You may have noticed that The Mash Those Buttons Show has been MIA for the past two weeks. A few episodes back we mentioned that we were trying to ground the show a bit more, as we were not able to keep up with the recording schedule that we originally planned. After giving it a few weeks, we realized that the show we envisioned just wasn’t possible right now. In order to execute on the vision we had for MTBS we would need a larger staff working on the show. We would need more people to help produce and record segments and features.
At this time that just isn’t possible, and honestly, it became kind of a drag every week to try to hit that mark and not come close. There was one thing that we did enjoy doing every week though, and that was recording MTBS: Extended Play. It’s currently a Patreon exclusive show where myself and Nick would discuss additional topics that we couldn’t fit on to that weeks MTBS. It was way more enjoyable to record, and honestly, it just always turned out to be a better show. With that being the case, we are going to shelve the format we had for MTBS for now. At some point we may run a show that can fully realize that vision, but not right now. Beginning September 7th we will take the format that we use for Extended Play and that will become The Mash Those Buttons Show proper. We’ll be able to deliver a more consistent show without over-extending ourselves. If you’re a fan of the original Mashcast, it’s pretty much going to be like that.
So what does that mean for the Patreon? We’re still trying to figure that out. One of the reasons we are waiting until September to move to the new format is so we can make sure we fulfill our Patreon rewards for this month, and that includes a new Extended Play every week. With MTBS taking on the format of Extended Play, we can’t guarantee that we’ll have enough content every week to do an Extended Play, so on August 31st we’ll be changing our Patreon rewards to reflect the removal of Extended Play. At this time there will be no replacement show for Extended Play, but we believe we can deliver MTBS a few days early every week to Patreon supporters. Additionally, we will be removing the Cutting Room Floor benefit as there hasn’t been much Cutting Room Floor content for the past few months, and starting in September there won’t be any at all.
It’s not all bad news, though. Over the next few weeks we’ll be examining the Patreon and working on ways to deliver more meaningful rewards for supporters. We are very interested in developing a few new limited series, so rewards for that may be exclusive content or early access to the series. We are also looking into producing more Patreon exclusive shows. On top of that we are looking into Patreon exclusive merch and merch discounts.
We’ll have more information in the coming weeks, but for now, I would like to say thank you for your support and we hope you enjoy the “new” Mash Those Buttons Show.
