Many of you have already read this post on Penny Arcade, but if you haven’t please do because I think it’s important to hear Jerry’s own words.

I will however also summarize: PA has decided to shift their focus internally, and cease third-party content like outside-produced shows on PATV, and their gaming news site The Penny Arcade Report. For us, this specifically means that CheckPoint no longer has a home there.

We were out of town when PA announced these changes, so we couldn’t get a coherent blog post up until now, but we wanted to fill you in, and I’m going to start by addressing the three biggest questions Kathleen, myself, and the LoadingReadyRun main account received on Twitter:

– We knew this was happening. Folks, Robert Khoo and PA aren’t irresponsible businesspeople. Everyone involved knew over a month ago that this was forthcoming, this did not just get sprung on us yesterday. I know it’s a surprise—maybe even a shock—to you, our wonderful viewers, but we were aware. Don’t misunderstand me, we are still bummed about losing a home for CheckPoint, but we’re still friends with the PA staff and we’re not sore about this decision—these things happen. Though, for your interest, this was not factored into the Kickstarter budgeting, we did not know then. But that brings me neatly to point two…

– We did not rely on CheckPoint for revenue. It was a part of our overall revenue stream, certainly, but were not actually under a fee-per-episode contract for CheckPoint—our money came from a share of ad revenue. We do CheckPoint because we love doing it, we have the time, it’s a great platform for our content, and (to be honest) it’s incredibly useful for us to have a table at PAX’s Bandland, where we can meet our fans and sell merch. And that remains the case, PA is still providing us PAX passes and a Bandland space, and for that we thank them immensely. The takeaway here is, we are not in financial danger with this cancellation. Many fans of CheckPoint (love you all) aren’t really aware of all our other content. Hopefully they get to see it now 🙂

– Strip Search is a Penny Arcade in-house production, and a second season has always been their decision. We did the legwork, certainly, but Strip Search is a first party property of PA, whereas we own CheckPoint. If a second season happens (riding heavily on DVD sales, watch the skies for info on that) we hope to be involved, but it’s not our baby.

So! What is the future of CheckPoint? Well, we basically had three options.

• Keep doing it ourselves, hope to retain a fraction of the viewership. To rely on the ad revenue for the views we would get, a risky option.
• Find a new home for the show, willing to pay us some amount of fee. Still a very real possibility, certainly. Something we are not ruling out.
• Put the show on an indefinite hiatus, and use the time to focus on our 2014 Kickstarter-funded year of sketches and live-streaming. This is where we landed.

Between meeting, writing, shooting, graphics, and editing, CheckPoint basically took Paul, Kathleen, and I an entire day. We feel that, in the face of the Kickstarter and all the amazing things we have planned for the live-streaming, we can better use that time, now that we have it.

Who knows, maybe we can make one of our live shows a sort of “CheckPoint Live”, where we lambast dumb gaming news in a more casual format. It’s on the table, at least.

In the meantime, I hope that clears everything up, but please do ask me anything else on my own Twitter, or the LRR account.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Shopping! Presents! Guilt! Turkey! Consumerism! Holidays! Christmas! Annoying family members! Three new LRR videos! December!

This week’s LoadingReadyRun video is Hot and Saucey, a video with a mild pun for a name but a serious kick of hot comedy. Written by Graham, Alex and I, we had A LOT of fun coming up with the various hot sauce names and effects. My favourite is Right Now Forever, which is possibly one of the goofiest jokes I have ever come up with.

This week on CheckPoint, we take a look at Rovio’s latest game in Angry Birds: Cash! Also in the news, Twitch gets into Microsoft territory and Gran Turismo is getting faster and faster, not unlike the cars in its games.

And finally this week on Unskippable, Graham and Paul take on Tales of Xillia, the story of the world’s second-least competent thief and her struggles with the world’s biggest cowlick. Truly a harrowing tale of inspiration, hair products and stupidity.

Good job everyone! We SURVIVED DESERT BUS 7!

Sure, most of us don’t seem to be able to get out of bed before noon, I have a headache that won’t go away, and all our pets are slowly forgiving us… but it’s worth it for our biggest year yet. We are overwhelmed! Thank you so much to everyone who watched, donated, contributed, chatted and was part of the event.

If you’re already missing Desert Bus, why not check out our post-Desert Bus video this year, The Desert Bus Rap. Meet (a large portion of) the volunteer crew and count all the new wrinkles we have! We heard you kids liked the “hipidy hop” and this year we deliver. Truly the coolest video we have ever created.

Next up this week is CheckPoint, with an episode called MyGM is Best GM, brought to you via the miracle of recording before Desert Bus started. Ha ha! The episode also features some incredible wordplay work from Graham. And some filthywordplay work from me.

And finally, for Unskippable Graham and Paul take on Graham’s favourite game of 2013, Saints Row 4. Does he go easy on it because he loved this title? Nope, it’s still funny. And still incredibly ludicrous. The true hallmark of an excellent Saints Row game.

It’s that time of year again! In less than 24 hours, the 7th annual Desert Bus for Hope will pull out of (virtual) Tucson and head out to Las Vegas, stopping along the way at Funtown, Forthechildrenton and It’s4amAndWe’reQWOPingBallsVille!

If you want to watch the fun, win awesome prizes and interact with LRR crew and our friends, as always head on over to DesertBus.org. Don’t forget to join the official Desert Bus chat, and register for a donor account so you can win prizes!

But of course, that’s not all. I’m also excited to unveil the official Desert Bus 7 t-shirt! Produced by the superhumans at Fangamer, all the profits from this ultra-limited edition shirt go directly to Child’s Play. But you have to act fast, since its only available during Desert Bus 7!

And finally, what would Desert Bus be without the incredible commemorative posters made by Michael Lunsford? Less cool, I tell you what. Once again, the super-talented creator of Supernormal Step will be losing sleep and sanity recording all the memes, weirdness and craziness of this year’s marathon. As before, you’ll be able to order this poster through the LoadingReadyRun store, with a portion of the proceeds going to Child’s Play. The poster will evolve as the run goes on, but this is what Mike’s got so far!

Have you heard about that thing on the Internet? That thing you don’t like? And have strong opinions about? Well, you should yell about it online! Oh wait, don’t do that. Stop doing that.

This week’s LoadingReadyRun video is Internet Opinions and it might stir up strong opinions. And if it does, you should put them away again immediately.

But alas, this week we have an event that’s more important than internet arguments… we have finally broken Unskippable. Yes, after more than 250 episodes, Graham and  Paul finally had to… skip some of the cutscene. Time and Eternity, you have done something not even Zoids Assault could manage. Dear God.

And last, but not least this week on CheckPoint, we finally find a way for Superman to beat Batman. I know… Your first instinct is going to be to argue about this. But… just don’t. Instead let Graham’s dulcet tones wash over you as you watch Not So Free to Play.