Open letter about the future of TPGC

Hey Partysans!

First I want to start with how self serving and icky making a letter like this is, nothing about it feels right on this end.  Feeling like you are important enough to warrant an “announcement letter” will never feel right, however as a person that has read these sorts of things, I never feel ill of the writer and usually appreciate the news, I can only hope you feel this way. If not, please don’t tell me, it will just upset me.

Next, I am a very poor writer, its why I do most of my communication verbally: you can’t notice I have a terrible grasp of the language and my voice makes some lucky people tingle, so that is a big win over writing.  Please pardon my usage and grammar mistakes, and just assume I am a dullard.

Here we go:

What’s up Bruce?

Nothing much, still moderating the Party Gamecast and having fun being a host on On Board Games.  I also hope to get The Just Barely Sports Podcast back up and running under the Inverse Genius banner, they have offered me a chance to be a part of their “network” joining the Flagship podcast, On Board Games, On RPGs, Games in Schools and Libraries and Room Escape Divas.  I think this is be a great step towards getting the idea of checking out what is fun and wacky and goofy in sports out to more people, and I want to thank them for the chance to be a part of the network. Look for that in July or August.

…that’s good and all, but what about The Party Gamecast featuring the Party Game Cast?

I’m glad you said the whole thing, I didn’t in the last paragraph, and it felt a little naked. Well huge things on the horizon for the show.  I think to make it easier to digest I will do it with bullet points (for the tl:dr just read the bolded stuff).

• Mike is going into surgery in a few weeks, with that he will be out for quite a while healing, because of that he will be missing from quite a few episodes. First, we hope for nothing but a speedy recovery for him, and he will be missed from the show while he’s gone, but he will be back ASAP.  We will let you know on the show the first one of his hiatus.  He is not going anywhere in the long run, but will be out for as long as it takes to fully recover.
• We have decided that we NEED to have a clear release schedule. Our current plan of “putting out a new episode when the magic potato chip bag tells us to” is not a great arrangement for those of you that like the show.  We have decided to steal yet another idea from Flip the Table, and go on a “Once every 3 weeks” schedule.  We think this gives us enough time to make a good show, but sets up an actual time table, so that we in fact MAKE a show every 3 weeks.   Our plan is to release a different week from FtT, so that I don’t have to have my ego crushed by anyone else making sure I know they would always listen to FtT before our show.  I can tell with some certainty, “we know, you don’t need to tell us anymore”.
• There is a new agreement with the Dice Tower Network, and we have decided to stay on as a part of the network, unless they choose to boot us. This means we will mention the Dice Tower Awards and we will start making appearances on the flagship show “The Dice Tower” in some of their “Question of the Week” and “Top 10” segments, as these are obligations to the network, and probably a good idea for us anyway.  Remember Dice Tower Network Cares!
• We will not be part of the DTN Coolstuff Inc contest. This is not because we don’t like CSI or DTN, we just don’t do well with contests.  This is not to say we will never run one, but we find they give us temporary spikes to listenership that promptly go away as soon as the contest is over.  We love everyone involved, but have decided to sit this one out.  We will probably do next years contest.
• We have been offered CoolStuff Inc ,as a “network sponsor” opportunity, we decided to opt in for this, and we will see where it takes us, they do have “cool stuff, in stock (at coolstuffinc.com)” and that’s great by us.
• We have Steamworks Coffee (steamworkscoffee.net) as our “What the Food” Sponsor, and we could not be happier, we hope this is a long relationship, since having a food product, run by gamers is a dream sponsor for “What the Food”.
• We are currently working with Analog Gamer (analoggamer.com) to make some shirts for the show. They are currently working on logos and ideas for shirt designs.  They make shirts for shows like The Dice Tower, Flip the Table and Rolling Dice and Taking Names, and we are excited they are willing to work with us. 
• This also means we MIGHT be changing our logo. If they have a great design, and will let use it, we might see the first visual overhaul of the show since we began.  This is exciting, and we will not make any changes UNLESS we really believe in them. That having been said, we are exploring a logo that embraces more of the show we have become, and less of the show we intended to be when we started.  We hope to see logos with more of an emphasis on food, and a little less on games.  What we do know is the stuff they have designed for other shows makes us downright giddy.  The stuff for Flip the Table is amazing (including their new logo) and the “Squirrel! Moon Pie” shirt for Rolling Dice and Taking Names might be one of the coolest things ever.  So needless to say we are excited, and we will open shirt preorders up as soon as everything is worked out.
• Speaking of Food, we hope to release episodes of “What the Food” on a less regular basis, but always on Fridays, this lets us bring back the #whatthefoodfridays hashtag. We have a ton in the can now, and will start to make it a weekly thing for a while.  Some episodes will just be us eating food, others will be us interviewing folks in gaming, while we all eat food. We think it is a cool show, and we plan to make as much of it as we can, but we will release what we can, when we can.
• So since we need to make more What the Food episodes, we need to meet with more folks, so Rocki and I will be at Dice Tower Con 2016 in beautiful Orlando, FL. We would love to meet you, maybe try some crazy snack food, and generally hang out.  We will be there starting Thursday Night, and will be there until midday Sunday. 
• We are currently talking to Flip the Table about having a co-branded trip to the World’s Largest Entertainment McDonalds to eat gourmet McDonalds food and play arcade games.
• We might be doing other co-branded things, or we might not, either way we want to meet you, please come talk to us.
• Finally we have decided to join Patreon, and set up a patreon account so you can support the show if you want to. We know there are things we would LOVE to pick up for the show (like better mics) ,we would also love to have hosting paid for, and maybe cover some snacks.  This is all possible with patreon.  This also opens up the possibility for us to meet some of you at conventions like Origins and Gen Con in the coming years.  If we can put together a fund, it opens up new opportunities.  We have kicked around this idea for over a year, and I felt like we should not ask for money, until we knew we could make a show people liked, and a show we could produce at SOME regular clip.  We think the new 3 week plan does exactly that.  We are still getting advice about the legal aspects of this, as well as, working on rewards and goals for funding levels.  We are hoping to have this worked out for an August launch.  Stay Tuned. 
• Questions? Please ask at all the ways you can find us, @partygamecast, @partygamecat, @brucecothinks, facebook, email, on the Board Game Geek Guild or call us on the hotline at 30 – PARTYGAME (you can leave off the last “e” for savings). 

 

 

Thank you so much (and I mean this) for reading all of this,

 

Bruce