Hearing Samit on podtoid again after a long time is great. Glad someone is actually talking about video games again on the podcast. ;)

God dammit Sammit. He didn't attempt to be funny and kept de-railing the podcast by talking about boring video games. I wanted to hear more about Winnie the Pooh having his way with Piglet for fucks sake!

Didn't mean to be too negative, it was still fun.

My favorite part of Podtoid is that every week I get to wonder: "How the hell did that sentence [insert Podtoid name] come into existence?"

Spoooooooooooooooooorts!

I got a Samit surprise!

New segment: "Where's Max Scoville?"

Happy birthday Samit!

Love podtoid and will continue to listen but the last several episodes have been disappointing. For me, Podtoid has been on a slight decline right before Tara left. The first problem is that Max hasn't said anything funny or interesting in the last several episodes. On today’s episode he was negligible. I remember several episodes back he was talking all by himself about some star wars related thing for what seemed like at least 20 minutes and it was one of the most tedious things I've ever listened to. And I got the impression from the last few podtoids that he doesn't even like being on anymore. Not to mention he’s on the show for less than half the time these days. This isn’t a diss towards Max, I really like what he’s doing on the dtoid show, but he doesn’t have good chemistry on podtoid anymore.

The second problem is there should be new people. Ever since Tara left podtoid feels a bit empty. I was happy to hear Samit in today's podtoid and it would be great to have him back on as a regular. And he should by default because he was part of the classic podtoid lineup. I have no doubt you and Holmes can podtoid as a duo and be funny and have interesting video game talk, but it can get self indulgent with two people going back and forth.

If any of you read this I hope you don't take this the wrong way. I just want to provide some constructive criticism because I love podtoid.

As a local Baltimorian... The last thing we need is more fetich sex for sale Jim. When you and Holmes come here I'll take you to the pink hippo for a seriously Graphic Drag show. Followed by the midget stripper club then hermaphrodite row... Seriously all kinda underground places here... Cat pimp would make the perfect cake topper right before a ninja baby with FFF cups popped out of it and humped your face off.... Then we could go to DC for even crazier times =D

@Samit
Sorry, I didn't mean to be mean, you're fantastic. Its just that when I joined Destructoid, and I started listening to podtoid when Max and Tara started so I'm not familiar with you and your views. For me, its probably a fear of anything new really.

You know, Double Fine's Kickstarter and buying games the usual way demonstrates a fundamental difference between how consumers view the respective companies that put out the products: in Double Fine's case, the people who smacked down huge wads of cash likely weren't buying the game that way specifically for the tiered rewards, or for some rational, I-give-you-money-you-give-me-product type of transaction. I think they gave that money to Double Fine because they consider the outfit a friend, a persona of sorts that they have a relationship with (beyond the standard producer-consumer rational one). And when a company is blessed with consumers who think that way about them, they have an incredible deal of flexibility and pure backing to fall back on; those consumers aren't just consumers, they're people who'd go out of their way to help out, i.e. *friends*.
It would indeed be a huge deal if more game developers who have friend-like relationships with their consumers start relying upon that relationship to get a game out ~instead~ of going through the old channels, corporate game publishers. I think that's what we've seen here, combined with just plain smart marketing; there is an actual rational reason to put money up (at least $15) so Double Fine's not solely relying upon friendship.
It's a good trend, yo. I want to see this happen more. Obviously, some publishers also have consumers that look at them as more than just a corporate entity that gives them things in exchange for money, but the difference is that most publishers don't seem to reciprocate, in that they make rational decisions that don't really make sense in the context of a friendship. That really, really makes them seem like selfish assholes, because when you violate a friendship with self-serving actions (that do make sense in a "I'm just a merchant" context), people get _fucking_ pissed. If Double Fine, after getting all that sweet dinero off Kickstarter, made a game specifically to get more profit because that was all that mattered to them, a game that was shitty but that they knew everyone would buy, they would be straight blacklisted in those people who kicked in funds for thems' minds to a higher degree than the Wii is in Max Scoville's.

Whatcha think? Do I have something here?

Yeah Max sounds kind of out of steam since he started his full-time job at Rev3. Maybe if you guys changed the recording schedule, he could do the whole episode? Also - I know you said that you're not looking for replacements for Tara, but since you're basically down to 2,5 men right now (Charlie Sheen reference unintentional), some guest appearances from the old Podtoid crew once in a while would be cool. I think that Brad mentioned on Twitter some time ago that he'd like to do it. The old Podtoid crew do the TEH podcast, but it's a lot less insane as Podtoid :] btw Jim, did you stop doing Electric Hydra at all, or is it just a matter of not having time for it ?

I fully support Jim's kickstarter! Ill donate some nipple clamps and a whip.

If Holmes wears a shirt made of cats ill even throw in some sounding rods :p