The Month in Review: April 2017 (Patreon)

Going to be trying something new here to hopefully make Patrons feel more appreciated, and to hopefully bring more of them in. Starting with this past month, I'd like to recap Gatorbox's shows for the month and help show exactly where your money is going and how it's helping the channel.

April saw not one but two streams of Angels With Scaly Wings, a breakout hit on the channel in the form of a literal dragon dating simulator (which was its original name at one point). "Tuna Boat" Tony B reprised his guest role for both shows and says he'll finish the game off with us for Chapters 4 and 5, coming soon! It's a bit of a trip for Tony to come out to host the show and he ends up staying overnight, so your pledges help afford us the gas as well as a quick fast food dinner.

This was also a big month for changes to the show. We finally made the move from XSplit to Open Broadcasting Software (OBS) after a particularly bad Windows XP gaming stream where CPU usage was maxed out at 100% and caused a ton of performance issues. With OBS these issues have literally evaporated; OBS is free software, so your pledges that formerly helped pay for XSplit will now be put to use elsewhere in the future!

And we can't forget about the new camera, which we were excited about but sadly didn't seem to fix the issue we were having with video stuttering. The camera was entirely Patron-funded and with that cash now back in our hands we're still looking for what we can invest it in next. It seems the video stutter is a software issue with Windows 10, which is unfortunate. Part of the refunded camera money went into USB 3.0 extension cables and we rewired the camera setup for the show, this seems to have alleviated it somewhat; OBS's built-in deactivate/activate commands also sort of "refresh" the camera data feed which also helps.

There were also not one but TWO special "impromptu" streams that took place in/around this month, one of which was for the death of Club Penguin and the other was a full 3-day weekend coverage of the "Robogames" event in Pleasanton, CA. Both were a little bit rocky with some CPU problems for the Club Penguin stream and source audio issues with the Robogames stream, but they were successful. Your continued pledges help us afford the time to adjust our schedules on the fly to bring you these kinds of spur of the moment broadcasts, which we hope to do more of!

Finally, we'd also like to thank Sal, iWaddle, and the rest of our fans and viewers who've sent us stuff in the mail. When we opened the PO box we expected to just receive bills, so it's both humbling and a nice surprise to see genuine memery arrive every once in a while. Thanks! (If you'd like to send stuff to the Gatorbox PO box, please mail letters/parcels to: Gatorbox // PO Box 2429 // Fulton, TX 78358)