Year End 2016 (Patreon)

I know the year's not exactly over, but I started writing a post like this in December last year and...never posted it.

Anyway. 2016 was a trying year in more ways than one.  But for the channel and my website, it's been a good if uncomfortable time.  

How We're Doing

Streams have come back to regularity, even if they're still not without issue (my ISP stood me up for an appointment check things out.) Streams aren't huge, but I'm not wasting all my time moderating yet there's always enough people to maintain a conversation, and Restreamio's enabled me to have nice cross-channel chat which has been really great. Beam in particular has made chatting a lot less painful due to low-latency. 

Patreon  pledges went from a couple spare bucks late last year to a reliable chunk of money I can easily plan my spending on (this year's biggest expenses were Sony Movie Studio Platinum, my new editing tool, my GTX 1060 to keep up my ability to record intensive games, and a PSVR that's significantly there just for my ability to cover VR games). I'm still not super comfortable promoting Patreon and such, but Iv'e gotten better and Im' quite pleased with the support you've all given (pretend one of those heart emojis the kids like is here)

Youtube  uploads are steady again, I'm not sure at any point I've failed to post a video for over 24 hours. I'm currently back to 2 videos a day due to backlog but daily is plenty productive in my opinion anyway. The channel's growth hasn't been accelerating much, but we're on track to hit 10,000 subscribers before the end of the year, even after losing hundreds to the Youtube Purge.

The website 's been doing quite well, particularly the Abyssrium guide  ( 127,239 Views--that's a lot for something that's not fake news!), and the comments and love from the guides have been wonderful. Before the Axiom Verge guide last year I wasn't even planning to do guides at all, but it's been very fullfilling and I hope to do many more. I do wish I had a better way to integrate them into Patreon—that is an issue I have, I do so many things it's hard to tie them all together and pitch them here.

On the less visible side of things, I've gotten a number of good contacts for getting indie & niche games to review, allowing me to cover more games and cover them earlier, with the benefit of embargos or launch day coverage. I don't particularly like the outreach as I'm a very shy person, but it's important and I've gotten much better at it.

Here's to 2017

Like I said it's a bit early, but I'm tired of putting things off. And that's the biggest thing I want to change about myself for 2017—no more missed opportunities simply because I put things off, didn't want to do them, was too scared to do them. Even if that means doing something a little awkward (like writing a year-end post in November), screw it, I'm not going to let anxiety stop me.

So next year I hope to (pre-emptive groan) Push the Brand™ even harder, make more sharable, understandable content, make more guides, and grow across all channels. It's still a long ways off, but I'm eyeing my financials for possiblities of going freelance, hopefully expanding the amount of time I can dedicate to writing and covering games. 

And most importantly, I want to keep being a force for the smaller, weirder, more diverse games that get passed over. I want to help people discover and enjoy things they never knew were out there. I hope I've helped you expand your palate, I know mine has grown since I've started doing this.

Thanks for everything and here's to another great year!