Ending The Lane Podcast
On Thursday, March 31st Jake Williams, Brad Stark and myself recorded episode 87 of The Lane Podcast. This was / will be our final episode of The Lane Podcast. Although this episode was posted on Friday, April 1st it wasn’t an April Fools joke.
Now that the post is done and it’s a few days after April Fools I thought I’d share a little about the podcast, how it was started and why we have brought it to an end.
Jake Williams, Brad Stark and I started this podcast in September of 2013 with our first episode being posted on September 9th. This was the third podcast I was doing at the time with Toon Talk Weekly starting a few months earlier and the Hop Cast chugging along. The three of us started this podcast shortly after getting into Riot Games League Of Legends. You’d hear us talking about the game whenever we were together either for drinks or other work related functions, we were hooked. When I get that hooked into something I want an outlet to talk about my experience and thoughts and podcasting is a medium I love. Whether it’s audio or video, I love the DIY nature of podcasting, the fact that anyone can have a voice and people around the world can be listening.
Our interest in the game grew pretty strong and it was a lot of fun to talk about this game that we were spending hours playing… maybe too many hours if you ask my wife. Before League Of Legends I played a few games every now and then but wasn’t as hooked, there was something about the MOBA genre that pulled me in. They make you want to learn and improve. Plus the fact that you can never beat them just makes you continue to queue up and play just one more.
I’d say the height of the podcast was when the three of us went to C2E2 a few years back. Riot Games had a booth there and were even giving a talk about animating characters in League Of Legends.
After that was when our interests started to shift a little bit. First, Blizzard Games announced their MOBA called Heroes Of The Storm. Jake is a pretty big Blizzard fanboy and quickly fell in love with that game. I joined in on the fun there and play from time to time but it wasn’t something that captured my attention like League Of Legends. What did capture my attention was a mobile MOBA from Super Evil Megacorp called Vainglory. I had been following the progress of that game since the Apple iOS Metal Demo in September 2014 and after Ciderhelm left the League Of Legends world to go work for Super Evil Megacorp. There was and still is something about this game that really makes me excited to play. I was so hooked on this game that I started a podcast about it in November 2014 called Shatter The Vain.
My passion was behind Vainglory and the Shatter The Vain podcast. My numbers for that show quickly passed what we were seeing on The Lane Podcast after doing that show for over a year. I don’t know exactly what it was but I was excited to share what I was doing and making for that show where I wasn’t as excited to share and post about The Lane Podcast. It could have been that League Of Legends already had some great content creators and such a large player base that it was hard to break through. It was also because outside of Jake Williams and Brad Stark, I didn’t know many people online or offline who played this game or wanted to hear me share about it on my social media outlets. The perception of League Of Legends three years ago is way different then it is today and we’re finally starting to see eSports being taken more serious. So that contributed to my lack of sharing or support for that show. Also being called a nerd for talking about a video game even if it is said half jokingly, still makes you keep quite about it when you’re not around people who want it hear about it.
At this point The Lane Podcast needed to either end or change.
In May 0f 2015, almost a year ago we tried to re-boot the podcast, where we made the change from just talking League Of Legends to also talking about Heroes of The Storm, Vainglory and whatever other MOBA we might be playing. The three of us decided to do this under the same name because it was a similar show and we didn’t want to lose the small audience we had. At that time we also decided to move the show to a weekly format where before it was every other week. I still believe this was the smart move for the show and the content we were talking about. No one wants to hear patch notes for their favorite game two weeks after they were released. But this week schedule also burned us out on things quicker.
As our interests in the other games waned, I know my eagerness to talk about the games did too. I was 100% into the Vainglory world and Jake and Stark were not. So me talking about things that happened in that game to them wasn’t what they wanted to hear. It went the other way too, when either one of them talked about Heroes Of The Storm I just sort of glazed over. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, it just wasn’t my game and keeping track of updates, balance changes and different hero builds for 3+ games was too much.
It’s nice to have an end to this podcast, something about it having a final episode makes it feel like we accomplished something and not that we gave up. I’ve had other podcasts like Discarded Cartridges and LooseKeys Project ReCaps that sort of just pod-faded away.
The Lane never gained much traction, we never had hundreds of downloads or much interaction on social media. The lack of growth isn’t always the reason to stop something. I was honored that we even had one person who wanted to listen to the show. Every listener and supporter is amazing and I’ve never taken them for granted. That for me is one of the hardest things about stopping the podcast, I feel like we are letting some people down.
I learned a lot about building a community doing this show. The video game scene is so much stronger when you can build what you’re doing with your audience. Its not like marketing, you can’t just shove it down people’s throats and sooner or later they will take it. I’ve seen how much stronger a podcast can be when you have a great group of people around you helping make it better. The Lane never had a community, we had fans and supporters but I think we did a poor job building on that and as I sit down the mic and walk away, I have a better understanding of that.
Sometimes you just need to step back and decide if something is working or not. If it’s not, then you need to make the change because if you’re not happy with what you’re doing now you won’t be happy in another year when you’re still trying to make it work.
I’m sorry if we’re leaving a hole in your podcast feed but there are some other great podcasts out there. I’ll be continuing Shatter the Vain and you might see something Heroes Of The Storm related from Jake in future as well. Thank you to everyone who listened and played with me over the last couple of years and I hope you enjoyed the show.
