September Update - Sorry It's Late :(

I agree with my previous speaker. Though I'd like to see you and Casen talk to each other from time to time. A Podcast once every one or two months would be great. Kind regards, Thief Sakon

While I am disappointed that the pod cast is taking a break. I'd rather you do what you really want too if it means more high quality videos I'll take them. Love your content

I love a happy Mike! If you need to ditch the podcast to produce better video, do it. I really like the podcast, but I prefer the videos. And the last 2 that you release were excellent, making what you should focus on obvious. Peace out!

HandsomeArtist

Disappointed that the podcast is getting shelved indefinitely. I really do love it, and I've been an avid listener for years now. I really hope you guys come back to it someday, but, I won't moan and complain if you guys really don't want to continue doing it. Hope both you and Casen are well. Take care, guys.

Cameron Sturre

I love the podcast, it's my fav of your content. That being said, I'm a podcaster and I know what a GRIND making podcast content is. Your podcast is amazing.

The Electric Underground

I do regularly listen/ watch your podcasts. Many of them have been really interesting and even inspiring to listen to. I especially love your collab podcasts. If anything of that should stay the collaborative ones should be those ones I think. You could do podcasts less frequently like once a month or something like that. I do think that the videos you made recently were the sort you were wanting to make when you made the brand change as you said. I do think you should focus more on that. I myself have that tendency to want to do lots of things.

Just make Hat, Eric and Stan take the load instead and promote their podcast. It's not quite the same kind of content but if you did one last podcast with them guesting, then one where you guest on theirs it will be somewhere for podcast followers to try instead.

ChocolateRob

Hey Mike, just chiming in from the ‘Silent Majority’ of podcast listeners. First, thanks for doing these updates on Patreon too - I don’t really ‘Discord’ so I wouldn’t keep up on channel news without it. I love the podcast. I’ve been listening audio only via iTunes since ~episode 10 of the Dark Pixel podcast and it’s helped make my travelling bearable. I feel I’ve gotten to learn a lot more about the storytelling devices through the in depth discussions you’ve had on all the topics you’ve covered, and surprisingly they’re still fresh to me each week. While I expect I would’ve learnt some of these things from the polished videos on the channel, the long form of the podcast for me. I find myself so time poor these days - I had my first child this year, I’m working a lot, I live rurally (which means we spend a lot of time driving to keep up with friends & family) and I’m involved in some regular events in my local community, so I don’t have much time to immerse myself in the overall culture/news of new video games, TV, films, novels etc anymore. So the podcast has also worked for me as a way of garnering recommendations from people whose tastes seem to align with mine, without having to work to find it. For example I started Xenoblade Chronicles earlier this year after you’d spoken so highly about it, my wife and I just started watching Made in Abyss after you and Casen spoke about it, and if I hadn’t already watched and LOVED Chernobyl, I would’ve checked that out too. Having said all that, I’m 100% for your creative fulfilment - if it’s feeling like a chore to do, dump it and don’t look back. I suspect doing it less often might make it more creatively rewarding (and I would fully support that choice too). At least trying fortnightly, or potentially just ad hoc, as you feel there’s stuff worth talking about. It might be beneficial for Casen to do less frequently too if he starts travelling to the studio to record it. Either way, I’ll be sticking around and supporting the channel. I just wanted to feed a bit of positivity into the mix :)

Lloyd James

Like many have already said here, you need to do what you find most fulfilling. No one, not even Patrons, pay you enough to tell you what to do with your channel. That said, I'll just share some of my thoughts to help give you some insight on at least one audience member's perspective. I'm definitely part of that loyal podcast audience that you mentioned, and while I enjoy your reviews and videos as well, the podcast is the main content that I've been consuming since the Dark Pixel days. There are several reasons for this, but first and foremost I want to point out where I think some of the disconnect and frustration comes from for you. Tell me if I'm on to something here: You've spoken before about the distinction between ideas and execution, and that you are more of an execution-type of person. From my point of view, there's nothing that you said in the Magic of Final Fantasy VII's Plot Twists video that you couldn't have said on the podcast. The delivery would not have been scripted or as polished, but you could have expressed more or less the same ideas in a format that actually takes less time to record and edit. However, that's not creatively satisfying. It's not merely about expressing ideas, its about how you express those ideas. You're a writer and a filmmaker, so naturally you want to write and make videos, because that's the execution that will be most satisfying. Now, as an audience member, what I'm drawn to is the intellectual content, not necessarily the creative expression of that intellectial content. What I mean is that I really enjoy listening to you guys discuss and analyze various topics, not because I think you're great filmmakers, but because I think you're genuinely smart and informed individuals. Combine this with the unscripted nature of what a podcast is, and the result is not just interesting conversation, but the feeling of meeting up with friends once a week to hang out. That last part is one of the key components as to why any podcast is successful. You're not just "selling" the audience on your product, or your content, but you're selling them on you as a person. This may be one of the areas of disconnect for you. You've mentioned in the past that you aren't especially interested in just expressing your opinions or feelings on something, not to mention being a self-identifying introvert, so its not a surprise that "selling" an audience on you as a person is not as satisfying to you as selling the audience on your content. Maybe you consider the podcast lesser content because its not as creative or polished as videos, but from the point of view of an audience member, this isn't necessarily true. I'll use this imperfect analogy: on a previous podcast you mentioned that games on the N64 had an intangible charm that some of the more polished and refined games on the Gamecube lacked. As I said, this is a flawed anaolgy, but this also kind of explains how I think the podcast portion of your audience approaches the channel. Yes, the Final Fantasy VII spoiler video is well edited, well written, well paced, and so on. It demonstrates that you're a more than competent filmmaker and that you can organize your thoughts in a clear and concise way. But the fact is that I watched the video once and I'll probably never watch it again, and this is true of pretty much every scripted video that is on the channel. Conversely, there are episodes of the podcast where I found the conversation to be so charming, funny, or informative, that I've listened to the same episode almost a dozen times. My two all time favorite episodes are the Greatest Consoles of All Time and the What Should Be on the Playstation Classic episodes. Going over all of the data that you put together was intellectually stimulating, the topics themselves were emotionally resonant because they were about things I grew up with, and the conversation between you and Casen was delightful. It was like sitting on the couch with a couple of friends just talking about what makes the games we love truly great. I don't get that from the scripted videos. I should also add that YouTube is a mostly audio platform for me these days, and I know I'm not alone in this. I mostly play YouTube videos while I'm driving, exercising, or running errands, so a lot of the work you put into the visual presentation of the scripted videos is lost on me and I'm sure some not insignificant portion of the audience. The last point I want to make relates to the format. In the update video you said that if you did continue doing the podcast that you'd remove the news section at the beginning. I would suggest not doing that. One of the appealing aspects of any weekly podcast is hearing other peoples' thoughts and reactions to current events. If I follow a podcast and a new trailer drops or a some major news breaks in a given week, one of my first thoughts is going to be "I wonder what [Insert podcast host's name] thinks about this." It would be jarring if something of note happens in the industry (and at least one thing of note does happen every week), and the podcast I'm listening to only concerns itself with some isolated topic without acknowledging current events. That's why as an audience member, I really like the current format where you spend a little bit of time going over news items before going into a more detailed topic. It also helps to draw in the audience whereas you may not have done so otherwise. For example, I've never played a Xenoblade game, so had the episode where you discuss the differences between the definitive edition and the original edition been confined exclusively to that topic, I may have skipped it. However, the Nintendo Direct as a whole was a news topic that you covered, and I did watch the Nintendo Direct, so therefore I watched the episode, and I also found the Xenoblade discussion interesting whereas without the news segment I may not have watched it at all. So, I'd say that's just something to consider before jettisoning the news segment completely. Long story short, as an audience member, I appreciate Mike the writer, Mike the filmmaker, Mike the editor, Mike the musician. But what I, and I think most of the podcast listeners, really come to the channel for is Mike the person. For us, that's more than enough, but I understand if it isn't enough for you. Best of luck with whatever direction you chose to take the channel!

ClankStarr