No-one was asking for it.
Just seemed like the right/only thing to do.
Glad we can agree.

Thank you.

I'd equate it to volunteers at a soup kitchen getting a cup of tea at the end of a shift. Maybe just a glass of water. Maybe a small glass of water every other shift. Tap water. Are you still okay to claim this doesn't make them volunteers?

edited for clarity

I'm not annoyed by it... but, it's not a great feeling either. We've been loosing less each year for the last few years so it's getting less shit. I'm gambling that moving the podcast stream off the twitch channel so that it's now 100% comp will show that we're serious about our TF2 coverage. And that maybe 2020 will be profitable enough to buy a round at LAN.

TL;DR: Some content is behind a firewall because we wanted to give people who sub to KritzKast a decent reason to do it. KritzKast is and has always been broke as shit.

We've been casting HL matches for a few years and started 6s coverage quite recently. We made the decision to pay casters and production for their time because it's the right thing to do. Everyone puts so much effort in and I didn't see why I should profit just for being the dude that owned the channel.

I'm not sure if this breaks twitch TOS but here goes anyway. We have 6 subscribers, and this is a record for us.

2 are awesome people who've been with us for so many years I've lost track. I doubt that either of them will read this as they're not super into comp but they've supported the channel forever and I love them for it.
2 are on the comp production team. It doesn't make financial sense for them to sub, but they do anyway, cos fuck yeah TF2.
1 is an awesome friend of mine. I sub back to him cos I like his content. For the record I use my money to sub to him, but it shows up "kritzkast" cos that's my twitch account. I should make a personal account for this, and likely I will eventually.
1 is new as of this month, I don't recognise the name but yay! Thanks random person whoever you are.

Very, very occasionally, with the merch, the patreon and YT/Twitch ad. rev. we break even. Most of the time we don't. Everything we have ever earned has gone back into the channel and out to the talent in one way or another. We push all content to YT (it all gets there eventually (it's nearly always on me if it's delayed, sorry)). So we were hoping firewalling old Twitch content would entice people to sub and give those that have a justification for doing so.

I can't speak for anyone or any other org here, though I have had the opportunity to work with many of the representatives in the orgs listed. KritzKast started out as a podcast, which in essence is the personal views of a few of people with various scopes of knowledge talking about things they love. For us it was the game itself, the community surrounding that game and beer. Although that last point was probably just me. As our understanding of what keeps this game alive and vital has expanded we too have worked with some very cool people, like Ruskeydoo and more recently Wiethoofd who've had a much more focused interest in competitive, so moving into HL coverage and some other more fringe formats (RSP, 7s, Ultiduo, etc) or events (newbies cups, show matches, various charity) has been possible.

So that's where we came from. The present isn't without problems. The podcast has fallen off the wayside and is in sore need of massive rethinking to create something relevant again. There's a bunch of content that needed to be re-edited before release and I just didn't have the mental fortitude to get through it while maintaining a high intensity job in the City. I'm hoping that now I have some time and a little less to worry about (in the short term) I can push content and get us back on track, then set up the tools to ensure we don't fall behind again in future.

In response to the "this" from OP. Yeah I fucked up and started a stream without changing the old title. Took me a few minutes to set it right. Sorry to anyone who came seeking that content. I've a mind to set up my own channel for content that's neither podcast nor comp stream though that wouldn't be fair on everyone who's subbed to the channel for the podcast and more esoteric content. Likely a better solution would be post a schedule, which may not be a bad idea on the whole, though exceedingly tough to get right with comp matches, even finals not being locked to a day or hour until right before (days, sometimes hours) they occur. But we'll try and get something down.

I don't want to directly address OP's comments on the need for multiple channels. If anyone wants my opinion then come find me at LAN, buy me a beer and be prepared for a long discussion. It's not something that we're going to solve here, nor do I believe that a thread on a discussion board is the right place for it, though always curious to read other people's opinions.

better than expected

Sorry I didn't see this thread at the time, was focused on the Discord. Were you able to get these issues resolved?

shoutout to mia and lasse, they don't get enough credit for the all the work they put in, both at the event at in the months leading up
shoutout to Robbie for being our human-hydratebot
shoutout to Bambi for sorting me out with three packs of blister plasters on the 1st day (saved my life)
shoutout to loris and cupcake for working into the night to make the countdown and credits
shoutout to everyone who watched the credits at the end so I don't have to call out everyone individually
shoutout to our sponsors who gave us the money to make this the most highly paid EU comp in 4 years, 3rd highest in EU ever and 20th spot on the esports earning page.
shoutout to Heny, Wiet, jakeowaty (on the first night), Robbie, eXtine, loris and eepily for sharing a space with me, and putting up with my snoring and/or talking in my sleep (apparently)
shoutout to jakeowaty and Seal for putting up me and with casting from their feet
shoutout to chando who chose life (studying for exams) over casting. It's tough opportunity to give up.
shoutout to Knusperfrosch, Buck 824, jakeowaty and all our chat moderators who worked selflessly this whole time
shoutout to Wynran for the Swiss chocolate
shoutout to Ironhawk for being the warmest LAN n00bie ever
shoutout to eepily and nuze for philibusting like their lives depended on it
shoutout to eXtine for making me try the ribs
shoutout to niceAsh and Bear for talking their way into coffee
shoutout to all the CG crew for being nice and making our lot feel a lot less like outsiders
shoutout to everyone else on the crew for going overtime everytime to push the boundaries of what a TF2 event could and should be. I pity the fool who tries to follow this show.

just to set expectations: there may be a couple of days delay on the prize pool announcement. Nothing to worry about, there's just a few people on holiday right now and I don't want to speak out of turn.

expect a post about prizepool this week

Funny you should mention it, I've been working on just such a thing. TF2 events (esport and community) Calendar

I've had some feedback from various groups and have been working that into revisions. I'm comfortable sharing this. The Calendar is free to use in it's read only state. It can be embedded into your site using iframes or linked to directly as in http://events.teamfortress2.com

The view of the information can be adjusted to show various portions of time, day/week/year etc, including an "Agenda" style which is what people will be used to seeing if they usually get their dates from teamfortress.tv. There's even a feature to filter by region. The Calendar though only works in one time zone. I've picked CET (or CEST during the summer) as it's universally used in Europe since it seems to only be relevant to a very small number of people and universally irritates everyone else equally.

This is more or less exactly why I started making this but it only works if everyone gets on board. I have notes to share with anyone willing to give me the time. Hit me up on here, or stream or discord.

cu@

If you need a hand getting set up I'm more than willing to help.

No. They are pretty strict on this. The indoor camping thing is legit though. It gets booked up fast so you've got to be on teh shit to get in. As a further note to camping, it's indoor so no rain but they never turn the overhead lights off. So if you think you can just rock up with a sleeping bag and get some serious shut eye, forget it. One of those pop-up tents is fine though. Most people will lay their towel over the tent to further block out the light. Also good for drying it.

If you want to go full on fancy AF then do what the old hands do, bring a garden marquee, a folding bed, buy a lambs wool rug from ikea and glamp with your Balloonicorn slippers