Another strip where much of the events mentioned in it are months old. I really think that something needs to be done to keep strips “current.” I have no problem with patreons getting the 3x a week schedule while regular users get 2x a week, but I think that the solution going forward needs to be some form of permanently patreon exclusive strips. This strip would for example be an excellent candidate to have been patreon exclusive forever. Admittedly, unlike some other strips where this problem has been larger, at least this one is talking about events that remain ongoing.… Read more »
Another strip where much of the events mentioned in it are months old. I really think that something needs to be done to keep strips “current.”
This isn’t a news-site, this is a webcomic.If you come here for the latest scoops, you’re doing it wrong. Besides that, all these things are still relevant even if they were “months old.”
I assume the person is referring to the idea of a webcomic referencing a current event can feel dated when viewed after the current event has fallen out of the popular consciousness. Like when a movie puts a meme reference in but by the time it releases the meme has gotten old and no one cares anymore. The other problem could be that a webcomic is made when public opinion on an event swings one way but then new information comes out and public opinion swings the other way. Then the webcomic is released and looks bad for the author/artist.… Read more »
He has a point though. It may be a strip and not a news-site, but the fact Tim was always on point of what was going on is part of the appeal. It often triggered me to an “oh I totally missed that, let me go look for the story behind the strip”. Now I know it’s mostly redundant all stuff.
Yeah, while I do get the concept that some of the one offs get outdated by the time or publication, this isn’t one of them. All of this is still ongoing.
I can see you’re attempting to be clever here, but you don’t really think you’ve drawn a parallel between “charging money for a product”, and “charging money to unlock features in a product you’ve already bought,” do you?
They’re not identical, but gating content behind payment rendering a product less usable compared to gating content behind payment rendering a product less usable falls within the bounds of structural irony well enough for a passing comment on a webcomic I think
I think that is the wrong analogy. Think of it as a game demo: free to play, but you only get part of the content so you can see if you’d like more of that content, but paying for that. If you do want all of the content, buy the full game. The game industry is trending more towards the notion of there is no game demo, so you get no content for free in order to evaluate if you’d like more. Want to even try the content to see if you like it? Buy a sliver of the game… Read more »
Slight irony in trashing a person for supposedly not knowing what words are, while glossing over the actual meaning of words that would give the statements compared the nuance needed to refute your suggestion of similarity.
Absolute hamster of a sentence, but think I worked it out – you seem mixed up on who I’m replying to. “go cry someplace else” is an empty insult and gets a pointless reply. That’s not refuting anything.
What exactly is the product here? I get that it would be nice for things mentioned as current events to be published close to their inspiring events, but if you rely on a webcomic for news maybe you should be looking elsewhere for who to blame that your information is outdated.
What is the product? The one thing that’s produced here, the comic. You realize what you’ve done here. You’ve introduced another layer of irony into this comment chain via sheer absurdity. The character in the strip in question is actually reading outdated news as though it were fresh and novel! The absurdity twists even further considering the character represents the artist himself, who directly challenged my mild observation that an example of literal irony had taken place, and supplants me in the same predicament. And now here I sit, wasting my moments, on a Thursday morning – a day after… Read more »
I would gladly accept an interrupting comic in the middle of a storyline to bring some of the more timely strips to the forefront, while still keeping the Patreon comics ahead to be more premium.
I want to see Avengers: Doomsday. I have two options. I can pay to see it in on opening day at the theater in December. Or I can wait a few months and watch it when it comes to streaming for “free,” but it will be “old news” by then and spoilers will be out, etc. That general concept feels the same to me here. Patrons are, quite literally, paying to keep this comic going now. These pages are happening because people are stepping in to fund the creation of this art. So they get first eyes on it. I… Read more »
A key difference in your general concept and what is actually happening: The delay from theaters to home streaming is pretty consistent. Some studios are longer delays, some are shorter. Many studios sneak a disc release in the middle there. But ultimately, you know it’s coming to streaming or at least digital rental in a timely fashion. The delay of your releases is ever growing. I don’t think there’s a problem with some delay. I don’t think there’s a problem having patreons get the most timely references and even exclusive content. On zero level am I at all suggesting an… Read more »
Or, instead of Patreon exlusiving those like star caster is, hopping these recent event referrals as bonus comics outside of free vs patreon loop would keep em relevant and less widening gap
Starcaster constantly runs weekly on its own patreon, with patrons having the ability to cast votes at key moments on decisions within the story. What we get here are the completed issues that Tim will occasionally release in a burst when he needs a short break from the regular CAD stuff.
I know that it might feel a little sucky to see time-relevant critiques be ever more diverged from the moment the event actually occurred. On the other hand, for people reading here, this is a free product. We don’t get to make demands as if we’ve entered into a contract with the author/owner of the comic, because we haven’t. It might suck compared to the old situation, where we got everything ‘for free’, when the site ran on ad revenue alone. That’s apparently no longer feasible (even if it were, Tim is fully within his rights to change the situation).… Read more »
The difference between something like Doomsday and these comics in this case is how the passage of time affects the enjoyment or perceived quality of the content. Sure, watching Doomsday late means not participating in timely discussion of the movie, and comes with a risk of spoilers – but when you DO watch it, the actual movie generally shouldn’t be any worse – bar perphaps a slightly dated reference that takes up a few seconds out of the whole movie. When the whole POINT of a strip is to be topical commentary of current events, it loses much of its… Read more »
While I get your point, EA being shitty is something that’s going to be timely for the foreseeable future, it’s just a question of what did that’s the most recent
I’m currently on the fence, to be honest.
On one hand, it feels odd to see half a year old topics, when we used to have up to date references.
On the other hand though, it’s starting to feel like a small, delayed time-capsule. A way of remnding me: “oh right, that thing happened X months ago”.
But I’d miss them if Tim completely locked them off for Patreon. But I won’t complain either way, because as a freeloader I have no right to do so.
First time posting here but felt like additional response was needed here. The fact that you would prefer something different is exactly the point. A non-payor, like myself, should be grateful that we can see this at all. It is hard work that someone else funded and is now being given to us for free. If you would like a better experience then you have the option of paying for it. Not paying, while complaining that your free goods are not perfect, is… also a choice. I anticipate a response that you are not seeking perfect free goods but only… Read more »
The ones I feel sorry for are people that simply can not USE Patreon for whatever reason, be it geofencing, embargos or simply not being able to get a credit or debit card for whatever reason. There’s no alternative subscription method, it’s basically a case of “Can’t use Patreon? Sucks to be you.”
Cheapskate
6 days ago
Have to agree with what others have said Tim – having the reduced schedule combined with patreon exclusives seems much better, as after the next run of Analogue or the Campaign, the “news” comics will be still further apart. It should still be a good incentive to go to Patreon for the regular updates and a significant amount of extra “exclusives”, if not a better incentive than currently, but gives more reason for non-patrons to keep returning to the site. (I say this – I have no idea what takeup of the patreon has been like since the change, and… Read more »
Drakin
6 days ago
Like a lighthouse made out of a steaming pile of sh*t, EA being a terrible company seems like the one thing you can navigate the stormy waters of the games industry by. No matter which set of rocky ground you’re barreling into EA will always be there to remind you how sh*t they are and how corporate greed and incompetence can ruin anything.
It’s funny how some people are complaining about this strip not being timely, when in fact EA was very shitty again just last week, proving this comic’s point and making it very timely indeed.
J Xavier
6 days ago
It seems like a reasonable solution would be to release the timely commentary comics while they’re current and let the Patreon people get ahead on the story-driven comics. Maybe I’m missing something?
So at current backlog as of today this strip was released to Patreons on July 10th
Today is October 26th so current delay for non Patreons would be about 15 weeks as of now?
And the delay goes up by one week every three weeks
That’s more than fine when going for story driven stuff since it gives peeps a valid reason to join the Patreon; but seems it’s kind of hard to do topical stuff with and keep people fully engaged
It’s going to be amusing if Tim makes a comic about someone who ends up having a tragic accident. Patreon reads while the subject is alive, and free fans read sometime after the person dies, changing the tone completely.
I’m in agreement, but based on Tim’s response to another thread on this comic (about watching Avengers in theatre vs waiting for streaming), it seems he’s not planning to tweak the arrangement of comic releases to allow news related content stay relevant. While it’s not how I’d handle it, I respect his decision on how & when he offers his content.
Balgar47
6 days ago
I laughed when reading this after the Bioware news last week. Timely yet not specifically intended that way.
Phaet
6 days ago
I don’t follow up corporate drama. Don’t care what companies are doing. I just want my game to be fun to play.
Really, you *should* care. They’re about to price nearly the entire gaming community out of their ecosystems.
Fortunately, we still have older systems. And newer, ‘officiall’ emulators.
XCanadianRamboX
6 days ago
I think the worst and most relevant part of this comic is that although it is technically “old news” it perfectly lines up with recent news of EA still being a terrible company, and that level of meta can’t be recreated by releasing these comics when “timely”
Speedy
6 days ago
The answer to future consoles being unaffordable is that we are moving forward to the next gen too early. There is no current reason why we need more powerful machines to play more poorly optimized games. Ever diminishing returns in graphical fidelity and simulation complexity demand that an upgrade in power comes at a low cost which we currently cannot deliver. Yknow what would be better than a PS6 and Xbox Z/S/720? SONY AND MICROSOFT ACTUALLY RELEASING GAMES. Nintendo is winning this console war not by miles, but by parsecs, and nobody cares to cite the reasons they are successful:… Read more »
I don’t really think it matters what power level Microsoft and Sony target for their consoles when the big driving cost right now is the RAM and SSD. Regardless of what CPU and GPU they go with, they still need system memory, video memory, and storage for games. But I agree 100% that we don’t need new consoles, we need more games. I personally don’t want to hear about PS6 and Xbox 5 until at least 2030. PlayStation pissed away most of the generation on live services that died on release or got cancelled, Xbox kept up their anemic release… Read more »
Member
kristijaan
6 days ago
I see the parallel between elevated Patreon access and paywalling, but Tim is right: locking a feature in a game you’ve paid full money for is wrong. The ‘going to the movies or waiting for streaming’ analogy is the correct one. Seeing people complaining about this has had one positive effect though: convinced me to join patreon. $5 a month is bugger all honestly. For me it was a case of nut up or shut up.
So basically what you are saying for people that CAN’T use patreon, because it is geofenced from their country or they don’t have access to a debit or credit card, is “Sucks to be you, bai bai!”
Nope. But, hey, if your narrative requires you to paint someone as the bad guy go for it. Whatever makes you happy.
MercuryGreen
6 days ago
You mean like Bethesda and their store for Fallout 4, Skyrim, and Starfield?
Chris
6 days ago
With EA, it’s basically “Swiper, no swiping” each and every time I hear about the next backpedaling they had to do when confronted for the umpteenth time. Truly a standard candle, a landmark with which one can orient themselves and know where they are standing in this world.
Peter
5 days ago
To the tune of “Let it be”
Fuck EA, Fuck EA, Fuck EA, Fuck EA
Whisper words of wisdom, Fuck EA
TomB
5 days ago
Wow… some of the folks here have something like ‘first world problems’. Think about it: The gaming situation is vastly changing and a few possible awful ways such as a) only for the rich (which means they want your money), b) smaller (less more stable) studios, c) may not be able to get the hardware we need, or where we don’t anything and single player will be dead… etc. But here’s the ONLY thing I’m looking at: Youtubers, Digital Storytelling/Art creation… and others… are all under threat. Tim is not the single guy he had when I first read his… Read more »
Your comment was hard to read, but I think you were basically saying you’re concerned about small creators being able to continue to do what they (and we) love due to rising costs and other factors encroaching on them, and I agree, so I’m not sure why you were down voted.
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Another strip where much of the events mentioned in it are months old. I really think that something needs to be done to keep strips “current.” I have no problem with patreons getting the 3x a week schedule while regular users get 2x a week, but I think that the solution going forward needs to be some form of permanently patreon exclusive strips. This strip would for example be an excellent candidate to have been patreon exclusive forever. Admittedly, unlike some other strips where this problem has been larger, at least this one is talking about events that remain ongoing.… Read more »
This isn’t a news-site, this is a webcomic.If you come here for the latest scoops, you’re doing it wrong. Besides that, all these things are still relevant even if they were “months old.”
What a weird thing to come here to cry about.
I assume the person is referring to the idea of a webcomic referencing a current event can feel dated when viewed after the current event has fallen out of the popular consciousness. Like when a movie puts a meme reference in but by the time it releases the meme has gotten old and no one cares anymore. The other problem could be that a webcomic is made when public opinion on an event swings one way but then new information comes out and public opinion swings the other way. Then the webcomic is released and looks bad for the author/artist.… Read more »
He has a point though. It may be a strip and not a news-site, but the fact Tim was always on point of what was going on is part of the appeal. It often triggered me to an “oh I totally missed that, let me go look for the story behind the strip”. Now I know it’s mostly redundant all stuff.
How many months are we behind the patreons now?
Is it eight months or a year?
161 days behind the most recent post
Right about 3.5 months now, as this strip is dated July 10th, 2026 and today is October 27th, 2026.
EA killed BioWare last week, this comic is VERY relevant at the moment.
tbh Bioware killed Bioware, when have they made something worth playing in recent memory?
Good news! There are more layoffs, there are still hardware shortages, there are still moves away from physical media and EA is still being shitty!
Wait. That’s not actually good news.
Yeah, while I do get the concept that some of the one offs get outdated by the time or publication, this isn’t one of them. All of this is still ongoing.
After this last week, this strip doesn’t seem so out of time
Slight irony in trashing a company for locking features behind a paywall here too
I can see you’re attempting to be clever here, but you don’t really think you’ve drawn a parallel between “charging money for a product”, and “charging money to unlock features in a product you’ve already bought,” do you?
They’re not identical, but gating content behind payment rendering a product less usable compared to gating content behind payment rendering a product less usable falls within the bounds of structural irony well enough for a passing comment on a webcomic I think
I think that is the wrong analogy. Think of it as a game demo: free to play, but you only get part of the content so you can see if you’d like more of that content, but paying for that. If you do want all of the content, buy the full game. The game industry is trending more towards the notion of there is no game demo, so you get no content for free in order to evaluate if you’d like more. Want to even try the content to see if you like it? Buy a sliver of the game… Read more »
go cry someplace else
… do you not know what words are?
Slight irony in trashing a person for supposedly not knowing what words are, while glossing over the actual meaning of words that would give the statements compared the nuance needed to refute your suggestion of similarity.
Absolute hamster of a sentence, but think I worked it out – you seem mixed up on who I’m replying to. “go cry someplace else” is an empty insult and gets a pointless reply. That’s not refuting anything.
What exactly is the product here? I get that it would be nice for things mentioned as current events to be published close to their inspiring events, but if you rely on a webcomic for news maybe you should be looking elsewhere for who to blame that your information is outdated.
What is the product? The one thing that’s produced here, the comic. You realize what you’ve done here. You’ve introduced another layer of irony into this comment chain via sheer absurdity. The character in the strip in question is actually reading outdated news as though it were fresh and novel! The absurdity twists even further considering the character represents the artist himself, who directly challenged my mild observation that an example of literal irony had taken place, and supplants me in the same predicament. And now here I sit, wasting my moments, on a Thursday morning – a day after… Read more »
I would gladly accept an interrupting comic in the middle of a storyline to bring some of the more timely strips to the forefront, while still keeping the Patreon comics ahead to be more premium.
Be patient. We’ll get to EA closing BioWare in around 6 months. 😀
I want to see Avengers: Doomsday. I have two options. I can pay to see it in on opening day at the theater in December. Or I can wait a few months and watch it when it comes to streaming for “free,” but it will be “old news” by then and spoilers will be out, etc. That general concept feels the same to me here. Patrons are, quite literally, paying to keep this comic going now. These pages are happening because people are stepping in to fund the creation of this art. So they get first eyes on it. I… Read more »
A key difference in your general concept and what is actually happening: The delay from theaters to home streaming is pretty consistent. Some studios are longer delays, some are shorter. Many studios sneak a disc release in the middle there. But ultimately, you know it’s coming to streaming or at least digital rental in a timely fashion. The delay of your releases is ever growing. I don’t think there’s a problem with some delay. I don’t think there’s a problem having patreons get the most timely references and even exclusive content. On zero level am I at all suggesting an… Read more »
Or, instead of Patreon exlusiving those like star caster is, hopping these recent event referrals as bonus comics outside of free vs patreon loop would keep em relevant and less widening gap
Wait, Starcaster is Patreon exclusive now? I’ve been wondering what’s been going on in that world for a while…
Starcaster constantly runs weekly on its own patreon, with patrons having the ability to cast votes at key moments on decisions within the story. What we get here are the completed issues that Tim will occasionally release in a burst when he needs a short break from the regular CAD stuff.
Pretty sure that Starcaster is now permanently patreon only. The last SC issue was publicly available over 18 months ago now.
Yup, Tim even announced that Start caster will move to become Patreon exclusive, that was like year ago
I know that it might feel a little sucky to see time-relevant critiques be ever more diverged from the moment the event actually occurred. On the other hand, for people reading here, this is a free product. We don’t get to make demands as if we’ve entered into a contract with the author/owner of the comic, because we haven’t. It might suck compared to the old situation, where we got everything ‘for free’, when the site ran on ad revenue alone. That’s apparently no longer feasible (even if it were, Tim is fully within his rights to change the situation).… Read more »
The difference between something like Doomsday and these comics in this case is how the passage of time affects the enjoyment or perceived quality of the content. Sure, watching Doomsday late means not participating in timely discussion of the movie, and comes with a risk of spoilers – but when you DO watch it, the actual movie generally shouldn’t be any worse – bar perphaps a slightly dated reference that takes up a few seconds out of the whole movie. When the whole POINT of a strip is to be topical commentary of current events, it loses much of its… Read more »
While I get your point, EA being shitty is something that’s going to be timely for the foreseeable future, it’s just a question of what did that’s the most recent
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7437983/2026/07/11/ea-sports-college-football-27-paid-progression-removed-community-backlash/
heres the story and i had missed it now that i saw it ill join the boycott
I’m currently on the fence, to be honest.
On one hand, it feels odd to see half a year old topics, when we used to have up to date references.
On the other hand though, it’s starting to feel like a small, delayed time-capsule. A way of remnding me: “oh right, that thing happened X months ago”.
But I’d miss them if Tim completely locked them off for Patreon. But I won’t complain either way, because as a freeloader I have no right to do so.
First time posting here but felt like additional response was needed here. The fact that you would prefer something different is exactly the point. A non-payor, like myself, should be grateful that we can see this at all. It is hard work that someone else funded and is now being given to us for free. If you would like a better experience then you have the option of paying for it. Not paying, while complaining that your free goods are not perfect, is… also a choice. I anticipate a response that you are not seeking perfect free goods but only… Read more »
The ones I feel sorry for are people that simply can not USE Patreon for whatever reason, be it geofencing, embargos or simply not being able to get a credit or debit card for whatever reason. There’s no alternative subscription method, it’s basically a case of “Can’t use Patreon? Sucks to be you.”
Have to agree with what others have said Tim – having the reduced schedule combined with patreon exclusives seems much better, as after the next run of Analogue or the Campaign, the “news” comics will be still further apart. It should still be a good incentive to go to Patreon for the regular updates and a significant amount of extra “exclusives”, if not a better incentive than currently, but gives more reason for non-patrons to keep returning to the site. (I say this – I have no idea what takeup of the patreon has been like since the change, and… Read more »
Like a lighthouse made out of a steaming pile of sh*t, EA being a terrible company seems like the one thing you can navigate the stormy waters of the games industry by. No matter which set of rocky ground you’re barreling into EA will always be there to remind you how sh*t they are and how corporate greed and incompetence can ruin anything.
It’s funny how some people are complaining about this strip not being timely, when in fact EA was very shitty again just last week, proving this comic’s point and making it very timely indeed.
It seems like a reasonable solution would be to release the timely commentary comics while they’re current and let the Patreon people get ahead on the story-driven comics. Maybe I’m missing something?
So at current backlog as of today this strip was released to Patreons on July 10th
Today is October 26th so current delay for non Patreons would be about 15 weeks as of now?
And the delay goes up by one week every three weeks
That’s more than fine when going for story driven stuff since it gives peeps a valid reason to join the Patreon; but seems it’s kind of hard to do topical stuff with and keep people fully engaged
It’s going to be amusing if Tim makes a comic about someone who ends up having a tragic accident. Patreon reads while the subject is alive, and free fans read sometime after the person dies, changing the tone completely.
I’m in agreement, but based on Tim’s response to another thread on this comic (about watching Avengers in theatre vs waiting for streaming), it seems he’s not planning to tweak the arrangement of comic releases to allow news related content stay relevant. While it’s not how I’d handle it, I respect his decision on how & when he offers his content.
I laughed when reading this after the Bioware news last week. Timely yet not specifically intended that way.
I don’t follow up corporate drama. Don’t care what companies are doing. I just want my game to be fun to play.
^^^. This one will ‘own nothing and be happy’.
Really, you *should* care. They’re about to price nearly the entire gaming community out of their ecosystems.
Fortunately, we still have older systems. And newer, ‘officiall’ emulators.
I think the worst and most relevant part of this comic is that although it is technically “old news” it perfectly lines up with recent news of EA still being a terrible company, and that level of meta can’t be recreated by releasing these comics when “timely”
The answer to future consoles being unaffordable is that we are moving forward to the next gen too early. There is no current reason why we need more powerful machines to play more poorly optimized games. Ever diminishing returns in graphical fidelity and simulation complexity demand that an upgrade in power comes at a low cost which we currently cannot deliver. Yknow what would be better than a PS6 and Xbox Z/S/720? SONY AND MICROSOFT ACTUALLY RELEASING GAMES. Nintendo is winning this console war not by miles, but by parsecs, and nobody cares to cite the reasons they are successful:… Read more »
I don’t really think it matters what power level Microsoft and Sony target for their consoles when the big driving cost right now is the RAM and SSD. Regardless of what CPU and GPU they go with, they still need system memory, video memory, and storage for games. But I agree 100% that we don’t need new consoles, we need more games. I personally don’t want to hear about PS6 and Xbox 5 until at least 2030. PlayStation pissed away most of the generation on live services that died on release or got cancelled, Xbox kept up their anemic release… Read more »
I see the parallel between elevated Patreon access and paywalling, but Tim is right: locking a feature in a game you’ve paid full money for is wrong. The ‘going to the movies or waiting for streaming’ analogy is the correct one. Seeing people complaining about this has had one positive effect though: convinced me to join patreon. $5 a month is bugger all honestly. For me it was a case of nut up or shut up.
So basically what you are saying for people that CAN’T use patreon, because it is geofenced from their country or they don’t have access to a debit or credit card, is “Sucks to be you, bai bai!”
Nope. But, hey, if your narrative requires you to paint someone as the bad guy go for it. Whatever makes you happy.
You mean like Bethesda and their store for Fallout 4, Skyrim, and Starfield?
With EA, it’s basically “Swiper, no swiping” each and every time I hear about the next backpedaling they had to do when confronted for the umpteenth time. Truly a standard candle, a landmark with which one can orient themselves and know where they are standing in this world.
To the tune of “Let it be”
Fuck EA, Fuck EA, Fuck EA, Fuck EA
Whisper words of wisdom, Fuck EA
Wow… some of the folks here have something like ‘first world problems’. Think about it: The gaming situation is vastly changing and a few possible awful ways such as a) only for the rich (which means they want your money), b) smaller (less more stable) studios, c) may not be able to get the hardware we need, or where we don’t anything and single player will be dead… etc. But here’s the ONLY thing I’m looking at: Youtubers, Digital Storytelling/Art creation… and others… are all under threat. Tim is not the single guy he had when I first read his… Read more »
Your comment was hard to read, but I think you were basically saying you’re concerned about small creators being able to continue to do what they (and we) love due to rising costs and other factors encroaching on them, and I agree, so I’m not sure why you were down voted.