The Monthly Passions Podcast is changing again!
This is a good thing, I swear. When I started the show last February, I had a dream of a conversational show that allowed gaming personalities all across the Internet the forum and motivation to speak at length and at will about the games they love. Yes, there are plenty of places to do that on the Internet, but there’s always room for more (even if it’s not a whole lot of room.)
The first episode, which held true to the panel format of most gaming podcasts, was a great example of the wide and wonderful breadth of critique and commentary that my friends and colleagues are capable of. Having four people looking to create a conversation about games they know and play at the same time brings its own challenges, and pushed back against the very vision of the show, so it changed almost immediately.
Inspired by products from This American Life and National Public Radio, the MPP as we now know it was formed. Having focused segments with more intimate-sized guest panels was perfectly congruent to the goals of the show. I’ve spent anywhere from a half hour to an hour and a half in one on one (or sometimes one on one on one) conversations with some of the ‘Net’s brightest young minds. I’ve gushed with neon glow with DJ Cutman about Hyper Light Drifter. I’ve cut through the thick and indelible darkness to find the beautiful, beating heart of the Dark Souls trilogy with Ally Mushka. Trevor Starkey and Tommy Miller helped me turn No Man’s Sky’s flop into a learning experience for the entire industry. It’s been a pretty remarkable year for overthinking video games.
And I have no intention of changing that, at least. What does need to change are a few key concerns/hang ups I have with the show. Firstly, the length. Any Irrational Passions Podcast regular knows that I have a particular gripe with long podcasts. I don’t have the time to listen to a 2-3 hour podcast to completion, and it’s a funny recurring joke when I can playfully rib Alex O’Neill about it, but it’s something else entirely when I am actually the one CREATING these behemoths. Outside of the impracticality of me expecting you to stay engaged over the course of of couple hours simply because you get to hear my voice throughout them, there’s is still something to be said about walking the walk after you talked the talk.
The solution to this is pretty simple – the delineation between segments is pretty clear and present right now. So instead of have a three segment show, I can actually just have three shows. Less anthology, more Marc Maron. Of course, this introduces a second problem – What exactly is “monthly” about a podcast that has multiple episodes a month? I don’t have an answer to that one, but I’m not going to let the search for that answer stop what I think is a good change to make.
None of this addresses what has been a consistent issue with the show so far: consistency. In production quality, in release, etc. That’s all me. I don’t have a solid “day of the week” to promise you, because these shows can be fast and loose when it comes to scheduling/recording/production. It’s difficult to convince content creators to stop doing what they’re doing to talk to me for free. It doesn’t stop me from trying, but it’s a reality I didn’t fully appreciate until now.
The onus still remains on me to provide reliable content for you, the listener, who deserves to be rewarded for their continuous faith in me with a product they can be proud to say they consume. In that respect, I’m exploring all options. Right now, let’s set the bar at least two episodes a month, one every couple of weeks. If this doesn’t work, we will sit and have another conversation just like this.
Otherwise, thank you for sticking with it. Thank you, past guests, for being part of the grand experiment. And thank you Irrational Passions, for letting me steal your segment and make it my own.
