It took quite a while, but we finally got hold of the (not-so) new PlayStation 5 recently! We could have bought one earlier if we were willing to pay quite the premium price, but we were fortunate enough to be at the GameStop in Sand City when they had a few in stock.

So far, we’re very impressed with our PS5! The graphics and processing speed are impressive. This means great gameplay and minimal wait time for games and levels to load. The controllers are comfortable and charge quickly.

Since it’s brand new (to us, anyway), we’re still in the process of getting new titles that our guests will enjoy. As of this writing, we have the new Madden 23, Spider-Man Miles Morales, Call of Duty Vanguard (single player only), and have been beta testing WB Multiverse!

The PS5 joins our array of other great game systems like the Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch. We also still have a couple of beloved older systems like the Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Wii U and Xbox 360. We’ve retired most of our older systems but are keeping others for guests of all ages to enjoy!

We’re looking forward to adding new PS5 releases coming soon like NBA 2K23, FIFA 23, and the much-anticipated Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II in October!

We hope when you #makeyournextpartyEZPZ, your guests will enjoy playing our new PS5 along all our other great video game systems!

 

First off, we LOVE all of our Central Coast communities!

We cover a huge area, ranging as far north as Morgan Hill and the Santa Cruz Mountains, all the way down south to King City. And there isn’t a town that we don’t like going to!

But a funny thing has evolved since we reopened last year after the pandemic…

Salinas is the biggest city in our service area, and of course, the city where we serve the most parties.

But Hollister, a beautiful town that has just a third of Salinas’s population, is a VERY close second to Salinas in the number of video game parties we do!

There really isn’t a consistent reason for this. When asked, some customers say they heard about us by word of mouth; others say online via either a Google search, Yelp, or Facebook.

Whatever the reason is, we’re not complaining! We’ve been happy to serve Hollister and San Juan Bautista since we opened our Mobile Game Theater’s doors in 2016.  And we’ll be there several more times this month!

So thank you, past, present, and future Hollister customers! We know money is tight these days and we appreciate you spending your hard-earned money to spoil your kiddos!

It’s been almost a year since I’ve made a blog entry here! As you probably know, EZPZ Video Game Parties had to shut down for most of the Covid emergency (except for a few weeks where California briefly reopened). We reopened in late May and I’m glad to say that we’ve been fairly busy! Especially in June…I think a lot of our customers just wanted to do something fun for their stir-crazy kids! I so do appreciate all of our customers who have had us entertain their party guests since, and the ones to come!

I noticed recently that guests (kids and adults!) have been asking the same several questions often. They’re curious about the business concept, our Mobile Game Theater, and other stuff. So to answer some of these questions (and it makes for a good excuse to blog again!), here are our unofficial top 5 questions!

5) How did you come up with this business idea?

Almost 6 years ago, I was looking for something for my then-middle school aged son’s birthday. I had heard about “game trucks” but the closest I could find was in San Jose. I thought that one would do well here on the Central Coast. After researching different game truck builders, franchises, etc, I chose some nice folks out in North Carolina that not only build a superior product but also helped with business start-up needs (financing, back-office stuff, etc). In December of 2015 I drove all the way to NC, got trained, hooked up what would become the EZPZ Mobile Game Theater, and drove all the way back! When you’re new to driving with a trailer, going across the country is a crazy experience! BTW, my son now works for me, when homework and other activities allow.

4) Did you build your Mobile Game Theater yourself?

No, (see above) and I usually tell people that “I’m not that talented”. 🙂 The folks who do build them have it down to a science!

3) Are you a gamer?

It seems like this question is obvious…yes! I’m old enough to have had an original Atari 2600 and have been gaming pretty much ever since (though I didn’t play much in college…too busy!). I prefer story-driven games like the Batman Arkham series, Red Dead Redemption series, and have been re-playing Death Stranding recently. I usually don’t play online games much, mainly because I always end up getting spanked. 

2) Can you turn this (the Mobile Game Theater) into a party bus?

This mainly comes from the grown-ups. Can I? Probably. Would I? No, primarily because there’d be a lot more clean up involved, and it’d look pretty bad if I came to a little kid’s birthday party with a trailer that smelled like a brewery. 🙂 

1)  What’s behind the back door?

This one is usually asked by the littler kids. Sometimes I’ll tease them and say that’s my office, or a bathroom, or the stairwell that leads to the basement. But it just opens up to the outside.

We love all kinds of inquiries! If you have some burning question(s) you’d like answered, shoot us an email or call us!

 

It’s mid-October, 2020 as I write this, and it’s unfortunately looking like EZPZ will remain shut down for the rest of this year. I still get many calls inquiring about our Mobile Game Theater, so if anyone happens to wander across this blog who’s interested in our service, hopefully this will explain.

Like many businesses, we were ordered to cease operations and shelter in place back in March. As June came around and it looked like California was close to getting back to normal, we were allowed to reopen, albeit with restrictions (limiting the amount of gamers inside the trailer, masks, gallons of hand sanitizer, etc). As you probably know, once summer hit, the number of coronavirus cases skyrocketed everywhere. We were open for about 3 weeks until we were ordered to shut down again.

Since then, the state came up with a new “Blueprint for a Safer Economy“. As I understand it, there are 4 tiers of status that every county is assigned based on metrics like daily rate of new infections and the rate of Covid tests that are positive (sounds like the same, but I guess they’re different). The 4 tiers are Widespread (purple),  Substantial (red), Moderate (orange), and Minimal (yellow). Monterey County is purple as of this writing. According to the state’s guidelines, we wouldn’t be able to open up again until the county achieved yellow status, which as of now seems light years away. Thus, I’ve blocked off the rest of the year on our reservation system to avoid any confusion.

This doesn’t mean we’re closing permanently! At least, not yet. Our overhead is relatively low, so we should be able to keep up with bills for now. At some point we may be forced to call it quits, or even move to a less-restrictive state, but for now we will do what we can to “stay the course” and keep EZPZ in the beautiful Central Coast area that we adore so much.

While this whole thing is a bad deal for my business, I know it’s nothing compared to the hardships and heartbreaks that many of our fellow community members are dealing with.  Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, or the loss of employment or closing of your business, or missed/postponed weddings, proms, graduations, sports seasons, I’m at least cognizant to the plight of you, my neighbors. On behalf of Tomas and myself, I hope all of our wonderful customers, past, present, and (hopefully) future, continue to be healthy, happy, and whole. We’ll see you on the other side of this thing.

~ Blessings, Sean

Like many of you in our wonderful local community, we here at EZPZ Video Game Parties are affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and efforts to slow its spread. While we briefly reopened to small parties in mid-June, we unfortunately had to abide by state and county decisions in mid-July to shut down all “family entertainment centers”, which is the category that we fall under.

Even so, we are still getting inquiries for future reservations. We are happy to take your reservations with the understanding that:

• We will continue to follow our state and local ordinances regarding opening and any restrictions on the number of guests, whether masks are required, etc. We are based in Monterey County, so in the event that the communities we serve in other counties (Santa Cruz, San Benito and southern Santa Clara) reopen before Monterey, we are still beholden to our home county’s orders.
• For the time being, we are not requiring deposits. It will make it easier in the event that your party has to be cancelled or postponed. If we are able to hold your event, the balance will be due upon our arrival. 
• Likewise, our cancellation policy will not be enforced until we are allowed to operate again regularly. You may make a reservation without worrying about cancellation fees. This is subject to change; please contact us for current rules!
• If/when we are able to reopen, our COVID-19 rules will be politely but strictly enforced. Guests not wishing to adhere to the rules, especially regarding masks, will not be allowed to participate.

We welcome your questions! Please email us as that will be the fastest way to reach us.

While it’s no fun to not be working and entertaining your kids and party goers, above all, we fervently hope that you and your families and friends are healthy and safe! Take all precautions out there so we can see you soon!

Some of our most common requests are either to park on the customer’s driveway or to place our trailer in the backyard. Our general response is “we can try!”, but it helps to know what goes into our decision-making process.

On our FAQ page, you can see that we take the stance of “probably not”. Unless you have a big place, your driveway/backyard probably doesn’t have the minimum of 55 feet (roughly 3-4 car lengths) to accommodate both our Mobile Game Theater and the Ford F-250 that tows the trailer around.

Our other concern is the possibility of damaging your property and/or our vehicles. Our trailer often leaves unsightly tire marks on driveways. And often the driveway is at an incline of some sort, in which case the tail of the trailer might “bottom out”, thereby scraping the driveway or street.

With backyards, the issue we often encounter is whether or not the gate is wide enough. The width of the trailer is about 9 feet, and often the gate won’t accommodate the trailer. Additionally, the trailer is over 11 feet high, so the overhang from the roof comes into play as well.

We are usually happy to come to your place, upon written request (email is fine), to take a look before you book. Keep in mind that we’re usually very busy on weekends and can only do site visits during the week, and even then our available time is limited.

That said, we have had many successful parties with us in driveways or backyards! We want to accommodate our awesome customers whenever possible! So if parking on your property is your wish, we will do our best. Keep in mind that, as part of our terms and conditions that you agree to upon submitting your reservation, that we are not responsible for any damage resulting from your request to park on your property. Additionally, you will be asked to sign an additional waiver confirming this.

We strive to make your event as trouble-free as possible, but at the same time we take the safety and well-being of your (and our!) property quite seriously! Please contact us with any questions!

In almost every call and email we get these days from customers interested in our Mobile Game Theater, we get the same few questions.

“How much does it cost?”

“How many kids can fit?”

“Do you have FORTNITE?”

The last question has become even more common than the other two! And with good reason: Fortnite has become a worldwide overnight sensation, boasting over 125 million players in just one year in their Battle Mode!

Why is Fortnite so popular? According to Polygon, the reasons are several:

• Shareable
• A perfectly parceled span
• Sense of achievement
• Smart design
• Easy for beginners (I can attest to that, not being very good at online multiplayer shooters)
• Cost is free for Battle Royale mode (not including in-game upgrades)
• Short wait times
• Easy to learn building skills (a la Minecraft)
• Celebrity participants
• Fewer incidents of bad behavior by fellow players
• Appeals to casual players as well as seasoned veterans

So why, with all that said, doesn’t EZPZ offer this evidently amazing game? We have a couple of reasons:

• Fortnite, along with similar online multiplayer games like Overwatch and Roblox, limits the amount of players that can participate at once. We prefer local multiplayer games so there’s much less of a chance that a guest is waiting around or doesn’t get a turn playing.
• We would have to rely on a mobile hotspot in order to play just on one console, and we’ve found that having consistent coverage in our area is rather hit or miss.

That said, we are looking at options that would provide unfettered internet access to our Mobile Game Theater at a cost that is reasonable, thus avoiding having to raise our prices (which we haven’t done in our 3+ years here on the Central Coast!).

Until such time, we’ll be letting our customers know that while we can’t do Fortnite for now, we still have a sizable video game library with super popular local multiplayer titles!

Of course, we want our guests to have an AMAZING time and to leave their cares at the door and enjoy themselves! That said, we go to great pains to make sure our guests are safe and secure in our mobile game theater.

You may have seen in last year’s news, the unfortunate event in Atlanta where 7 kids and 2 adults fell ill with carbon monoxide poisoning while playing in a game truck. The employee, VERY unwisely, ran an external generator inside the game truck with no ventilation. Thankfully, everyone was okay (though they all had to go to the hospital). You should know that we have 2 generators; our primary one that is permanently mounted outside in the front, and our backup. Our main one’s exhaust directs the fumes to the driver’s side of our mobile game theater, AWAY from the front door and our AC units. When it’s necessary to use our backup, we make sure to place it in a similar spot, directing the exhaust away from everyone. To be on the safe side, we’ve also installed a carbon monoxide detector inside.

In addition to having a fire extinguisher inside the mobile game theater at all times, we’ve also implemented a safety plan (available upon request) in the event of fire, active shooter and other emergencies.

Our employees undergo an extensive background check, especially in the areas of crime and sexual abuse. We know how worrisome it can be to leave kids with people you don’t know (we’re parents too!), that’s why we always welcome parents into our mobile game theater at ANY time during our parties!

Lastly, our rules aren’t just there to boss around the kids, they’re mostly for the safety of our guests! We love having little ones around, but we’re adamant that parents hold them while in the trailer. Not only can they cause damage to controllers and consoles, but it’s easy for them to fall off our seats or stumble as they climb out of the trailer unsupervised. Similarly, big kids can fall off the seats too! Sometimes they get carried away and start jumping up and down on the seats…that’s why we kindly ask that they stay seated. It’s also our policy to close the side door (where our two outside TVs are) when it’s raining, to avoid any chance of slipping.

With all of this in mind, we’re thankfully 100% accident and injury free! Our customers trust us with their kiddos…we don’t take that lightly!

Well, here we are, the last week of 2017. Typically, the holidays are quiet as far as video game parties go (NOT so much in all other areas of life!), so this makes for a fine opportunity to look back at the outgoing year and peer at the horizon of 2018.

The most important addition to EZPZ was not new games or consoles, but a new game coach! If you had one of our mobile video game parties this year, you’ve probably met Tomas. He’s been an incredible addition to our very small team. In “real life” Tomas is a class-A truck driver and transportation manager, and has slid into the role of Game Coach/Driver exceptionally well. He’s pretty reserved and soft-spoken at first, but he’s incredibly great with kids (he has none of his own, but has a couple of nephews that he’s very close to) and he has just as much fun during the parties as the kids! 

2017 has been a wonderful year of growth for EZPZ. We’ve practically doubled the amount of parties over the previous year, and have begun much-welcomed relationships with CSUMB, the Presidio of Monterey, the City of Marina, and numerous schools and churches throughout the 831. We look forward to forging more such relationships next year! We’ve also added the Nintendo Switch to our lineup of game consoles.

One of our biggest challenges is keeping our game inventory updated with the games kids love to play. Game designers have increasingly made games either single player only, or rely on online multiplayer action rather than “local” multiplayer. As much as we’d like to have the bandwidth capable of handling all of our game systems, it’s really not feasible. Plus, what makes a mobile video game party the most fun is the ability to play alongside friends and family, not alone or against an anonymous player somewhere else in the world! We will continue to procure the best local multiplayer games possible and even lobby game companies to not leave local multiplayer games behind.

Our other major challenge this year has been our generator. As you probably know, our mobile game theater is self-powered via a gas generator that is located at the front of the trailer (on the outside, obvs!). This year, our generator has given us (and our mechanics) fits with occasional breakdowns. We’ve avoided major interruptions to our parties by using our backup generator and, as of this writing, have hopefully figured out the issue of our main unit.

2018 is promising to be bigger and better for EZPZ! We already have bookings at churches, CSUMB, and our bread and butter, birthday parties! We’re so grateful for our Central Coast community, anchored by Salinas, Monterey, Hollister & Santa Cruz, for supporting local businesses like ours!