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Matt Chat Thread

Don Peste

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||☆||
Whatever it ends up being, it needs heavy Latin and Eastern European accents to be an authentic Codexian Xperience.
 

A horse of course

Guest
I think people have gone over the reasons for Matt's channel not doing so well already (especially after the last time he was thinking of quitting). It was niche (CRPGs and PC Gnomes from the 80s/90s don't have anything like the pull of retro consoles, at least in English-speaking countries), Matt was amiable but not really the type of personality who fits with YouTube and their audience (reaction videos, making stupid faces, clickbait titles and graphics), his content was a bit dry unless you were yourself already invested in it, streams don't work so well if you're not good at engaging with the audience in the vein of the more popular e-celebs (making a fool of yourself or at least having big tits), and the more burned out he got, the less engagement with the audience, which in turn discouraged him from making the effort of editing his interviews. Even videos from the height of his success weren't all that easy to navigate for specific information or topics, since that's not how the interviews were structured.

I think Matt was also to some extent lucky to have climbed the greasy pole at the time of the kickstarter craze, when fairly big names like Fargo, Sawyer, Avellone et al were more willing to drum up support from niche communities - like when they conspicuously pretended not to notice all the advertizer-unfriendly content on RPG Codex, but dropped us like a stone once they had mainstream coverage.

No.1 reason his channel didn't work out is dropping the ale reviews tho
 

KainenMorden

Educated
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Codex Year of the Donut
I think people have gone over the reasons for Matt's channel not doing so well already (especially after the last time he was thinking of quitting). It was niche (CRPGs and PC Gnomes from the 80s/90s don't have anything like the pull of retro consoles, at least in English-speaking countries), Matt was amiable but not really the type of personality who fits with YouTube and their audience (reaction videos, making stupid faces, clickbait titles and graphics), his content was a bit dry unless you were yourself already invested in it, streams don't work so well if you're not good at engaging with the audience in the vein of the more popular e-celebs (making a fool of yourself or at least having big tits), and the more burned out he got, the less engagement with the audience, which in turn discouraged him from making the effort of editing his interviews. Even videos from the height of his success weren't all that easy to navigate for specific information or topics, since that's not how the interviews were structured.

I think Matt was also to some extent lucky to have climbed the greasy pole at the time of the kickstarter craze, when fairly big names like Fargo, Sawyer, Avellone et al were more willing to drum up support from niche communities - like when they conspicuously pretended not to notice all the advertizer-unfriendly content on RPG Codex, but dropped us like a stone once they had mainstream coverage.

No.1 reason his channel didn't work out is dropping the ale reviews tho

He got some of the brightest minds in the history of crpgs on. He had Tim Cain on. It's just a niche thing and you're not going to make much money on it. Either do it because you love it or GTFO.

I can't imagine what expenses he could possibly have. Maybe the initial cost of his equipment? It's not like he's in some studio, he recorded everything from his basement as far as I know.

Maybe he upgraded equipment over the years? I even doubt that.

I think he operated a website at one point also and shut it down? Did Matt ever do a Kickstarter?

I hope he tries to releease a game so I can shit on it without ever having played it
 
Vatnik
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If he was still interested in it, he could've scaled it down to 1 interview/month. He's just over it. But in 10 years or so, he may get back into it, as people often do. He'll remember the good, forget the bad, that sort of thing.
 

POOPERSCOOPER

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Honestly 1K a month for all the work of talking to developers (they were kind of long) isn't worth it. He probably wanted it to be a project where he could make a living on it. He can't do that on 1k. Dude seemed nice and cool but I never watched his videos probably cause they were too long.
 

KainenMorden

Educated
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Codex Year of the Donut
If he was still interested in it, he could've scaled it down to 1 interview/month. He's just over it. But in 10 years or so, he may get back into it, as people often do. He'll remember the good, forget the bad, that sort of thing.
10 years? By then most people that listen to his stuff now will be dead or uninterested.

Honestly 1K a month for all the work of talking to developers (they were kind of long) isn't worth it. He probably wanted it to be a project where he could make a living on it. He can't do that on 1k. Dude seemed nice and cool but I never watched his videos probably cause they were too long.

That is probably what he wanted, to not have to teach anymore and just interview old developers and write books all day. Now he's getting older, realized that won't happen and is just shutting it all down.

He barely talked, he just asked a few questions, let them talk and many of his questions were submitted by fans.
 

grimace

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Jan 17, 2015
Messages
2,086
If anyone plans to interview retro video game developers recording a video call requires the least amount of post production.

If the codex wants to collectively work to interview a developer via email for a text interview that would be interesting.
 

mindx2

Codex Roaming East Coast Reporter
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Codex 2012 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire RPG Wokedex Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Would love to be the onscreen Codex reporter with Breaking News! and hard hitting cutthroat abusive friendly dev interviews. :salute: The interviewing part isn't the hard part (I even have the hat!) and I'm used to engaging in interesting conversation from all my years teaching and doing public speaking. The hard part would be all the behind the scenes research, booking interviews, schedules and the tech part (don't know anything about video editing, etc.). Crooked Bee always did the heavy lifting there with the interviews I've done in the past and Infinitron critiquing and editing my written work. I can understand why Matt would be tired of this after so many years.
 

grimace

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Would love to be the onscreen Codex reporter with Breaking News! and hard hitting cutthroat abusive friendly dev interviews. :salute: The interviewing part isn't the hard part (I even have the hat!) and I'm used to engaging in interesting conversation from all my years teaching and doing public speaking. The hard part would be all the behind the scenes research, booking interviews, schedules and the tech part (don't know anything about video editing, etc.). Crooked Bee always did the heavy lifting there with the interviews I've done in the past and Infinitron critiquing and editing my written work. I can understand why Matt would be tired of this after so many years.

It's a thankless hobby.

Some of you with YouTube accounts could throw Matt some sincere thanks in comments and like his video and subscribe to his channel.
 

KainenMorden

Educated
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Codex Year of the Donut
Would love to be the onscreen Codex reporter with Breaking News! and hard hitting cutthroat abusive friendly dev interviews. :salute: The interviewing part isn't the hard part (I even have the hat!) and I'm used to engaging in interesting conversation from all my years teaching and doing public speaking. The hard part would be all the behind the scenes research, booking interviews, schedules and the tech part (don't know anything about video editing, etc.). Crooked Bee always did the heavy lifting there with the interviews I've done in the past and Infinitron critiquing and editing my written work. I can understand why Matt would be tired of this after so many years.

It's a thankless hobby.

Some of you with YouTube accounts could throw Matt some sincere thanks in comments and like his video and subscribe to his channel.

A bunch of people have been thanking him for years. He's also been thanked to the tune of 1k a month. Good luck to him.

I hope someone picks up where he left off.
 

MicoSelva

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Codex 2012 Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Divinity: Original Sin 2 Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
but it seems that he lost the enthusiasm for the show some time ago
That became obvious when he stopped editing his interviews into weekly episodes, which made it impossible for me to follow along and post them as front page news. Hence "dwindling support"!
That happened after people from his Patreon convinced Matt to change the Patreon model to "per month" instead of "per episode".
Not sure if he misunderstoof that as "we want longer but less frequent episodes" or he just did not feel the need to post them more often again.

EDIT:
BTW, Matt never fed the YT algorithm, which promotes shorter, more frequent videos, which say "like and subscribe" at the end. This limited his reach considerably and in the long run left his channel starved for new subscribers.
 
Last edited:

KainenMorden

Educated
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Codex Year of the Donut
but it seems that he lost the enthusiasm for the show some time ago
That became obvious when he stopped editing his interviews into weekly episodes, which made it impossible for me to follow along and post them as front page news. Hence "dwindling support"!
That happened after people from his Patreon convinced Matt to change the Patreon model to "per month" instead of "per episode".
Not sure if he misunderstoof that as "we want longer but less frequent episodes" or he just did not feel the need to post them more often again.

EDIT:
BTW, Matt never fed the YT algorithm, which promotes shorter, more frequent videos, which say "like and subscribe" at the end. This limited his reach considerably and in the long run left his channel starved for new subscribers.

Fuck Matt, we have to move forward, someone start throwing money at Ed123 until he starts interviewing old school developers or starts a weekly codex podcast or both.
 
Self-Ejected

Dadd

Self-Ejected
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Aug 20, 2022
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How much money do you need to record and upload minimally edited (intro music) videos? Either do it because you enjoy it, or quit like a man.
 

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
With that announcement the charm is gone. Just another Youtuber in it for ad/patreon money.
 

Glop_dweller

Prophet
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
1,226
One has to —must— be paid for one's time on large projects like this, even if it's very fun to do it. Otherwise it cannot be justified over immediate and more pressing concerns.
 

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