20 Years of The Dreamcast Junkyard — New Merch!

We thought we'd give you a couple weeks break from beating you over the head with the news of the Junkyard website's 20th anniversary milestone. Well, enough time has passed, so it's time to formally announce that we have collaborated with some incredible artists to bring you four new t-shirt designs.

As mentioned during our previous merch drop back in 2024, 100% of the profits made by us from the sale of merch items will go exclusively towards assisting with website and podcast hosting, with any excess going towards funding further website-related projects. Let's check out the designs!

Design 1: "Web 2K5" by Animated AF! (aka Aaron Foster)

The first of four exclusive merch designs created to celebrate The Junkyard's 20th anniversary on the web. This one was illustrated by OG Dreamcast Junkyard contributor Aaron Foster, aka Animated AF, and pays tribute to the earliest layout of the site, referencing the original banner design, the first post that founder Tom made, and more. You will also have seen part of Aaron's design adorning our current header.

Design 2: "JunkyardGaGa" by Tetsu "Tez" Okano

We’re honoured to reveal that Segagaga creator Tetsu “Tez” Okano illustrated this design, which features two familiar characters sat atop a giant junked console. How did I manage to wrangle Mr. Okano to design a t-shirt for us? Well, I proof-read some English promotional copy for his newest game "THE GIRL FROM GUNMA Kai", and he offered to illustrate something for us in return. Nice guy.

This design is also available as a sticker.

Design 3: "20 Years Logo" by From Ashes to Fire (aka Kopke)

Returning once again is From Ashes to Fire (aka Kopke), who is providing a 20 year anniversary rendition of the Dreamcast Junkyard logo he created for us back in 2024. It's sleek. It's Powerful. And you've probably seen it already doing the rounds on our socials and the website itself.

This design is also available on hats and stickers.

Design 4: "Junk Grind Radio" by Uncle Clutch

The fourth and final exclusive merch design, our friend and illustrator Uncle Clutch is taking it to the streets of Tokyo-To with this absolutely killer JSR tribute logo.

This design is also available as a sticker. Be careful with where you stick it though. Remember: Sticker is art. However, sticker as an act of vandalism is a crime.

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We hope you enjoy these four exclusive DCJY 20th anniversary designs. If you are interested in picking something up for yourself, follow this link to our merch store.

Funding the Junkyard - Patreon and Merch Announcement!

We have one big double whammy update coming your way today: All systems are go on our brand new Patreon, and we have an awesome new range of Dreamcast Junkyard merchandise launching too!

We are frequently asked by fans of the blog and podcast how they can help support The Dreamcast Junkyard with its operating costs, and for a while now, you've had two options: a BuyMeACoffee page for one-off donations, and a small collection of merchandise that’s been available since 2015. The Junkyard team have rocked these classic tees at their fair share of gaming conventions, but the roster of available designs hasn’t been updated for quite some time. 

Tom Yukawa modelling one of our original t-shirt designs. Timeless.

With our production values improving all the time on the website and podcast alike, and the persistence of that pesky phenomenon called "inflation", our monthly operating costs have increased too. So, to help keep the lights on whilst also ensuring that the Junkyard remains a 100% independent, not-for-profit, ad-free initiative, we thought it was high time to get a Patreon set up to allow for donations on a monthly recurring basis, and give our merchandise a refresh ahead of the site's 20th anniversary in 2025.

Patreon

I won't rabbit on too much here about the Patreon, as I'm certain you are more than aware of what one is; not to mention Lozz has gone to a lot of effort to summarise the ins-and-outs of it in a new dedicated section of the website (which is linked to below!) 

What’s important to stress, however, is that our aim with this Patreon is to solely cover our operating costs, and we will manage our Patreon in a way that is in accordance with this. This means we won't be producing any exclusive content for patrons, as we don't wish for anyone to be excluded from anything that the Junkyard produces. However, we are planning to have a semi-regular Q&A for patrons to take part in, and our answers will be presented on future episodes of the DreamPod.

Click here to go to our Patreon.

Click here for more information and a FAQ on our Patreon.

Merch

We decided it was time to break our merchandise dry-spell and do so in style. That's why we chose to collaborate with one of our favourite artists from the Sega fan community, Kopke, and his illustration/graphic design studio "From Ashes to Fire", to produce some truly epic new designs. 

The first of the two new designs available features a colourful cast of iconic Dreamcast characters, while the other is a clean new re-design of the Junkyard's logo. If my ADHD allows me enough executive function to do so, I endeavour to update our website and socials to incorporate this new design. For now though, you can enjoy rocking this new art on t-shirts, hoodies and long-sleeve shirts. There's even mugs and stickers available too. Buy a DCJY mug for work and watch your colleague's eyes glaze over as you answer the question "what is The Dreamcast Junkyard?"

We also opted to change our merch provider to Fourthwall, which means higher-quality products for all. We tried quite a few providers before landing on Fourthwall, and a big thanks goes out to KC of The Sega Lounge for pointing us in the right direction.

You can find our new merch range here.

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So there you have it, new Patreon and merch! If you can't commit to monthly payments, the Buy me a Coffee page will remain up for one-off donations. We will also keep the old merch page up for those who still want to grab some of those classic Junkyard designs Tom put together.

That's all now. As always, we are grateful to everyone who supports the Junkyard, regardless of whether that is monetarily, or just reading our articles and listening to the podcast. The dream never dies!