We've had the longest off-and-on hiatus recently in a while for GeekNights. You can blame Rym for that. Work travel, a ski trip, having his birthday instead of doing a show. The list goes on.

But fear not! GeekNights will return the week of Jan 30th to its former glory! In the meantime, Rym suggests you play Disco Elysium. It's if Quest for Glory, Planescape Torment, and The Communist Manifesto had a game baby.

Black lives matter. George Floyd was murdered by the police, as countless others have been. It would be hollow for us to do the show tonight while so many risk their safety to fight this racist injustice.

You can listen to two white guys talk about games some other night.

Tonight, consider a donation to any or all of these worthy causes:

• Black Lives Matter Global Network
• Reclaim the Block
• National Bail Out
• Black Visions Collective
• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
• The National Police Accountability Project
• Color of Change Education Fund
• Unicorn Riot
• Campaign Zero
• Advancement Project
• The Marshall Project

After 10 years of podcasting 2-4 nights a week, with well over a thousand episodes and hundreds of lectures and panels, we're ready to take GeekNights to the next level.

GeekNights Patreon

We can continue to fund and produce the podcast as-is for many many years to come. But as you may have noticed, our other projects (like the Utena analysis show, tabletop livestreams, appearing at more cons, etc...) have stalled. While we hope to continue them as we can, plodding at our current slow pace, for many of you that wasn't good enough. This is your chance to push us to action on all the things we do around the podcast. Check out the patreon page for more details.

GeekNights will be presenting their 25th PAX lecture at PAX East 2014!

Why No One Will Game with You
Friday 1:00pm
Badger Theatre

In gaming forums around the world, variations of the same thread forever grace the front page: “Looking for a Gaming Group.” Games are ubiquitous, barriers to entry are ever-lower, and the Internet (never mind conventions like PAX) provide what should be a sea of gamers ready and willing to play games with us. So why all the trouble? Why, in 2013, is it still so hard to form a gaming group? Why won’t anyone play Air Hockey with me?

In exploring the “LFG” space, there are a myriad of issues which come to light. Skill gaps leave players stranded. Matchmaking systems hurt as much as they help. The longer tail of games available spreads niche audiences further into increasingly specific sub-sub-sub-genres. Play styles differ. (Indeed, in some groups it is impolite to spend more than ten seconds on one’s turn, while in others spending less than ten MINUTES is the height of rudeness)!

Let’s explore why it’s so hard (or why it SEEMS to hard) to find people to play games!