Community Focus - CBGray

Happy time zones Guardians, and welcome to this week's Community Focus. Today we are hanging out with CBgrey, a content creator, self-proclaimed potato, and a PvE shepherd. So, let’s get into it.  

Hi CB! First up, let’s talk about who you are, what your pronouns are, and what got you into gaming in the first place? 

My name is Christian or CBgray but most just call me CB for short! My pronouns are he/him.  

The name CBgray was a name that some of my friends called me growing up, that was just my first and middle initial and my last name! I am from Virginia originally, just outside of Washington, D.C., which will always be home to me. About a year ago I moved to Austin, Texas.  

Growing up in the 90s, what really got me into gaming was Nintendo. There was something so magical about playing Pokémon on the Gameboy Color and seeing the birth of 3D gaming with games like Mario 64. I think that is what really birthed my love for video games. As I continued to get older, I had a dream to work as a game developer for Nintendo. In terms of what got me into content creation, I always wanted to try YouTube and even took a few stabs at it in high school with my cousin, Lena, and in college with one of my best friends and roommates, Gramm. Nothing really stuck though until I discovered Destiny.  

Oh, I love a good cliff hanger. So how did you find Destiny? 

I saw Destiny for the first time during E3. I thought the game looked like nothing I had seen before, and I recognized the name Bungie from Halo. However, despite that, I had never really played an FPS game seriously so I never would have imagined that I would fall in love with the game and still be playing it almost 10 years later. My brother, Evan, got the game on PS3 and I got the game on PS4 when it came out. I remember I was trying to win the white PS4 bundle in the Taco Bell promotion from way back when. When I started playing the game, I was hooked. I played through the whole campaign in a night with one of my best friends, Lamar, with two TV's side by side and we played all night. I had never experienced anything in gaming like that.  

Around the time I started my channel, near the end of the Taken King expansion, I was going through a rough time, and I just wanted to try to create a family and a space where other people that enjoy Destiny could come together and help each other out with things inside the game and outside of the game. I had completely fallen in love with the game at this point and sank more hours in it during college than I probably should have with the amount of computer science work I had at the time, but I was really just hoping to form friendships with others and just provide an atmosphere where we could take our minds off things.  

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that would happen, so I'm really grateful. I can't thank my friends and family for believing in me when it could have looked like I was just wasting my time. I’m especially thankful to my mom who, without even knowing what it was, bought me an Elgato in 2016 when I couldn't afford it. Streaming was still a new concept in 2016 so I really appreciated their support. Thank you mom, dad, Evan, Kashema, Lamar, Tyler, Quan, Gramm, Nate, and so many others. 

Through good and sad times, Destiny seems to be a way a lot of people find their community, and it’s really neat to hear about another one forming.  

Speaking of building a community, you recently left your job to do content creation full time. How had that changed the way you play the game, create content, and interact with your community? 

I did! It was a scary leap, but it has been one of the best decisions I have ever made. Honestly, I don't think it changed the way I play the game as much as it's allowed me to enhance what I was already doing, just putting my 100 percent info focusing on interacting with our community and making content on the game we all love. I have always wanted to see what my content could be like if I could just give it my best shot, so I am very grateful to the community for putting me in a position to do this as a job and to do what I love.  

That’s really great to hear, keep on keeping on CB!  

So, what type of content do you tend to focus on? Are you a PvE shepherd or a PvP no scope 360 kind of player?  

For streams I mainly focus on helping players with PvE related activities! For example, I have 900 total helps for the Whisper and Zero Hour Missions. I love those missions so much, but even more than that, I love helping players cross the finish line on activities that they may have been struggling with or maybe just couldn't find players to game with. This type of content will always hold such a special place in my heart for myself and many others that I met along the way like Pause, Skarrow9, and so many others in the YouTube streaming family. 

In terms of YouTube videos, we started off making helpful guides for players in the game as well as theory videos (as we would call them) where I along with Vet, Sweat, and so many others would hunt for things like Whisper of the Worm before it was out. More recently on YouTube, my focus over the past few years has been short-form content where I really just am trying to put a smile on people's faces for 60 seconds. It's mainly just a mixture of me being a goofball and trying to provide players with quick helpful information. That has kind of been my main niche for videos since Covid. I love these videos and it makes me happy to see people's reactions to them.  

My next focus is on my Pokémon styled Destiny challenges, but we will talk more about that later! 

Before we get to that, we have to know what your main character is, and your favorite loadout. 

Titan for sure, it's been my main character since 2014.  

My favorite loadout is a hard one but I'll just name some of my favorite things over the years. For armor, Lion Rampants (my babies), Twilight Garrison, and Precious Scars with the ornament to make it the tinfoil hat. (Important in our community.)  

For weapons, the D1 Touch of Malice was my favorite gun in the game. Some other guns include Whisper of the Worm, Legend of Acrius in Vanilla D2, and the Duke Hand Cannon. 

Alright, we’ve got a few questions left, let’s hear about the vibe of your channel for people who might want to stop by. 

The vibe my channel brings is a chill escape. I try to make sure the channel feels like a place where you can just come to have a good time, feel welcomed, and not have to worry about anything else that might be going on. Just a place to hopefully leave with a smile on your face. Our community has lifted my spirits so many times that I just hope that our channel can reciprocate that for others who may need it.  

Love that, truly.  

What is something you wish you knew before starting Destiny?   

I feel like there are things that probably could have been beneficial to know before starting Destiny, like maybe having a deeper understanding about FPS games like Halo and other games or the realm of possibilities with content creation. I genuinely didn't think I had much to offer to the community. That deterred me from starting sooner. Even to have this conversation with y’all feels like I am dreaming. So maybe if I knew what was possible, I would have started earlier. But with that being said, I'm glad I didn't know because it allowed me to follow the exact path that led me here and I wouldn't change that for the world. Also not having that much knowledge in the FPS space made for such a new and fun journey in gaming for me that felt so new.  

So, I guess my actual answer is, I'm happy with what I knew.  

That is a rad way to think about it. Having an understanding would have been helpful at the time, but it would have changed your experience.  

So, what’s next for you and your community? Anything fun coming up or any events you are particularly excited for? 

More Pokémon challenges in Destiny 2! I just recently did an ExoticDex challenge (what I call it) where I did a subathon stream where I collected all 222 obtainable Exotics in one stream! It took 16 days, but it was one of my favorite streams ever! I plan to bring more challenges like these to our community over the coming months on Twitch and YouTube side! I'm so excited and really feel a fire to try to innovate as much as and I am grateful to our community for putting me in a position to give it my all! Also, thank you to my team working behind the scenes for making that event possible. 

That is absolutely wild CB. Such a neat thing to come up with.  

Now having the experience that you do with Destiny, what do you want to tell any of the New Lights out there reading this?  

Don't stress and play the game how you want to play it. There are so many fun memories to make in this game and that should be the focus. Everything else will fall into place as you go. Also realize that some of the friends you make in game will be friends you have for life. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be living with two people I met through Destiny, but I couldn't be happier to now share a home with Sweat and Evan. It blows my mind how much Destiny has changed all of our lives. It's just the power and magic of Destiny. 

Where can people find you?   

• YouTube
• Twitch
• Twitter
• Tiktok
• Instagram

Anything else you want to add?    

I just need to give a big thank you to our community. I would not be having this interview without them. I want to thank you, and everyone at Bungie for creating a game and a community that has changed my life, I'm really grateful. I thank god every day that I picked up this game and got to meet all the amazing people I've gotten to meet. This game and community has saved my life. A million thank you’s wouldn't be enough. I'm grateful for the opportunity. To anyone discouraged with anything in life, follow your dreams and don't give up. Anything is truly possible with patience and persistence.  

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And there we have it, this week’s Community Focus. Be sure to swing by CB’s channels and give him a follow if you want to check out his content for yourself. And don’t forget to check out our Community Focus with Asians@Bungie and Plumli. Thanks for hanging out with us!  

Stay Crafty, 

Sam