Pirates: 2024 Year in Review

Hi everyone! This is where you can share what Pirates stuff happened over the past year. It can be just about anything, from accomplishments to purchases to cool ideas. If this seems too vague, you can look at mine for an example. There’s also the option of stating your Pirates Goals for 2025.

Pirates Goals for 2024 (set last year)
-Successfully making replica ships. Learned the skills required to make pretty much any ships I want, both for personal use and selling.
-I did attack my Pirates CSG goals and went very hard after them. I based my entire life around restarting Pirates in 2024. The jury is still out on whether or not it can come back, partly due to production delays.
-Released at least 156 videos on YouTube. This eclipsed my goal of 104 total (at least two per week).  I was very consistent with releases on Fridays and Sundays.  I did a lot of full-game footage videos and some live streams, along with various production videos in the second half of the year.
-I did reach 1000 subscribers on YouTube!
-Only released 1 podcast (not 4+). Podcast had to take a back seat to production and selling.
-I made some improvements to Pirates with Ben, but most of the minor/optional improvements were passed up in favor of working on the Store and Newsletter. (business has to come first, else this never becomes sustainable)
-I did play at least one game in every month of the year. I did average at least one play per week (52+ plays total), with 55 plays on the year! Multiple SM-only games were played in July for the 20th anniversary of the set.
-Focus on games with new or exciting elements – competitive games, live streamed games, recordings of full games with chess clock, customs, etc – I did exactly that – all of the above.
-Was not able to grow the Las Vegas Pirates player base and scene.  Various discouraging cancels/flakes/no-shows in the first quarter made me realize there was little point in trying.
-I did attempt to “host” at least two major group meetup events – Dice Tower West and PirateFestLV. The latter did not see any Epic Scale play due to windy conditions and nearly no turnout.
-No opportunity to play any CG4 turns, but the game is very slowly continuing.
-I did teach four new players how to play the game.
-Gave out 46 packs and at least 34 ships to various players and organizations.

General accomplishments:
-Finally executed hard on my plans for restarting the game.  Went full-time on Pirates CSG and worked way more hours on the game than in any year prior – especially in regards to things that actually move the game forward and bring it back, not just fun stuff like playing and making endless customs in a spreadsheet.
-Opened the Store at Pirates with Ben, posted about 40 products, made some sales, and got my customs in the hands of players.
-Finished Pirates of the Golden Seas! First custom set physically produced and sold.
-Designed, produced, playtested, released, marketed and sold many different custom game pieces. Brought various customs to life. Sold game pieces from all three of my custom sets – Golden Seas, Age of Sail, and Epic Seas.
-Started The Pirate Press newsletter, with over 170 subscribers. 30 Saturday newsletters sent out.
-Released 156 videos and 1 podcast.
-Published dozens of fleets at PSMList
-Restarted the Fleet Challenge tradition
-Played the game 55 times, my highest total since 2017. Broke my “months in a row” played record of 28 by reaching 31 months in a row where I’ve played at least one game of Pirates, dating back to June 2022. (28 month streak was November 2014 to February 2017)
-Played out Tournament #3 on schedule and learned more about the competitive meta, fleet building, and the intricacies of the rules than ever before.
-Worked hard to successfully upskill on various aspects of the production processes required to make the game. Learned Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator, Silhouette Studio, Cura, Bambu Studio, sheet printing, laser cutting and more. Learned the entire DIY shipmaking process of 3D printing and decals. Learned the artwork process required to create brand new ship art from Inkscape SVG template files. Learned how to design and prototype entirely new ship/creature designs.

Pirates Goals for 2025
-Determine success/failure of Restarting Project no later than February 2025. If my own efforts aren’t enough, go all-out with final attempts at mass outreach + fundraising to exhaust all options.
-Release Pirates: Seas of Japan
-Finish reasonably doable and fun things on my “PCSG life bucket list”.
-20th anniversary games for Crimson Coast and Revolution
-Play my turns in CG4 when/if I am able.

Feel free to comment below with your own 2024 Year in Review!  Or post your submissions for the 2024 End of Year thread!