Games Media in Review: Second Wind

Covering those who cover games

Second Wind is a YouTube channel created in the aftermath of the video team at The Escapist resigning due to the firing of editor-in-chief Nick Calandra in November of 2023. Currently the staff consists of Yahtzee Croshaw, Nick Calandra, Jack Packard, Darren Mooney, KC Nwosu, JM8, Jess Hoops, Elise Avery, Omar Ahmed, Eric Eduardo Weichhart, Jesse Galena, Janjo, Marty Sliva, Michael Tsarouhas, Tina S. O., Matt Laughlin, and other freelancers.

One of the recurring questions I have when doing a games media in review is “What makes them different?” and truthfully the answer is always reliant on the individuals and their opinions/taste/humor than any topic or game they’re currently playing. The individuals are the content. We stake parts of ourselves onto the success of whatever channel/individual we have come to most cling to over time. What separates this channel from Giant Bomb, Kinda Funny, and Nextlander? Not much.

Second Wind have: live streams of indie games, playthroughs of specific games, Yahtzee playing something, a news podcast, a topic podcast, a developer podcast, two D&D shows, two Yahtzee columns (one that is his usual stuff and another for non-review stuff), a competitive show, a game column, a game design column, a film column, a film/tv show podcast, and short form reviews (usually of indie games). It is the wealth of editorial content, both in video and written form, that separates them from their peers. There is a dearth of editorial content from channels like this. I know why this is: edited videos require time and that time is not substantially rewarded by viewers. This is why YouTube’s “long form video analysis” playlists are dominated much more by plot summary commentary tracks than they are by videos with actual thoughts. This is why Kinda Funny, Nextlander, and Jeff Gerstmann are channels that exist soley as archived livestreams: it is not worth the investment to sit, think, and create a sharply edited video when you could just sit at a table with someone and shoot the shit for over an hour and get exponentially more views. There is a reason Hbomberguy takes a year plus to put together a video such as the Plagiarism one. While it massively outperformed everything else he has done, it would not have been possible were it not for a patreon fund he built over many years of work.

Most surprisingly Second Wind is a YouTube channel that still believes in the power of the written word, as they currently have a sizable amount of written columns available through their patreon. Much like editorial video, written articles are very rarely rewarded for the thought and time put into them. I really appreciate both of these forms are embraced by Second Wind as part and parcel with the rest of their output. This runtime is overshadowed, naturally, by their podcasts and let’s play livestreams, which is the standard “people on a zoom call hang out” I have come to expect. I have to once again refer to Kinda Funny, whose in-person atmosphere really makes it stand out from the screen recorded boxed skype calls most other multi-person channels are. I am also loath to dwell on the difference of Giant Bomb in 2019 to how it has existed since. There is simply an energy unmatched by having people occupy the same physical space. In terms of personal taste, Second Wind as a whole are nice but lack a strong enough personality to ply me from my regular subscription consumption. Everyone has an individual decision when it comes to what channel they decide to return to more consistently than others and while I admire and commend the dedication to editorial columns the content has not been very provoking.

When discussing The Penguin in How The Penguin Avoided Superhero Fatigue | The Backdrop there is repeatedly mentioned how the media being discussed is, “in conversation with,” another piece of media. How a static piece of media released in 2019 or 2024 can be “in conversation with,” something released in 2001 or 1982 or 1976 is impossible given there is no conversation happening. These pieces of media can be more aptly described as riffing on something that came before when I’m feeling charitable and acting as pale imitations when I’m not. Bytesized Reviews follow the traditional graphics, sound, gameplay, story format of old, which also means it unfortunately inherits some of their problems, such as prioritizing a “bang for your buck” mentality despite the radically haphazard price fluctuation games experience. Fully Ramblomatic is Yahtzee continuing to do his thing for 17+ years now, if you have seen an episode you have seen them all. This does not stop them from being quickly devoured by myself and many others. You could refer to Second Wind as, “the place Yahtzee now lives,” given that his output dominates their most popular videos list.

Something I noticed, thanks to the year end wrap up lists, was how not-homogeneous to every other GOTY list theirs was. Acknowledged as favorites over the dubious qualitative “best”–the superior way to create lists–Second Wind’s end of year wrap up for both games and film/tv included many works that you would not find listed among the Keighley’s or IGN’s. Ten Bells from Hillfort Games, Enotria: The Last Song from Jyamma Games, Orb: On the Movements of the Earth from Madhouse and Interior Chinatown from Charles Yu among others. Sure Astro Bot, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Metaphor: ReFantazio showed up as they did everywhere else but I appreciate there being a larger breadth of takes existing and being given an equal voice.

When I last went through and updated my spreadsheet tracking the largest patreons based on their page metrics and subscription options I noticed a downtick in total patrons across the board. There has also been some chatter by some stating Patreon’s numbers themselves are simply inaccurate and/or underreported, which does skew my own numbers as well as those with direct API access such as graphtreon. When Second Wind launched it quickly became the top patreon for video game coverage, bolstered by respect for its mass resignation in defiance of a corporate intrusion in an editorial department. Despite some rocky drama due to the resignation and ensuing accusations from Nick Frost midway through the year, Second Wind has managed to remain near the top in terms of revenue. They are fairly transparent with their finances, which is another admirable quality rarely seen amongst its kind. I mainly think of Kinda Funny who infamously turned their public patreon count private in early 2020.

Second Wind’s very successful premiere answered a question I’ve posited before: how many more slices can the patreon pie be cut into? The answer was quite a few more. Most recently Destin Legarie, previously of IGN, launched his own separate venture¹, building on a YouTube channel he maintained while employed at IGN. He is added now to the list of patreons launched after building an audience while employed at a major gaming site. Most of the successful patreons function this way: they worked at IGN², GameSpot³, Giant Bomb⁴, Escapist⁵, Kotaku⁶, Destructoid⁷, Polygon⁸, GameTrailers⁹, and 1Up¹⁰ before either resigning or being fired and utilizing their audience to fund themselves doing very similar work.

Noticeably all of these exist primarily to entertain and “stay current.” There are very few like People Make Games who are making efforts to investigate and report on the industry. Instead most channels are content to remain passive and simply observe trends and offer critiques, and I recognize the irony of such a statement coming from me¹¹. Successful patreon’s being infotainment communicates the sobering truth that even an audience willing to pay writers themselves are only going to do so for a certain type, and mostly when they come from a recognizable brand.

Substack is the newest Patreon alternative with a much larger emphasis on text that has seen more journalistic writers find success, though the platform has also become inundated with Nazis and free thought grifters spoiling it for the rest of us. This is a very roundabout way of saying Second Wind exemplifies the reality that fan funding exists primarily for personalities focused on informative entertainment and getting to be the fourth wheel of a conversation you’re not participating in. The rich are no longer interested in funding arts or writing on it and instead more interested in buying elections and suppressing journalists critical of their platform.

I don’t wish to besmirch Second Wind and the individuals creating videos there. Their success is sadly just representative for a larger shrinking of the space available at non-fan funded websites. They are not responsible for the conditions that lead to so many departing established brands who suffocate out editorial independence by forcing talent to churn out guides, stick to sports, or even shut down and later resurrect the corpse of a vertical.

Second Wind is successful as a direct oppositional force to those movements, showing how valued they are for sticking to their ethics. Much like Giant Bomb before them in 2008 and more recently Defector in 2019, and I’m sure there will be more in the future because nothing is changing for the better and instead we will continue to cut up the pie.

1. to a muted reaction as of this writing, with only 103 paid members at $2 as the lowest available tier.

2. Kinda Funny, Last Stand Media, Alanah Pearce, Ryan McCaffrey, Brian Altano and Max Scoville, and now Destin Legarie

3. NoClip

4. Jeff Gerstmann, Nextlander

5. Second Wind

6. Action Button aka Tim Rogers who yes had an audience prior to Kotaku but definitely gained a larger reach via the website

7. James Stephanie Sterling

8. Brain David Gilbert

9. Easy Allies

10. Retronauts/Jeremy Parish

11. in my defense I am not currently running a patreon or finding such success that I could do this full time. God help me if that ever changes.