Podcast! Crossplay’s First Sale! The Future!
Get 25% off Crossplay for the next week and change, while booting up your podcast player of choice.
Nine months since taking a deep breath, I can’t imagine life without Crossplay. I hope over these nine months, this newsletter has proven its value. I hope you’ve found it interesting, enlightening, and if I’m lucky, inspiring. Whatever you get out of it, I’m glad you’re here. All that aside, there’s business to address—and it’s all good news!
Crossplay’s First Sale Is Now Live
Money is tight, I get it. But Crossplay only exists because of the kind and thoughtful people who back the writing and reporting that happens here. Though it’s not as clever as a one-year anniversary sale, why not an Almost Nine Months Old Sale?
That’s why I’m offering a sale on Crossplay subscriptions for the first time, knocking 25% off the price for both monthly and annual subs. Choosing to back, or continuing to back, Crossplay means that I’m able to develop this into a more ambitious project.
This sale will run until the end of the month, and with a new benefit: early access to…
Welcome to Spawnpoint
You might have noticed that yesterday, I launched a podcast called Spawnpoint. I’d been kicking around a Crossplay podcast for months, but I needed the right person to pair up with. Enter The Guardian’s Keza MacDonald, an old colleague of mine!
I’m happy with our first episode, and proud it’s barely an hour. That’s one of my big promises with this podcast: we won’t waste your time. One hour, in and out. That’s it!
There are a few other points worth nothing, however:
Paying Crossplay subscribers will have 48 hours of early access to every podcast. (If we’re lucky enough to be successful enough to have ads, you’ll never hear ads.)
Your private RSS feed is available, I believe, within podcasts posts.
Episodes with Keza will drop once per month. (We’ve talked about doing it twice per month, but that’ll depend on your feedback. But it’ll never, ever be weekly.)
There will be other episodes in the feed, primarily interviews, starting with thatgamecompany’s Jenova Chen on parenting, Sky, and online moderation.
Yes, I know people want me to chat with Vinny Caravella. I promise I will.
You can access Spawnpoint via Substack, or through anywhere else with podcasts:
If you have any technical challenges, please let me know. I’m new to this.
Hey, Is That a Cool New Logo?
Sure is! I worked with artist Luke Schuler to create artwork for Crossplay and Spawnpoint. They’re wonderful, and I’m grateful for Luke lending time and talents to someone whose ideas amount to “I want something that looks good.” I’m sorry, Luke, but I do not have an eye for art. Luke was patient and created something(s) excellent.
Here’s what Luke has cooked up over the past few month:
Similarly, a big thanks to Alex “Mogi Grumbles” Taam for Spawnpoint’s music. Alex composed the similarly great music for my old horror podcast, Til Death Do Us Part.
Follow Crossplay on Socials Now
With the new artwork, I’ve decided to launch socials accounts for Crossplay:
I’d like to be on Threads, too, but Threads is weird about account management. (Do I make a Crossplay one, or transition my public account?) Stay tuned. This will be a place to follow when work is published on Crossplay, but I’m hoping to expand my audience/reach by making videos for Instagram and TikTok, too, so maybe those will show up there? I’d hoped to launch a few of those alongside this, but I ran out of time!
Substack?
Substack stepped in it a few months back, then made things worse. I’m aware a few people decided to stop subscribing to Crossplay because of this, and I hold them no ill will. It was a reasonable choice, and I’m thankful anyone, at any time, has decided to spend their money to help make Crossplay a reality, flawed circumstances and all.
Crossplay is, for the moment, staying with Substack. My thoughts echo those of Max Read, who explained his reasoning around Substack’s problems in a recent post:
“Read Max, however, is still relatively small and insecure, and the passive growth I enjoy from being on Substack is significant, both in offsetting churn and in placing the newsletter and my work on stable footing. Switching to an alternative carries both the short-term risks of transfer and the longer term risks of losing a significant engine of growth. These risks may be small and ultimately worthwhile--I’m sure I’m overestimating the role of Substack’s network effects and growth hacks in my growth.”
I would like Crossplay to be a potential career path, not a side project.
And I am cautious by nature. I started Crossplay as an escape hatch after being laid off last year from VICE. Remap has been very successful, and I’m grateful. But I am always living in fear that the other shoe is going to drop, and Crossplay was designed as another shoe. If you have a lot of shoes, maybe you can afford for more to drop?
Ultimately, though, there’s another line from Max’s piece that stands out:
“I should probably switch newsletter providers and expect I will be forced to eventually, but am cautious about doing so at Read Max’s current size and growth rate.”
If Substack stepped in it once, they’re likely to do so again. I’m in a Discord channel with writers who’ve made the transition to, or plan to do so. I’m taking notes, and weighing the costs and benefits of each option. Ultimately, that’s probably where all this is headed, and we’ll do another check-in when Crossplay hits its first anniversary.
First anniversary?! That’s hard to imagine, but it’s not that far off.
As always, I’ll be listening to what you make of all this, as well.
In Summary
Okay, let’s do some bullet points!
There’s a 25% off Crossplay sale right now. Click here to take advantage.
We’ve got a new podcast called Spawnpoint. Please rate and review!
Crossplay has some sick new logos and artwork, courtesy of Luke Schuler.
I’m taking stock of Crossplay’s future on—and potentially off—Substack.
That’s it. Back to work. I’ll have a real post for you later this week!
Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.
Also:
Now’s a good time to ask: do you think Crossplay is a good value? What else would you want from Crossplay, if you could wave a magic wand? Less of?
I will be attending PAX East, though Crossplay will not have a panel. I’ll be there with Remap, though Remap will not have a panel! We will be doing a meetup.
Again, thank you. I hope you’re excited about what’s cooking here, too.
I was trying to get the discounted rate, but I'm having a problem. Is that something to fix or can those who already subscribe monthly not able to get the discount?
Am I misremembering the prices, or has the discount not been applied to other currencies (GBP or £ in my case)?