Big (and we hope) exciting things are coming.
Hey there, Qoopalings! Jerms here with some news about the future of Qoopa Klub. Now that we are in the third year of this little endeavor (time really flies!), those of us behind the scenes have decided to shake up the way we’ve been doing things. Not saying that what we do isn’t fun and enjoyable, but after 3 years, we want to try something a little bolder and freakier. Here’s what we have planned!
Qoopa Klub is switching from recording an episode every 2 weeks (or so) in favor of switching to a SEASON format. “Whoa whoa whoa, Jeremy,” you might be heard to exclaim. Don’t worry, I’ll explain! We’ve found that the current method of recording every few weeks is giving us podcast fatigue, and the episodes sometimes suffer as a result. Switching to a season format allows us the opportunity to pre-record episodes in bulk and really take the time to focus on the content we are producing a bit more.
A season will consist of a solid 10 episodes of Qoopa Klub. Seasons will also have episodes that are not originally planned for things such as Nintendo Direct reaction shows, E3, monumental new games, or if we just *want* to do a show. Seasons might have a unifying theme (which I’ll come to in a minute). This, I think, will give us more focus on what we want to discuss and just make it easier to be consistent, while providing a mix of focused AND current content.
The QK members who appear for each episode can and will change. Instead of having all 5 of us on every single episode, it seems more and more obvious to me that not everyone is going to have something to say on every episode. Now Playing is a good example. Sometimes, we just aren’t playing anything, or haven’t played the game featured in our feature topic or whatever. So rotating members for recording episodes is a good way to keep the people that want to be on for a certain episode on the show and engaged. We do this for fun and because we are all BFFs, and I don’t want anyone to feel not into it. This also gives us a chance to have a fresh and possibly unpredictable flavor for each discussion, which is exciting to me!
Seasons will be pre-recorded in bulk, then released on a set schedule. This is probably the biggest change. With a rotating “cast,” we have the ability to be flexible with scheduling and record more episodes in advance. The goal to record a 10 episode season of QK is 2 months, which should be ample time, though it may take longer depending on various factors. So, in a 2 month period, we will have recorded 10 complete episodes for the season, which will then be released on a staggered schedule at a later time, likely weekly. Again, this does not account for episodes we do for reaction stuff, which allows us to have a pretty unique format (a mix of predetermined, focused content with current events shows spaced throughout). The other benefit to recording this way will be a quite lengthy “off-period” between seasons, allowing us to spend our lives doing other things, AND allowing me MUCH more time to edit and get our shows to sound as best as I can.
2 Seasons will be recorded in a year. Season 1 is going to begin recording this month, and episodes will start appearing by late September/early October (if not sooner!). The podcast feed is not changing, but the new format is essentially giving us the opportunity to “reboot” the show and start from scratch while also still offering the 3 year backlog of shows using our old format. This means that some topics that were covered previously (like game specific shows about Super Metroid, Ocarina of Time, or what have you) may get unearthed for a fresh take from a different angle.
Off-time between recording gives us more room to create other content! This, to me, is the most exciting prospect of this new format. The podcast absolutely gets 100% of our focus, and doing a show every two weeks is surprisingly exhausting, even for a show like ours where we are dreadfully uninformed! With more of an “off-season” for the podcast, we will have more time focus on creating tons of other types of content that go beyond the podcast. This can mean doing video reviews, writing more blogs, let’s plays, getting back into streaming, whatever tickles our fancy.
The blog will be getting another facelift! This will likely be very small, housekeeping type stuff, like shuffling podcast posts around and organizing things a bit better. We want more people to check out the blog more often, so the new recording format is definitely going to help us create more content here!
SO, this is a lot of information to take in, and this is a very large change for us. We’re definitely still figuring out more of the backend logistics to make something like this work, so there may be some bumps in the road along the way, but I think the finished product is going to be SO MUCH BETTER.
With this out of the way, I can now safely drop the focus of Season 1: The 90’s. Buzzfeed would be proud. We’ll be talking about pivotal games from the decade, our memories of the culture, and much more. The first episode of the season is going to dedicated to the PlayStation classic METAL GEAR SOLID, with a special guest that we’ve wanted on the show forever. I’m very excited!
