Well, I know they announced the end of the news, I mean this whole thread is about that and I read it
But the website or rather my RSS feed of it doesnāt show anything other than these new information posts nowadays which I find not very interesting.
Before we got written reviews, articles, news, etc. on the website. But to me it seems they go away from writing to solely other media (podcasts, videos). The last written article was from October and it seems its special and heartwarming content was the reason to publish it.
So thatās why I asked if it is me, my RSS feed or just the website not being in the focus anymore. And it is a mix of the latter two things apparently. Thanks @RogerBW
For written reviews or thoughts on boardgames Iām a fan of https://spacebiff.com/ which is very well-written (at least relative to other board game review spaces) and seems to be quite popular. Any other written content recommendations?
I was hoping weād see some more of Avaās writing on SUSD but it doesnāt seem that itās the teamās focus, either because their written stuff isnāt as popular or because they are busy doing what they prefer with audio/visual.
With the news gone and no written articles in sight, the website seems much less relevant than it used to be. Especially with the forum moved to here, I can get the podcast feed through an app and their videos through Youtube. Itās strange seeing the websites of creators become more and more secondary, but the trend will continue without a major restructuring of the web.
For my news replacement, Iāve taken to watching Our Family Plays Games. Not for everyone but the very casual delivery provides the best parts of what I was getting from SUSDās news. Like, the news is secondary to checking in on a Monday, seeing one or two interesting things and enjoying the ācompanyā of the writers before moving on. Their videos are broader and less news-focused. So, not really a replacement due to the medium and the very different style, but Iāve found it fits in for me.
These two have a great energy and awesome personalities. Iāve never heard of their channel before but will be keeping an eye on them. Thanks for the link!
Yes, itās weird, but while I donāt see myself ceasing to watch SUSD content anytime soon, Iām very aware that Iām no longer excited to see it. Interested, but not excited. For years, every new article and video was eagerly consumed, but thatās just not the case any more. The written content was fabulous, and theyāve killed that entirely. The podcasts, which used to seem like a bonus feature amongst a heap of other content, now seems to comprise 50% of their output; and while Iāve occasionally listened to them, I wouldnāt be bothered if they didnāt exist (of all the things they could have killed off, that would have been the very top of my list ā or second after Twitch, which I never look at). The official forums were brilliant and they killed them without even engaging with the community about the potential solutions which were put forward (I am hugely grateful for our new home here, but still kinda bitter about the circumstances leading up to it, and all of the lost posts).
It used to be that it didnāt matter in the slightest whether I thought I was interested in the game they were covering, because I was going to have a fun time finding out about it either way. That was the reason I was watching them in the first place. The death of the written news felt like the final gasp for that aspect of SUSD ā coverage that was a fun time even if I didnāt care about the games. Theyāve shifted the balance to the point where the videos seem so focused on being āa board game reviewā that being entertaining seems more of an afterthought, which means my motivation to watch them (as opposed to anyone else doing reviews) is really ebbing. The hook was always that I enjoyed whatever they produced, and the outcome was that I became interested in some of the games they covered. Now I feel that unless Iām already interested in the game theyāre covering, I might be wasting my time watching their coverage. Itās not that theyāre not entertaining, and itās not that their reviews arenāt good reviews; but itās not what it used to be.
I also realise that circumstances are difficult at present; so maybe once the country isnāt under lockdown, they can get some of the old magic back. (But on the other hand, if there was ever a time to focus on producing awesome written articles and reviews where the reader only needs to imagine the people being in the same room, I think this was it.)
I also fell off, partly because I apparently liked Paul a lot, partly because I prefer written articles to videos, partly because I just lost interest I guess. Not sure.
I think these days I get more entertainment from NPIās videos and podcasts (even when theyāre being very serious, as for example the colonialism video).
Iām trying really hard not to say that professionalism is the problem, because Iām certainly not going to object to good production values and so on; but Iām also remembering that when Iāve had too much to do, Iāve tended to concentrate on the relatively simple mechanistic work (e.g. podcast editing, 3d-modelling my webcomic) rather than giving enough time to the stuff that needs creativity and mental sparkle (podcast planning, writing my webcomic). And when a problem comes up, I tend to do whatever makes it go away quickly.
I think that one particular problem there was that the original mod team had largely gone off to do other things and not been replaced (I think only one of them had logged in at all in the previous year), so when an incident happened they didnāt know the people or the context. I donāt want to throw blame at individual actions, but that made everyoneās job harder; I suspect that to both the mods and the SU&SD team, the forum was perceived as āthat thing we set up because you should have one but we donāt use it ourselves, and now itās being a problemā.
My response to that as far as this place is concerned is to have plenty of moderators among the active users, and if I ever stop being interested Iāll look for someone else to take over as admin.
As the person who corresponded with Matt on everything, the final decision was based on the fact that the world had changed a great deal between when the forum was created and when it became apparent the mod team was dormant.
The forum was technically an official part of SU&SD, but in no way controlled by them, we did go through various options about how to āsaveā it. But none of them were very good.
Iām amazed we managed the transfer in two weeks. @RogerBW was brilliant. I drew a picture of a pear on the side of the battlestar galactic.
Yeah they set up the forum as part of becoming big. I think now you could get away with less and become a patreon and make as much money.
Itās hard for me to judge the website at the moment - obviously with covid itās kind of impressive theyāve managed to make any sort of consistent output. But it certainly lacks an energy that existed when Paul and Quinnās were younger men. Tom brings the most fun but I wonder if heās between a need to be himself and some fax of SUSD.
Iām glad they bought Tom and Ava in its easy for people in YouTube space to keep the space for themselves.
I doubt there were any easy options; but I feel any option which allowed history to be preserved was a vastly better option than throwing it away. It felt like it was put into the ātoo hardā basket without ever giving the community (including motivated programmers and problem-solvers) the opportunity to rally together to understand and work through the issues. Certainly my own efforts were met with a resounding silence. It was very disheartening.
I didnāt mean to dredge this back up, though. Itās really water under the bridge at this point, and the old community could well have been scattered to the four winds, so the efforts to enable it to all continue here are brilliant!
NPIās colonialism video was was great, Iāve really enjoyed their new direction of having an interesting discussion with a board game review hidden somewhere within. One of my favourite videos by NPI was comparing Food Chain Magnate to Monopoly.
Iām still waiting for a sequel comparing Great Western Trail to Monopoly. Fight me.
Iām loving NPIās experimentalism. It doesnāt always work for me (the recent space episode seemed to be research for researchās sakeā¦), but itās great theyāre trying new forms and spending a lot of time on focused subjects. Very interested to see how their videos develop.
I think those experiment videos miss the Mark for me. Theyāre a bit too general and try too hard to be deep but they end up being fairly wide and shallow. I like that theyāre trying something (and at least the space one wasnāt trying to hit an already internet popular topic) and maybe the endpoint is we look at one game and try and see what itās trying to say in a real context but I donāt think that any of stuff is really popular.
Iām also not really a fan of board game jokes. Itās often lame niche recognition triggering.
Judging by the fact that me and a few others got the ādevoteeā badge a day ago, and a few more got it today, I guess it must be about a year since we switched over from the SUSD forums.
I really liked the old reviews that took the time to make silly narratives and luxuriate in absurd gags. Like Quinns eating some old meat and hallucinating a dance scene with a cube-man. They kind of āmodernizedā graphics and logos and āprofessionalā delivery and a disdain for their old style of videos was expressedā¦ Wellā¦ I liked those old ones betterā¦
I like to think that once the pandemic is āoverā - whatever āoverā turns out to be - and the team can meet up again, they can get back to some review videos featuring two or more of them again, allowing more scope for bonkers skits.
