EXO Sphere Studios

*The Humble Beginnings*

**EXO Sphere Studios** was the first ever YouTube channel, creative endeavor and brand co-founded by Chris Cuypers along with friends Nick Stark and Daniel Linzer in 2012. The studio consisted of a group of High School seniors that all shared the same passion for video games, movies, shows, and other media-related content. Unfortunately, life would had different plans for everyone in the group. With everyone graduating High School, each member had personal things to attend to and became adults with responsibilities. The studio's YouTube channel and website were shut down in early 2013 due to inactivity.

## History

Around 2010-2011, Chris and his friends Nick Stark and Daniel Linzer came up with an idea to create an entertainment media studio that made video games, movies, shows, comics, and all other kinds of media. They called it *"Starcade,"* and Chris began making a website, logo, and business cards. This would be his first taste of creating a brand. However Starcade didn't last long because they soon found it was also the name of an old 1980's game show. Out of fear of being sued, they quickly decided to change the name. Chris distinctly remembers one of his friends coming up to him and saying, "EXO-something?" They threw around the idea before stopping at "EXO Sphere Games" before later changing it to *"EXO Sphere Studios."*

Soon the trio brought on board more of their like-minded friends to help support them in their dreams. Their names were, Kevin Goldman, Jacob Porta, Dylan Rickman, and Aaron Arrigo, in total 6 people in the group. With this group of highly passionate people with big ambitions, they all got to work. They had a bunch of ideas laid out for what they wanted to make, including a zombie video game, comics and some video ideas. The first major piece of content that came from EXO Sphere was in the form of a video titled, "Top 10 Forgotten Video Games," brainstormed and edited by Chris along with feedback from and input from the rest of the group, he uploaded the video to YouTube and thus began video production for the group, along with introducing Chris to making content on the website. A subject that would HEAVILY play a part in 2013 and even to today.

After the first video, Chris wanted to make more videos as it was easier than the game development which was going a tad slow. From there the group made more videos in the form of more Top 10’s, Lets Plays, and Vlog-style videos, including one where Chris and Nick got drunk playing Halo. They did get a very small following on their YouTube channel. Nothing too big but enough to keep them motivated.

Unfortunately, the group never got their ideas off the ground. The zombie game and comic ideas they wanted to make didn't happen. They also realized that when you graduate High School, some of your friends move or change into different adults. Time at EXO Sphere started to slow down, and the weekly meeting would drastically slow down. Most of the team members were moving to different places for work and college. Priority and passion began to dwindle inside the group and EXO Sphere slowly withered away. Chris would try to keep some of it going in early 2013 as the last major release under the EXO Sphere name was a fan-made game called, *"Godzilla: Breakout;"* the game would later be brought under the helm of C.J. Cuypers Productions in 2020. Eventually, the EXO Sphere Studios website and YouTube channel would be shut down and deleted that year due to inactivity. However, this wouldn't be the end of content creating for Chris as that same year he would create a new YouTube channel that would cover Godzilla-related content.

10 years later in 2022, after many ups and downs, Chris would eventually gather all the old EXO Sphere members and create a 10 Year Tribute video released on the C.J. Cuypers YouTube channel, along with a channel archiving the old videos and a dedicated website along with it. It might have been a small thing back in 2012 and to some who were involved in the group it has faded away from their minds, but for others, it has been a steppingstone in their creative futures.