Cup of Jones - July 29, 2019 (Patreon)

That's a wrap on Easy Livin'! Strange to be a spectator the whole time. While the boys take a day or two to catch up on sleep, it's another quick text-edition of Cup of Jones. There are fewer questions than in a typical episode, which leads me to believe people are saving their big comments for the regular format to return. For now, read, allies, READ!

- Brandon


BUSINESS QUESTIONS

BRANDON K GANN
My question derives from a comment made on stream about seeing if Jirard would be willing (schedules permitting of course) to guest on Mysterious Monsters. This had me thinking about all the guests EZA has had: Jirard, GameXplain, various actors, Maximilian Dood, Ben Hanson, Cory Barlog. In addition, those you’ve said you wished to have on in some form like Rocco and GameAttack. But I was curious from the following creators listed below, do you think they would be a good guest as well, and if either yourself or they have reached out to collaborate in some way? JONES - Answers below.
What’s Good Games - Definitely. Steimer is already in Los Angeles. I’ve been lazy in getting her involved in anything that we do. Those gals are a natural fit for our community.
Danny O’Dwyer (Did you see your and the other Allies’s cameos in his E3 doc?) - I did see our cameos, and I had no idea they were filming by the Gamespot booth. I’ve poked Danny multiple times to be involved somehow in his work, because I love that stuff so much. He’s not local, so it would have to be surrounding some kind of LA event, but I’d love to have him on.
FunHaus (You DO have an inside man as an editor... ;-] ) - Inside man or not, Funhaus is a busy, highly-profitable machine. They have been hard guests to book for years, dating back to the GT Live days. To put it plainly, they have better stuff to do.
NormalBoots (In addition to Jirard) - I am less familiar with their work as a team, so I need to check out their stuff and figure out if they make sense to work with creatively.
And personally speaking, the pie-in-the-sky hopes: Retro Replay and Critical Role - I’ve long been looking for a reason to get all of these people involved in something, but since their time is very valuable, I’ve wanted it to be the right thing. The initial idea was our guest show, whenever that happens, but I would never say no to them being on other stuff if they’re available and willing. I met Nolan through Amanda’s agency, I’ve chatted with Troy at parties/interviews, we had Matt and Marisha on GT Live, and I’ve talked with Travis and Laura a bunch at events. Lots of calls to make, we just need a solid reason.

MATT BROOKBANK
Will patrons be able to see any sort of tabulated results from the survey? Or is it seen as a behind closed doors kind of deal? JONES - I think that still needs to be decided, along with whatever action we take in regard to the responses themselves. BLOODWORTH: There are over 1300 replies and they’re all written responses. Trying to quantify them would be a massive task, and it’s not a particularly scientific polling method. I think it will be more useful to just look at what we decide to do in response.

ALEX PIZA
How will this format be going on for? JONES - Just this week and next. I’m aiming to be back to the usual Cup of Jones format by Monday, August 12th.

BRIAN DENU
I'm sure I'm not alone when I say this, but the next Patreon Exclusive show should DEFINITELY be a Don's Design Lab-style show that features level editing and community levels from Mario Maker 2. Given the Allies' love for the game, this would be a huge hit! JONES - I need to check in with Don regarding his Mario Maker plans. I know he was working on stuff but I missed the schedule updates being on paternity leave. I feel confident I haven’t seen the last of our Mario Maker 2 coverage.

ADAM
I just wanted to throw out that I am absolutely loving these new text-heavy COJ posts, and am hoping you'll consider keeping this format following your paternity leave. As a patron who tunes in primarily to hear your latest takes on the company and any breaking news, this format has immediately proven to be incredibly efficient and really respectful of my time as a follower. It's a lot to catch up with weekly 2-3 hour streams in order to hear what's up with you and the company considering it can cleanly be posted and consumed in minutes with these new posts. Please consider keeping this format as the new standard! JONES - I might integrate more text one way or another. It’s definitely been educational having to write down the answers instead of just rambling them out live, and I’m sure it takes way less time now to arguably consume the same amount of information. I’ll check in with Blood and the team before we go back to the usual Cup-style and see if anything from this past month works better.

PRESSSTARTRICK
With 2 of the Allies on LOA, can we get some outside guest on the podcast? I love how Damiani brings in guest on Friend Code. I think it adds more discussion and opinions. Does Kyle not want guest on his podcast? With the studio complete I was hoping for more interaction with others in the gaming world. LA is home to many popular podcasters. Jesse Cox, Shane Satterfield (Former GT) and soon Andrea Rene. With some of the Allies on leave why not have a guest on the podcast from time to time to fill in the spots. If Mr. Bosman doesn't want guest on his podcast then so be it. It's his show and I respect that. Just saying I wouldn't mind fresh discussion and some EPIC collaborations. JONES - I’m not sure if they wouldn’t work for the segment-heavy nature of the Easy Allies Podcast, but outside guests have never really been a “thing” with Kyle. I think Game Informer’s Ben Hanson is the only time we planned to have a new face on the show far in advance. It might be something we reserve for the other podcasts, or live shows we haven’t produced yet.

JOSH READ
I greatly respect wanting to take a hard look at your Patreon and being willing to make big changes, and I'M very ready for that. However, does it worry you that changing things too much might affect the opinions of the people that are already pledging? How much of these talks go into the balance of catering to your current audience and changing things in a meaningful way to attract a bigger audience? JONES - It all comes from us being honest with what excites us creatively, and what we feel will get the biggest, most positive reaction from our community. That’s never going to be 100% dependent on the way our audience thinks, no matter what part of it we choose to poll. We’ll always use this type of feedback as a launching point to navigate a larger conversation. In this case, what do people want us to see more of, who among us wants to work on that stuff, and what do we need to put aside to make it happen?

ALEXANDER ZYRYANOV
You've announced that the next Community Showcase will feature Damiani and Blood, probably because you didn't know when Huber will be able to return. Now he's back, so I'm wondering will there be any changes with the guest ally for August Community Showcase? Last time we saw Huber in January, Damiani in Februrary (and last month as a host) and Blood in March. JONES - We’re still set for Damiani and Bloodworth for the August episode. September will be myself and Huber.

DANIEL RIBEIRO
I was going to ask a different question, but ever since I read fellow Patron "PressStartRick's" comment, it actually sparked another question I've had for years, but that now seems like the right timing, maybe?! Andrea Rene, which you know very well and follow on Twitter just like me, is moving to Los Angeles where you guys are. This hasn't been touched in a very, very long time because I believe you all and the community finally got comfortable with the fact that we have 9 male Allies. I'm completely fine with it as well. However, a "woman's touch/view" is seriously lacking in some key aspects, things that no matter how hard we men try, we just won't address or tackle it in the same way a woman would. I'm not going to go into detail here, but we all know or can at least understand why - to a certain point. Since Elyse Willems is happily staying at Funhaus, this to me presents itself as the perfect opportunity to either have Andrea Rene join Easy Allies like she did with Kinda Funny, where she split time between them and What's Good Games, or better yet, have an ongoing jolly collaboration between Easy Allies and What's Good Games. Or even just have Andrea Rene as much as possible on podcasts, live streams, Fiasconauts!, etc. I know what "Bran manager" will say: money, money, money. Well, my counter-argument is that Andrea Rene and/or What's Good Games would bring a lot, a freaking lot more new viewers and Patrons to Easy Allies. To put into perspective, on Google search's results: Easy Allies has 106 million, Kinda Funny has 146 million, GameTrailers has 7.49 million, while Andrea Rene by herself has 160 million results! Go hire or collaborate with that woman asap, Jones!!! Seriously, beg her if need be, but do it in person - take as many Allies as you can to convince her/them. Just do it! In Yoda's wise words: "Try not! Do!" - yes, I know the exact quote, but I modified it to convey failure is not an option. And yes, I'm using Star Wars and Yoda to get to you. Andrea and What's Good Games are worth it. Lastly, but not least, Andrea's husband, just "joined the team at Disney as VP of Business Development and Licensing for Games to help pair amazing developers and publishers with the best IP in the world." Jones, this would be the best, most perfect match ever! Also, Andrea herself said she's "incredibly excited to see what new opportunities await me when I return." So be one of those opportunities. So excited for this, this is my Shenmue 3/Resident Evil 2 Remake Huber style dream. Pretty please. JONES - You don’t have to sell me on working with Andrea. There are all sorts of ways we could collaborate, not just with Andrea but What’s Good Games as a whole. But I can’t make decisions for her, or dictate what’s in her best interest at this pivotal stage in her career. I can cross my fingers that she’ll want to do stuff with us after the big move. That’s all I can promise.

STRAWHATNINJA
Now that you are taking some time away/viewing content rather than participating, what kind of things do you want to change/adjust when you get back? JONES - This is random, but I’ve always wanted to have title cards for the streams we do. Stuff like Hall of Greats, Easy Livin’, and the general group streams always just start straight out of the “Soon…” screen, but it’d be neat to have a short 5-second intro for each thing. It’s not an idea that’ll get us more views, but it’s something I’ve always thought about and I’m reminded of it each time I watch our live stuff from the outside looking in.

WOLFGANG HELLISCKSON SABELHAUS
I was wondering what your guy's relationship is with Funhaus, knowing Elyse and Omar worked at GT and Don also works there, because I saw a Reddit post talk about how Funhaus and EZA wouldn't collaborate because Bruce Greene told you it wasn't beneficial for FH. Just wondering if you could clarify this statement as I always thought of them as a nice group of people just like yourselves. JONES - First, I want to say I love that team and the stuff that they create, especially their most recent stuff with Rooster Teeth and Arizona Circle. And Willems is and will always be the GOAT. It’s proven difficult to get them involved in GT or EZA stuff over the years because I think they’re just out of our league, similar to a lot of groups at Rooster Teeth. The projects they put together, and audiences they draw, are on a whole other level than us. So it’s been a challenge to come up with a collaboration that would be worth their time, aside from Elyse being awesome sometimes and joining us for Easy Updates and Spoiler Modes. And shout-out to Omar who’s helped us get so much stuff made and answered a lot of our technical questions over the years.

RAKER WILSON
Now that Easy Allies has a considerable amount of patron exclusive content, and most of it has been produced in the days of yore (aka garage days) Have you considered doing EZA Opens the Vault twitch streams, where you play older Patron exclusive content one night a week? It could be a good way to engage your twitch audience with Patreon content, while not frustrating Patrons because you're selectively pulling from backlog from the garage days. It could also be fun to look at how much you've all improved, injecting a healthy dose of nostalgia. Just to avoid confusion you can make it clear with a graphic that these are retro, and you haven't moved back to the garage :) Not sure if this is anything you haven't already considered. JONES - There has been little interest among the allies in resurfacing a lot of the old stuff since we’ve been in the studio so we don’t confuse potentially new fans with what type of stuff we actually produce. It’s a fun idea to revisit the past, and there might come a time when nostalgia trips that were formerly exclusive to Patreon become public, but it’s not our focus currently.


PERSONAL QUESTIONS

ASBO ZAPPRUDER
I don't know if you heard, but there's a film version of Cats coming out. It's weird because I've gotten so used to Cats being ubiquitous and I guess take it for granted now. And I noticed that there's people like me who look at that trailer and are mainly just put off by the visuals. And then there's the majority of people who think everything about Cats, its very premise is weird beyond words. So my question is, do you think it is at all possible to make a mainstream film version of Cats that doesn't freak the Internet out?  Or was this reaction inevitable no matter what it looked like? JONES - I’m excited about this movie, actually. I think the internet-freak-out was inevitable. It’s a very strange show, and any movie version of it would be equally bizarre. I think the singing sounds strong and the dancing looks incredible. I’m sold. But yes all of them look really weird because cat-people look really weird.

ALEX PIZA
Thoughts on the new Witcher trailer? My favorite franchise ever so far. My question is what game or book would you like into a series? JONES - It looks better than I anticipated, but I don’t know enough about that world to pick up everything I’m seeing. I just played Witcher III and that story has faded a bit for me. I’m looking forward to the series no matter what. I would love to see Final Fantasy VI as a 3-episode mini-series. I’ve talked with friends about it for a long, long, long time.

HAPPY GAMING
What's your all time favorite Final Fantasy album? My girlfriend got us tickets to see A New World play for my birthday in a couple months (it's like Distant Worlds but with a very small group to make it more personal and intimate), and it's had me going through and listening to the albums on Spotify. Definitely recommend checking them out if you haven't. Personally it's hard for me to choose overall, but I am very partial to a lot of the piano arrangement albums. JONES - Me too. The Piano Collection for Final Fantasy VI is amazing. As good as all the instrumental revisions have been over the years, I think the fact that each of Uematsu’s themes can work so well on just piano shows how brilliant he really is.