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Idle thumbs IS BACK (Kickstarter ended) -- Funded in 3 hours
- Thread starter The Dutch Slayer
- Start date
D
Deleted member 59090
Unconfirmed Member
They should contract Graham Annable to redesign him.
EternalGamer
Banned
It has now been two months guys. How long does take to hook up some microphones on a regularly scheduled basis. Love the podcast, but seriously. You got over $100,000 just to talk about videogames for a couple of hours a week. Start talking.
Well, fly him in then!
Maybe read a few posts up before asking...
FieryBalrog
Member
Beat me to it. Get that kickstarter money to good use!
EternalGamer
Banned
If you are referring to the "we want the website first and it is taking longer than we thoughT," I read that. I just think it's kind of a lame excuse. Would anybody really care if they just started doing regular podcasting, threw up a link and worked on the site in the meantime? This is not a freaking game launch that needs a proper PR roll out. It's some dudes talking a microphone. Thats what we wanted anyway. I don't give two flying flips about any website. I just liked the podcast. That's why I donated.
D
Deleted member 22576
Unconfirmed Member
Rolling it out like that is just unprofessional. No, it wouldnt matter to me and yes it's be nice to have some casts, but don't underestimate the value of a proper launch. These guys deserve it.
We like just had a podcast last week that I haven't even listened to all the way yet.
We like just had a podcast last week that I haven't even listened to all the way yet.
EternalGamer
Banned
I guess I just don't even understand what we are talking about when we start talking about being "professional", having a "roll out," and a "proper launch." I never really fancied that I was funding a big business enterprise. Just kinda dug listening to some videogame chatter.
D
Deleted member 22576
Unconfirmed Member
I keep picturing you as this 40+ dude on vacation with an oversized Hawaiian shirt and fanny pack on wandering around a wedding party or something talking up how hip and fresh you are to the much younger bridesmaids.
FieryBalrog
Member
ayup
I reckon they probably want to make it.
I also reckon being petulantly demanding in a fairly light hearted thread makes you* look like a tool. Pretty sure we're gonna get podcasts.
* not you Jintor!
We would! We've done Idle Thumbs by the seat of our pants on and off, unsustainably, for almost a decade (only the last few years of that were as a podcast), and we're trying to take the time up front to give ourselves the infrastructure to do it properly. Idle Thumbs is a labor of love and I hope that love and effort shows in the output.
The actual act of sitting in front of the microphones and talking into it for an hour or so has always been the easiest part.
Editing, publishing, updating the site, managing what little community we have takes way longer than one would think. We're trying to give ourselves the tools to make all of that shit actually streamlined so that it doesn't destroy our lives the way it did before. People gave us $100,000 which is an opportunity to do this the actual correct way, and not just slap some shit up on the Internet.
At the base level -- the core, the most important part, obviously -- is the podcast itself. The audio file of us talking into a microphone at your ear. But all the stuff which has surrounded that, as long as Thumbs has existed, we've gone our of our way to not half-ass it, only cutting corners when we absolutely don't have time or money. We're proud of Idle Thumbs being more than a libsyn page or a stock WordPress blog. For some people that's not a big deal -- there are a ton of independent podcasts who don't care about their presentation, or just decide its not going to be a part of their core competency or brand or whatever it is, and move on. It's tough to be more than that when you're not affiliated with a real media outlet, believe it or not, but it's something we value.
Yes, if you have a little money, and allow yourself a little time, you definitely run the risk of going crazy with it and falling into an infinite hole of "not done yet." I'm very conscious of that. We're definitely running later than we expected in getting the podcast back up and running, but we're moving forward at a regular pace. We also bit off a lot with our Kickstarter rewards (again, a deliberate choice because we didn't want to half-ass it, and we wanted to use it as an exercise in learning what it takes to make all of those things) which, again, are taking a little longer than we expected to get done but we're rounding the corner now on basically all of them.
There is genuinely a lot to do. I know that's not agreeable to everyone, because people want their podcast!, but in the long term we think it's the right plan (versus kicking "fixing the busted shit" down the line indefinitely, which is what happens in reality) and we think it's the right and best thing to do with the opportunity our community has given us. It's taking us longer than we (or you) would like, but "doing it right" will also enable us to do it longer, and more easily, which means we can do it for longer. It sounds pretty easy and way more affordable to step out your door and start walking across the country, but if you're good for it and have a spot to think about it, you'd be better off investing in a car first. That walk will wear you the fuck out, and probably end up costing you way more than you would predict at the outset.
tl;dr: Sitting down and shitting out a podcast is the cheapest and easiest part of the process, which is why we're saving it for last.
FieryBalrog
Member
Hope your hand isn't cramped into a permanent shriveled claw =/
Postcards are fine, and pretty entertaining to do in a zen-like way. Wrangling shirts and art prints and an LP is just taking a while.
Should've used the extra money on that Ghostwriter, would've been even quicker!
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
I donated to repay them for the dozens of hours of entertainment they had already provided to me, not so that I could feel that they owed me more. Do I wish there were weekly casts right now? Sure. Would I throw the $100,000 figure in their faces and say hurry up give me what I paid for? No.
Even if you meant it as a light hearted thing, it doesn't come off that way.
Yeah, I was the same. I wasn't donating to hear more, it was more to say "thanks" for what they'd done in the past. That it keeps/gets it going (again) is an amazing little bonus.
I speel my dreenk
Member
Hear, hear! I've listened to the entire god damned back catalog at least 6 or 7 times, and the fact that I manage to be entertained by these guys talking about things that were current 3-5 years ago (especially in an online world of constant newsfeeds where every 5 seconds things happen everywhere always) alone, to me, makes them deserving of everything they've gotten - from the Kickstarter money and free advertising from that event to the adulation and double-fisted meme flurries in message board threads dedicated to the cast.
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
If I had to guess, I've probably played fewer than 10% of the games they've talked about, ever. And yet still best podcast.
SirPenguin
Member
But it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Ostensibly, that's what the Progresscasts were for, but in the 2 months since the Kickstarter end we've only seen 6 of them, and that seems weird.
It's hard to walk the fine line between "I love your thing, please let me suggest things to you" and straight up entitlement...and as a gamer on the internet I'm even less suited to do so. But it's frustrating to hear "we want to focus on quality and long term outlook" when the Progresscasts and blog updates paint the picture of what is solidly a weekend side project. Perhaps that's SUPER IGNORANT to say, but that's how it comes across.
It's probably just misplaced frustration when the reality is that I want more Thumbs and damn I'm mad at not having that, but I think you guys could do a better job at communicating what's going on behind the scenes and generate content out of that. I dunno if the answer is more casts or more blog posts or what...but I think it'd help a lot.
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Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
Thanks for recommending Cloud Atlas. I'm reading it now and it's just incredible. Really, thanks.
They did that and then some people complained about the quality of it so they stopped doing it as much. I'm with you, I'd take low grade staticy echoey thumbs over none at all, but some don't agree, and if they'd rather not put their name to low quality stuff then I guess we just have to live with it.
Wait, Idle Thumbs is gonna bring back PBS paranormal literacy crime-solvers show, Ghost Writer?
Word.
GodfatherX
Member
I'm interested in it because of the mOvie but don't really know slot about the book other then it spans different time eras
I think Shaenus meant they should have used the money on recording a folk reimagining of Ghostrider by the Rollins Band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX7k1okhuvY
Wait, Idle Thumbs is gonna bring back PBS paranormal literacy crime-solvers show, Ghost Writer?
Word.
No no no no. Not at all. Jake tweeted about the handwriting thingy a while back.
It's been more than 3-5 years since Jeff Goldblum was "current".
Chris Remo
Member
The Big Rig
Member
My hope is that show is just jazz piano peppered with obscure hollywood stories.
eudaemonic
Member
Idle Thumbs Field Trip?
I (gladly) stand corrected. I also demand that some of the KS fundage goes toward getting at least one Thumb in there.
While I'm here, an oft-forgotten but favourite moment I came across while scanning through the This Year review. Gaynor's "Well write yourself a fuckin' note" and "there'll be flowers at your funeral" comments during the Flower discussion catch me completely off-guard each time. So good.
EternalGamer
Banned
Thanks for your response. I certainly never meant to imply that you guys weren't working. And after reading your message, I thought perhaps I misunderstood what the kickstarter was even about. So I went back and read the page again. I don't see a reference to any of that stuff you mention holding up the podcast on your kickstarter. The kickstarter doesn't mention a even mention a website start up or a new an independent media outlet or a brand for your website. In fact the only mention of the word "website" in the entire Kickstarter page is about donators name on the founder's wall. The entire kickstarter description seemed to be focused around bringing back a podcast and I think it is kind of a bummer that this is getting held up because of some other thing that isn't even mentioned in the kickstarter.
Not to be overly harsh, but frankly, if I thought I was donating toward a gaming website, I probably wouldn't have. I have more than enough of those to read--good thoughtful stuff like Gamasutra, Joystiq, the Escapist, Kotaku, GiantBomb, The Verge, etc. I just liked your guys podcast. You are intelligent and perceptive guys and I'm sure what you do on the site is great and is important to you, but at this point it feels a bit like a bait and switch in terms of your guys focus from podcast to a new website.
tl;dr I don't know why "sitting down and shitting out a podcast" is the last thing you guys are doing. It was the sole focus of the Kickstarter description.
The Big Rig
Member
Boy, you just want that podcast now. This is a matter of days, possibly months. I don't see any reason to be worked up over starting the podcast, especially when there was no podcast for the better part of a year. You're not a shareholder of Idle Thumbs. You gave them money to put a podcast together and get some swag. Theyve been pretty transparent in the process.
I don't expect any of them to agree with me, but Jake made his case pretty clear.
I don't expect any of them to agree with me, but Jake made his case pretty clear.
The biggest holdup was getting a recording space, which we have secured and set up as of last weekend basically. Getting the website up and running is the next step and then we're good to start casting some pods. The site won't be an editorial site -- as you said, there are more than enough of them and many of them are great. It's a fully database driven version of what Idle Thumbs always was -- a home for the podcast, and archives -- but also with the infrastructure to support multiple casts (Idle Thumbs and the Book Cast, as well as Three Moves Ahead), as well as some things which have been sorely lacking, like dedicated pages for each episode and show. Again, sorry it's taking longer than we would like, and you're right, it is still a weekend project. We only asked for $30,000, and while we made $130,000 and that is completely amazing, that's not startup funding or something. We're still doing what we always imagined we'd be doing -- getting a studio space, setting up a better website, and recording podcasts -- it's just slower going than we anticipated.
Again I get why you're annoyed -- where the heck is the podcast, etc -- and I guess if it comes down to it I don't know what to say other than sorry that the way we want to re-launch Thumbs doesn't line up with the way you'd prefer we re-launched Thumbs. The end result will include the same thing -- new episodes of Idle Thumbs, a video game podcast -- but it will take a little longer than you'd like before new MP3 files start showing up. If that's really not okay, we can probably work something out. We're trying to be above board with all of this, because Kickstarters, while amazing, can run the risk of just falling off the map, or spiraling off into space. Maybe we didn't do a perfect job of explaining everything, but I think there is a smaller gap between our public communications and what I've said in this thread than you're seeing.
Awkward situation yesterday. I've been getting into old Idle Thumbs podcasts lately, to prepare for the new ones. Was sitting on a full bus listening to episode 23, and got to the Old man Clancy's HAW commercial.
Turns out it might be better to actually just laugh out loud and be done with it, rather than trying to cover up the fact that you're actually crying with laughter. Must have benn a creepy sight for my fellow passengers.
"Old Man Clancy's H.A.W. - It's airplanes for folks that don't know what airplanes is!"
Chris Remo, I salute you!
Turns out it might be better to actually just laugh out loud and be done with it, rather than trying to cover up the fact that you're actually crying with laughter. Must have benn a creepy sight for my fellow passengers.
"Old Man Clancy's H.A.W. - It's airplanes for folks that don't know what airplanes is!"
Chris Remo, I salute you!
Is Idle Thumbs to blame? Which fangirl is it ?
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-new...ng-order-granted/story-e6frfku0-1226367636037
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-new...ng-order-granted/story-e6frfku0-1226367636037
Hot Coldman
Banned
Probably some badass biotic bitch.
The Big Rig
Member
Maybe that was the person that suggested to Nick that they could steal Goldblum's shoes?
Ransom? Perfect last name.
One long post E3 conferences podblast is all I need.
Chris Remo
Member
I don't think any of us are going to E3 actually--which we're probably all more than happy about. In general none of our jobs really demand it at this point.