From The Desk of Nerd³ - February 2025 Edition
Added 2025-02-05 17:33:25 +0000 UTCDearest Patreons,
Welcome to 2025! How is it going for you? I spent the first few weeks of it upside down in a toilet, trying to fight off the flu, less hitting the ground running, and more being grated away by it like a particularly hard cheese. I’m surprised I released the majority of the videos that I did in January, although most of them were collabs with strong painkillers and Lemsip.
By now you may have seen the headlines that Unbound, the publisher of Fuck Yeah, Video Games and The Paradox Paradox is in financial trouble. I’ll go into more detail in an upcoming Patreon podcast but, yeah, this has been a thing for a while now. They’re behind on payments and I’m pretty sure Paradox’s physical release is moving back a month or so. Still, everyone I talk to over there is lovely, and they’re determined to get Paradox into your hands. Just money innit.
On the note of Paradox, holy crapola has the reaction to the eBook release been better than I could have ever hoped for! It’s currently sitting at a 4.7/5 over on Goodreads, and that includes the two 1-star ratings that were there about a year before the book launched. Thank you so much to everyone who has read it, everyone who has reviewed it, and to everyone on the special Discord book area who has chatted about it. Oh, and a special shout out to everyone who is holding off reading it until the physical release. HOLD!
Something I’ve talked about a few times is releasing old videos in collections that I sell right here on this very Patreon. This would mean that you could buy the Nerd³ Completes Bully Collection and then have a lovely high quality digital version that you can keep nestled away on a hard drive or cloud storage just in case YouTube ever explodes. As people seemed into this idea, I recently used Google Takeout to download my entire YouTube channel to a shiny new external drive. Takeout downloads the original files you uploaded so it seemed like a great idea to get the highest quality versions of these videos.
It was a nightmare.
7.7Tb of videos broken into 156 50Gb zip files, a 20mb/s download limit, and a week to complete it before the archive was deleted. Still, I managed to get almost all of it. The only file I didn’t recover was download number 84, as it failed several times in a row and then refused to let me download it again. Oh, and as the files seem to be totally randomised, I have literally no idea what is in it. Part 83, for example, includes a single award from 2022, one from 2023, and another from 2024. Looking through these files feels like sifting through a library after an earthquake.
Still, I have the videos now and some questions to go with them. First, does anyone have any interest in watching me organise all of these blobs of videos into files? It might be a fun Patreon exclusive, but I have no idea if anyone gives a shit and I’d rather not talk for many, many hours if I don’t need to! Second, some people have requested optional audio commentary tracks and I’m wondering, same again really, how much interest there is in it? I’ll have to work out how to do multiple, selectable tracks in Premier Pro but it should be doable. Thirdly, price! I have no idea what to charge for these so I’d love your thoughts. Let’s use Bully for an example. 23 episodes, probably re-edited together into five, 2-hour episode collections. (I could have them as a single 10-hour monster, but that just seems like anything other than VLC will shit itself trying to play it.) Is £10 too much? £1 an hour of video seems fair, but if we take Fallout 4, that’s 57 hours, so is that £57? That’s obviously too much, so… yeah… any thoughts would be very much appreciated.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now. I’m just putting the finishing touches to the video of a horror game I was tricked into playing. I never knew my voice could go that high…
Until next time,
Daniel
xx
Comments
I think for the video archives having a base set price but also a way to optionaly pay/donate more if you want could be good. That way if theres a series thats someones favorate they have the option to donate a little extra as a type of tip for making it. I have no idea how you could do that in practice though.
Just_some_guy
2025-03-05 23:03:51 +0000 UTCQuick Q about the BOOK, with the slight update to it after that error was found: how does that play with the limited number of downloads we get from Unbound? I've only used 1 download but I can imagine some people will have already used all 3 - do they get another so they can get the updated copy?
gogglebot
2025-02-25 19:24:48 +0000 UTCi hate to say it but i already know it’s the truth: i would pay sims 4 dlc levels of money to own a copy of your older series/videos. in all honesty i would likely take the digital copies and put them on a disk and have a dvd box set collection of each play through. that would look fucking glorious on my shelf and i’d be popping in a disk daily for sure. i’m so glad you’re doing this. times are very uncertain right now and who knows what the internet will look like in 5-10 years. it’s just amazing and comforting to know that all these hours and hours of entertainment will be safe forever.
Chase Ogle
2025-02-25 12:00:07 +0000 UTCI think the podcats is done with pretty much, with matt's redundancy it makes things a bit y'know.... weird, its probably best for dan to do something else with other guests imo
Nathan (Mixter_Chestnut)
2025-02-23 15:27:18 +0000 UTCJust joined. Signed up for annually by accident. FUCK.
Fearborne
2025-02-22 16:37:09 +0000 UTCDan, you have been such a comfort to me over the many years I have watched and rewatched your videos. £1 per video is defiantly reasonable and I would happily pay almost any amount so that I could keep them forever (I would probably get them their own special external storage so when my PC inevitably craps itself they are still safe!!
ViralDragonRider
2025-02-22 10:18:53 +0000 UTCJust joined, I like the word fuck. I like Dan. Stay sexy.
Creed Of Nezu
2025-02-22 05:26:38 +0000 UTCHi everyone, I hope you're all doing well. Long live Dan and Rebecca. We love you both :) xx
Harry Franklin
2025-02-22 02:15:23 +0000 UTCI just subbed to this Patreon in the hope that my small contribution will help them bring The Podcats back. Been listening to the old episodes atm. In an old episode, Dan talks about his Choose Your Own Let's Play. Jon says the making of video is really interesting. I've looked and can't find the making of video. Anyone know where I can find it?
Koala Bear Workshop
2025-02-21 22:26:14 +0000 UTCI would love to watch a video or listen to an audio version of you organising the videos!
Martin Putt
2025-02-21 21:29:32 +0000 UTCWatching the organising would be fun!
Code Monkey
2025-02-21 17:10:02 +0000 UTCI think a video about the organizational process would be great, as is a commentary track, I love behind the scenes stuff. As for price, the only collection I would really be interested in would be the Metal Gear Solid 2 Completes, and I would happily pay about $30 for it, which comes out to $1 per video. I would treat these collections as DVD boxsets, I 'm paying extra to have every episode on demand, offline, and with (hopefully) extra features. $1 per video seems more than fair to me.
Duckmun
2025-02-07 15:10:22 +0000 UTCListening to your Unbound financial difficulties podcast, when you have all your videos downloaded, put up a poll so we can vote on our favourite videos so you can prioritise the selling of them to get more cash asap!
Richard Grayson
2025-02-07 09:58:24 +0000 UTCYou just asked a bunch of autistic people if they'd like to watch you organise things. YES. YES I WOULD PLEASE.
NeonCoding
2025-02-07 09:16:55 +0000 UTCI would love to watch the organising of the videos video, and I would HAPPILY pay £57 for the Fallout 4 series! Genuinely one of my favourite playthroughs you have done! <3
Jason Artemis ‘Arty’ Winstanley
2025-02-07 02:13:45 +0000 UTCId love to see the organization. A pound an hour seems fair for the time to put it all together and a commentary track if that is being done.
Mikey_Hor
2025-02-06 20:38:37 +0000 UTCi would LOVE a video of you organising them, it would itch my little adhd brain 😮💨
xjxsephxinsanityx
2025-02-06 16:51:23 +0000 UTCI love the idea of commentary and a video of you organising. I don’t really have any advise on pricing, I independently publish stories and whenever I get to the inevitable pricing section, I sit with the work, look at the man hours, what I think it’s worth, what is fair, etc. and I mash all of that up and price it that, I’ve had a seven page story and a 20 page story priced near enough the same amount purely because I didn’t think it fair for people to pay so much more just because of the page difference, I went by the quality. So yeah, up to you I guess
Roy Fox (the author)
2025-02-06 16:12:41 +0000 UTCOrganising the videos seems like a good idea for a bonus stream. Just make it a less energetic stream where you talk less and chat is just there to make organising 156 ZIP files less tedious. John Green streamed himself signing 100k copies of his book, so I'm sure there will be an audience (me included) for you organising files. I'd absolutely love an audio commentary on the older series. Would love to hear some BTS stories. For price of the box sets you could use 7 + [runtime] / 3 as a first estimate and round that to a sensible price. That gives 10 £ for 10 h of Bully and 25 £ for 57 h of Fallout 4, which sounds fair IMO. You could also try 5 + [runtime] / 4 + [number of videos] / 10 as the estimate. That gives about the same results for Bully and Fallout, but takes into account that cutting together many videos is more work for you.
Klemens
2025-02-06 11:50:32 +0000 UTCWould happily pay a pound an hour, seems pretty fair, would also love audio commentary!!!
taylor lander
2025-02-06 11:27:32 +0000 UTCAn excellent idea on how to do the pricing, I wish I could remember my A level maths and do this as a formula
Daddy Driffill
2025-02-06 08:09:20 +0000 UTCI think charging for time is fine up to a point, with the longer series perhaps charging by file size makes more sense, I expect fallout will need a large storage device
Daddy Driffill
2025-02-06 08:08:17 +0000 UTCIMO, and this is the datahoarder in me talking, I think the best way to move forward with these for both longevity and fan engagement is to record an audio commentary for specific series and release them as a box set, but have a tier to purchase the whole archive at flat rate without any extras. If you can spare enough 4090 time, transcoding the archive to H265 will half the space requirements with the same quality of footage. You can do this with a handbrake playlist you can play/pause depending on if you have to record/edit/render. I’d love to purchase box sets, but you’re also the creator that’s had the largest impact on my life and I would dedicate a lot of NAS space to an archive of your videos.
Zia
2025-02-06 05:44:18 +0000 UTCI would love to see you organize the videos but if you don't want to talk for that long I completely understand
Josh Harding
2025-02-06 03:43:54 +0000 UTCi would pay far too much money to have the adventures of Kenneth Kennethso compiled into a DVD
jerk_arthr
2025-02-06 01:21:31 +0000 UTCgod id die happy to buy all of the nerdcubed videos so i can own em forever
Alyssa Gordon
2025-02-06 00:06:02 +0000 UTCi would pay a lot for an official Nerdcubed Greatest Hits DVD !!!
Alyssa Gordon
2025-02-06 00:05:03 +0000 UTCWould love an audio commentary and to watch you organising them!
midnight_mountain
2025-02-05 22:33:36 +0000 UTCI feel like a flat price for each series makes the most sense, despite the difference in lengths. I don't think longer series are inherently more valuable than shorter ones. I'd love to get bundles though, maybe 3 series for £25?
Zachary Averill
2025-02-05 22:14:40 +0000 UTCVery interested in all the above - Just a note, if you weren't already doing this, when selling the videos with commentary, maybe include 2 versions in the download; one original recording (re-edited like you said) without commentary and one with commentary, so people who would like to just watch the re-edited series can do that as well.
The Doctor
2025-02-05 22:02:28 +0000 UTCWould thoroughly enjoy watching an organisation video/stream and would happily pay for the digital copies of videos even more so with commentary tracks.
Chicken nugget
2025-02-05 21:52:31 +0000 UTCI love the idea of streams of you going through and organising them! And please do the commentary tracks I would really love to hear your thoughts on your series, especially ones like bully or fallout or the rtx Minecraft building series!
Elizabeth Scott
2025-02-05 21:18:28 +0000 UTCI would love the video of you reorganising them and such that sounds soooo satisfying and I would happily pay whatever for collections of your work. Secondly a directors commentary sounds amazing
Sabine black
2025-02-05 21:05:39 +0000 UTCA "nerd cubed retrospective" stream might be fun where you organise some of the older and maybe smaller bundles and get to look back on the past. Coatings maybe it is £1 for the first hour 98p for the next 96 94 92 etc so as to not undervalue the work but not make it to costly
Gentle Grudge
2025-02-05 19:43:51 +0000 UTCseconding the director's commentary. imo it would make it worth buying for that alone vs just a supercut of something i can already see. i was never into the bully completes (blasphemy i know) but a commentary would make me want to watch it for sure
Pantscada
2025-02-05 19:36:32 +0000 UTCLoving the book (nearly finished) can't wait for the audio book to relisten to see how it's different a second time through (prefer audio books anyway) Love the idea of the commentary track on the collections (I think a £1 and hour is fair as a general rule) and I do like the idea of a sorting video with a bit of reminiscing about old videos you've not thought about in years. Seems like it could be a good podcast if nothing else
Tim Wiles
2025-02-05 19:20:19 +0000 UTCI'm all in favor of rereleasing the old completes with audio commentary but anything over £15 for a collection of gaming YouTube videos would be outrageous.
Cédrick
2025-02-05 19:11:51 +0000 UTCI love seeing things get organised, it scratches something in my brain. Also a yes on the commentary stuff. Pricing is a bit of a tricky one but I would agree the £10-25 range is a good starting point
PBKitKat
2025-02-05 19:02:56 +0000 UTCWould love a commentary patreon exclusive! And to me 1€\£ an hour seems fair actually😊
Selwyn Nypels
2025-02-05 18:59:59 +0000 UTCFor me I’m waiting for the audiobook because I love the sound of your voice. Answers to your questions: Audio commentaries = big tick from me. I’d love to hear some stories of BTS. I’d buy the videos for the audio commentary alone. Watching you organize? Sounds fun for a Patreon exclusive. Price? You could split them up I guess. Completes =£20-£30 per series Challenges? Maybe £100 for everything, but you could split it as well so “GTA Challenges” is its own thing. And so on and so forth Your old series (Loves Hates FW 101 Hell Alpha Detective etc) could be released as packages each at £40-£50 depending on how many videos. Plays I’d probably buy collections by year or by era. After all there have been several reboots I also think that audio commentaries should be extra at maybe £1 per video or £10 per series Much love
Matt
2025-02-05 18:56:27 +0000 UTCalright alright...here me out: BluRays (know it's not cheap nor feasible—but that would be killer rad)
Nominis300
2025-02-05 18:48:53 +0000 UTC@Dan - realize that it goes AGAINST what you're asking (since organizing could be content), but as a software engineer I could write a script for you that would organize these in any way you want very very quickly. There are a lot of vids!
John Houston
2025-02-05 18:44:51 +0000 UTCI'd love audio commentaries if that's a thing that works. I also second the suggestion about including DVD art if anyone wants to DIY a physical copy. As for price, my suggestion would be to bear in mind that people will probably want to buy many collections, so pricing them all at 10-20 quid will add up quick.
Sami
2025-02-05 18:41:22 +0000 UTCI would love to burn my favourite series onto some CDs, get some high quality covers made (Rebecca?) and have a shelf full of what made my childhood and teenage years great. Your idea of £1 per hour of video isn't unreasonable at all, I know it was a few years ago now (oh god but it feels like I was watching it come out yesterday) but you put alot of work into the fallout series and goddamn it you deserve more for it. I'm sure many others can relate, but a physical library of the Nerd³ legacy would be an honour to collect, just like many book series and TV series. Do what you think is best, but now that you have suggested it, I won't be paying any less than £57 for that fallout series 😊.
Some Strange Thing
2025-02-05 18:32:53 +0000 UTCDirectors commentary sounds super fun, also I feel like people would agree that taking sponsors might be a good idea I definitely wouldn’t mind cuz it supports you
Stuvant Agrawal
2025-02-05 18:32:40 +0000 UTCI would be willing to pay $20-$30 for a collection with an optional audio commentary! Like some others above, I definitely would be burning the files to DVDs lol. Holding out for the physical release of The Paradox Paradox 🤞 hopefully can get shipped to the USA ok lol.
Regan OHern
2025-02-05 18:29:55 +0000 UTCAudio commentary would be fun but not essential. I had a few ideas for pricing, a base rate + hour rate, pricing tiers similar to patreon. I think the fairest option for you putting in the work and us paying would be to split it into chunks, so for Bully it works as £10 for 10 hours, which is reasonable. But then for a larger series, like Fallout, I think something along the lines of splitting the 57 hours into the Fallout Collection Part 1 and 2, each around £15-20 would make sense. (fyi I have no background in any sort of financing, this is just what I reckon!)
Fizz Cashman
2025-02-05 18:27:40 +0000 UTC1000% Yes to organizing and audio commentary!
Sam B.
2025-02-05 18:24:36 +0000 UTC100% want to join you on the misadventures of file organization Also if possible, it could be nice to include DVD sleeves for the collections in their download, just in case (no pun intended) someone wanted to burn them onto physical discs (I would)
T-Fyre
2025-02-05 18:17:40 +0000 UTCI'm a recent love stream I think he mentioned wanting physical media, but the cost of printing disks and sleeves and casing them all plus shipping was to expensive, I'd assume he'd 100% support people burning discs themselves of they're into that kinda thing... Maybe Rebecca could be convinced (if they have the workload available to do it) to create give arts for DVD sleeves as image files that could be included in the downloads?
T-Fyre
2025-02-05 18:15:10 +0000 UTCI am sorry that it has been an eventful start to 2025 for you Daniel, I hope things improve soon. It is sad to hear about Unbound but it is good to hear that they are still determined to get the book out. I am holding on for the physical copy with audio as I feel I can process reading it better and I can't wait to hear you read it! I would love to see a video of you sorting the videos out in files if that is possible but don't worry if it is too much and I would love a optional audio commentary, again if that is possible but don't worry if it isn't. Regarding pricing it is difficult as there is lots to consider but what people have put so far in the comments sounds good.
Emma Goodall
2025-02-05 18:09:29 +0000 UTCA directors commentary like the old 13 ways to die compilations would be incredible!!
Rhydian Jones
2025-02-05 18:08:35 +0000 UTCI would honestly love to watch you sort through your old videos 😍
Modelo
2025-02-05 17:58:27 +0000 UTCI second the question about physical media!
Ben Ansley
2025-02-05 17:57:29 +0000 UTCI absolutely love the idea of a "directors commentary" on videos. It adds an extra charm an uniqueness to them i think
Pig
2025-02-05 17:57:05 +0000 UTCListening to you talk is always fun by me, so I'll take any patreon exclusives I can get! In terms of collection pricing, anything in the range of £10-£25 I reckon is reasonable, depending on the series, but obviously that's without me knowing how much effort will go into editing them down/compiling/uploading etc etc
Ben Ansley
2025-02-05 17:56:37 +0000 UTCI would absolutely love some audio commentary like the old 13 ways to die commentaries that I loved so much. Pricing is a bit weird because it's a lot of work for you to upload it but higher prices will mean that people with no money miss out
Jonathan Rowe
2025-02-05 17:53:05 +0000 UTCIf you want to figure out what might be missing, I'd be happy to (automatically) compare a list of the files you've got against everything that's listed on your channel.
bo0tzz
2025-02-05 17:51:10 +0000 UTCHonestly I'd love to watch you organise the videos. I really enjoy listening to you talk in general and I think it'd be fun seeing you talk about old videos as you sift through them. As for the price I have no idea, I don't want to sound too cheeky but I wouldn't spend more than a fiver even on the whole of the longer series, but at the same time I could see myself paying a couple quid on some of my favourite individual videos just to make sure I can always rewatch them.
Tom Leak
2025-02-05 17:45:05 +0000 UTCNerdCubed Ultimate Collector's Edition sounds like a great idea. However, as someone who is a physical media nut - when this idea goes forward) what would be your stance (personally and legally) on people personally burning the files onto blu-rays for their collection (obviously absolutely not to be sold thereafter)? This is all *hypothetical*, but I personally love to create my own hard-drive-free copies of my favourite things (as well as creating cover art/slipcovers, etc. to look good on my shelf). Purely selfishly, volumes 1-41 of "Nerd³ Completes... Planet Coaster" would look great in cases next to my Ashens and the Quest for the Gamechild Blu-ray in my living room.
Sam Ph. (SalmonSun)
2025-02-05 17:43:00 +0000 UTCMore behind the scenes type stuff?!? Count me in!!! Commentary and special editions sound awesome id love a copy of bully or even your space engineers perma-death (first video I watched of yours!) Still holding out for the audiobook too!
Scott B
2025-02-05 17:42:43 +0000 UTCI'd love a additional commentary if it can be done .maybe price it the same as an equal length dvd of a old British comedy dvd ?🤷
Scott Burchfield
2025-02-05 17:41:36 +0000 UTCAs one of the ones holding out for the physical release, thanks for the extra shoutout! 😄 I've been tempted to read the ebook, but I process physical books better, and I want to give it the attention it deserves!
screechfox
2025-02-05 17:40:23 +0000 UTCAudio commentary would be awesome, especially on some of the earlier videos and moments that people often bring up as favorites (This Gay Kiss! and the Train Sim videos come to mind immediately)
Spungaar
2025-02-05 17:40:06 +0000 UTCI’d totally be down to watching you sort video files out. Might finally give me a reason to sort my own hard drive out
ImHereTooIGuess
2025-02-05 17:40:04 +0000 UTC1. Sad to hear about Unbound. That's quite shit for you. 2. Would defo be up for audio commentary. Your opinions on old videos would be very interesting. 3. Pricing is a bit fucky, huh.
Angus Noble
2025-02-05 17:38:21 +0000 UTCI assume Unbound spent all their money on sending me constant emails.
Kirk Northrop
2025-02-05 17:37:38 +0000 UTCAudio commentary is a yes!! Price I’d say £10-20 per collection I’d be willing to pay, depending on the amount of vids.
Matt G
2025-02-05 17:37:36 +0000 UTCI would be interested in watching some of it be organised and hearing random snippets of things about them or other things 😅 might be worthwhile doing a poll for that 🤔
Karl Blythe
2025-02-05 17:37:16 +0000 UTC
