Repurposing the Let's Try Slot (Patreon)

[I originally posted this in discord, but I figured I should re-edit it, expand it, and post it over here.]

I've found myself questioning lately whether the Let's Try slot should continue to exist.

As the schedule has compressed it now takes up one of four total timeslots, being:

1) RPG

2) Let's Try

3) Patreon

4) The confusing rotating slot

And while I like the variety the rotating slot brings, TLoU2 and KRZ took a very, very long time back to back. So the wait for those indie and puzzle games gets quite long, as does the backlog of classic games I'd like to play. I also admittedly look at a channel like SplatterCatGaming and am like, whelp, he's literally just my Let's Try slot as a whole channel, but more effective because his videos reach like 50x more people.

Yes, you can say that you're here for my personality, but the original reason for the Let's Try slot to exist was to share indie games with the world that I otherwise don't have time to cover in full (and occasionally the beginning of a playthrough I gave up on).  The goal was to be a showcase of those games, not me.  I don't really have time to get comfortable and "be me" in many Let's Trys because I'm so busy trying to learn the game from scratch, reading tutorials and so on.

So I can't help but think that if I got rid of the Let's Try slot I could have a AAA/AA/classic games slot and an Indie/Puzzle slot, and the general playthrough landscape might feel more effective and healthy.  Each slot would basically be two categories that alternate, so you're never far from it coming back.  Believe me, I felt the weight when the puzzle slot was rolling back around.  I made those polls here to deflect some of the pressure.  After all, puzzle games are arguable one of my pillars, yet we're just now having the first one in months, and then it'll probably be months until the next one again?  I value Let's Trys, but I can't help but think they're being a bit greedy with the schedule at the moment.  As the schedule has compressed they may be taking up too much of the bandwidth that we might all feel is better spent elsewhere.

I could still do Let's Trys, perhaps 1-3 of them after the finale of a game and before the start of the next game, instead of its own dedicated timeslot.  But among other things that would have consequences for the Let's Try tier on Patreon, the most expensive tier, which is literally sold out right now.  That's perhaps the only reason I haven't immediately made the change once I identified the problem: the fact that I have responsibilities to fulfill.

Since there isn't a dedicated place where I could consistently fulfill my obligations to that role on a monthly basis (the spaces between games are too sparse to keep 15 people satisfied), it would have to be removed entirely or replaced with a new reward of some kind, and I don't really see what I could contribute to that tier that wouldn't just massively increase my workload. So it's kind of bad for my patreon and my income and for a specific group in my community, but it might be better for the channel as a whole? Hell even the $25 people might find that they prefer the channel that way in the end.

So... yeah? I think this might be the final month for the Let's Try timeslot and the Let's Try Curators Patreon Tier. Sorry if this feels like short notice, but the alternative would be to continue dragging out this schedule that I'm not sure is really working for additional months, and that's not great?

You can let me know how you feel about the idea in the comments, but I don't think this is necessarily the kind of choice where a vote makes a ton of sense.  This choice doesn't really benefit me financially, as I'm removing the premium tier of my Patreon and replacing it with nothing, but I think it's an improvement for the channel overall.  Just in time for the part of the year when we go from Too Many Games to Infinity Games, too.

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What should you do if you're currently in the Let's Try slot?

Get your request in, then change your pledge tier.  You can still pledge the $25 if you so desire, if you switch to the $15 tier but then pledge a custom amount, but don't stay in the Let's Try tier.  The only way to close a tier is to remove it, and that moves everyone in that tier to the "no reward" tier, which means you won't be in the credits and won't be notified about nominations and votes.

I'll keep it open for the rest of the month, but I don't want to keep it around after that, as it would be promising a perk that is no longer supported. On the admin side of things I've reduced the Patreon limit of the tier from 15 to 1 so that any vacancies created will be immediately closed.

You've already been charged for October, and I've downloaded the spreadsheet of my current supporters in the tier, so you can change right now and I'll still have records indicating that I owe you a video (in addition to the publicly available spreadsheet I've been using to keep track of requests).

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The Q&A Episode 100 Finale is still on the way.  It's just going to take some work.  I've got some homework to do, some live action camerawork to do, and a bit of planning is required in general.  I just haven't really had time lately, as I've been consistently only barely meeting my obligations and rarely getting ahead of schedule at all.  I feel like I've been running on low battery, which at this point in 2020 is probably understandable.  The project status is now "when it's done it's done" and I won't make further claims about its timing.  It'll just pop up one day.

That's also partly why Wasteland 3 has been stalled lately, but I might be able to fix that soon.  The recording sessions are long, and then the files take a while to transfer, and then the editing process takes hours.  When I have a nice week of backlog then I have the wiggle room for all this mess, but when I'm behind schedule and need to upload an RPG video tomorrow then Anachronox is completely doable while Wasteland 3 becomes literally impossible.  I'll figure it out, though we may be widdling our way through Wasteland 3 for the rest of 2020, with it popping in from time to time to interrupt Cyberpunk, etc. It was always going to be a tough project for a one-man channel.

I need to come up with something new to contribute to the Patreon, though I'm already pretty maxed out as a labor force. I might try to be more proactive about picking up the scraps from other videos and repurposing them.  There can be a decent amount of deleted scenes nonsense that happens while we're trying to set up a stream that's kind of funny but doesn't really fit anywhere.  Sometimes I put them after the credits, and sometimes I simply delete them.  I might be able to stack those little one-minute moments on top of each other until there's an occasional compilation for me to put up here as Patreon content.  We'll see.