Photo of Joe at a Two5Six event in 2013 by Kill Screen on Flickr

Joe is a web and mobile app developer based in New York. He is also someone who really likes video games.

He spent his teen years working at Blockbuster Video and some of his early twenties working at GameStop. While at Blockbuster, many slow nights were spent playing the rental Nintendo 64 games on a Pokémon Snap Station in the middle of the store and watching Kevin Smith’s movies on the overhead TVs. GameStop fired him for not tucking in his shirt.

He briefly attended DigiPen Institute of Technology while pursuing a career in video game design and development. Unfortunately, real game development is a lot harder than making a game with RPG Maker 95. So he dropped out after a while and didn’t really stick with it. Creating games is still an interest of his, so he’s been experimenting with Unity, PICO-8, and Playdate development.

Through his web development career, he has worked for Gary Vaynerchuk as well as built digital publishing tools at Condé Nast. Start-up projects of his own have been invited to participate in incubator programs run by NEA and VentureCrushFG. He’s decided to combine his experience with his passion for video games and launch this website.

But in all honesty, Joe would rather talk about video games than about himself in the third person.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is that your real name?

Nope, it’s a pseudonym I started using online around 2005 or so. I was named Joe after my grandfather, and “Joe Dynamite” was a name he was known by. He used to drive a truck for a living, and a lot of that time was spent delivering explosives. Then, after he passed away, I decided to assume the mantle, kind of like my own superhero origin story.

What are your top five games?

I know these lists can be pretty contentious but here are my picks. I apologize if your favorite game isn’t on my list. 😉

  1. Suikoden II – PlayStation
  2. EarthBound – Super Nintendo
  3. Super Mario Odyssey – Switch
  4. Yakuza: Like a Dragon – Xbox (2020)
  5. Final Fantasy Adventure – Game Boy

Some score highly because of nostalgia, but for the most part they’re all just really good games.