Though it may be 5 a.m, the early morning grind isn’t stopping the hosts of the “Married to the Games” podcast from shouting “Oh, yes, yes y’all!” each Wednesday morning.

“Married to the Games” is a weekly podcast focusing on gaming, news and the everyday lives of four men: Tim Rauter, Chris McCrackin, Ed Placencia and Gabriel Patillo.

Patillo is a singer that has worked alongside TobyMac since 2002. Since he was a child, he’s had a love for gaming and has helped co-host Married to the Games since 2012.

“I was telling [Rauter] this story about how I had just gotten back from E3 and this crazy story about how I got in, how it almost didn’t happen, how I had flown to L.A and almost was stuck there,” Patillo said. “He was like ‘man, me and this guy [Tim Hall] are thinking about doing a podcast, would you wanna be on it with us?’ “

When the podcast first started, the group had issues finding an audience, with them initially setting up Twitter searches to find gamers and podcast enthusiasts to follow in an attempt to find listeners. From there, word about their show spread. The “Married to the Games” Twitter now has almost 10,000 followers.

As well as interacting with their community via Twitter, the group runs a forum where gamers can discuss personal topics and set up community game nights. The podcast even has a dedicated section to answer listener questions.

“We slowly started noticing that people would put up things they were struggling with at the time, just in life,” Patillo said. “That’s when I really feel like we started having something special, when we started getting emails about ‘the podcast has helped me with this, that and others,’ like things from cancer to suicide and depression. We were like, ‘oh my gosh, something is going on here.’ ”

Patillo encourages listeners to write in with questions. He said it was important for him to keep the show varied, despite it’s label as a “gaming podcast.”

“We don’t ever want to feel like we can only talk about video games,” Patillo said. “At the beginning, we say ‘games and life, life and games,’ so we don’t want this thing to feel like we’re only talking about video games and we’re keeping it surface-level.”

Host Ed Placencia lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Sarah. They own and run a fitness studio called S.W.E.A.T. Lancaster, where he helps with advertising, personal coaching and social media for the studio.

Placencia met Patillo in 2002 at Gotee Records. When “Married to the Games” started, Placencia listened to help support Patillo, eventually joining the group in September of last year. He and Chris McCrackin have began posting full playthroughs of games such as “Assassin’s Creed” and other independent titles such as “This War of Mine.”

“Gabe was just trying to think of ways we could kind of expand ‘Married to the Games,’ and kind of have a broader reach,” Placencia said. “I was a big watcher of Let’s Plays and had done quite a few of my own actually for a few months before we did the Married to the Games one. I think Gabe just kind of liked listening to me get frustrated and scared and asked if I’d come on to help with the YouTube channel.”

When host Tim Hall left the team to focus on his family life in 2015, Placencia and McCrackin joined the podcast crew.

“Gabe and I, before I was on the podcast, were talking a few times a week anyhow so this has kind of taken the place of our weekly phone call, which is kinda funny and it’s been cool,” Placencia said. “I’m not one for early mornings, but it’s definitely worth it just to hang out with Gabe and Chris and Tim [Rauter].”

The podcast has been something that the group has taken pride in, with Patillo working to ensure that it gets bigger and better without changing the format. He said he wants to ensure the program can appeal to anyone, by keeping the show clean and letting a natural conversation flow.

Patillo said one of the biggest pieces of advice for anyone interested in starting a podcast was to simply “talk about something you love” and to “not set themselves up for failure.” Placencia shared the same ideas and said that it was important for people to find their own niche and not try to emulate others.

“Gabe does have such a passion for that and wants to make the best product possible and he really wants to enhance people’s lives and give them something they’ll enjoy,” Placencia said. “It’s contagious. You can’t be around someone like that for long and not want the same thing.”

Married to the Games uploads their podcasts to iTunes, Stitcher Radio and Google Play every Thursday. The team uploads new episodes of their playthroughs on YouTube daily, and can also be found on Twitter, Facebook and at www.marriedtothegames.com.