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Duckfeed State of the Union 2024
🕑 Added 2024-12-19 22:11:22 +0000 UTCHello all,
Every once in a while we like to make a big post like this to announce some changes. 2024 marked our ten year anniversary of funding ourselves through Patreon, and over that time we’ve increased the amount of content we put out each month. This year’s changes are going to be about refocusing, reining things in a bit, and making sure we’re putting our energy where it does the most good.
The inspiration for these changes came from a WOFF! Dispatch question about vacations, and how we don’t take them. Because the content calendar marches on, doing things like going to conventions, taking time off for holidays, or even preparing for events like Duckstream… anything that requires taking a break from recording requires us to flex doubletime in the run-up and in the aftermath. The result is that “time off” really isn’t a thing for us, and it never really can be a thing.
These changes are about creating room in our schedule so this can be more like a regular job. The hope is that reducing our burnout will make us better podcasters. This doesn’t come naturally to us, because our instinct is to offer more instead of less, but that has led us to an unsustainable place, even with Gwen’s help. (And don’t worry, we’re keeping her around! We couldn’t do this without her at this point).
For some sobering math, in 2024 we will have released 371 episodes across our 12 active shows. That’s 230 free episodes, and 141 premium episodes. That’s an average of a little more than 7 episodes per week, at about 8 hours of content per week (on average). This is a lot more than is usual for most Patreon campaigns and networks. While we pride ourselves on providing a lot of bang per dollar, these are hard numbers to look at.
Guest Episodes of Watch Out for Fireballs!
A couple of times per year, a WOFF! episode will have a guest host, meaning it will be Gary and a guest or Kole and a guest. This will solve two problems for us:
First, it gets the responsibility of beating a whole video game in a week off of our plate for one week. WOFF! accounts for the majority of our work in a given week, and being able to tap out occasionally is a pre-requisite for any kind of workload lightening.
Second, it addresses the problem of having half of the show play and discuss a game from a genre they don’t really like, and have nothing to say about. This is a drag for everyone, we think! We don’t want to stop covering things like console RPGs, adventure games, roguelikes, or RTS games altogether because of this dynamic. Tapping in a guest who is down with one of those genres makes sense, and we think it will make for better episodes. It will also bring in some fresh perspectives from people we know and trust to be great contributors (who we will also pay for their time).
To tease a specific example, at some point early next year we will be covering Command & Conquer: Red Alert II, a game a lot of people have asked for. But for this episode, Kole will be sitting it out and we’re tapping in the wonderful Brayton Cameron.
If someone sponsors an episode that makes sense to handle with a guest, we will check with them to see if they’re okay with this. We don’t want anyone to feel like they’re getting short shrift.
Open Season on Revisiting Early WOFF! Games
While we’re teasing things… this has nothing to do with balancing our workloads, but in 2025 we’ll officially be open to covering games again. Specifically, a patron asked if we could revisit Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, a game that we covered wayyy too early (13 years ago), when the format of the show was different and we were worse podcasters.
This will be a “sometimes treat” when it feels appropriate.
Very Occasional Reruns
In addition to the guest episodes, we might occasionally designate a week to not feature an entirely new episode of a show. This won’t happen for Premium shows. Either we will pick an older episode that feels right, or we will make a premium or rarity episode free for everyone. By “rarity”, we mean episodes featured in bundles over the years. The unlocked premium episodes will take the place of our standard “welcome packs”. All of these episodes will have cleaned up audio when we can make that happen, and we will also record wrappers for the episodes to give some new context on the subject.
We’ll do this sparingly when the guest episodes can’t work to help us accommodate events like conventions.
We are Retiring Exquisite Suffering
There will be one episode of Exquisite Suffering in January, and then no more. We’ve done two premium episodes per month for a long time now, and we’ve decided that doing six (sometimes seven!) episodes of a mostly improv and digressionary show each month isn’t working as well as we’d like. So we’re going down to 4 or 5 regular episodes per month, available to all, with the hope that what we lose in quantity will be made up for in quality.
There is no current plan to replace Exquisite Suffering with a new show, since that would work against our goal of refocusing. We feel like a $5 tier that includes premium episodes of Watch Out for Fireballs!, Bonfireside Chat (when it’s active), Real Lich Hours, and Unfilmable is pretty action packed even before you realize that it also includes the archives of all of those shows and 200+ episodes of Exquisite Suffering.
The topic of the final episode of Exquisite Suffering will be determined by one lucky listener who wins a drawing. To enter this drawing, please complete this year’s listener survey (see below). The drawing will take place on New Years’ Day, and we will contact the winner to pick the game we’re covering. (Note that our usual standard for choosing an episode applies, no Custer’s Revenges please).
For anyone who will miss the monthly polls, we are still going to run a poll to select one of the games we’ll cover in a given month.
Using More of Patreon’s Features
This announcement is more of an FYI than anything else. Patreon has added features like discounts and gifting, and we’re going to try to use those more. This means we’ll occasionally run specials on new memberships, and bring up that people can gift a subscription to our content to each other if they’d like.
There are other new features that Patreon is developing that will be of more direct help to us as podcasters, and we’re going to be playing around with them as they come out.
Days of Future Cast Will Be Back!
Gary and Jeremy have talked about it plenty on the show, but this year has been pretty rough. We’re not saying we’ll never retire the show, but now is not its time, since we still have X-Men ‘97 and 2-3 great comics runs to talk about. There’s plenty to say. There’s a possibility that it will return to fortnightly releases, however, and we apologize for the show’s sporadic schedule recently.
Listener Survey
It’s been a very long time since we’ve done this, but we’d like to ask you to fill out this brief listener survey. It will help us understand who you are and what you want, and inform future decisions about the network in the coming year. Be sure to tick the box that enters you into the raffle to choose the subject of the last episode of Exquisite Suffering, if you’d like to do that.
Closing Remarks
We are very grateful for your support, which allows us to make a living off of doing the work that we want to do. Our hope is that these changes are a welcome shakeup that will help us make our shows even better for you.
This is always the case, but none of the changes outlined above are written in stone. Everything is an experiment and if any of this doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.
Thanks again for listening and backing us. 2024 was a bad year for humans generally, but having you along has brought a little light to the proceedings. Please be safe over the holidays!
Kole and Gary
P.S. The music in the podcast version of this announcement is "Cool Cave" from the Kirby's Epic Yarn soundtrack. People tend to ask.
Comments
Brendan Hinman
Hell yeah! Less grueling work schedules! I want fewer episodes and I’m not kidding. You need to be healthy and sane since if y’all burn out you won’t be able to parasocially keep me company on long repair jobs! Oh and you’re obviously deserving of care
Callumn James
Super happy about making changes to allow for more time off for you both.
Nikolaj Thorborg
Yes yes yes to all of this. Take care of yourselves! We are going to need you for a long time :) I live in Denmark, and in general you work for 37 hours a week with five weeks of vacation every year. Dont know how well that translates, but just to illustrate what work/free time standards also could be. But most importantly, burnout isn’t good for anybody, and your content is such a high quality that your audience trusts you, even if a show or two gets taken of the schedule!
John Mickey
Unsustainable content becomes bad content. I’m glad you’re addressing this now instead of waiting for the product to suffer. I’ll really miss ES. It has often been a chance for you two to be less formal and more personal than AS because it’s a patron-only show.
max2
I'm disappointed at the loss of ES, but it always felt like a great bonus to AS, which is one of my favorites y'all do. Otherwise I love the changes, especially you guys being able to take more time off. Glad to have new ways to support you on Patreon as well. I keep meaning to buy the AS game one time. Thanks for all you do!
KayofJohanna
Love these changes. Maybe now we can get Danganronpa on WOFF without Gary strangling Kole to death
Joseph
Previous States of the Union have showed up in Duckfeed Presents on Apple Podcasts, but not this one. (I didn’t get the post-election cast either.) Intentional?
Roy D Rushing
They’re such good boys. I love them.
Ian Fredrick
Please. Take. More. Vacation.
Mateus Silva
Fuckin’ love you guys! Keep up the great work, glad you’re trying to carve out life time! You do a ton. Breaks are needed! Stoked on DOFC coming back! Stoked on everything said here.
Neal Worman
Thank you for all you do at Duckfeed, I take for granted how there's always another episode waiting to listen to on my next walk. Be well and take some well-deserved time off.
Eino Keskitalo
Now this feels like a business proposal I feel confident investing in
Christopher Grunert Pedersen
Hey guys! I think your shows have a lot of re-listen value (That’s not word but you know) so even disregarding how much you’re already giving us I still think there is so much to listen to and I would only support any opportunity for y’all to relax and put your feet up a bit.
Abrahm Simons
Hell yeah! I'm glad you're making changes to make this personally sustainable. I'm warming up to the idea of the guest episodes: I love the Gary/Kole dynamic but the idea of a Kat Bailey and Kole Ross discussion on Console/command RPGs or Gary and Noah Gervais on whatever to do some dream casting. I'm huge into re-listening to your shows, it's all perennial. I'm currently deep into Abject Suffering and it's very fun.
Jay Eff
Honestly, just delighted by the news that you're pumping the brakes a bit and giving yourself space to refresh. The time off is much needed and well deserved. I think guest episodes are a great idea, I'm excited to see what you've got planned. I've supported y'all for several years - even through stints of unemployment - and this update only solidifies my satisfaction in how you're running your network!
Jared Mogen
I happily subscribe to Patreon for other podcasts that release far less content than you do. The value proposition of a Duckfeed membership is incredible and there is no way that decreasing it a little could be too much. I’m very glad that you’re going to get more time for yourselves, and I will continue to happily subscribe for as long as you keep this up!
Nick Cranston
Really happy to here about these changes. Taking care of yourselves will be great for the long term...as well as being the right thing to do!
Patrick Galasso
Please don’t feel guilty for considering your own health! Beyond just the entertainment value of your content, the rapport, humor, perspective, honesty, and fundamental decency you guys bring to the table is a huge part of why so many of us love hearing your voices every week. The changes all sound good! I’m looking forward to revisits, guests, and the relief of knowing my favorite podcasters won’t be in permanent crunch mode!
Mateusz Swietoslawski
I am really happy to hear about these changes. The "No vacations" realization was terryfing. You guys need to take care of yourselves! Guest hosts for games that one of you don't gel with is a great idea, especially since over the years you have acquired quite a network of podcats ready individuals that will be keen to hop on. I am also excited for occasional revisits; teh show developed in a great way and when listening to older episodes I miss some of the current flurishes of WOFF.
Rob
371 episodes in a year is insane! Super grateful for that output, but also very glad that you guys are making these changes. They all sound very positive.
Mike G
I gasped when I heard Exquisite Suffering is ending, but unsustainable content is always too much content.
Joysweeper
I'm happy for you! You have to take care of yourselves. This might be a job you enjoy but it's still a *job* and the obligation and consistency adds a burden and a strain that can sour anything. Here's to (hopefully) a more sustainable network future.
Jan Champion
Guest episodes is a great idea! I’m excited for it
Drew
I read that as vaccinations and not vacations the first time and had to do a double take....
Wil Bustamante
Everyone deserves time off. Sounds good to me.
Andrew K
I would love for you guys to not feel pressured to work weekends and have freedom to take a reasonable number of breaks throughout the year. Really happy to hear you guys are tweaking with the lineup to make for more realistic work loads. I support you guys doing whatever you need to do to have the right work/life balance to produce the content you do. Take care of yourself so we can continue enjoying the fruits of your labor for as long as possible is my hot take 💚♥️💚♥️
Max Smith
You guys release so much content there’s no way I could listen to it all. I could not be more excited for you dialing back the amount of content you are providing and taking breaks. I hope this includes taking weeks off of shows like bonfireside chat, and real lich hours when needed as well.
mosesplan
The amount of content duckfeed releases is frankly astonishing, so I was extremely happy reading through the list of changes. It was kind of surreal to hear Gary so bummed out about not being ahead of schedule for Cyberpunk when the vast majority of personality-driven games podcasts *do not even finish the video games they talk about*, so I hope this allows the crew to find a more sustainable pace. As always: Duckfeed forever, Wiggum never
Michael Krisher
Totally support you all taking more time for yourselves. It's been clear even when you aren't talking about it directly that it's been a tough year and I can't imagine it's going to get easier going forward so I think it's a great decision to be proactive about defending and defining your time! Abject Suffering is probably my favorite show at this point so I'll miss the pure content but I agree with you both 100% that the show will get better if you can recharge and get more content (aka live life) between shows. I'm also someone who listens to every WoFF, regardless of the game, because I like hearing Gary and Kole talk about stuff. So I'm less excited about guest episodes BUT I support it 100% for you all to have better work/life balance and I completely trust that you'll pick great people with interesting things to say. Looking forward to all the good stuff to come, as I do every year!
Chapel Collins
Hopefully I can say this without it sounding too weird/presumptuous/para social, but I (and I'm sure a large majority of other patrons) am here for YOU GUYS more than I am for whatever the subject of your show is. I could watch any old schmuck talk about horror movies or games or whatever on YouTube, but they don't have your rapport and personalities. So whatever you guys decide to do, I'm listenin'. Take care of yourselves!
Jimmy Wilkinson
Haven't listened, but reading through this, all of this sounds great! I trust the whole crew.
Abe
All of these changes make me extremely happy. I listen to you guys every day and if you were to burn out and stop podcasting I have no idea where I would turn for such incredible content.
Richard Cochnar
The return of Brayton! I’m excited! Teenage Dirtbags is still one of my fave Duckfeed shows so I’ll be happy to hear from Brayton again.
Sam
As parasocial as it is to say I'm glad to hear you guys are making changes to take better care of yourselves!
Case
This is an excellent update, I'm glad to see you guys have worked out a plan going forward and I'm excited for next year!
Dylan Kilby
Thanks for everything yall! All of these changes totally make sense for your personal lives and professional goals with the network. I'm excited for the guest episodes!
Christopher Williams
I'm sad to see ES go, but otherwise these changes sound excellent. I love the idea of guests on WOFF (I eagerly await the first Gary/Plumberduck ep). A SH2 revisited ep makes a ton of sense, as does an Amnesia Cinematic Universe (for lack of a better term) ep. 💪
Jake
I'm very happy that you guys are making changes to make what you do more sustainable, and I'm selfishly very happy we get to hear prime Gary and Kole discussing Bloodlines
picklefactory
what a pleasure to read one of these and it all makes sense and I love it.
Christian S
That makes so much sense - happy to hear that you'll be relaxing your breakneck pace and giving yourselves some time to breathe; Duckfeed is already so rich with content! Looking forward to your work in 2025, and extremely grateful for all the marvelous analysis you've produced over the past year.
Richard Cochnar
Sounds good to me! If I might make a suggestion—I’d personally rather have a week off an episode than have a repeat. Been here from the start, so maybe that’s just me being an old-head. Could be good for newer folks.
Julia
Sounds great, tbh.
Matt Bixler! Hello!
Haven't listened to the full podcast yet, but just reading over the post all of these changes sound way overdue. I've said this somewhere before, but I feel like there's a word missing in the english language for something we're proud of having accomplished that we should have never had to do in the first place. I've subscribed to a lot of Patreons over the years and I'm not being hyperbolic when I say I have never found any that offer the sheer volume of work that Duckfeed does. You two and your collaborators put out a staggering volume of work, and the numbers you wrote at the beginning of this post back that up. You deserve all the praise in the world for it, but I don't think anyone in the community would ever say that it's something we were owed. I think this sounds like a great plan for the new year, and the idea of guest episodes is something I'm genuinely excited for. Good on you both for being willing to make these changes, I'm sure I'm one of many people here that'll be alongside you for them.
sleepysmiles
you guys get more time off AND i get to hear more from the golden pipes of one Brayton Cameron?? sounds like a win-win already
