What happened to Sean on Idle Thumbs?

[ThatguyPhil]

Hey all, just a quick question. Where did Sean go? He was a great addition to the podcast but I never hear him mentioned anymore. Is he more behind the scenes or is he working on something else?

[melmer]

Sean's up his own arse

[Ozzie]

He got lost in the woods.

[Bjorn]

I wanna see a "Where's Sean Vanaman" in the vein of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" gamejam. 

[ThatguyPhil]

Sean's up his own arse

care to explain?

[ThatguyPhil]

I wanna see a "Where's Sean Vanaman" in the vein of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" gamejam. 

He's the end boss battle, turns out he was a Big Dog the whole time. An M. Night Shyamalamadingdong twist.

[sclpls]

He's living that hobo indie dev lifestyle and making games on trains.

 

https://bburbank.itch.io/discharge

[tberton]

Sean Vanaman is inside all of us, now.

[gregbrown]

Sean Vanaman is inside all of us, now.

The philosophical school of thought known as "Sean Panaman."

[Patrick R]

He was on a train recently. Maybe he's still on that train. Maybe he's one of those train guys now, who lives on trains, and tries to start up conversations with other people about trains.

[elmuerte]

So, he's experiencing groundhog day on the last express?

[Vainamoinen]

He's still on that mission.

 

[WickedCestus]

Re-writing Firewatch. This time as a Sleep No More-style theatre production set across the entirety of Yellowstone National Park. 

[thenexus6]

We are all Sean Vanaman.

[Erkki]

Zoom in to Sean Vanaman. Enhance.

[hyretic]

Sean just posted this on Twitter. I really miss him being on the podcast, but I thought chances are he wasn't on it because he just plain didn't want to be on it anymore. However, he seems to think that the show is better without him and that's just so wrong. Let's see what the readers feel like. Strawpoll.

[Patrick R]

I dunno. I really miss Sean being on the podcast but there are an incalculable number of personal things that could have lead to him not wanting to be on the podcast right now or anymore. If there hasn't been an announcement and nothing's been made official then that probably means he doesn't really want to get into it, and that's his right. 

[hyretic]

I dunno. I really miss Sean being on the podcast but there are an incalculable number of personal things that could have lead to him not wanting to be on the podcast right now or anymore. If there hasn't been an announcement and nothing's been made official then that probably means he doesn't really want to get into it, and that's his right. 

I thought the same thing prior to his tweet, but that seems to indicate it's not a personal issue but a podcast quality issue, and I think the readers' opinion on that is valid.

 

Besides, he's perfectly capable of ignoring this if he wants to. I don't think we're hurting anyone by showing that we actually care that he isn't on the podcast anymore.

[Chris]

We have been trying to pare down the show recently to very rarely be more than three people. (Special cases like someone being in from out of town for GDC or whatever are exceptions.) This isn't detail I was planning on sharing, but whatever, it's not really that big a deal: Idle Thumbs lost a LOT of listeners when the cast of the show grew too big and we turned into sort of a weekly game of musical chairs. I am strongly convinced that this is not because of the presence or lack of any particular combination of people, but rather because the changing combination of people made the show unpredictable and inconsistent from week to week. Not necessarily inconsistent in terms of end quality of each individual episode, but inconsistent in terms of tone and listener expectation. I don't imagine this hurt the show much for people here on the forums, since you folks know us all really well relatively speaking, but I think the larger listening audience, especially people who haven't been listening as long, would just kind of lose interest over time when it seemed like they didn't know which version of the show they were going to get week by week. We also think it's conversationally manageable with three people, and gets really tough with four (and especially five). We have such an unstructured style, with lots of interruptions and cross-talk, that when you go above three, things get dicey--again, probably not as big a deal for the longtime hardcore listeners, but I think often very frustrating and difficult to parse for many. Once you have four people, you're in the zone when you can have two different parallel small conversations, and that is the absolute worst. It also kind of sucked for me to have to deal with scheduling a different group of people each week, where people who weren't me and Jake could basically decide arbitrarily whether they were going to be on or not; that's just inevitably how free-time projects end up if you don't have a really strong requirement that a specific group of people always show up. So it has made things much easier to just assume "Okay, this group of three is going to be on every week, and if someone absolutely cannot make it, we'll figure out a sub." I am completely certain that Sean will still end up on episodes. In terms of the default week to week configuration it has just made it a way less hectic show to have a consistent group.

[Twig]

So... we're never gonna have a sevener is what you're saying.

[hyretic]

Wow. I can't pretend it's not pretty gutting that my favourite host was dropped for that reason, but I appreciate you explaining the situation anyway Chris.

[Ozzie]

It's too bad Idle Thumbs lost listeners over it, because I thought the unpredictability of the cast from week to week was rather exciting. It was a strong period of the 'cast during that time.

[SecretAsianMan]

As one of those longtime hardcore listeners readers, I'll say that the loose structure of Idle Thumbs is one of the things that endears it to me.  It feels more like a conversation among friends than a "show" which in a way makes me feel more included, as though I were sitting in the same room but not saying much.  I enjoyed the expanding and rotating cast as it made things feel fresh but still maintained what I loved about the podcast.

 

That said, I completely understand what Chris said.  I look forward to hearing from Sean again.  Maybe I can entice him with candy.

[Gormongous]

As one of those longtime hardcore listeners readers, I'll say that the loose structure of Idle Thumbs is one of the things that endears it to me.  It feels more like a conversation among friends than a "show" which in a way makes me feel more included, as though I were sitting in the same room but not saying much.  I enjoyed the expanding and rotating cast as it made things feel fresh but still maintained what I loved about the podcast.

 

That said, I completely understand what Chris said.  I look forward to hearing from Sean again.  Maybe I can entice him with candy.

 

Yeah, I had figured that the chaos of the four- and five-person episodes was part of why Sean hasn't been around, but it's a real shame. I don't know the numbers, but I think that the four-person episodes of Chris, Jake, Steve, and Sean near the end of the second run are maybe the best episodes of video game podcasting ever made, and a big part of that is Sean, with his Skipper Croft and his Snoopy Flying Ace. The past twenty or thirty episodes, I've really missed his voice, and I hope that circumstances conspire to get him back on the podcast soon.

[feelthedarkness]

sounds like Idle Weekend needs its THIRD. 

 

also, i want more gaynor podcasting however i have to get it!