Dustin talks finances and content for ZeroSecondCooldown.
Hey everyone, Dustin here to talk a bit about some stuff
that’s been happening with ZeroSecondCooldown and a bit about myself, current
situations, and stuff I’m looking/hoping to do in the near future on the site.
So hope you read this, as it outlines some big points about the blog.
First, I want to talk about what may be the most noticeable
change to those who don’t have AdBlock enabled on ZeroSecondCooldown (and thank
you if you don’t!): we now have ads. They’ll be displaying on the sides of the
main page and of every article. It saddens me a bit to do this, as my original
hope for ZeroSecondCooldown was to make sure the site was one people could
trust, that I had integrity and people could feel comfortable to visit the
site, watch videos, and read the reviews and feel that it was good, trustworthy
content. Even with ads, I still hope that’s the case.
My reason for running ads now, is, of course, financial
reasons. Of course, I absolutely love running ZeroSecondCooldown. Although I
can’t dedicate the time I would prefer to, I do dedicate what I can, when I
can, even if I don’t post for a while, I always make sure to do good stuff when
I get back on the horse. Of course, being a student, I have limited time and
money, and running a blog about video games, where I buy my own video games for
each game review I do or video I do (which, admittedly, I *would* buy them
anyways) costs a lot of money, so, although I will be making pennies from it in
a good couple of months, I’m currently putting up ads in hopes of being able
to, at some point, recoup some costs.
I will say however, that if the ads ever get too obtrusive,
I will remove them without hesitation, you all have my guarantee on that.
To get away from money related matters for a bit, I’m going
to talk about some of the upcoming plans I have for the blog.
First, I’m hoping to do a stream/video for the Wii U version
of Child of Light, as well as a review. Since Child of Light releases this
week, I’ll be hoping to do that this weekend at some point.
Next, I’ll be commenting on some of the Nintendo E3 news
soon, mostly because it interests me very much, as I feel Nintendo has
announced some interesting stuff for this June.
I also have two interviews in mind that I would like to do,
but I’ll need to get in contact with both of the people I have in mind. Since
nothing is confirmed yet, I won’t say what they are, so as to not get any hopes
up in case I’m not able to get these interviews.
Also, I am going to try and plan a big Mario Kart 8 live
stream as close to the release as possible. I’m hoping to get four people, have
the microphone up, and just have a lot of screaming and chaos. I’ll get more
details on that in the coming weeks though.
A feature that will be up soon is Bob Ross Game Design
(tentative title), where I’ll stream myself working in GameMaker: Studio,
Stencyl, and maybe even Twine, learning how to make different kinds of games,
talking with stream viewers, being chill and relaxed, and just having fun and
learning, and hopefully releasing those random games/prototypes to the public.
For the final thing I have in mind for the blog, I’d like
to, time permitting, expand the Dad Souls series, with Dark Souls 2, co-op on
games like Donkey Kong, and whatever my dad would feel like playing. Of course,
this all depends on his time schedule as well as mine, so any updates for this
would be much more sporadic in when they would come out.
Finally, although I don’t necessarily want to bring it up, I’m
going to talk about one last thing, going back to my financial situation. I’m
currently running a Patreon, in hopes of being able to get enough of a sustainable
income on the side where I can leave my current part-time job and focus on
school, ZeroSecondCooldown, and start working more on independent game
development. Just to make sure people know though: all of the content on
ZeroSecondCooldown remains free, and nothing I do, from articles, to streams,
to game prototypes, will be locked behind a paywall in any way. The Patreon is
simply being done as a way to, if you feel inclined to, donate money to me. As
a note, my Patreon is set on a per month basis, so if you want to donate one
time, let the charge go through at the end of the month, and feel free to stop
being a patron for me. If you do donate to me in any capacity, you have my
eternal gratitude, and I can only hope that I am deserving of any money given.
The link to my Patreon is as follows:
Again, I would prefer not to do this, but with talks of
finance in this, there is no better place to talk about this. This will be the
only time I will post my Patreon on ZeroSecondCooldown, so don’t fear that you’ll
be seeing a link to it in every post.
I’d like to thank everyone who reads ZeroSecondCooldown for
doing so. If it wasn’t for the outside support, it wouldn’t be nearly what it
is now, and I can only hope that I continue to provide strong content worthy of
reading/watching/playing in the future.
Thank you.
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