Chris

Idle Thumbs 169: On Blade

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To be clear, my little issues aside, what I was trying to get across is I'm fine with game ads, and trust Idle Thumbs to make good decisions about them.

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The WoT ad was really weird. I'm fine with the ad being there, you need money but when you talk about internet hosting/register sites or snacks that don't even ship to my continent, you've actually at least looked at the thing you're advertising.

 

WoT seems an even worse game than I thought before and all I knew about it was that it had pay2win golden ammo and also bought out/paid for a bunch of ESPORTS tournaments in Korea and Russia.

 

With how aware you guys are of Iconic hats and Blade terminology it's jarring to just have a bit about this game that's paying money to be mentioned. If you had been sponsored by a diaper company for an episode it would be less strange than this.

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The WoT ad was really weird. I'm fine with the ad being there, you need money but when you talk about internet hosting/register sites or snacks that don't even ship to my continent, you've actually at least looked at the thing you're advertising.

 

I think that might be it for most people, at least for me on reflection. It's not a gaming podcast having advertisements for a specific game, it's a gaming podcast having advertisements for a specific product/service/system that the podcast's hosts have no firsthand experience with. I know it's happened before, maybe with Loot Crate, but it does stand out a little more here as troublesome if it becomes a trend.

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Also, that book came out in 2005, I feel like thats fair game for talking about if people want to.

Absolutely (like I said, it's my own fault for being so far behind), but if I am going to have things spoiled for me, I'd rather it not be something someone mutters for no apparent reason. Sean had already made the Geoffrey/Joffrey link; mentioning that

Joffrey apparently gets poisoned at some point

doesn't really add anything to the joke. I feel like an entitled arse for even mentioning it, and I probably am, but my immediate reaction was "why did he even bother saying that?". Not that I was super crushed or anything – if I cared that much I would have been up to date with at least the TV show if not the books – but in principle it seemed pretty dumb. I don't know, I'm probably awful. Sorry.

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Absolutely (like I said, it's my own fault for being so far behind), but if I am going to have things spoiled for me, I'd rather it not be something someone mutters for no apparent reason. Sean had already made the Geoffrey/Joffrey link; mentioning that

Joffrey apparently gets poisoned at some point

doesn't really add anything to the joke. I feel like an entitled arse for even mentioning it, and I probably am, but my immediate reaction was "why did he even bother saying that?". Not that I was super crushed or anything – if I cared that much I would have been up to date with at least the TV show if not the books – but in principle it seemed pretty dumb. I don't know, I'm probably awful. Sorry.

 

For some reason, I've found it to be an easy thing to spoil. I think I did it in Movies/TV thread without realizing, because it seems like such a given thing that I don't even remember to which book it belongs. Joffrey is also really hateable, so there's some catharsis in letting that fact fly.

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I know nothing about WoT other than articles I've read about it over the last couple of years, but I was under the impression that they had attempted to purge paytowin items from their store, and relied on cosmetic and subscription purchases now?  Maybe not.

 

I think ethical concerns about media and advertising are always valid, but I'm really not seeing it in this case.  WoT doesn't seem like the kind of game that any of the Thumbs are going to get into (based on the years of gaming talk they've done).  So none of them are likely to have their opinions swayed by having WoT as an advertiser.  WoT appears to be a well received and well liked game by lots of folks, so it's not like they are advertising a shitty, broken game.  And, as demonstrated here, there are fans of the Thumbs who were previously interested who signed up for an account because WoT advertised.  So the advertising worked, and WoT will at least see some positive return from having paid the Thumbs. 

 

That's about as good as advertising can get.  Paying content creators to insert ads into their content is inherently problematic, and the best you can do is structure it to have the least impact.

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I'm surprised people think the ad is weird. It's always made very clear what's an ad and what is content on the cast, and surely there isn't any difference in principle between healthy snacks or video games being advertised. Maybe it's the fact that the guys are voicing the ad that makes it confusing and more difficult to separate the two? Surely it's completely normal for video game sites or podcasts to have video game related ads on them.

 

(Just my 2 ct as a listener.)

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I think the conflict of interest lies in it being a video gaming podcast, so advertising a game naturally brings concerns of objectivity into it should they ever actually play the game. And also when they advertise Hulu and Naturebox and etc., they seem to be legitimately interested. As far as I know, they've never expressed actual interest in World of Tanks, beyond balking at the now-non-existent pay-for-individual-bullets model a long time ago.

 

I... personally don't care. I think it's fine. But hey.

 

It's also the old "why are we advertising for content that we're criticizing" debate that's existed for the likes of IGN for ages.

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LET'S SEE THEM POOCHED POP SCREENS

 

EDIT:

 

Jesus Christ I find the idea of a "pooched pop screen" so funny.

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I had a 360 early and remember the blades well. Makes me wish I could go back and check it out. Unlike PCs I guess there is no easy path to do something like that (without hacking) as device system software is usually designed to only accept newer versions.

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The blade vine in question:

 

https://vine.co/v/M0FxDljI69J

 

SOUND IS MANDATORY

 

My cousin's Xbox 360 still has this dashboard version. He's never used his Xbox's online features, so he still has that classic On Blade™ action. 

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I'm surprised people think the ad is weird. It's always made very clear what's an ad and what is content on the cast, and surely there isn't any difference in principle between healthy snacks or video games being advertised. Maybe it's the fact that the guys are voicing the ad that makes it confusing and more difficult to separate the two? Surely it's completely normal for video game sites or podcasts to have video game related ads on them.

(Just my 2 ct as a listener.)

It's not normal for The Idle Thumbs Podcast thus far.

Pretty much all of my concerns on this specific issue are dependent on slippery-slope fallacies and the absurd notion that what my perception of the Idle Thumbs Podcast is some sort of ideal standard. That said, I'm willing to answer any specific questions about what my concerns are. I'm willing to embarass myself.

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We went back and forth on running ads for World of Tanks (and bigger topics like what it means for Thumbs to do a read for a game) before saying yes, and now that we've done one and it's out there, we all agree that we have to talk about it again.

I don't want to speak for anyone but me - I really wasn't sure what the response would be, so its helpful to see all this talk come up naturally in the forums.

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We went back and forth on running ads for World of Tanks (and bigger topics like what it means for Thumbs to do a read for a game) before saying yes, and now that we've done one and it's out there, we all agree that we have to talk about it again.

I don't want to speak for anyone but me - I really wasn't sure what the response would be, so its helpful to see all this talk come up naturally in the forums.

 

For what it's worth, almost all of my disquiet would be answered by one of the Thumbs spending an hour or two with the game, just so that the ad came in part from a place of experience. I trust you guys enough for me not to worry about blurring the line between content and advertisement, but I would like as much as possible of the podcast to be informed firsthand.

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I played the game on iOS and was like "OK, this isn't the worst, but I don't have anything interesting to say about it," hence our really bland read. But yeah, we're talking a lot about game ads in general now and, frankly, I don't see them still being a thing.  It's just weird.

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FWIW since you guys are trying to gather opinions, it didn't bother me that you were running an ad for WoT, but I also thought it felt weird.

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FWIW since you guys are trying to gather opinions, it didn't bother me that you were running an ad for WoT, but I also thought it felt weird.

 

Same feeling for me. I think its weird because I listen for your opinions on games and I'm not entirely sure if you really think WoT is cool, doesn't seem like the game you'd normally be interested in. But it was obviously an ad so I didn't really care either way.

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Weird is enough of a reason to not do the reads, in my opinion. I'll wait for some sort of official "we are not doing game ads," decision between Jake and Chris and I, but if something is even a little weird/alienating on the cast then I don't think it has any place.  Ads *do* pay pretty well or we wouldn't do them but there is zero amount of money we're comfortable taking if the feedback is "i didn't hate it but it was weird."  The truth is it was weird for US and it caused a big gut check.

 

Another thing about ads vs no ads vs patreon vs whatever.  Doing ads have made Thumbs cash positive every month since we started doing them -- which is huge.  We don't pay ourselves to do the show -- we've never actually taken money from the company account -- but it allows us to have conversations every day about interesting things we could do.  We've talked about an event (probably after Firewatch is done), live shows, new products, weird shit like finding another Thirty Flights of Loving inside of some indie dev.  All sorts of things.  It's part of what keeps Thumbs exciting and interesting for us, so beyond covering the cost of the podcast (which the KS money could probably do for another couple years, TBH) it allows us to think of new things to do you might like (we talked about this in our Kickstarter video way back when -- finding ways to keep the podcast sustainable).

 

One thing I don't like about Patreon is that we'd inevitably have to replace an ad with a call out to "back us on Patreon."  You guys support us way more than I could ever imagine and I don't want to pass the hat (I'm speaking personally here, Jake and Chris might have different opinions) again. If we ever did anything like that -- Patreon or another Kickstarter -- it would be "we are doing X (event, making x product) and we need this much capital to make it happen but it is definitely happening."  (The way XOXO, a creative conference in Portland, sold their tickets and funded the event).  I guess what I'm saying is, in terms of supporting the cast, I think we can do something better and more interesting as our time and lives permit.

 

Most of this was stream of consciousness so I preemptively apologize for any contradictions of myself or with my cohorts.   

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I don't see any reason why a "back us on Patreon" bit couldn't just be a short thing at the end alongside "email us at"! Maybe there are extenuating circumstances of which I am unaware, but I hardly think people would complain about an extra thirty seconds or so on top of the ads that already exist. If someone wants to pitch in X moneys a month, might as well make it an option, in my opinion.

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Thanks for sharing some of the thought-process. I think it's really interesting.

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I don't see any reason why a "back us on Patreon" bit couldn't just be a short thing at the end alongside "email us at"! Maybe there are extenuating circumstances of which I am unaware, but I hardly think people would complain about an extra thirty seconds or so on top of the ads that already exist. If someone wants to pitch in X moneys a month, might as well make it an option, in my opinion.

 

Again, just my personal opinion/feeling.  I really don't want to have to say it, if that makes sense. Chris/Jake probably disagree but between "there's new shit in the store" and all the other stuff that can get tacked on at the end of an ep, it's just one more thing. I think there's something to finding a cool way for people to back the cast on an ongoing basis, but I'd rather come up with something fun and entertaining and unexpected, if that makes sense.

 

Honestly, the best thing people can do to help the cast is keep rating/reviewing it on itunes and introducing it to friends.  I'd take that over Patreon any day. 

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I agree with Sean. We're finding our footing with this kind of thing, and feedback is really useful. I'm also not crazy about doing a generalized Patreon; I don't really like the idea of soliciting the general readership for money if it's not for a specific purpose we can enumerate (beyond just "pay our monthly bills"). I'm sure there are readers who would be totally open to that (as several of them have told us so) but for some reason it just doesn't feel right to me in this particular case.

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