The Pillow Fort is Staying the Course, but changing a LOT!

Hi friends! I apologize for the length of this post, but admittedly, these thoughts have been weighing on my mind for a few weeks now, and I'd like to share them with our community / audience.

A few months ago, I (Lil) started a new job as a Junior PR executive in the games industry. A week from now, that job will be entirely full-time, and as I've already felt the stress of attempting to keep up with content, I know I need to make some big adjustments if we're going to keep creating. With Derek and I now both working full-time, and of course our 3 kids on top of it, we've put a lot of thought into where we want "TPF" to be in 3-5 years, and how that vision plays into our day-to-day life. The changes listed below will help us secure that future in a much more meaningful way, so we appreciate your wholehearted understanding of all of them.

No More News, We're Focused on Entertainment:

For a long time, we've tried to be a source of news, which is something I personally am passionate about, but it's just not a realistic mission. Not without a team of writers / creators who can keep up with the constant flow of gaming news, and without a budget for that, it's just not plausible for us to chase this idea anymore. Instead, we will be refocusing on making content we love, for the games we want to put dozens of hours into. No more game-hopping from one to the next. So, while we still might do the occasional first look, we're going to heavily focus on our long-form let's play series', both on stream and off, as well as revisiting a few forms of content we love, like lists of great upcoming games we can't wait to play, and guide videos / walkthroughs for the ones we're obsessed with. This will also allow us to put out thorough reviews again, because we'll finally be able to play a game for 20-100 hours and know all of its ins and outs.

No More Demos:

While we're still keen to play Early Access titles, we will not be partaking in demo culture anymore. It's too overwhelming, and it sucks up so much of our time. What we will do is if you offer us a demo, we'll play it offline and decide if we have any interest in the game. If we have an interest, we'll let you know that we like it and would like to try the full release. Or, we might skip it entirely if we don't think it's for us.

Less Curated Games:

This shift means that we're only going to be curating games on Steam that we would genuinely play the heck out of (or at least think we would). If you see our curation on a game, it means that we'll likely be covering it on the channel if we're able. You'll be able to know what we want to play by just glancing at Steam, and know that if it's on our list, it probably should be on yours too, at least if you share the same interests as us.

We're Still Writing, and inviting others too!

We thought about the idea of tossing out articles entirely, but writing is a huge passion for me personally, and I want to keep doing it. By curating fewer games, it'll mean I have the time to truly write about the ones I'm excited for, and put out my impossibly detailed reviews that the community previously adored. When we were small, little nobodies, I had the time and energy for that, and now that we get a lot more attention from developers, I've felt so much pressure to write about things that come through our email inbox. That said, I'm going to put that thought to bed and only pick and write about what I'm the most excited for.

We're still planning on allowing other writers to use our platforms to write about the games they're excited for, but they will be picking and choosing what to write about, and that will be separate from our video platforms / Steam page entirely.

No Paid Sponsors:

We've thought a lot about what our channel means to us, and we've ultimately decided that we don't want it to be a source of "income" for us, at least not a main one. We want to keep this passion project to one that is all about featuring the games we LOVE, not just like, or have been paid to feature. So, while we're still happy to accept a key to a game if we feel it's the perfect fit, and we admittedly adore when developers send us little gifts in the mail related to the games we play, we just don't feel right accepting paid sponsors, and we will be doing only genuine / non-sponsored content in the future. We work full-time jobs, Derek and I don't want our hobby to also feel like a job ❤️ So we hope you'll understand!

No Ads/Midrolls:

Since we've decided this isn't going to be a platform that we want to generate a main income with, we've also decided to leave our website entirely ad-free. To go hand-in-hand with that, we'll be removing all mid-roll ads from our YouTube videos. So, while you might see an ad at the beginning, all of our live streams and long-form videos will remain ad-free, so you can watch entirely uninterrupted ❤️ It's important to us that our community has a peaceful space that they can enjoy listening to our content with, free of the annoying distractions that ads bring.

If you want to support us:

If you truly enjoy our content and want to dedicate some form of income, you can consider a channel subscription directly on YouTube. We've dropped our sub prices to $3/$6/$10 tiers so that they're incredibly affordable. They come with some special emotes on YouTube and unlock a private category in our Discord server where you can get special insights into upcoming content / watch us record Let's Plays live when we're not streaming.

What We Actually Play:

We get hundreds of emails from developers a month, pitching us game ideas, but 90% of them we just aren't interested in. We're also constantly confused as "cozy" creators, and that's just not the truth. So! I'm going to clear up what we enjoy playing once and for all, that way, hopefully, developers can adjust their pitches to our preferences. We'll include the genres we like, and the games that fit into "what" we like, so you can make the distinction.

We play:

• ARPGs: Monster Hunter Wilds, Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age, The Witcher, Ghosts of Tsushima, Assassin's Creed, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

• Casual/Simulation Types: Fields of Mistria, My Time Series, Starsand Island, Petit Planet, Aniimo, Coral Island, Fantasy Life i, Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma.

• Survival/Simulation Types: Stranded Deep, 7 Days to Die, ECO, Necesse, Raft StarRupture

• Co-Op / Party Experiences; Gang Beasts, REPO, Whisk, Split Fiction, Escape Simulator.

• Roguelikes/lites & Metroids: Hades 2, Risk of Rain 2, Balatro, AK-Xolotl, Silksong, Ori, Ender Lilies.

  
  

We will always consider highly polished indies that fall into the above categories and have genuine human-made art and passion put into them. Indies are still a huge passion for us, so always feel free to pitch us a game. The worst that we'll say is no.

Our Creator Discord/Space:

This is going to be one part of TPF that remains the exact same as it always has. We will continue to share every opportunity that comes through our inbox with the other creators in our Discord, and we will be using this extra time to finally explore things like collab videos and be able to visit other people's content/streams more. We miss the days of having streams up and chatting with others, but we're so busy with admin/channel stuff all the time that that part of us has slowly died out. We'd like to change that and not only be able to offer our Discord/opportunities/space, but our time and energy towards doing things together as well ❤️

Our Social Channels:

Since we're not interested in paid sponsorships, our need to produce "numbers" on multiple platforms so that we can somehow convince developers we're worth sharing a key with is now non-existent. This means we're doing away with a lot of our social and video channels. We will no longer be on Threads, Facebook, or Instagram, and since we won't be producing much short-form content for a while, likely be taking a break from TikTok too. We will continue to operate on X, on BlueSky, and also, of course, on YouTube. Those will be the only 3 platforms aside from our website that we focus on. Other than that, we're putting social media to rest.

That's all, folks:

It's safe to say we're not planning on quitting content anytime soon, and this new job is an absolute dream come true for me, so all is going well for us. In fact, you'll likely see us at in-person events starting this year, and ramping up next year as well! Including ones overseas. That said, these changes will help us preserve our mental health and ensure we're taking care of ourselves in the long run. I truly appreciate all the support we've been shown so far, and look forward to many more years as The Pillow Fort ❤️

Best - Lil (aka Victoria, aka darling_and_dragon)