The Story Behind CryoJon

I am doing a full rebrand and relaunch of my channel. This has been a long time coming, and I want to talk about how we got here and what this means going forward.

Where It Started: "Average Halo Gamer"

I first started my channel with the name "Average Halo Gamer". I started the channel out of frustration; I was tired of the negativity around Halo that so many other creators were fueling for clicks. I love Halo, and seeing the community in that state was depressing especially seeing it continuing to be hurt by key creators in the Halo space. Were there real issues with Halo Infinite? Absolutely. But I felt like they were being exaggerated, and key members of the community were doing more harm than good.

I tried to keep everything positive. Most of the time I avoided calling out or attacking specific members of the community. I felt like going on witch hunts was not beneficial for anyone. I did stray from this pretty far with one particular video that is no longer on my channel. I made this video after seeing what I felt was significant sexism within the community. I still stand by much of what I thought at that time, but the video was relevant for a certain amount of time and just does not fit the current goal of the channel.

I thought the name was perfect, I was just an average player that loved and wanted to play Halo and my focus was on Halo.

The First Rebrand: Beyond the Ring

After a while, I wanted to branch out. There was only so much about Halo to talk about. I was enjoying what I was doing, but there were topics I wanted to cover that just didn't fit within that Halo bubble. So I did my first rebrand to "Beyond the Ring."

To be completely honest — even after I had decided on the name, had the logos made, had everything in place... I still wasn't in love with it. I almost called off the rebrand at the last minute. I had a lot of concerns, especially around potential legal issues with the name and imagery. But I felt the pressure to rebrand, some of the content I had already put out and the content I was working on just did not fit the old branding, so I went through with it.

It just never really felt right. The name was too much of an inside joke. If you didn't know Halo, it made no sense. Nothing about it communicated what the channel was actually about. There was no identity to it — if you were talking to me, there was nothing in the name you could use to address me. You would just have to know that my name is Jon. The tagline was "Where Halo, Board Games, and Gaming Passion Converge" — which was trying to do way too much and would need to change anytime my interests shifted. There was no direction for the channel. Frankly, the whole thing was kinda half-assed on my part.

Since it never really felt right, it also never felt right to make content for. I felt like nothing made sense.

Starting Over From the Ground Up

I knew I needed to step back and completely re-evaluate what I was doing, rethinking everything from the ground up, figure out what I actually want to do and build a clear brand around that. Without losing what I had already built. I also made the decision to pause all work on the channel itself until I had this new direction.

Unfortunately, this took a lot longer than I wish it had. I had a lot of ideas, but nothing ever stuck. I could never land on a name with cohesive branding behind it. But over that time, I identified four key things I needed from a new brand:

It needs to work as a name. Something that if we were having a conversation you could address me by, either all or part of it.
It needs a science fiction element. While I have no plans to be only limited to sci-fi, it is a major part of what I love and will be a major recurring theme of the channel.
It needs a subtle nod to Halo. I did not want to forget how I got here, but I also did not want a blatent copy or be confusing anyone who doesn't know the series.
It needs to support a real brand. Something I can build a clear image around, from visuals in videos, this website, the logo, etc. All of it feeling cohesive.

Finding something that checks all four of those boxes was incredibly difficult. It took almost a year. But here we are.

CryoJon

After a ton of trial and error, I landed on "CryoJon" which handles all four of those criteria.

You can address me as "Jon," "Cryo," or "CryoJon" — it works in conversation no matter how you use it.

"Cryo" is inherently science fiction while also being a subtle nod to Halo. The very first Halo starts with Master Chief waking up from cryo sleep, and it's a recurring element throughout the series.

The Cryo and Science Fiction name gives me a clear foundation to build a brand on.

Building on the name, when designing the logo I decided to lean further into the sci-fi elements by going for a cyberpunk aesthetic with the implants.

The new tagline is simple:

I am not trying to list every topic I might cover. No keywords crammed in to cast a wide net. Just a straightforward description of what this channel is. If you show up, that's exactly what you're going to get.

I still love Halo

I want to be clear about something: none of this changes how I feel about Halo. I love the series. I have a Halo tattoo and I'm planning another one. Halo is part of who I am and will remain a part of this channel. This is why there is a nod to Halo in the channel name and I went back to my original logo for some inspiration for the new logo.

The rebrand isn't me walking away from Halo. It's me giving myself room to do more next to Halo. I still plan on talking about Halo, and I'm still not going to lean into the negativity and hate that so many others do. That was the whole reason I started this channel in the first place, and that hasn't changed. I already have more Halo videos in the works right now.

What's Next

So where are we now? At the time of publishing this, the first video under the new branding has gone live. I have multiple videos in various state of being ready to publish, and I have a long plan of what I want to cover.

Going forward, you're going to be seeing a lot more videos of me playing games. That's the core of this channel — gameplay and commentary. I'll also still be making more produced videos where I dig into specific gaming topics, because there are things I care about in this space that deserve more than a passing mention. My hope is that those topics will also come up naturally on stream or while casually playing a game where they're relevant. The main focus is on playing games, but I think I have a couple of surprises in thw works.

The new name and branding have been applied across all social media accounts, and this website has gotten a complete refresh to match.

I'm also laying the groundwork for a couple of streaming projects that will run alongside the channel but I am not quite ready to start those yet.

And the work isn't done. While the core branding is in place, there are areas I want to continue refining over time to really solidify the brand. Those improvements will be introduced gradually over the next year or so.

Thanks for being here. Whether you've been around since the Average Halo Gamer days or you're just finding me now — welcome. Let's play some games.