the time dressing up to be Ariel and beauty and all. Like, there's just so many and there's stories to go with it. It's just gonna be amazing. The other one is Roblox. So Roblox is a platform.
Derek Rodner:It's not a game. It's a platform, and people build games in Roblox. Okay. And so what Roblox wants to do is because they have all of these different, different games in there, Some are educational. So they want to build a metaverse where your education happens, your child's education happens inside Roblox.
Derek Rodner:That you put on the headset, and now you're in a Roblox world, and you're learning about math and addition. And and it's gamification of math, right, as an example. But it's gonna go beyond that. It's gonna be where you wanna go see the battle of Gettysburg. Right?
Derek Rodner:Today, we're not too far from Gettysburg. We get in the car. We take a class trip out to Gettysburg, and you see it. Right? And you get to to see where people stood and where the battles happened, and it's it's it's visceral.
Derek Rodner:Right? Right. How cool is that gonna be when you put on a a a VR mask and that battle's happening 360 degrees around you? Like, you're you're in the battle witnessing it. It's gonna be a whole different experience.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:And I think that's where we're headed with video games. Esports will continue, and it will continue to grow. And there's gonna be new games that come out, that will then rise to the top, and others will fall down in favor as time goes on. Right? It's not like football where the game is the game.
Derek Rodner:There's all different games. And I think that will continue to grow. I think you'll get to a point again where you're gonna see arenas in cities for for esports. Like, that this is a regional one. Call this a regional Right.
Dane Shoemaker:Right.
Derek Rodner:Arena, but you'll see bigger ones again. They were talking about
Dane Shoemaker:building 1 out by the stadiums. They were. Right?
Derek Rodner:So that was
Dane Shoemaker:that was gaming or Pre,
Derek Rodner:pre COVID. Yeah. Comcast owned the Philadelphia Fusion, and they were gonna build the Fusion arena right down where all the rest of the parks are or the the ballparks are. Right? Right.
Derek Rodner:And that they actually I believe they actually broke ground and COVID happened, and that kinda pushed the whole overwatch season, what was off the 1st year. And then what they did is they moved the whole thing to, I believe it was China, and they moved and put everybody just in one location. Right? So everybody was in a pod, basically, and they played 2 seasons like that. And that sort of was part of the reason why Overwatch eventually imploded because you took all these teams from the US and put them over there, and everybody kinda lost lost interest.
Derek Rodner:Right? The Philly fusion, you had DC had a team, New York had teams, Dallas, Spitfire, LA, San Francisco, Toronto. What was cool about the Overwatch League though is it was it was based off of sort of the the city model like the NFL Right. Where cities had teams, but they were all around the world. Yeah.
Derek Rodner:Seoul Dynasty and and Toronto or I forget what they are team. Like, Paris eternal, there were teams all over the world, which was really cool from from a city, from a standpoint of, like, city pride and stuff. Right? We went and saw a game. They had some games here.
Derek Rodner:They did the battle of brotherly love. It was awesome. Yeah. But that whole thing won the the model the pricing model of that whole thing, hurt that. And then when they move the whole thing, to Asia, that that hurt even more.
Dane Shoemaker:So you think that'll come back eventually, that model? Whether it's
Derek Rodner:whether it's, Overwatch or a different game, I think that model is gonna come back.
Dane Shoemaker:I think that Yeah.
Derek Rodner:There's gotta be a better way of doing it, a different a different financial model that will make that successful, but I absolutely think that'll be back. Yeah. Right now, most of the esports teams are are corp what you would call corporate teams. They're not associated with the city. You've got cloud 9 gaming, and you've got, you know, all these different teams that are
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:Owned by a corporation. Faze is is a prime example. Right? Faze Clan who had teams in all different games. Faze blew up.
Derek Rodner:I mean, that was that was a case study in how not to run a business. They were a marketing machine more than anything else. Right. Right. But you see all of these other teams that are corporate owned.
Derek Rodner:I think we'll get back to eventually a place where there are city based teams, which I think will be really exciting and and bring in a broader population into the game. And do you see
Dane Shoemaker:I mean, just because the nature of video games change or, I mean, new games are getting coming out all the time. Right? I mean, you have unlike baseball and NFL, you know, that sports haven't changed in 100 of years. Right? Right.
Dane Shoemaker:But you have Overwatch, and I'm not familiar with that, but you had other games like, I don't know, World of Warcraft and things that come and kinda come and go. How do you establish a league around a game and then 10 years later, is that game still relevant? Or, you know
Derek Rodner:It it's gonna be interesting to see. I mean, if you look at Rocket League, Rocket League came out in 2016. Yeah. And it's just as popular, if not more so, today. Okay.
Derek Rodner:It's the simplicity of the game to play it, but to master that game is super challenging. Right? And so I think that's what lends itself to being in esport. 1, it's, team based games. Right?
Derek Rodner:Team based games where there's a clear objective in winner and loser, I think, is is part of that. League of Legends is another one. Now we don't play League of Legends here with kids yet. It's something that I keep looking at, but the League of Legends world is is really toxic, at publicly.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Derek Rodner:And it's a game where, like, the games we focus on require teamwork, and it requires a team effort to win a game. If you don't play as a team, you're not gonna win the game. Right? Yeah. League of Legends has situations where a single player can can mess up and that ruins the game for them.
Derek Rodner:Or a single player does something really good and that wins the game for them. Right? So teamwork's important, but but a single player can have a dramatic impact, not so in the games that we play. Okay. But Rocket League, back to your your question.
Derek Rodner:It's been around forever. League of Legends has been around forever. Overwatch has had its ups and downs. Valorant just came out 2 years ago, and it just peaked everyone's interest. And now you've got the VCT, which is the Valorant championships tour tournament and and esports leagues around that, and that continues to grow Right.
Derek Rodner:And get bigger. On the flip side, Halo was a game that I love to play. I I had my first Xbox I got because of Halo. Yeah. Love to play that game.
Derek Rodner:They came out with a new version called Halo Infinite, and it had an esports component to it, 4v4 in different game modes, and I loved it. I we built a league here at our other location. We did a it was an adult child league. Right? So it was parent child type stuff that we did just to, you know, get the adults involved again, and I loved it.
Derek Rodner:Yeah. My son did not. It's too boring. It's too you know? And I'm like, okay.
Derek Rodner:And and he was right if you look at it from a broader perspective, right, that, Halo start off great when it came out for an esport, and now it's kinda just bumping along. Right?
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:So there are games new games coming out all the time that are peaking interest, and, some of our party games. I mean, you look there's games on your phone that you can play esports tournaments on. Right?
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Derek Rodner:Fall guys is a great party game. That's a great family game. There's tournaments around that. So you can make a tournament out of anything. It's whether it's gonna become that next big game.
Derek Rodner:And I don't think anybody's really cracked the code yet on that.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. I would imagine these manufacturers, you know, Blizzard, Microsoft, they're they're probably building a game in mind with e esports in mind. Right?
Derek Rodner:Right.
Dane Shoemaker:Like, hey. This is we're betting that this might be a big hit in 5 years or
Derek Rodner:something like that. Yeah. And the money today for esports is really at that community level, I think, or the the self organized level. Right? Like Uh-huh.
Derek Rodner:There's there are leagues. There are big leagues that are out there. Rainbow 6 has them. Valorant has a a pretty successful one. But most of them, I think, are are grassroots.
Derek Rodner:Right? Fortnite actually has a huge, tournament mode that they play. Yeah. But, yeah, I think that that most of that is it's gotta have grassroots. It's gotta come from the community to build up to create that league.
Derek Rodner:You can't just launch a game and say, okay. Now we've got a big global, you know, esports, league. You have to you have to let it have that groundswell. I don't want
Dane Shoemaker:to happen organically.
Derek Rodner:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Dane Shoemaker:Yep. Well, this is this is fun. I mean, let's bring it back to Uplink here. I mean, you know, any what's your vision for the future for for the business?
Derek Rodner:So I think that, in the short term, obviously, getting this place firing on all cylinders. That's our focus right now is get this firing on all cylinders. But in longer term, I'd like to have, you know, 25 locations up and down the East Coast. I think that's a good start. Yeah.
Derek Rodner:But I could envision hundreds of locations eventually. That's that's really where we're headed with this. This each location is it's a it's a community focus. Right? It's not, the old style LAN center where you just pack as many PCs in as you can, and every the space nook and cranny has a PC in it.
Derek Rodner:We wanna be a place where people wanna come and hang out. So, we're we're parents coming. Their kids play video games on Friday night, and they're golfing over here, and so they have date night and family night all at the same time. Like, that's what we wanna be. We wanna be a part of the community.
Derek Rodner:And I think that that, we can do that all up and down the East Coast, and then let's go tackle the rest of the country.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Sounds good. I mean, this this place definitely lends itself to you know, I could see my wife and I or a group of friends, you know, playing, doing some golf or, you know, I got my boys are 35, so they're not quite into video
Derek Rodner:games yet. Not yet.
Dane Shoemaker:They're on the they're on the tablets, but, you know, someday maybe they'll they'll be in here playing
Derek Rodner:Excellent. I hope so.
Dane Shoemaker:Stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is this is a lot of fun. It's really nice meeting you and Yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:Nice meeting you too.
Derek Rodner:Yeah. This is great. I I really enjoyed this. As you can tell, I'm never at a loss for words.
Dane Shoemaker:Oh, that's good. Thanks, Derek. Appreciate it.
Derek Rodner:Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening today.
Dane Shoemaker:Shoemaker Lab is an original production by Shoemaker Films LLC. If you enjoyed today's content, please consider subscribing on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your content. Follow us on Instagram at shoemaker.films. And if you're a business that's either interested in our video production services or would like to be a guest on the show, get in touch by using the contact form on our website, shoemakerfilms.com.