$5 Tier Update - Dropping Early Access Model, Replacing with Ad-Free Podcasts & Columns
Hey folks!
After a big organization meeting today, the team has decided to make a few updates to our tiers on Patreon, namely the $5 tier currently called, Early Access.
As a reminder, we did not plan to launch the Patreon as fast as we did lol. Someone found it before it was ready so we had basically just copy pasted the previous tiers we offered back at The Escapist over.
After some consideration, we want to make sure our videos are released to the widest possible audience and so we are going to forego the Early Access model and just release our videos at the same time for everyone.
With the amount of support we've already received we want to make sure we're not segmenting our audience, and feedback from those of you in the Discord made it clear you're in favor of this change and didn't like Early Access anyways.
What's the $5 tier updating to?
You didn't think we were just gonna remove something and not give you something back, did ya?
The $5 tier will be renamed to the Podcast / Columns tier which will provide you with completely ad-free podcasts (we're figuring out delivery method on that, stay tuned) and we're moving our written columns out of the $10 tier and into the $5 tier.
So that means if you're at the $5 tier you will now receive TWO Darren Mooney columns a week. One on Monday and one on Friday, and soon Marty Sliva will also be adding a column to our Patreon. We'll have more details on that soon.
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We hope these changes make sense and that you're happy with them. It's going to make our lives a lot easier not having to deliver videos to a bunch of different places all the time.
Sponsor-free videos will have their own playlist which will be unlisted and delivered to the Sponsor-free tier ($10) and above when they're available, but comments will be disabled on them so that we drive engagement to the public version primarily. Again, this is to make sure we're not segmenting our audience.
Thanks everyone and if you have any questions about these changes, leave them below!
Nick Calandra
Director of Content
Comments (64)
Only heard about you guys from your appearance with Colin and Gene over at LSM. Glad to sub here as well :) I may not have delved enough or I’m not as Patreon literate as I’d like: is the as free podcast just on Patreon or is there an rss link or Spotify integration?
Hey there, fellow LSM fan :D
Do what you think is best, I trust you guys. Just tell me what to pay for the videos again:)
Hi Nick, can you folks please adjust the content of the € 10 tier? It currently still lists early access as a boon.
Done! Thanks for catching that
How do I go about joining the discord for the 5 pound members ?
I'm absolutely thrilled to get the columns at $5. Yay!
First Patreon I've ever signed up for is Second Wind. I only learnt this morning about the demise of The Escapist. So happy to see how quickly Second Wind has come together and looking forward to see how high you can soar!
Same, never signed up to anything like this before
Definitely seem like good changes. And I agree with Jak, I am happy to support you guys in this form, but when it was at The Escapist it never would have been on my radar. Really happy for you all that this is going so well so far!
I'm genuinely, albeit ambivalently, happy all this happened. Happy to send money to you folx when I was not happy to send money to the escapist - no more listening to gacha game ads before ZP videos and wondering which aloof marketing director hadn't taken their pills that morning and greenlit that shite. Long live Second Wind!
Ya early access just complicates everything
I assume private RSS feed is one said method? Very excited for this
Good changes, appreciated!
That's great news. I thought us on the $5 tier were just getting a preview of one of the columns to entice us to up our tier when you posted the Loki column before announcing this! :D
Good luck to all of you guys in your new endeavor! Not that you need it :) I deeply thank you for over a decade of fun and entertainment you brought to me and millions of others!
This just made me want to support. I really enjoy Darrens columns but 10$ was more than I could spend
Hi Nick. I like this idea and will bump up to $5 for Darren (and to support y'all: years of ZP, a true community of writers and creators, and all your behind-the-scenes work).
I miss Darren's columns, but $10/mo was more than I could see spending on a subscription. Bringing it down to $5 though... now I'm tempted.
Nice changes. I like the idea of keeping your community together in one unit. That must be where the word community comes from; a common-unit - a communal unit with unity in common. Unity! Erm...... Lost my train of thought....... Oh yeah, good changes, well done guys!!
Sounds great
Dropping Early Access is a good call and aligns with the 'spirit' of your endeavour (imo). I'm here to support because I believe in the 'content comes first' ethos of Second Wind, something which is seriously lacking in the gaming industry right now. Revenue is a by product of great content which in turn is a by product of a great team, clearly you have an amazing team who are prepared to follow. I have one question, did Yahtzee stand up and shout "No!, I'm Calandra!" Good luck!
Sounds like a good thing for everyone. Thank you! The decision about the comments in particular seems very reasonable too. Please keep us updated so we know when the podcast question has been resolved (and Marty's column drops). I'm currently in the supporter tier and will reconsider when then. Keep up the good energy!
I'm feeling positive about dropping of Early Access. I prefer voluntary support by the community with bonuses like names-in-the-video rather than gated content, even if it's only temporarily exclusive.
What about a Darren Mooney daily wake-up call? That should definitely part of the tier!
Early access for a series which is often about recent releases never made much sense anyway. Happy with this change, and even happier to be getting the columns! I do just want to say though, while Darren's columns of course make perfect sense in the absence of a website and are a nice bonus, pretty please don't ever make content Patreon exclusive just for the sake of having exclusive Patreon content. Not a fan of Easy Allies or Kinda Funny locking off some of their best videos, permanently making them undiscoverable. It feels like it's a significant piece of work held hostage instead of what they intended as a cool bonus for supporters. And you know what would make a neat bonus for the $10 tier? Take it old school and collect all the columns in a monthly or quarterly (simple!) digital magazine. And finally... I demand Extra Ramblomatic.
The reason the columns are Patreon exclusive is that Second Wind has no-where else to put them as they are not doing a website.
Positive reaction! Early access sucked anyways. Will we get uncensored videos still?
I believe they said on the first stream that Yahtzee is gonna swear as much as he likes in his videos, regardless of whether YouTube likes it or not. So basically, "uncensored" is now the standard.
Fair enough. I guess these are the kinds of changes which happen when growing a 'new' site.
Nice ^_^ I get to see what these columns are all about.
How will you deal with the swearing & censorship issues with youtube? Will that factor in to any of the tiers?
Nope, not paywalling swear words. We still have to abide by culture standards and community guidelines on YouTube so we're not going overboard lol.
Love ditching early access. Now we can help spread the video to new people right when it drops!
Huge fan of this! Love how focused on the community all the decisions are
So is early access being romped from all tiers or just $5?
Yea, we're dropping Early Access model entirely to release videos at the same time.
I like the removal of the early access model. This way the discussion each week isn’t bifurcated between early access and non early access. I’m sticking with the $10 tier. I started watching the escapist for ZP but subscribed to this Patreon because of adventure is nigh. Can’t wait to see what’s next!
Sounds great! Ad free podcasts are an outstanding replacement
Those don't really interest me... They might be excellent work but it's just not something I'm interested in right now. Ah well I seem to be in the minority so I guess I'll just have to deal
YES! Always hated Early Access.
Gladly stay at $10 even though it was for early access and support. Keep making the great content.
Good choice! I'm glad to hear more people will get to read the columns. Staff deserve to get eyes on their work.
Good move. Early access stuff always adds confusion in my opinion... nice for the whole community to be on the same (content) page. :)
Definitely a good move, for all the reasons. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the update. I’m still keeping my $10 tier but it’s cool to see how committed you are to providing people with tons of great rewards even at lower tiers!
Great change
Fair enough
I was waiting for a change like this. Love it!
Very much appreciated. I tend to cap my contributions per channel to around the $5 level so I can support as many of the creators I follow as possible, it really starts to add up when you have 20+ channels you want to support. I couldn't really justify dropping another channel to get those columns and keep to my patreon budget.
I have a couple Patreons I'm a member of that provide Podcasts, they just give access to a private RSS feed of audio posts that needs to authenticate with your Patreon login. Although now that I read a bit more about it in the Patreon documentation, you only get 1 feed.
I strongly approve of not splitting engagement wherever possible, will make discussions more lively not that this was a concern with how fast the group has grown.
Sold!
Woooooo
Yeah this feels like the right move. Makes the 5 dollar tier feel even more valuable
Seems sensible to me. Great job balancing the interests of the audience and the creators.
YES YES YES!
As far as podcast what can we look forward too (mainly asking if a Slightly Something Else type show is gonna be in the menu)
We have two new podcasts in the works right now. We'll announce when we're ready!
I like this change. Good job
Sounds like a good plan to me, I thought $10 for the columns was too much, though I am subbed to that level. Also, just putting it out there, I'm all for Nick "Big DOC" Calandra as your official title!
As someone who was already on the $5 tier, big fan!
Fantastic stuff!
Thats fair. Can't wait to see your first review