Last week a reader on ResetEra wrote, in a thread about the gaming media collapse, “We do need a Defector for games.” Seven other people in that same thread said some version of the same thing. One of them did the math out loud: “if I supported all the creators whose content I consume it would probably be $100+ which I absolutely cannot afford.”
That is the post that finalized our founding offer.
We are Two Average Gamers, a gaming media site that has existed since 2018. We are pivoting out of an ad-supported model into a paid bundle called TAG Pro. The bundle is $99 a year at public launch, December 2026. The founding offer is $149 once, locked forever, while the first 100 seats remain.
This post is the receipt for why that price exists, and why we think you would be weird not to take it if the math fits your reading habits. It is a long argument and a short ask. If you only want the ask, here it is: $149 once, lifetime access, claim a seat. If you want the argument, keep reading.
The receipt
Here is what an engaged adult reader of gaming media pays today, in mid-2026, if they are trying to support the writers and outlets that have not been gutted yet:
- Aftermath, the worker-owned ex-Kotaku site: $100/year
- Crossplay, Patrick Klepek’s solo Substack: $60/year
- Game File, Stephen Totilo’s solo newsletter: $60/year
- Backloggd Backer tier, for the tracker: $36/year
- Second Wind or whichever Patreon-funded video crew: $60/year
That is $316 a year, across five separate Stripes, for editorial plus a tracker. It does not include a Discord. It does not include any kind of habit-loop product like a daily puzzle. It does not include household-library support for couples who play together. And it absolutely does not include a curated weekly digest that pulls the actually-important stuff out of all five into one place.
Our bundle is $99 a year. The founding offer is $149 once.
If the founding offer beats the patchwork after roughly nine months, that is the entire argument right there. Everything else in this post is footnotes.
How the funding works, plainly
We have been on Mediavine since the early days. Mediavine is a fine ad network. It paid the hosting bill and a small honorarium to the writers, and it still funds the free tier of the site for readers who do not pay us directly.
What is changing with TAG Pro is not “we kicked ads.” It is “Pro members get the ad-free version, free readers keep getting the ad-supported version, both groups get the same writing.” Two tiers, one site, honest about which one you are reading.
We thought about it this way for a while: the people who pay us $99 a year (or $149 once) are buying three things. They are buying the bundle (editorial plus SavePoint plus Discord plus Arcade). They are buying the ad-free experience. And they are quietly buying the part of TAG’s runway that lets us keep covering the free tier for everyone else. We are okay with that trade. The math works at roughly 4 to 6% conversion from free to Pro among engaged members (newsletter subscribers and Discord regulars) over the first year, which is where we are aiming.
The other reason this matters is structural. Google search referrals to gaming publishers fell hard in 2025, with AI Overviews appearing on roughly 37% of entertainment SERPs. The ad-funded model alone is structurally exposed because the traffic ads depend on is structurally evaporating. A two-tier site with a paid bundle as the floor and Mediavine as the bonus is a durable business. A site that lives or dies by SEO clicks against AI Overviews is not.
Why a bundle, not a newsletter
This is the question we get most. The honest answer is that one paid newsletter is not enough work for a team and not enough value for a reader.
The diaspora map (we have a full article on it here) makes the structural point cleanly: every indie gaming outlet today is a single product, mostly editorial, mostly text. They are great products. They also each occupy roughly one slot in your routine.
TAG Pro is four products:
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Editorial in the same lineage as the diaspora outlets above. Returning-player guides, honest reviews, Patch Briefings on the live games you actually play, long-form columns. Written by adults, for adults. Not chasing search.
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SavePoint, the tracker and decision engine. Imports your library from Steam, Xbox, and PSN, plus BoardGameGeek for tabletop and a one-time Backloggd CSV import. Tells you what to play this Saturday in your two-hour window. Has household-library mode for couples. Year in Gaming wrapped in December. The free tier is generous. The Pro tier unlocks historical data, exports, and the full Decision Engine.
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Members Discord. Paywalled, which means filtered. Writers post drafts in the channels and read the replies. Founders Lounge for the first 100. Game-specific rooms that map to what TAG covers.
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TAG Arcade. A daily-habit arcade. TAG Connections (Connections clone built for gamers). Rank Arena (PvP ranking duels). More puzzles in the works. Five minutes a day. Top of funnel for new readers, low-stakes hangout for members.
You can find each of these things elsewhere. You cannot find them bundled. The four-product bundle is the differentiation.
Who this is for
We have spent a long time saying TAG is for “adults whose time is no longer their own.” It is. But the sharper way to put it, the one that maps to your actual situation if you have read this far, is this:
You are already paying for most of this, patched across five Substacks, and half-reading three of them. You can afford it, technically, but it is annoying, and you are not sure if any of the writers you started subscribing to in 2023 are still the writers you want to read in 2026.
If that is you, the bundle is for you. You replace the patchwork with one bill. You get a tracker and a Discord on top, neither of which exists in the patchwork. You keep the diaspora outlets you actually read (we still subscribe to Aftermath and Crossplay; you should too) and you stop paying for the ones you do not.
If that is not you, the bundle is probably not for you, and you should not feel pressured. We are not running a Patreon for two guys. We are running a media bundle. The audience is bounded.
What this isn’t
Four things we are deliberately not doing:
Ad-free for Pro, not anti-ad. Pro members get the clean reading experience. Free readers keep TAG funded with Mediavine. We are not pretending ads are evil. We are giving you the option to opt out of them.
Not SEO-driven. We write columns and reviews and patch briefings. We do not write “best 25 games for X” listicles. The traffic those used to bring is gone anyway.
AI-researched, human-written. Claude does our research, sometimes 100 times faster than we used to. Every piece still has a byline and a human edit. Faster research means more in-depth pieces, not slop-filled calendars. If you see a post with no byline, email us and tell us we screwed up.
Not parasocial. This is the one we feel weirdest writing, because the founder-led-Substack model is real and works for a lot of people. We are just not running that. TAG is a brand and a team, not a personality. If you only want one writer, follow Patrick at Crossplay or Stephen at Game File. We will be the bundle around them.
The founding offer, plainly
Two ways in. Both lock the price.
Founding Lifetime, $149 once. Pay one time. Pro access forever. Permanent founder badge in the Discord. Founders Lounge access. 100 seats total. Seat counts shift as people claim them, so rather than print a number that goes stale the moment we hit publish, check the live count on the founding page. When it hits 100 it is gone.
Founding Annual, $79/year locked forever. Pay $79 today and every year after, even when the public launch price moves to $99. Permanent founder badge. Founders Lounge access. Cancel anytime, full refund in the first 30 days. 500 seats.
The public launch happens in December 2026 at $99/year, no founder badge, no lounge, no lifetime option. Standard launch pricing. We do not plan to run this founding offer again.
The honest sales close
The case for taking the lifetime seat: if you are an engaged adult reader of gaming media, and you have been reading this far, you will spend more than $149 on gaming media over the next two years even if you do not take this offer. The break-even is roughly nine months against the patchwork above. After that the bundle is free.
The case for taking the annual seat: you want to stay in the ecosystem at the lowest possible recurring price, locked, with a refund option in the first month.
The case for skipping both: you read free RSS feeds, you do not pay for gaming media, you are not in our target audience, and that is fine. We are not going to email you about this twice.
If the math fits, the link is here. The receipt above is the entire argument. Decide on whichever side of it feels more honest.
TAG Pro launches publicly December 2026 at $99/year. Founding offer live now until full. Claim a founding seat →
