Apologies - for me it just comes down to lack of time for anything and having a really bad year. It's getting a tad better but the sheer volume of work is proving too much for me. Gotta make changes to survive cuz I've never been so stressed and unwell. That's really what it comes down to. I do try to answer messages when possible but the hours I'm working right now and being sick has made things tough to keep up.
Thank you for taking a moment to respond to my message John. I wasn't aware that you still used NeoGAF but I very much appreciate that you took a moment to respond to my experience. With a better knowledge of your own circumstances, I would like to apologise for any offense that my topic may have caused. Please understand that I was not criticising your channel, content or videos, which for the record, are always top notch. However I was a little disappointed with my experience trying to contact yourself and the team, but without knowing any of the hardships you face, one can only assume. Sadly whilst it does appear from the outside as a fan who watches the videos that DF create and their production values compared to other content creators, that there is a team working here and resources that would allow you guys the opportunities to connect with fans.
This does answer a lot of questions and it also provides a picture of what it is that you're going through. We never know these things unless people talk about them and in most cases it sometimes comes too late when a person is dealing with something very difficult. I hope you know that whatever you are doing, I still support and love your content. Maybe I didn't get that reply I hoped for online, but you took the time to do this and it genuinely means a lot to me.
Thank you for doing so and keep up the amazing work. Ignore the haters.
Well, unfortunately, we do not. Things aren't great and I'm so stressed that I can barely keep up! So, that's why I've missed messages and mostly stopped posting on forums (until this moment). It's been one of the worst years on record for me. I'm trying my best but have failed, as usual.
I'm so sorry to hear that John, I don't feel as though you give yourself enough credit. I don't think you've failed, I think far from it. Perhaps as a consequence of the success of Digital Foundry, you find yourself in the great conundrum of not being able to respond to all those messages and having read your reply, I can understand more why.
I know it might not mean much but I have a lot going on right now myself. It was my little boys 2nd birthday today and it might be the last that he see's his great grandparents on my side of the family and his great nana on my fiancee's. My partners nana is dying from a combination of health problems. My grandma has terminal lung cancer and my grand father has a brain tumor that's gradually getting worse. I've never really lost anybody before, let alone three grand parents in such a short space of time. I'm lucky to have such a good group of family and friends that are helping us so the daily journey from one side of Lancashire to the other to make the last of the time they have left isn't so hard.
I think that it's times like this that we really rely on each other for support. Whoever or where ever you are. Just responding to my thread today really made me happy to know that you are watching and listening. Whether it's a personal issue, a work issue or a health issue. I want you to know that your health is important and so is your happiness. It's because of our passion for games that I've even come to find and enjoy your work and even if we haven't met I can still empathise and offer my support, even if it does feel like it's not enough.
That said, we're looking at ways to improve by focusing more on it and that will hopefully allow me to do more stuff FOR the Patreon (including an easy way to chat with us directly) instead of only focusing on YouTube. That is the big key, I think. Finding new ways to focus.
That would be fantastic and honestly would very much make me reconsider supporting the cause. The 4K videos sadly aren't the main reason that I chose to support the channel. It was your work on DF Retro that made me decide to do it and as I've said previously and will say again, I do not regret that decision, I am happy to support the channel and the way that you do in any way that I can. I think maybe because I choose to support Patreon to get closer to the people who make the content that in its current form, the Pateon would be more effective if there was time to read and respond. Clearly you aren't afforded that time and I'm sorry to hear it. Plus, there are other members of the team, you can't take the whole burden yourself.
A monthly Q&A session would be a great thing, even if I had to pledge a little more than the minimum to qualify.
Sorry for letting everyone down again. I wish I could please everyone but I'm just not good enough.
This by far, is simply not true. Just reading your response shows the difficulties that you're facing and perhaps, without that knowledge, I couldn't appreciate the extent of what you are dealing with, not just in terms of workload but also on a personal level. I'd like to apologise if you felt as though this was a personal attack, it certainly was not. Or, at the very least, was not intended to come across that way. My comment here I would like to clarify:
For those of us who support gaming content creators and all the channels that ask you to consider supporting them, I have to wonder if perhaps Patreon really needs improving here or whether some people are just dicks? I can't decide.
This was not calling you and your teams dicks, perhaps my wording here needed improvement. It was quite late GMT time when I wrote this and I don't think it was as cohesive as it likely should have been. This was a general statement of principal which would only apply if messages were simply being ignored, but as you've shown, this is not the case. Though I have used the site for a few years now and there are genuinely Patreon channels that balently ignore fans because as other users have said, these channels
don't really need Patreon. I do find this to be hypocritical of those channels as they quite often advertise that you can support via Patreon and drop them a message etc. It's not always as straight forward as you'd hope, from a supporters point of view.
This is why I was saying that Patreon could be improved with features similar to Facebook that explain better the kind of interaction you actually look at when pledging. Rewards tiers are pretty clear but things such as Q&A, the ability to contact the Patreon or how often they add new content to the page would be very useful.
Actually I feel quite happy that John took two moments out of his very difficult time to reply and acknowledge that perhaps I wasn't just writing a whole load of BS online to slander the hard work that he does?
Maybe other folk on the site haven't really understood why I felt the way that I do and some have blown it way out of proportion. I made is clear in the OP, I love the content from Digital Foundry. It helps me make purchasing decisions, it helps me to better understand what I should expect from a technical perspective from a game and DF:Retro, my favourite show by far, allows me a look at the games of my childhood that can scarcely be found elsewhere.
Man, I just looked through hundreds of messages on Twitter - I can't even find the message from the OP. When was it sent?
It doesn't matter now, obviously, but I'd like to know.
To answer your question, Patreon just states '6 months ago' and doesn't offer an exact date. I messaged you on Twitter in a DM on February 11th 2018 (Before Patreon so irrelevant). But I don't use the same user name on Twitter so it's not likely that you'll find my tweets, they do come up under tweets and replies rather than your DM's sorry you spent so much time looking! I can send you screen caps if you'd like? I don't really want to post them in the open cause I don't really want people having my personal details.
Thanks John.
