(I had meant to write and publish this post last Monday, but I got distracted and didn't.)
Last week marked a subtle, but significant shift in my video game YouTube consumption. For the first time in over a decade, Stephanie (formerly James) Sterling did not post a new JimQuisition episode last Monday. (As of the time of this writing, I haven't seen an upload for this Monday either). She had warned us that she would be taking a long overdue break. Part of me thought that she wouldn't be able to go through with it, and that she just wouldn't be able to help herself and would publish a video anyway. She didn't.
Stephanie Sterling is part of an "old guard" of video game essayists on YouTube who shaped many of my perceptions of video game criticism, and criticism of the games industry at large. In addition to the JimQuisition, I was a big fan of creators like SuperBunnyHop, Errant Signal, Max Derrat, Noah Caldwell-Gervais, Joseph Anderson, and others. These creators (and others) largely influenced my own content creation philosophies. But many of these creators have slowed down or stopped uploading altogether.
SuperBunnyHop went from uploading an essay about every 2 months, to uploading 1 game essay over a span of about 2 years. Though he has since started uploading more regularly this year, with an excellent history of war-gaming (and how it evolved from table-top to video game).
Errant Signal was similarly publishing a new video every month or 2, but has slowed down to just a handful of uploads over the past 2 years. Almost all of those have been his on-going "Children of Doom" series. Will this series be his swan song? Or will he go back to more broad essays after this massive project is over?
Joseph Anderson is still doing occasional large critiques, but he seems to have moved more towards live streaming instead of pre-recorded, long-form essays. I haven't watched any of the live streams, but I have seen some clips from some of them.
Others, like Max Derrat and Noah Caldwell-Gervais seem to still be going strong, and both seem to be broadening the topics of their content. Max Derrat has begun covering other game series beyond Silent Hill and Metal Gear, while still keeping focused on how philosophy and the occult are adapted into whatever games he discusses. Noah has been creating a lot more "road trip" content, in which he talks about U.S. history from the perspective of driving a particular interstate route. I've actually liked those road trip videos a lot, since they make me nostalgic for the road trips that I took with my family as a child.
In any case, content from these foundational game essayists seems to have become fewer and further between over the past couple years, culminating with Sterling's decision to take her long-overdue break. I've been almost religiously following the JimQuisition for years now, watching almost every Monday. Last Monday, the internet seemed like an emptier, more hollow place without thanking God for her.
Last week marked the first Monday in a decade that Stephanie Sterling did not upload a JimQuisition episode.
These creators kind of represent a "second wave" of YouTube video game content creators, who took the subject matter a lot more seriously as art, compared to their predecessors in the 2000's and early 2010's. The first wave was dominated by basically 2 types of creators: the "angry reviewer" (consisting of Angry Video Game Nerd and all of his copy-cats), and irreverent skits such as "Hey Ash, Watcha Playing?". Ashley Burch has, of course, moved onto professional video game voice acting (lucky her!) and so doesn't create any YouTube content anymore (that I'm aware of). I still watch Angry Video Game Nerd whenever James Rolfe uploads a new video, but I admit that they just aren't the same as they were 10 years ago.
While I don't particularly miss the "angry reviewer" phase (there's plenty of rage bait on the internet, as is), I do miss that second wave of creators. These people did real research, and seemed to genuinely know what they were talking about. Their content felt like genuine scholarship or journalism. Some of them have simply gotten burnt out, and have had to take breaks in order to preserve their mental health. They may also feel like they are aging out of relevance. I'm not in their heads, so I can only go by what I've seen them say publicly on their channels, or via social media.
I haven't really seen any new creators coming in to fill the gaps. Sure, there are more niche essayists, who talk about very specific genres or series. There are channels like The Gaming Muse (who talks almost exclusively about Silent Hill), Potato McWhiskey (who talks about Civilization), and others. But these channels have the problem of quickly running out of new content, and often feel like they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for something to talk about.
Most of gaming YouTube content seems to have either shifted towards let's plays, or it has migrated off the platform entirely, to places like Twitch. I have found new creators who I like. There's The Spiffing Brit, who does comedy content focused around video game glitches and exploits. And, of course, I do watch some let's play channels. Perhaps my favorite let's player at the time of this writing is City Planner Plays, who started with Cities Skylines content and has since branched out to other city-building games (like Manor Lords).
And, of course, I do have other YouTube content that I watch. I still watch Red Letter Media's movie reviews. I watch channels like Folding Ideas, Patrick Willems, and Brett Kollmann and The QB School. I watch science and education content, like PBS SpaceTime. And lately, I've been getting more into pseudo-science and grifter debunk content like Professor Dave Explains and MiniMinuteman. And, of course, there's my old go-to atheist content like Aron Ra. (I miss classic Atheist Experience. Tracy and Russel were the best!)
I'm not running out of YouTube content to watch. It's just that my video game content consumption feels a lot less substantive, and a lot more superficial lately. It feels like a paradigm shift is happening, away from thoughtful, scholarly and journalistic content, and towards shallower reactive content. And I'm feeling more and more out of touch with it all.
Thank God for Stephanie Sterling. I hope she continues to release JimQuisition episodes, even if they are less frequent.