It's time for the next phase of Good Vibes Gaming -- new and more content, new Patron perks, Today's News Tonight Season 2, and more! (Patreon)

Hey there, everyone! We hope your week has been full of good vibes so far and, as always, we can't thank you enough for the downright incredible amount of love and support you've shown us during the first several months of our Good Vibes Gaming journey.

With our six-month anniversary already fast approaching, though -- no, we don't know where the time went either! -- it's time to look ahead to the next chapter as we continue to bring you the content and Patron perks you graciously support us for while working to grow the channel and GVG's brand as a whole.

That's why we're here to officially announce and detail the changes, content additions, new Patron perks, tier adjustments, and more that are starting on May 3rd as we begin a new phase of GVG!

There's a lot to cover, so let's jump right into it:

Changes

Today's News Tonight Season 2!

Okay, here's the big one. Get ready: our signature three-times-a-week live news show, Today's News Tonight, is going public and free for all to watch as we record live. Now before we go any further, we have a message for every Patron in our Live Audience: DON'T WORRY! Not only is the post-show remaining Patron-exclusive, we're actively working on a way to preserve our popular Live Audience perk for the public version of TNT proper. So even if the show itself is becoming public, we'll still be interacting directly with the Live Audience chat. That's not going away!

We'll be perfectly up-front about our main reason for making a TNT a public show: our YouTube subscriber growth has slowed substantially and, for awhile, even dropped off a bit, and suffice to say we need to turn that around.

In addition to diversifying and juicing up our content output (which we are also doing; more on that below!), we think the best way to do this is bring our live recordings of TNT to the masses. Today's News Tonight is, after all, our main branded show and it makes up the majority of our content to date, but as things stand now, only our Patrons at the Live Audience tier and above can watch it live and by the time the masses get the VOD version of each episode, it's turned into Yesterday's News This Morning.

That... obviously doesn't have quite the same ring or appeal to it, and we believe delivering TNT live to the masses going forward will help increase our visibility and foster our growth in a huge way!

Today's News Tonight Is Coming to Every Major Podcast Service, Free of Charge -- Including All Previous Episodes!

One of the requests we've gotten most often since our launch -- both from our Patrons as well as fans outside of Patreon -- is for us to make every episode of Today's News Tonight available in an audio-only podcast form. Well, ask and you shall receive! Alongside everything else we're doing as we launch into the second phase of GVG this month, we're getting TNT (including every previous episode dating back to our debut, naturally) up on every major podcast service around the world! We're thrilled to be able to deliver on such a frequent request as we seek to make TNT more readily available in the formats that best suit our audience.

Content Additions

Weekly Discussions

We hear you loud and clear: discussions are what brought many of you to us in the first place, particularly our long-time fans, and you want more of them. Ask and you shall receive! With the start of GVG's next phase this month, we're bringing you a new discussion every week on a wide range of gaming topics to be voted on each week by our Patrons at the Producer tier and above! In addition, Live Audience-tier Patrons and above will receive audio-only MP3 versions of these discussions.

Short-form News Stories

We've also received from feedback from some of you stating that while you enjoy TNT in general, sometimes the long-form format is a bit much to commit to time-wise and it would be nice to get particularly big, breaking news stories as small, self-contained news updates. As it turns out, we've already started doing this and it will continue going forward!

More Patron Perks!

We may be laying the groundwork to really push GVG's growth as a channel and brand as a focal point of our next phase, but equally important to us is finding new ways to bring you, our amazing Patrons who make it all possible, more value for your generations.

Live Audience members and up

As mentioned above, even though TNT is becoming a public show that will be free for all to watch live, Patrons in the Live Audience tier and above will still get to interact with us and our guests in an exclusive chat -- again, that's not going away! Additionally, the post-show will remain fully Patron-exclusive, and a brief intermission will now separate the show proper from the post-show so we can transition between them properly.

But we're adding some new perks too! You'll now receive audio-only MP3 versions of each post-show. And remember those new weekly discussions we mentioned are coming to the channel? You're getting audio-only MP3s of those, too. Finally, you'll also have access to ad-free versions of our video content!

Producers and up

With the addition of weekly discussions to our content lineup, Patrons in the Producer tier and above will exclusively and literally decide which topics we discuss on the channel! Each week we'll post a poll right here on our Patreon page asking you to vote for your favorite in a range of gaming-related topics (both popularly-requested ones and our own ideas), and the winning topic will be the next one we discuss!

While that's the only new Producer perk we have coming at the moment, please know that we are particularly concerned with adding further value to this particular tier and are actively looking into ways we can do so. Thank you so much for your patience and please feel free to message us with any suggestions you have!

Executive Producers and up

While this new perk will be old news to a few of you as we've already started rolling it out, we want to make it officially official: we're now playing games live on stream with our EPs twice a month (up from once a month previously)! Remember, while you do have to be a Patron in the Executive Producer or above to actually play with us in these streams and join in voice chat, anyone and everyone can watch and participate in regular YouTube text chat!

But that's not the only new perk coming to the Executive Producer tier: With the start of our next phase on May 3rd, EPs will now begin receiving one piece of EP-exclusive GVG merch per quarter (three-month period)! These unique items, which will be distributed directly by Patreon at no extra cost to you, naturally won't ever be available for purchase in GVG's regular merch store.
We're still working out the finer details of this exciting new perk, but we'll nonetheless be introducing it to this tier as part of our re-launch this month, so we hope you're looking forward to it!

Tier Adjustments (and a New Tier Approaches?!)

For our relaunch this month, not only are we retooling and bringing new perks to several of our existing Patron tiers (many of which we've already outlined above), we're also adding a brand-new tier, removing a couple of our more unpopular tiers altogether, and lowering the price of certain tiers! Let's break it all down. (Note that, as always, Patron perks stack with each successive tier.)

$1: Discord Community Member

• NO CHANGES: However, in response to a common question we get about our Discord server we want to make one thing crystal clear: we're very proud of the community we've built with all of you, and the GVG Discord is NEVER going public! The whole point of GVG is to promote inclusivity, positivity, and kindness in the gaming sphere, and a key part of that is ensuring that our community always remains a positive, reaffirming safe space for all of its members. Opening our community to the public without even a minor paywall would obviously fly right in the face of that and open the gates for trolls looking to cause trouble with minimum effort. That ain't happening, and that's a promise.

$5: Live Audience

• ADJUSTMENT: Today's News Tonight is going public and will be free for all to watch live, but Live Audience Patrons and above will still get to participate and interact with us and our guests in an exclusive chat separate from the public YouTube chat
• ADJUSTMENT: TNT's post-show will still be Patron-exclusive, with a brief intermission now separating the public main show from the Patron-only post-show
• NEW PERK: Post-show MP3 distribution means you never have to miss a post-show!
• NEW PERK: Our new weekly discussions will be made available in MP3, audio-only format!
• NEW PERK: Ad-free versions of our video content!

$10: Producer

• NEW PERK: Vote on the topics we discuss every week for our new weekly discussions!

$25: Executive Producer

• NEW PERK: Play games with us in a community live stream TWICE per month, up from once!
• NEW PERK: Receive one piece of EP-exclusive merch every quarter (three-month period), distributed directly by Patreon at no extra cost to you! What will these merch items be? That's for you to find out every quarter, but we can promise they'll truly be exclusive and never sold in our regular merch store.

$30: Promote a Pet

• PRICE REDUCTION ($50 -> $30): Want to show the world your furry/fluffy/feathery/scaly/etc. friend during each episode of Today's News Tonight? Now you can for just $30/month, down from $50! Stacks with all perks from each preceding tier, of course.

$50: Fight a Founder

• BRAND-NEW TIER: Introducing our new "Fight a Founder" tier! By becoming a Patron at this tier, you can book Ash, Steve, or Derrick for a private one-hour session to play any multiplayer game of your choice (chat-inclusive, of course!). Want to split the cost with friends and bring them along? Fine by us! Rest assured, this tier stacks with all perks from each preceding tier.

$75: Personalized Video Response

• PRICE REDUCTION ($100 -> $75): If you have a question you've always wanted to ask of one of GVG's founders, you can now do so and get a personalized video response from the founder of your choice for $75/month, down from $100! And no worries: this tier still stacks with all perks from each preceding tier!

$400: TNT Sponsor

• NO CHANGES: Well, at least we got two right! Like the Discord Community Member tier, the TNT Sponsor tier is remaining unchanged for now. Please contact us anytime to promote your product, service, YouTube channel, subterranean lair, or anything else on Today's News Tonight!

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And that, finally, brings us to the end of all the content additions, changes, new perks, tier adjustments, and other exciting stuff that's coming to GVG starting this month, on May 3rd! We hope you're as excited about GVG's next chapter as we are and once again, thank you all so much for all the love and incredibly generous support you've thrown our way so far. We're thankful for each and every one of you!

Onward and upward!