Join the GamersWithJobs Extra Life Team for 2016!

Great work everyone! It was so much fun!

My thoughts.

+ Backstage chatroom for streamers. Good, especially in wee hours.
+ Rotate GWJ Prime channel hosting. That really amped me up when I had it, and it's a great way to showcase that thing each of us has that we're insanely passionate about. Keeps the stream fresh.
+ Use time to our advantage. I should still be in Italy next year. Between west coast, east coast, and Europe we pretty much always had someone reasonably awake. Let's continue to use that to our advantage.

- Improve our Twitch coordination. Putting each other's info in our channels, having good overlays, maybe a donation counter? I feel like we did not fully integrate or maximize the twitch platform. I'd say put the scehdule of what games and streamers will be on the GWJ Prime channel in the channel panels.
- Improve our pitches. Something I have to work on as a streamer, but I feel like we needed to more often just explain who we were, what we were doing, why, who the other people were, that kind of thing. Great time to pitch the GWJ community along with the Extra Life cause, let's take advantage of it!
- Rehearsals. It would have been a good idea to take a few minutes and meet each other on curse first and practice handing off the GWJ Prime stream to each other. Some wonky on stream stuff went down. Things happen, but, especially if we get new people next year, good to practice for a few minutes ahead of time, test out all the tech.
- Get more community involvement. Us doing this is basically community involvement, but maybe let the GWJ community pick a game for us to stream? Maybe invite the podcast crew to something?

Initial thoughts complete.

Sorry I wasn't involved this year! Got a baby on the way and a significant other who just got laid off. And I totally forgot cause life is crazy. Glad you raised so damn much money!

Congrats on the impending garion334! Baby Brain is A Thing(TM)

Everything Squee9 said. I went into this probably the least experienced user, so lots of stuff to learn from. I prefer to delegate and oversee so I welcome the feedback and call to arms.

You are a natural and very good at this. Look out, I'm coming for you and cathadan next year.

In regards to Curse and the GWJ Twitch stream, I actually think it would be a good idea to not have the "backstage" present for that. When you were on, Squee, I felt reluctant to speak up for my own stream or conversation because you seemed to so be in your element most of the time. However, having someone hear about a game they're not watching on my Stream has to be completely awkward. So I was always in this odd flux of what I should be doing or saying or when I should say it.

I think the time that I was doing Fatal Frame was what I found comfortable in a group chat setting, because the discussion bounced around and everyone was sort of naturally reacting to each other. However, I'm not sure that was the best choice for the main GWJ stream. I mean, plenty of folks kept watching, and it wasn't until I was solo with Doom that viewership dropped.

Now, in that regard, it could be a lot of things, but I'm honestly quite terrible at talking about a game by myself. This Let's Play thing just does not come natural. So that's where I personally gotta improve.

But, thanks to Amoebic highlighting other podcasters and such during this stream and Squee your mention of getting more community involvement, I've begun brainstorming some other potential ideas that I never thought about before. Not just reaching out to community members, but friends of GWJ and potentially indie developers as well that wouldn't mind sitting in at a certain time to help commentate. So let's say Amoebic took over the GWJ Twitch to play a game where Shawn and Jeff Cannata were both commenting, and then following that I had a Stream of Steamworld Heist where I had one of the developers on to discuss some of the decisions in the game, followed by a GWJ Overwatch match with plenty of GWJers on the mic.

Also: if Greg and I can make Let's Not a more active thing, perhaps we can have a portion of the day dedicated to Let's Not Live or something.

We certainly have plenty of time to brain storm, but I want to always have this in the back of my mind so that next year can be even bigger.

Count me in for anything you come up with, ccesarano. Participating in this was one of my best online experiences, and made a bunch of new friends in the process.

Like you, I'm still learning how to do a Lets Play well, but I think having active conversations during them makes for a more enjoyable viewing experience, plus it takes pressure of the main presenter. If we could get developers of these games to do it with us, that would be even more compelling and something that would be spectacular. I'm in!!

For the backstage channel I mean more of just a general thing to have. I liked having a channel to blast my pump up messages to the participants. Some teambuilding through shared hardship.

During stream I think it makes less sense. Two people playing different games on different streams but talking to each other seems awkward. Maybe while hosting his/her channel and talking about it sure. Or as a way to hand off the GWJ prime stream. Current streamer comes to a stopping place, introduces the new human, then switch streams while both are in the cruse channel so regardless of how the stream switching goes both the incoming and outgoing streamer are still transmitting over the GWJ prime channel. Once switch is complete, outgoing homie bows out, and the stream continues!