A bigger and better SmashPad for 2016...
As of this writing, this weekās Day 0 Update has been recorded and the Patreon cat will be out of the bag in earnest once Fil finishes the edit.
We have big plans for the coming year, with new podcasts on the way and an expansion of both our site content and our existing media projects, all going on in an environment in which itās more personally costly mentally and financially to stay the course than ever before.
Of course, quitting has never been a possibility. I personally live for this, and my colleagues are all quite invested at this point as well.
Patreon and other similar approaches have been discussed in the past, but has always had a shadow hanging over it in the form of the usual paradox, āwe canāt justify asking for money from where we stand, but we canāt get to a place where we can justify asking for money without, well, money.ā Kind of like how the job market is littered with so-called āentry-level positionsā where employers still demand experience of their applicants - itās a catch 22. In our case, though, how much of this was a reality of our particular field and how much of it was internal restraint (or mental block) could very well be open for debate. Ultimately, that cycle must be broken because itās a stupid cycle, and a particularly unproductive one at that.
It is with that mentality that weāre taking these first steps into crowdfunding, in the hopes that something truly remarkable can be built from it. At the moment, itās not about lofty or even very specific goals, but simply putting up the āonline tip jarā, letting our readers/listeners/viewers who have always been our lifeblood decide what weāre worth, and using whatever we come back with to make our product stronger - more podcasts, more ways to experience our podcasts, improved production values (perhaps even with less narcolepsy!), an expansion of our site content, and so on.
In closing, Iām looking very forward to seeing what we can all build together in 2016, and just as I said on this weekās podcast, and to quote a legendary localization/publishing house (and one of my personal favorites), weāre nothing without you.
