Diecast – Twenty Sided

This week, Paul is the one that showed up with a fistfull of topics, and I’m the one who… doesn’t. I could get used to this.

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Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
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Link (YouTube)

Show notes:
00:00 Shamus Making Content on the DL

This Thursday, I’m launching my Final Fantasy XII webcomic!

I kid, I kid. We’re going to do something totally unrelated to JRPGs.

01:56 Unity Whitepapers

I’m such a serious programmer that I even read whitepapers in Dark Mode.

13:18 Endless Space 2 on Linux

Gaming on Lunix is here! Partially. Mostly.

You’re comfortable downloading and compiling code, right?

17:24 Darksiders 2: Deathinitive Edition

18:42 The Tale of the Invalid Verification Codes

I’ve used several banks over the last couple of decades, and it seems like they’re all terrible at electronic banking. It’s like they just want to go back to the days of talking to tellers face-to-face.

Also, here is the skit Paul mentioned.

37:06 Wireless Headphones and the wrong way to do battery mounting.

Q: How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Can’t do anything about it. That’s a hardware problem.

42:53 Patreon Census

That’s it. You’re done. You built the service, and now you just need to keep it running and avoid bloat.

This is something that’s obvious when your business is small and local. A restaurant owner isn’t going to stand there in the kitchen thinking, “What’s my next move? Do I sell furniture, or branch out into contract landscaping?” But tech companies often suffer from this weird need to expand in odd ways that don’t build on their core business.

I can understand why some get-rich-quick techbro might do this. If you don’t care about the business and you’re just looking to cash out with an IPO, then you’re probably just going to throw random ideas and buzzwords into your mission statement until you attract investors.

But Patreon founder Jack Conte isn’t a slimy tech bro. My take on him is that he’s an adorably idealistic hippie artist who created Patreon because he needed it to exist, not because he wanted to be the next Elon Bezos.

But Patreon still flails around quite a bit. My guess is that Jack – a 37 year old keyboardist / guitarist / bassist / drummer / songwriter / YouTuber – has perhaps filled his years studying something besides business management. Thus he isn’t totally sure what he should be doing, and he’s probably taking a lot of advice from guys who did study the techbro playbook.

If he were to ask me, my advice to Conte would be this:

Relax and let Patreon keep doing what it’s doing. It doesn’t need to expand or transform. Ignore the techbros. The line doesn’t need to go up forever. Pretend you’re running a restaurant and not a global corporation. Keep your overhead low so you can’t be sniped by an eager upstart, and keep an eye on the books to keep everyone honest.

One hand on the wheel. Steady as she goes.

49:12 Mailbag: Favourite RPG Choices

Dear Diecast,

What’s one / some of your favourite choices that you’ve made in a
role-playing game? And what do you think are the best games of the genre in
this sense?

All the best,
Andrew

56:49 Mailbag: Games you have Slept on

Hey Shamus and Paul, I recently got around to playing through Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. I have owned it for a couple of years, but there was no real reason for me not playing it any sooner, other than a gigantic backlog of games. I really enjoyed it and can easily understand all of the accolades the game received when it came out. Are there any games, either critically or socially well received, that you found your way to after all of the hype had died down, that actually lived up to said hype?

Thank you,
Chris/Gautsu