I could talk about this on the mini-cast. In short, there are a LOT of considerations but there's no magic formula either.

Community picks are something that we have mulled over, but there are good reasons we haven't gone down that route. Mainly that... well, what if no-one on the team wants to play the chosen game(s)?

OK, we could potentially force ourselves through something we're not really enthusiastic about playing for the sake of it being a community-led selection, but how good a podcast would that make for?

Would it do the game(s) in question justice? Would it satisfy those who had requested that we cover them?
I don't think so.

However, perhaps a listener selection from a shortlist could be something worth further discussion.

That makes sense. Although I was thinking more along the lines of choosing games you want to play from a shortlist but were debating over which to include.

Edit:

Haha you added to your post just as I wrote the above

You have all have been doing this for years and have a winning crowd pleasing formula in terms of game selection variety.

I’m new to the forum and don’t want to suggest anything that would break that.

It was just a thought. Doesn’t necessarily have to be Patreon specific.

@Leon on the other hand maybe being less excited would make an interesting discussion on why game X is worse than others. I mean your strength usually isn't a huge amount of excitement but a level-headed and well-researched approach to each game. It's hard for me to believe that you would drop all that professionalism.

The alternative is something you propose, or maybe you choosing from a pool of listeners choice instead of "one winner".

Just a heads up, may not affect anyone else, but I had a call from the HSBC fraud department earlier saying they'd declined my Patreon payment to C&R because it was flagged up as suspicious! Now please don't think I'm suggesting any foul play here, it's obviously some sort of error, but you may want to check your (as in other subscribers) payment goes through OK. Not sure if I'll need to set my DD up again or it'll resolve itself, but I'll check later.

Thanks for the heads-up.

I expect it’s automatically flagged by some banks due to the fact that it’s down as a US purchase and that it’s a relatively small amount (ironically).

Generally as I understand it such a flag will only trigger if the algorithms detect a ‘pattern’.

I’ve had it several times but never actually been defrauded.

Alex79uk wrote: ↑July 27th, 2018, 1:13 pm Just a heads up, may not affect anyone else, but I had a call from the HSBC fraud department earlier saying they'd declined my Patreon payment to C&R because it was flagged up as suspicious! Now please don't think I'm suggesting any foul play here, it's obviously some sort of error, but you may want to check your (as in other subscribers) payment goes through OK. Not sure if I'll need to set my DD up again or it'll resolve itself, but I'll check later.

HSBC are notoriously twitchy. My business takes high value payments and it is only ever HSBC where we have issues (customer has to call the bank to confirm it is them).

Listening to Sound Of Play 68.

$100 Patreon tier where Leon does stunts with The Stunt Lady!?...

I’d need more danger money than that.

You should check Maya out on Instagram by the way!

ratsoalbion wrote: ↑September 4th, 2018, 8:39 am I’d need more danger money than that.

You should check Maya out on Instagram by the way!

Yes I will she sounds awesome!

Just a thought (and I suspect this will go down badly) but for me when you announce the show playlist at Christmas time it sometimes means it’s tricky to cram in everything.

I know some of the games are timed with movies, anniversaries etc but I was wondering whether perhaps the list would be better served coming out in 2 chunks.

For example: in June you release the first 6 months of the following year then Christmas you release the second half.

This is your show and the saying if it ain’t broke don’t fix it comes to mind. However a bit of WD40 sometimes helps:)

I suspect the actual list creation is pretty stressful so having 2 deadlines might not suit. It’s just when you release the list there’s sometimes very little time to finish the earlier games on the list.

Maybe it’s just me but I would love to hear your thoughts.

I'm wondering, do you try to play as many games as possible along with the show every year, Simon? That must be quite the undertaking if so.

KSubzero1000 wrote: ↑September 15th, 2018, 10:56 pm I'm wondering, do you try to play as many games as possible along with the show every year, Simon? That must be quite the undertaking if so.

I started midway through last year and then this year so far I’ve probably played all of the non final fantasy games.

For me playing along with the show is really enjoyable and makes the podcasts much more engaging to listen to. I have also found that I’ve been critically appraising games in a different way than I used to and playing games that I would not normally have either revisiting them or experiencing for the first time. My old consoles have been dusted off and are getting some love and affection too.

Announcing the schedule in two chunks is actually how we used to do it. It’s only been the last couple of years that we’ve announced and scheduled all 50 shows in one go.

It makes planning a lot easier for us (and all our contributors) to do so, and it seemed to be what other people wanted too.

We really love and appreciate people playing along with the show (although we don’t expect anyone to want to play every game that we cover), but I’m actually slightly unclear as to how the change you mentioned above would help facilitate this. Apologies if I’m being dense!

Simonsloth wrote: ↑September 15th, 2018, 10:51 pm I suspect the actual list creation is pretty stressful so having 2 deadlines might not suit. It’s just when you release the list there’s sometimes very little time to finish the earlier games on the list.

Maybe it’s just me but I would love to hear your thoughts.

How would that make a difference to how long you had to finish the games on the list? The episodes would still be coming out at the same time, you'd just have less notice to play the latter 25.

EDIT: Ah ha, are you suggesting that the first 25 games for 2019 should be announced around June 2018, then the latter 25 for 2019 announced in the new year?

If you think about it though, you'd not really be any better off, since you'd still have the latter half of 2018 to work through when the first half of 2019 was announced.

I guess Simon means that he’d like six months notice for the January to June games if we announced them the previous June and same again for the June to December games if we announced them the previous December or January.

Edit: Yes, that.

I’ll have a think about it but no promises!

Yes, I've just realised he has explicitly stated this in his post and we both managed to miss it

Haha. As I was typing you both made my response redundant!

A little more notice wouldn’t go amiss basically.

It would help as this year I’ve been digging out old consoles, sourcing obscure games, finding long lost memory cards and managing my time trying to conquer long RPGs etc.

Edit: I’m being selfish basically!

Is there going to be a monthly update for September?

Yes, sorry that everything’s running a bit late but it’s because Jay and I have been insanely busy (especially Jay, moving across the country).

It’s recorded and should be with you soon!