To 2018 and Beyond

Hey, you made it through 2017! Give yourself a pat on the back. It was a pretty rough year for… well, pretty much everyone I guess. But we had our share of bumps and bruises here on Spoiler Warning too. Thanks for sticking with us, and to those of you who are now donating or have donated, thank you for all your support. We’ve got some big changes I’d like to talk about for 2018, so let’s get to that, shall we?

One of the great problems we’ve always had with the format of the show is that there’s often only so much to be said about a game, and it usually takes us less time to say them than it does for us to finish playing it. On top of that, it’s pretty difficult to keep four or five people interested in the same game for three or four months at a time. By the end of most seasons, we’re bored, we’ve run out of things to say, and we’re all quite happy to be saying goodbye to the game and moving on to something new. Sometimes we get there by the midpoint. We’ve been sticking to the rigid standard of “play the entire game, start to finish,” for almost eight years, even though it often ties us to doing episodes on boring busywork that we never had anything to say about in the first place.

Going forward, we’ll be focusing our let’s plays on the portions of games we really want to talk about. This means we may skip sections that aren’t relevant or we’re not interested in. It also means we may not play the entire game start to finish, but only the interesting bits. It doesn’t mean we’ll stop doing traditional long-form stuff altogether, but those will be more tightly paced, and we'll intersperse the schedule with shorter, more focused playthroughs. And hopefully, they’ll be easier for newcomers to hop into. Five episodes on a game is easier to digest than 30.

Additionally, this will allow us to cover things we couldn’t before. We would never, ever do a full season of The Witcher 3; it’s just too long. Most JRPGs fall into this category as well. There are some games that have always been out of reach because we’d have to spend a year or more to finish them. But now we could take a look at, say, the Bloody Baron questline from the Witcher 3, in depth, but on its own terms, without having to commit to an entire season of the game. We can also use this format to do extended quick looks, spending a few episodes on a game that we find really interesting. We can even tackle games that don’t fit neatly into a narrative beginning -> ending format, like strategy games.

We’re really excited for this change, and we think it’ll lead to more interesting, enthusiastic, and varied content for 2018.

In addition to that, and in concert with the Patreon changes I’ll detail later below, for the first time, we’ll be incorporating viewer choice and suggestions into the show directly. One week each month will be Patron Week. Patrons at the $5 tier will be able to propose games to be played during Patron Week. We’ll take those suggestions and put them in a poll that all patrons will be able to vote on. And then we’ll play the most popular choice, whatever it happens to be. Please don’t torment us too much, okay?

On top of that, patrons at the $5 tier and above will also be able to vote on which games we should do for our long-form let’s plays. Every other game we do for Spoiler Warning, we’ll put together a list of three to five games or segments from games that we’d be interested in looking at, and put it up for a vote.

We’ve also set up a discord, and every patron will be part of a special user group. Patrons at $5 and above will also get access to super secret patron-only chatrooms.

Lastly, we’ll also run a special, private live Spodcast every month, that all patrons will be able to attend, and we’ll field questions and topics from the chat.

Alright, with the show format stuff out of the way, let me explain the new Patron reward tiers.

There is one important thing to note with these reward tiers; if you're already pledged, you'll need to repledge at the particular reward tier you're pledging at to receive the rewards. Unfortunately, there's no way I can find to get around this. Sorry for the inconvenience. 

$1 Tier: 

Something that was really put into perspective during the Patreon meltdown last month is how important our $1 patrons really are. Nearly 40% of our backers donate $1, and we’re happy you’re all here. Most Patreon campaigns reserve the $1 tier as a “thank you” tier; you don’t really get anything. But we want to give everyone who donates something more than a thank you, so as a $1 patron, you will get:

• To vote on games for each months Patron Week
• A special Discord role
• Access to the Live Spodcast
• Your name in credits of Quick Looks, each Spodcast, each Patron Week episode, and the ending episode of each Spoiler Warning season.

$5 Tier:

All patrons at the $5 tier and up will get to suggest games for each month’s Patron Week. Basically, the way this work is that two or three weeks prior to the month’s Patron Week, I’ll make a post asking for game suggestions. If you have one, leave the suggestion in a comment reply to the post. Each patron is limited to one suggestion per Patron Week; we don’t want to be putting up a poll with 50 different options. There will be some restrictions to games that can be suggested (we can’t really do Xbox One exclusives because I don’t have an XBox One, for instance) and we may ask for a theme (horror games for Halloween perhaps?) but aside from that, most any suggestion will be accepted, and any special restrictions will be specified in the post. In total, as a $5 patron, you will get:

• To suggest Patron Week games
• To vote on every other main Spoiler Warning game
• A special Discord role and access to patron-only rooms

$10 Tier: 

At $10, you’ll be able to help steer some of our side projects; our livestreamed Hangouts and our periodic Quick Looks. At $10, you’ll get:

• To vote on games to played for Quick Looks
• To vote on games to played during livestream Hangouts

$15 Tier:

Finally, at $15, you’ll have even more opportunities to influence our other shows. As with the suggestions from the $5 tier, we’ll make a post ahead of a quick look or a hangout, where you’ll be able to make suggestions for games to play. At $15, you’ll get:

• To suggest games to played for Quick Looks
• To suggest games to played during livestream Hangouts

And that’s it! We thought about making so joke tiers, but… then someone might actually take them. And, oh god. We may expand the roles further in the future to reflect new side shows and other projects.

Remember, to receive rewards as an existing patron, you'll need to edit your pledge and pledge at one of the reward tiers, rather than your current "No rewards" pledge.

Also, we added some stretch goals! But this post has already been going on for too long, so check them out on the sidebar when you get the chance!

Thanks again to everyone who’s supported us through the years and especially through 2017. You’re all great, and I hope we can work together to make a better show for the future.