Idle Thumbs relaunches in podcast form (wuxtry)
(Update: iTunes support kicked in! Hooray!)
First things first: Idle Thumbs is back in podcast form. Go check it out. If you never knew Idle Thumbs existed in the first place (a likely scenario), feel free to read on for some self-indulgent history and explanation:
In 2004, as part of a team of mainly San Francisco Bay Area- and United Kingdom-based writers, I helped launch Idle Thumbs, a gaming site that (we think) at least partially succeeded in its goal of delivering video game writing simultaneously entertaining and informed. It’s hard to pin down what exactly the Thumbs ethic was (there was more than one heated argument to that end) but it definitely had one.
At least, for a little while. As it turns out, that sort of endeavor is difficult to maintain indefinitely, particularly when you’re doing it entirely in your free time. On top of that, the limited-but-fairly-unusual exposure we got through the site became for many of us something of a springboard to other (paying) jobs involving games.
The site became a zombie, occasionally revived but largely languishing, and our forum community dwindled to a small cadre of uncommonly-dedicated daily posters. We’re hoping they’ll get some more company in the coming weeks and months.
In the years since the Thumb’s conception, all of us involved have held the idea of the site near and dear to our hearts, and it’s gone through a few brief resurgences. Finally, we think we’ve hit on a way to bring the Thumb in a way that’s sustainable and enjoyable: as a weekly podcast.
Certainly there are already innumerable gaming podcasts to enjoy, but we think we’ve got some good things going for us. We all work in the industry from day to day—myself as an editor with Gamasutra, Nick Breckon as an editor with my former employer Shacknews, and Jake Rodkin as a graphic designer and community coordinator at developer Telltale Games—and, we think importantly, we record in person for Enhanced On-Air Chemistry. No Skype. Discussion is off-the-cuff and informed.
A few notes: Our website is somewhat temporary; the design will grow out a bit as we bulk up with more episodes. Stop by our forums; help that community grow. Send us questions; we’ll answer them on air. And proper iTunes integration should be ready any time now, whenever Apple gets around to it. (Update: iTunes support is here! Get it now!)
Tell your friends! Coming up this week we’ll have plenty of hands-on BlizzCon discussion. And possibly a new song. And more.
Tags: console gaming, idle thumbs, pc gaming, podcast, rebirth
October 13th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I was one of those freaks who played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for a ridiculously long amount of time, but I’ve always enjoyed playing a variety of other games as well. When it came out though it was all I played and I didn’t even care for the combat, I just loved exploring the world (not the Oblivion gates, ugh) and doing random quests, stumbling upon shrines and ruins and dungeons in the wilderness, all of that. On the PC I had over 120 hours on my save, then a year later on the 360 I had an additional 60 into the main game, and another 40 after going through The Shivering Isles expansion.
Fallout 3 could be another game like that for me, and I’m interested in checking it out, but with all the other great games coming out soon, I don’t think I’d be able to give it my full attention. Should be a good one to save for the next gaming drought.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:17 am
My little brother games exactly like what they were talking about. He buys maybe one new game every couple of years, but hell play it for month on end. Bastard had a copy of Shogo he must have put 700 hours into easily hell he still plays it whenever he stumbles on the CD.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
That was pretty rad.
I’d say that the Wario segment was the only part of the podcast which seemed jarring to listen to. The rest of it was awesome and, minus the Faylor, disturbingly reminiscent of the Shackcast.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:16 am
[...] So, yeah, go get it. Subscribe in iTunes. Tell all your friends and eFriends and iFriends too. Idle Thumbs are good people. Here’s Chris Remo’s annotated history of Idle Thumbs and why you should subscribe. [...]
March 24th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
This is right here, in the present, not the future.