We spend $20 every month on interesting games — then talk about them!

Why $20? It’s high enough that we can afford most indie games, but not so high that it’ll break the bank. And hopefully any listeners who want to play along can afford it too.

Why one month? We’re busy people! A weekly schedule would kill us: $20 a week?! We’re not made of money! And then we’ve got to actually play the games? But once a month is much easier.

So what do I do? Me, the person reading this? You can listen to the podcast at the end of every month. We hope you like it! We’re aiming to upload them on the last Sunday of every month. (Point and laugh as we miss this deadline over and over for your amusement!)

One-way broadcasting? That’s sooo nineties. Wait, there’s more! At the start of each new month, we also tell you ahead of time which game we’ll be talking about. So if you like, you can grab the game at the start of the month, play it like we’ll be doing, then listen to our thoughts at the end. Then tell us what you think in the comments! We hope it’ll be fun.

Why not play free games? It’s true we’re excluding some people financially. Some people can’t afford $20 a month for lunch, let alone games. But we’re interested not just in playing these games, but trying to keep the indie space friendly and a viable place for people to earn a living. We’ve heard a lot about indie devs pricing their games lower and lower – $5, $3, put it in a bundle – because the flood of games is just too great and they can’t compete. We want to help stop this, if only in a small way. By aiming for $20 a month, we’re saying “an indie game can be worth $20. It’s okay to price your game at $19.99, even if you’re not a big publisher!”

We hope that by taking this approach, we can help indies charge a fair price for their games, which will help them make games for a living. This means happier devs and, ultimately, a more productive, creative and interesting indie scene. We hope that by sticking with the $20 price point, we’re engaging with these economic issues rather than excluding those people who it affects the most.

Will you cover old games? The gaming press is often transfixed by new releases. Usually they cover games in the run-up to release, talk about them on launch day, and then never mention them again. If you’re a blogger, you might feel pressured to talk about current releases to stay relevant.

We feel this puts a lot of pressure on release-day. It suggests that a game doesn’t “count” unless it’s new – that anything old is useless, expired. Sure, we’ll cover new games. But we also want to be free to play older games, because they’re still worthwhile.

Who are you again? We’re Jamie Patton and Andy Noelker, two friends who love talking about games! We also live on opposite sides of an ocean, so this is a cool way for us to keep in touch.

Why dollars? Because America is the centre of the universe. Just kidding.