Hello fine readers. I hope you all enjoyed yesterday’s bit of April Fools silliness. Believe it or not I’ve had that idea for years and only now actually executed it.
I’ve also had a number of other ideas for this site in the back of my mind for a while, and some of them are actually happening. This post is to highlight some small changes I’ve made to what I do here.
First of all, there’s more video stuff. In an effort to experiment and branch into the youtube space I’ve decided to simply go for it with weekly uploads, plus integrating the back catalog of podcast episodes into the channel, plus posting new podcast episodes, plus recording and posting all of my reviews going forward in audio form. So if you haven’t yet subscribed to the channel, please do so. I’m approaching 500 subscribers. At 1000 I’ll be able to monetize and get some coin from it. Every time I go to do a video I can tell I’m getting better at it. But don’t worry, full game reviews will always be primarily in the written medium, as I believe that allows me to create the best reviews possible.
Secondly, I’m going to try to stream more, particularly since I’m getting back into Netrunner. I’ve already made a few decks and I’ve got the NISEI cards ordered! I’ll be streaming to both twitch and youtube, so follow on one or both to not miss things. I’ll be doing at least one stream a week, but probably more.
Thirdly, I’m opening up the TTG discord channel to you all (well, some of it). Previously it was only available to patreon supporters, and parts of it will still be exclusive to them, but in an effort to get more great conversation going, you too can join in.
Finally, I’ll be adjusting the Patreon benefits and rewards soon to clean them up. Not much will change. I’m writing this mostly as a reminder that if you like what I do here, you can support it through Patreon. I have fantastic, enthusiastic supporters right now, but 2022 is sort of a test for The Thoughtful Gamer. Support, views, social media–it’s all stalled out recently. Living only for metrics is toxic, but they do convey information. If over the next few months I’m getting the same information as I’ve been seeing over the last year or two The Thoughtful Gamer will not exist as it does now. I’m not going to stop writing about games, but it’ll most likely be pared down significantly and change its focus.
I’m not going to dwell on that. Instead I have a renewed vigor for thinking and conversing about board games as best I can. Long time readers will know that I’ve had my ups and downs with depression and doubt and dying motivation. Right now I’m winning that stupid mental battle and I’m going to plunder the spoils greedily. By spoils I mean the capacity to write board game reviews I don’t hate.
To everyone reading this: you’re the best.
-Marc
