• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Idle Thumbs episode 91 - With special guest SHAWN ELLIOTT

L

Lijik

Member
This week special guest Shawn Elliott takes the Thumbs to podcasting school

Episode 91: "The Clapper"
VfaODVk.png

  • January 23, 2013 Hundreds of tanks surround the place, murderers around every turn. With no games in sight and nowhere to run, all hope was lost until we were saved by a trip to podcasting school by special guest Shawn Elliott.
  • Games: The Ship, Neptune's Pride, Planetside 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Far Cry 3, Fez, Waking Mars, Mainichi, Miasmata
Listen on Idlethumbs.net
Direct MP3 download
Mediafire Mirror

About Idle Thumbs
Idle Thumbs is a podcast - about video games! Running since 2008, Idle Thumbs is currently a weekly podcast in which three friends who work in the industry talk about games, things tangentially related to games, and things not at all related to games. Readers can expect in-depth enthusiastic discussions, equally enthusiastic riffs on tangential silliness, and anything in between.
Recently Idle Thumbs has expanded into a network which includes 3 Moves Ahead and the Idle Book Club. Additionally the Thumbs ocassionally stream themselves playing games Saturdays on their TwitchTV account.

About Shawn Elliott
Before moving to Irrational Games, Shawn Elliott used to work for CGW (and later GFW) magazine. On their podcast he'd regale us with tales about heroes of the web, his own past, skits and had a strong perspective on the state of video games writing. In short he's the fucking man


WErty.png

Important Links
Idle Thumbs on iTunes
RSS Feed
The Idle Thumbs Website
Full Podcast Archive
Official Idle Thumbs forums
3 Moves Ahead
3 Moves Ahead Gaf Thread
Idle Book Club
Idle Thumbs on Twitch TV
goty.cx
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
I just started listening to this, did not read the description prior to hitting play.

Then they said Shawn's name. This is like the confluence of the two best things in multimedia entertainment. That's not hyperbole either. Brodeo and Idle Thumbs rank up there with the Wire for me. So happy.
 
L

Lijik

Member
Finally starting to listen as I do some art tonight and I'm already losing it at Shawn's opening Clapper story
 
S

sixghost

Member
Chris, if you guys end up trying out Planetside 2, you need to experience what that game is like as part of a large outfit at least once. The scale of everything that you do becomes increased by an order of magnitude. Those types of groups tend to attract such a different type of player, as well. It's fascinating just to watch how these guys can organize 100+ people at once.

It's the only way you are going to see some of the crazier things possible in the game, like 100 orbital drop pods landing in the same area, or that same number of guys all skydiving out of a bunch of troop carriers flying in formation. The game can be extremely overwhelming if you are new, or don't have people to play with. Maybe you could do another stream with Evan Lahti, from PCGamer's podcast, they seemed into the game.
 
K

Kraut

Member
After Shawn's first story, the rest of the podcast could be obnoxious fart noises and it would still be amazing. Butt-clapper, holy balls, so good.
 
S

spindrift

Neo Member
Great, great cast.

The fictional game Shawn was describing is broadly something I've been pining for too. Chris is right that there are tantalizing glimpses of that kind of thing in many games, but nobody commits to it. I honestly have trouble even coming up with a studio that I could imagine actually trying to do it as described.
 
C

catotheyounger

Member
From award winning creative director Ken Levine and Boston's Miserly Award winning Shawn Elliott, comes 2013 most anticipated game, Bioschock Infinite.
 
N

Noaloha

Member
The talk about having an in-game cameraman mode in Planetside 2, sort of a neutral, documenting-the-conflict sort of play-style, reminded me of Crushboss's Youtube videos. He records footage with nearly all HUD elements removed, then uses a scope to get a nice tight FOV. Gives the game footage a remarkably cinematic feel.

Example plucked from his user page:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgWEjM0IWtM
 
L

Lijik

Member
I happened to be looking at a picture of Dr Seuss on tunblr when the Qwop email started to be read and it was kind of a transcendent experience
tumblr_mh375cLgFK1r31mkdo1_400.jpg

Qwop Top
 
G

gabbo

Member
My mere ears aren't worthy of such a glorious aural experience.
Get Jeff Green on there, and it may have been the greatest sound recording in history.
 
L

Lasthope106

Member
Shawn, I couldn't help and think about Dark Souls while you were describing a game where you find layer upon layers as you learn more about the gameplay mechanics. You should play that if you haven't.

Also, "shut up thumbs, it's Shawn Elliot!" :p

P.S. - I'm going to call all of you out. Are you guys going to be at PAX East?
 
S

Sober

Member
God, Shawn Elliot just describing PS2 makes me want to upgrade/build a new PC because it runs like complete shit for me and I really want to get back into it.
 
H

HamPster PamPster

Member
This week's Geekbox podcast (Ryan Scott's podcast) mentioned they passed their 4 year anniversary this month which means its been just over 4 years since the 1up layoffs. Time sure does fly.

It made me think there could be some gaffers who never heard Shawn on a podcast. How tragic :( Well here is your chance, don't waste it!
 
V

Visualante2

Member
I've been jonesing for some pod blasts. My CPU was too small time for Planetside 2 even after a GPU upgrade so I just decided to quit, you can throw a lot of money into bottomless pits like that game.

omfg booty clapper ahahahah
 
C

Chuck

Still without luck
Thought Shawn was a pretty good fit, which I didn't expect.

What's up with all these ads though? Don't want to sound like a jerk, but they got a ton of money through kickstarter...
 
H

Hot Coldman

Banned
Chuck said:
What's up with all these ads though? Don't want to sound like a jerk, but they got a ton of money through kickstarter...
Click to expand...

IIRC, the ad space was bought via Kickstarter donations. It was one of the pledge levels.

If I'm wrong about that, and these are additional ads, then they definitely spoke about potentially having ads as part of the cast around the time they launched the Kickstarter.
 
C

Ceebs

Member
Chuck said:
Thought Shawn was a pretty good fit, which I didn't expect.

What's up with all these ads though? Don't want to sound like a jerk, but they got a ton of money through kickstarter...
Click to expand...

The kickstarter money was mainly startup money (not to mention they probably spent a good bit of it on rewards). The ads are probably to cover ongoing expenses.
 
C

Chuck

Still without luck
I thought that last week, but Audible? I seriously doubt that Audbile kickstarted Idle Thumbs.

Ceebs said:
The kickstarter money was mainly startup money (not to mention they probably spent a good bit of it on rewards). The ads are probably to cover ongoing expenses.
Click to expand...

Have they broken down the costs of everything anywhere? I'd be curious to see that.
 
V

Visualante2

Member
Anyone fancy a Ship game on Friday? On the GAF mumble server mayhaps?

Steam server list isn't showing any servers, so we might need a host.
 
J

Jake

Member
Chuck said:
Thought Shawn was a pretty good fit, which I didn't expect.

What's up with all these ads though? Don't want to sound like a jerk, but they got a ton of money through kickstarter...
Click to expand...

Chuck said:
I thought that last week, but Audible? I seriously doubt that Audbile kickstarted Idle Thumbs.

Have they broken down the costs of everything anywhere? I'd be curious to see that.
Click to expand...

We'd like to make the podcast financially sustainable on its own indefinitely, which means not just dumping Kickstarter money into it until it runs out. That means we're trying some stuff, including ads in the 'cast. I think that our ad reads are, format and duration-wise, pretty standard for podcasts which aren't underwritten by another publication; I hope they're not unwieldy. Some are from the Kickstarter campaign and some are offers we've picked up since. Chris talked about this briefly in the megathread as well.

I don't think we've really talked about doing a Kickstarter postmortem, with numbers and stuff, but it would probably be interesting.


Visualante2 said:
Anyone fancy a Ship game on Friday? On the GAF mumble server mayhaps?

Steam server list isn't showing any servers, so we might need a host.
Click to expand...

Apparently the Ship server browser is broken, so you have to join games manually. It's a bummer.
 
C

Chris Remo

Member
Chuck said:
I thought that last week, but Audible? I seriously doubt that Audbile kickstarted Idle Thumbs.



Have they broken down the costs of everything anywhere? I'd be curious to see that.
Click to expand...

We haven't, but this might be worth doing at some point. We're figuring out all our taxes now, so that'll be another big chunk of money gone, and it might be a good opportunity to take stock of what all the money has been used for.

As Ceebs said, the Kickstarter was to, well, kickstart the thing, not to fund it indefinitely. We got a lot more than we expected, but it's still a finite amount of money. The thing that would suck the most would be to make a bunch of money once, stop making any money, eventually run out of money, and then suddenly have to start begging for money again. It stresses me out even thinking about it. Our main goal revenue-wise is to figure out ways to earn an at least somewhat predictable amount of money so we can afford to keep running the podcast indefinitely without having to dip into our own pockets like we used to.

Every month we have to pay rent for an office in San Francisco (which has its own additional costs like internet access), cover hosting costs for our website and all three podcasts on our network, and cover all kinds of weird incidental things that come up. We're not a particularly big or complex company, but we're still trying to do everything legitimately, and that means taxes (federal, state, and city--hooray San Francisco!), software licenses, and all kinds of other stuff.

None of this is a complaint, it's just an explanation of reality. The way we were doing Thumbs before--just boostrapping everything out of my apartment--is not sustainable as we get older, as the cost of living in SF increases, and as we have an increasing number of commitments in our professional and personal lives.

I'm sure there are people who are bothered by advertising, and we know it's not ideal for those people. But when we weighed the pros and cons, we decided that it was worth taking the risk. We don't intend to promote services or products that we think are poor, and we think the end goal of getting the podcast to the point where it actually pays for itself is ultimately what is really going to be valuable to our readers.

Edit: Hi Jake
 
J

Jintor

Member
Quite frankly I get Audible ads on practically every other podcast I listen to (except MBMBAM who have a... very special relationship with a certain advertiser) so it's not that different. Besides, sometimes they end up riffing on the sponsorship for like ten minutes! That's free content, people!
 
C

Chuck

Still without luck
Jake said:
We'd like to make the podcast financially sustainable on its own indefinitely, which means not just dumping Kickstarter money into it until it runs out. That means we're trying some stuff, including ads in the 'cast. I think that our ad reads are, format and duration-wise, pretty standard for podcasts which aren't underwritten by another publication; I hope they're not unwieldy. Some are from the Kickstarter campaign and some are offers we've picked up since. Chris talked about this briefly in the megathread as well.

I don't think we've really talked about doing a Kickstarter postmortem, with numbers and stuff, but it would probably be interesting.
Click to expand...

Chris Remo said:
We haven't, but this might be worth doing at some point. We're figuring out all our taxes now, so that'll be another big chunk of money gone, and it might be a good opportunity to take stock of what all the money has been used for.

As Ceebs said, the Kickstarter was to, well, kickstart the thing, not to fund it indefinitely. We got a lot more than we expected, but it's still a finite amount of money. The thing that would suck the most would be to make a bunch of money once, stop making any money, eventually run out of money, and then suddenly have to start begging for money again. It stresses me out even thinking about it. Our main goal revenue-wise is to figure out ways to earn an at least somewhat predictable amount of money so we can afford to keep running the podcast indefinitely without having to dip into our own pockets like we used to.

Every month we have to pay rent for an office in San Francisco (which has its own additional costs like internet access), cover hosting costs for our website and all three podcasts on our network, and cover all kinds of weird incidental things that come up. We're not a particularly big or complex company, but we're still trying to do everything legitimately, and that means taxes (federal, state, and city--hooray San Francisco!), software licenses, and all kinds of other stuff.

None of this is a complaint, it's just an explanation of reality. The way we were doing Thumbs before--just boostrapping everything out of my apartment--is not sustainable as we get older, as the cost of living in SF increases, and as we have an increasing number of commitments in our professional and personal lives.

I'm sure there are people who are bothered by advertising, and we know it's not ideal for those people. But when we weighed the pros and cons, we decided that it was worth taking the risk. We don't intend to promote services or products that we think are poor, and we think the end goal of getting the podcast to the point where it actually pays for itself is ultimately what is really going to be valuable to our readers.

Edit: Hi Jake
Click to expand...

Thank you for responding so in depth to my little query, guys. Only Idle Thumbs :)

Everything both of you said it totally fair. It's great you're looking to the future of Idle Thumbs the ways you are and if that means a 2 minutes ad on the cast, hey, I'm totally okay with that and i'm sure most of your readers/listeners are as well. And if you're not opposed to it, a donate button on the site wouldn't be a bad idea, as long as you explain everything the way you did for me. Keep on podding these casts, guys.

Jintor said:
Quite frankly I get Audible ads on practically every other podcast I listen to (except MBMBAM who have a... very special relationship with a certain advertiser) so it's not that different. Besides, sometimes they end up riffing on the sponsorship for like ten minutes! That's free content, people!
Click to expand...

What happened to MBMBaM is a real bummer. The cast was soooo good when it started out and then the whole maximum fun thing happened and the show became unlistenable for me. I also think it got less good...
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Oh god, if they start doing Adam And Eve or Stamps.com commercials, I think my brain will explode.

I really don't want them to talk about dildos or to pretend that people somehow send lots of mail and run out of stamps EVERY WEEK. It's starting to bug the shit out of me on all the Slate podcasts.

Oh yeah, speaking of Kickstarter... is Chris still working on the album or did I completely miss it?
 
A

Aaron

Member
I'm not sure why anyone would be bothered by a short, inoffensive ad. The kickstarter was a while ago now, and that money was never going to pay for everything for all time. I listen to other casts with ads and I've never been bothered by them.
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Aaron said:
I'm not sure why anyone would be bothered by a short, inoffensive ad. The kickstarter was a while ago now, and that money was never going to pay for everything for all time. I listen to other casts with ads and I've never been bothered by them.
Click to expand...
It's been a couple of years since the whole podcast thing became "mainstream". I just wish that people could find more sponsors than Audible, web hosting companies, and stamps.com (along with random seasonal sponsors like mail order strawberries/flowers).

I just wonder how many new signups Audible can be even getting right now given that everyone does it. Although, I suppose video game podcasts have only started jumping onto the Audible advertising bandwagon.
 
F

FartOfWar

Banned
I'll vouch, having visited their studio. After taxes, kickstarter incentives, and rent, they actually aren't looking at a profitable venture by any means. These guys really aren't trying to scam you.
 
S

StevePharma

Member
FartOfWar said:
I'll vouch, having visited their studio. After taxes, kickstarter incentives, and rent, they actually aren't looking at a profitable venture by any means. These guys really aren't trying to scam you.
Click to expand...

Yeah, if you can watch TV then you can listen to a 30 sec. ad that you can even skip. No big deal. GFW did it too and in retrospect I heard nobody complaining about it.

Also, I'm kinda surprised people from the development side aren't always in touch with the media and how popular they can be for media enthusiasts. Shawn's story about his colleague at the beginning of the cast pointed this out, and on Out of the Game we heard similar stories from Shawn and Jeff Green. I think it's remarkable that you can be relatively known in games-media but not really known in the developer space. I might be wrong though but that is the feeling I got listening to some of the people who "made the jump".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Need podcasts for your podcast games? Here's a place to discuss/share gaming podcasts
2 3
108
13K
aechris replied
Idle Thumbs episode 97 - The Dash Radar Synergy (with Olly Moss)
19
2K
Mafro replied
Idle Thumbs episode 93 - Baby-Wall the Horse Armo
36
3K
Deleted member 30609 replied
Idle Thumbs episode 95 - HD Cool Spot
19
3K
Shaneus replied
Idle Thumbs episode 92 - With special guest STEVE GAYNOR
31
3K
Shaneus replied
Top Bottom