Cup of Jones - September 6, 2018

Hey Jones! Awhile back I noticed that there is an “Easy Allies” community tag on twitch (the kind of tag you can use when setting up a broadcast). Is that something you’d like more twitch streamers to use in the future? Or is it kinda just there?

TAHK0

Hey Jones, would you be willing to weigh in on the idea of objectivity in criticism? More specifically, where you think it begins and ends? Like, on some scale surely there is some finite element of objectivity, right? Would you feel comfortable saying that Spider-Man is objectively a better game than Superman 64? It seems like once you enter into the category of great games things get incredibly hazy, which means that usually an 8, 9, and a 10 can appear to essentially be the same quality of game. However, do you think there are games that can be objectively defined as being in the 7 range? Don't get me wrong, I'm not even sure a purely objective review would even be desirable (as so much of our experiences hinge on the lens with which we use to view the world); I just think it is an interesting thought experiment.

James Kennedy

Hey Jones, I recently did some public speaking training and melted when I realised how often I use "verbal crutches" like: "You know", "uhhh" and "I mean" in conversation and it's something I'm trying to work on. Do the Allies think about this stuff when appearing on camera? L&R Cash.

Cash

Mr Jones, any chance the community can vote on Ally Haloween costumes, put forth by willing Allies, at a certain patron tier? Or as an unofficial 51k goal? Are the Allies doing anything spooktacular as a Halloween event? My vote would be for you and Kyle to dress as Wayne and Garth.

Morgan Mohalla

Safety reply

the_finnish_ally

Hi Brandon, In recent episodes many people, including myself, have asked you about your self promotion and how do you plan to attract new patrons. What might have been overlooked in this discussion is how to incite the people already invested to increase their pledges. Personally, I think your one dollar and five dollar tiers are excellent. I’ve been a 5 dollar Patron since you introduced the Early Access Tier and I’ve been very happy with it. But at the moment, you guys are not giving me much incentive to go beyond that. And since Early Access is your most popular tier, I don’t think I’m alone in this. While Community Showcase is a very cool idea, it serves a very niche audience. As does the Easy Allies Film Club. I’d love to see you guys expand the 10 dollar tier to make it more appealing to a wider audience. You guys did a great job with the 5 dollar tier couple of months ago and as a result your Patreon grew fairly quickly over over 5000 dollars. I believe if you would introduce the new 10 dollar tier as a part of your first studio megastream, the results might be similar. I promise I ask a personal question next time :) Love and Respect PS. I scribbled a 10 dollar tier that I personally would find appealing. Not a pitch, just food for thought. EZA Contributor, $10 or more per month: 1. With this pledge you can participate in our monthly Community Showcase. 2. You will get the chance to vote for our next Full Playthrough. Poll with 2-3 predetermined options will be posted to Patreon at the beginning of every month. (I know you might be sceptical, but I believe Blood Pact is already doing something similar and this could definitely move the needle. You guys get to pick the games, but let the fans decide which one gets full playthrough next. Win-win.) 3. You’ll also get the opportunity to help us with the production of Huber’s Game Show. (Patrons could ease your workload by sending you ready-made trivia questions via Patreon, help you with Family Feud style survey questions and so on...) 4. And finally, with this pledge you can be part of our weekly Live Guest Show. If there’s something you would like to ask our Special Guest, send us your question via Patreon and it may be included in the show.

the_finnish_ally

No audio this week, huh?

POKEY CLYDE

Hey jones I’m sure this has been answered before but I was just curious how you and your wife met?

Brice Hornsby

Hi Brandon, I might have mentioned this in the past. But I really feel like you guys should reach out to linus tech tips, he is a youtuber who is trying to make a service similar to Patreon combined with Youtube, It's called floatplane(www.floatplane.com), I think even if the service is not ready yet, you guys have such a wide verity of content with so many different use cases. They would learn about more ways to implement something like EZA into their system, you get to give them all the feedback you could ever want. Since it's a new service anyone who joins there will see you guys listed, keep in mind he has over 7million subs and multiple Youtubers will probably be joining in once it gets going. I know they are not currently interested in having more people on the service yet but I still think you should form some sort of connection to get details on development. They are really good guys, I have seen linus go out of his way to help other youtubers, his friends and even his neighbors. I think he would be a great asset to EZA. Just consider it, I know Patreon has been good and you guys are comfortable here, but sometimes you just don't know what could happen in the future and having a solid backup option would be nice. Thanks for everything you guys do - Love and Respect!

Same here

Finally got around to listening to this episode. Thanks for answering my question/comment from last week :)

Nicholas Bobbie

Will Cup of Jones and Community Showcase be on the same day from now on? I feel that last Cup of Jones was rushed and Community Showcase had some technical problems like mic levels and Ian's headphones not working. Also I love when Community Showcase starts at 10AM, because otherwise I can't watch it live.

Alexander Zyryanov

Brandon - My 14 Yr Old Daughter started High School this year, she loves theater and performed in all of the productions in Middle School and she even won a UIL award for her acting in a One Act Play. Now that she's in High School it's much more Musical oriented and she's lacks confidence in her singing voice. She recently auditioned for her HS production of Hairspray and did not land a part blaming it on her 'terrible singing'. Naturally I think she is amazing, I think she has a wonderful voice but I suggested getting her singing lessons. Right now she is so bummed out she is not even sure that she should bother. I know that rejection is part of the process and it's hard but I also know that she loves the stage and she loves the camaraderie one enjoys when involved in a large production. Knowing you were involved in theater and many a production -- Can you share any stories about dealing with rejection in the world of theater and how you handled it that I could pass on to her? As a proud Dad that never had the nerve to get up on stage, I just want to motivate her and keep her from becoming discouraged. Thank You!

Jason Walstrom

Teasing you with Animal Crossing eventual announcement is pretty well worn by now, but I'm curious to know if you've ever had the opportunity to talk about what you'd want out of the new game. I vaguely recall "Just more Animal Crossing" answers from you in pre-shows, but I'd honestly be really disappointed if a new title doesn't do much more than New Leaf. City Folk on Wii was barely more than a retread of Wild World if you can recall, so we have gone through this before. For my own hopes, I would love for villager interactions and town generation to really take a giant leap for our first HD outing. A more diverse, imaginative space filled with villagers that seem to do more than aimlessly wander around and send you on errands would shoot me over the moon for this game.

Kirbu

Not a question but I had to agree with the Merchandise comment. I think it just comes from the fact you still are... scared (?) of collaborating with your fans. I feel like EZA is a great band of friends but really really protective about working with others. And this shows when most of the problems you're talking about in Cup of Jones is : we don't have the time, we don't have the people. I'm just wondering, why wouldn't you just pay for 1 order of a few designs from maybe a talented Patreon supporter. You do that a few times a year, and that means you don't have to hire new people full time. And I really think it's an important topic, even if you think it's not much. I don't have the numbers but I'm guessing your sales numbers aren't great compared to your number of subs on youtube or patreon supporters. This is because frankly those t shirts are pretty bland, in my opinion. I could just put the EZA logo on a blank shirt and do the same at home instead of paying about 30+ bucks (I live in europe). I'd love to buy an EZA shirt, mug, or other, but they all look copy/paste (and even the 2 other designs not available on the EZA official site aren't really that great). Good merch means real revenue if you have great designs. Merch can be sold to more than Patreon supporters, each of your youtube subs. You're missing out on so much opportunities : memes, running jokes, incredible drawings of the allies (we've seen plenty). There's a whole EZA "culture" and gimmicks that would make great t-shirts. Anyway, just wanted to rant about that, not about your content, which is (almost) always great :p

Térence Caron

So I'm happy we hit 50k again, and that the studio search continues. Without sounding like a broken record on this, has that fact been announced outside of Cup of Jones? I feel it's even more important to do so this month, as Brandon mentioned that there might be further delays depending on how long it takes for the studio space chosen to become free. Last time I mentioned this as feedback on Cup of Jones, i was told it was a mistake, but that it would be resolved within a bigger announcement at Easy Living. But exactly the same thing seems to have happened this month. Again sorry if I've missed it somewhere. Just needs a simple patreon post and tweet. If this is corrected before next Thursday please ignore, i'll likely even delete the comment.

Diablo

Hey Jones, i only called paper mario stupid because you did it yourself during your infamous HOG rant, if i remember correctly. It was meant as a reference to that, but clearly i was not making that clear enough.

mikkel hervel nemmøe

Hi Brandon. I Just want to share with you the joy that is Monster Hunter World. I have been playing the pc version for a week now and I can't remember when I have been so eager to go home from work and play a game. I don't play multiplayer games but me and my friends will play any co-op game we can find. We always run into problems with co-op games because some of us (them) have a lot more time to play than others (me) and they level much faster than I do. MHW solves this problem by letting you level your gear instead. Sure, they have access to more gear sets and they have seen more monsters & environments but I've never had the idea I cannot contribute to the hunt or that I'm just a spectator barely doing any damage. The game is great and I will be playing this gem for the next couple of months. I have Ben Moore to thank for all this. His enthusiasm for this game brought it to my attention and I cannot thank him enough. Love & Respect, NightOwl

Morning Jones! Personal question. Not sure if you have answered this one before but I just recently became a patron so I haven't been up to date on all your episodes and questions you have answered. Anyway as a big Castlevania fan I was just wondering how did you get into the series? For me I remember when I was a kid I borrowed my neighbors SNES and he had Super Castlevania 4. I remember falling in love with the game and was a fan since. The music was perfect in setting tone and the world they built was the perfect Gothic horror with the way things looked. Symphony of the Night was the next game for me and we all know how great that one is. Probably my favorite in the series and 4 is my second. Anyway I am rambling now. Thanks for answering my question. P.S. What are your favorite games in the series?

Chris Eyerly

It was discontinued. Here is final EZAnime post: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/17774079">https://www.patreon.com/posts/17774079</a>

Łukasz Wizła

Congrats to the allies :D

Jones, can you offer any advice to someone looking to start their own YouTube channel. I was curious what video captureing device and video software you use. There are so many options it’s overwhelming but I’m really interested in video editing and would like to start doing it.

strawhatninja

Bets only once a year !? I would honestly lower my Patreon lol. It's the most fun stuff, please dont make less of them. :(

Sven Van Lathem

I'm desperate for that audio version. Extracting it from YouTube has been quite tedious in situations where I'm rushing outside the house/wifi zone.

Andrew Chalmers

Hi Jones, Listening to your discussion on merch, My wife gave her two sense: Why not spend one month to bight the bullet and do the leg work to set up a web page where the fans can submit their own designs. Like this: Graphic Designer Dan loves you all and has a rad idea. He visits your By-the-fans For-the-fans web page. He finds 1) a tab for purchasable merch, 2) a tab to view current submissions (by item: T-shirt’s, hoodies, water bottle, whatever...) , and 3) a tab to submit his own design. [Here he finds whatever terms of submission you all seem necessary to uphold the Family friendly Love and Respect values of EasyA, and maybe a clause stating each Patreon can only submit 1 design a month, and “you will be banned from submitting again if you breaks the terms, blah,blah,blah”] Designer Dan then designs his own design and uploads the full resolution image. The design then appears on the “current submissions” page and stays up for 1 month and other fans vote on it (thumbs down or thumbs up) If Designer Dan’s submission gets enough upvotes, it gets made in limited quantity - Designer Dan gets kudos (listed as the designer) and gets one for free, the rest sell to support the EasyAllies. Tahdah! Cooler Merch and limited collectors items! (That you only have to deal with once a month from here on out)

What happened to EZAnime? Am I forgetting or missing something?

Kian Jahromi

I am sorry if this has been asked before. I was wondering what was the thing that made you fall in love with the old west setting. Was it Red Dead or was it something different like a favorite movie or a place you visited? Personally, I love the old west, because my grandfather loved old west history and shared it with me when I was a kid.

Mr.V

Live show name - EZA... Right Now.

Steven Beaumont

Out of curiosity, who wrote the "The best games are also Toys" line of the GTA3 retrospective back at GT. As something of a writer myself, this notion struck me as profound and illuminating, and as I often cite this line, I'd like to give the writer proper credit! Along those lines - what are some underrated games that allowed for some incredible, toy-like, adventures you wish got better press. PS - I think I left this comment on YouTube a week or so ago, so apologies if it was already covered and I missed it!

Paul Meekin

Awe, man! I read this as you going live at noon PST :'(

Tyler Travis

Hey Mr. Jones! Watching Cup of Jones provides wonderful educational opportunities in not only the week to week production of EZA, but also what my fellow Patrons suggest and ask. After gaining so much feedback and questions over the course of not only Cup of Jones’ lifetime, but EZA as a whole, I was curious: What, in your personal opinion, is the biggest misconception about Easy Allies as a whole and where do you find this misconception the most? Thanks again for taking my question! Cheers!

Brandon K Gann

Regarding the constant questions and suggestions around merchandise (and keeping up the demand with fresh designs, potentially tying discounts into reward tiers, etc etc.), here's a freebie that you (A) have already designed, (B) already has an established demand, and (C) could be used to build hype for an up-coming, much-anticipated show: Jordy's dino shirt from Box Peek. GIMME GIMME GIMME. L&amp;R, James, Blindly_Fumblin

James McCoy

There was a comment last week about the Tiers and how some are not great or worth the value. For me, the Podcast Producer tier is the least valuable. The reason for this is, there is no incentive to watch that section of the podcast. It is just a black screen with names and them being read out. When the section appears, I skip the video to the end to make sure there is no hidden content and then rate it and close the video. For me, I would never up to that tier for this reason. If you had some sort of video running to watch, or some bonus content mixed throughout, it would give it some value to watch.

BeardedScotsman86