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b'Hello, listeners and patrons alike. We come to you with some exciting news: We are changing the Patreon around! It feels like we just did this, but the last major change was back toward the beginning of 2017. We\\u2019re trying to constantly observe what\\u2019s happening with the network and learn what to do better. That means making changes like this from time to time.\\n\\nWe\\u2019re also aiming to never shake things up in a way that is too disruptive to you, the listener. We want to give more (or at least focus up and give better). So we put a lot of thought and consideration into making sure these changes either solve problems or help us achieve goals.\\n\\nHere\\u2019s the summary of what we\\u2019re planning, and you can find the details below. In order to grow the network, give patrons more, and cover rising costs, we plan to:\\n\\n\\nBring back Bonfireside Chat as a Patreon show.\\nGive Patrons a whole episode of Watch Out for Fireballs!\\nMove from theme months to covering big-name games more frequently.\\nChange WOFF! Listener Response episodes to WOFF! Dispatch, make it more interactive, and have broader topic discussions.\\nMake Adaptation Decay a monthly show.\\nWe are getting rid of the content store, and making premium episodes available on Patreon in perpetuity.\\nWe are phasing out the promise of physical goods, and sending out an \\u201cI\\u2019m Sorry!\\u201d package to people who never got theirs.\\nIn general, we are simplifying the Patreon drastically, while offering more at each tier.\\n\\n\\nSo without further preamble, let\\u2019s get into more detail.\\n\\nWe want to grow.\\nWe want to grow in both listenership, patronage, and income. We are proud of the work that we do, and never want to stagnate in any of the aforementioned areas. Growth requires change.\\n\\nWe want to give patrons more.\\nThe best way to keep listeners and members around is to always try to give more (or give better). This is also the best way to bring new people in. We are grateful to our patrons, past and present, and we want to make sure we\\u2019re giving them stuff they want.\\n\\nWe want to meet rising costs.\\nThere are costs associated with doing this at the professional level. Traveling to live shows is expensive. Hosting, web services, applications, and equipment are expensive. Being self-employed is expensive (both Gary and I do this full time and need to cover things like health insurance). And since we\\u2019re covering more new games, we\\u2019re spending more on games! This is not a hobby for us, we\\u2019re committed to doing this full time as our main means of support, and this means keeping up with costs.\\n\\nPeople want Bonfireside Chat.\\nAnd we want to give it to them. We also want to play to our strengths as a network whose bread and butter is games club content. We put Bonfireside Chat to bed when it felt like it was the right thing to do. We stuck with our guns for a long time. But with Sekiro on the horizon, and some damn-fine Soulslikes already here, it feels right to take the show out of cold storage.\\n\\nSo we are bringing back Bonfireside Chat as a Patreon show, with a slightly different format. Listen to Bonfireside Chat 2.0 Episode 0 on the feed to learn more. Our first game is the Soulslike shooter Immortal Unchained!\\n\\nWe want to value WOFF! appropriately.\\nWatch Out for Fireballs! is the network\\u2019s flagship show. It also takes a lot of time to produce. We play through the entire game (whether it\\u2019s 1 hour or 100), research the games, write outlines that total in the thousands of words, record for hours, and edit. In looking at how to make this tenable in the long run, we have decided to make one episode of WOFF! per month premium.\\n\\nThis does two things: It makes the Patreon more valuable for our members, and it incentivizes more membership.\\n\\nBut don\\u2019t panic! When an episode goes premium, we will include a good portion of it on t\\u2026'