Bombcast, more like BORECAST....i have my reasons.

@MasterRain said:

I am curious though, what do all 5 of them do on a day when no content is released? Talk about laser disks and wait for something to quicklook?

QUICK LOOK A LASER DISC GAME!

Seriously, I hope the do this.

Aww man why does someone who is dissing a part of the website get that quest for one of the staff posting on their topic.

For shame, Brad Shoey Shoemaker

@Brad said:

Mountain_flames more like Mountain_LAMES

@Brad said:

Mountain_flames more like Mountain_LAMES

*Pff* hahaha. Thanks Brad.

I see only one solution to ensuring we have high quality podcast and high quality listeners - Two way, real time shock helmets.

All podcast must be listened to live with ALLL participants wear helmets that send out electrical shocks. Jeff, Ryan, Brad, and Vinny as they speak will be rated in real time on their participation, comments, and grasp of the subject. If a 2/3s majority of listeners think something that Jeff, Ryan, Brad, and Vinny said was bad they are all shocked. Now because this HAS TO BE a two way street each listener is required to wear a helmet as well. Therefore, every few minutes a listener will be asked a question or to comment in the chat. However, THE LISTENERS answer will then be rated by Jeff, Ryan, Brad, and Vinny. If the listeners answer is deemed stupid, thoughtless, or just wrong the listener is shocked However, IN ADDITION, all of the people who follow that listener on Giant Bomb will be shocked as well. Thus if you follow someone on Giant Bomb you had better be VERY sure they are no some idiot.

This system sounds fair, because the listeners can make real-time feedback to the podcasters. On the other hand the listeners are held accountable as well and the act of “following” someone on the Giant Bomb gains greater meaning.

Ha ha ha I like the whole podcast intro OP wrote. There are a lot of 'yeahs , yips and ya's' going on in all GB stuff. Funny. Only bombcast I listen to now is the GOTY stuff.

The less games the guys talk about on the Bombcast, the better it is. These last few have been especially great.

The podcast was around before a good percentage of the people complaining about it were listeners or were even aware of Giant Bomb and it will be around for a long time after they have finished complaining and left. Meanwhile, the loyal listeners who listen to it for entertainment will be sitting here, not being dicks, and enjoying our Ryan, Jeff, Brad, Vinny, and Patrick time on that beautiful, majestic beast known as the Bombcast.

Mountain_flames more like Mountain_LAMES

There's nothing to talk about during the summer, it's to be expected. It'll get better when fall comes around.

I must say though, when they started talking about landscaping in the last bombcast, I fell asleep.

@TheSouthernDandy said:

@Sweep

@Harkat said:

You're so humble, Sweep.

Humble is my middle name.

Sweep Humble Sweepington.

You told me 'Danger' was your middle name. Sweep Danger Deuce Sweepington. What the hell? Also Deuce. You said that too.

'Danger Deuce' is actually his baptismal name, Good ol @Sweep Humble Danger Deuce Sweepington III.

@SSValis said:

There's nothing to talk about during the summer, it's to be expected. It'll get better when fall comes around.

I must say though, when they started talking about landscaping in the last bombcast, I fell asleep.

Man, I could listed to Jeff talk about his pears all day.

I love all the random bullshit that this summer has brought. I like my Bombcast jam packed with all sorts of shenanigans.

I still say I would like to have GB do more jar time-esque videos with Ryan, Vinny and @Brad . Easy to produce and throw up and it people go bananas over them.

I download it the instant it goes up and listen to it Wed and Thursday on my drive to/from work. To me, its like a rush hour radio talk show, but with profanity and games talk. Plus, Brad's from the next town over, so I'm supporting "local guys" by listening (hey, Brad- I still think Bojangles seasoned fries beat out their Botato Rounds!). I have noticed, and mentioned before, that when Ryan's gone, and Jeff takes the reigns, the podcast is usually an hour shorter and more focused on talking points.

I love the Bombcast, and I've noticed no drop-off in quality whatsoever. As far as the internet goes, it's still the highlight of my week, and unless it's a rare dud, I'll listen to it more than once.

That said, I won't deny that sometimes I do kind of wonder what they do all day, on weeks where maybe one review goes up, 4-5 quick looks, and that's about it for original content (i.e. not press releases, trailers they've been sent, etc.). I know they are having frustrating issues getting all of the gear they want, but it's been pretty clearly demonstrated that they now have more than enough equipment to shoot some stuff (like their multi-camera makeshift "set" setup they now use for TNT). And moreover, Jeff has stated that he intends to shoot things like his "Game Hall of Fame" thing at his own home anyway.

And then there are those handful of other weeks throughout the year (E3, the holiday game rush months, etc.), where they are pretty clearly working balls to the wall all day and night

I hope once the construction there is done, and they get their gear sorted, that things largely return to the way they were. The lack of premium content has been a pretty big bummer too - the "Subscriber" video tab features more TNT archive videos than original subscriber content, I'd guess, and even that is negated by their TNT streams already being available to anyone on their Justin.tv history anyway. Aside from Jeff's webcam videos every few weeks, and a bi-monthly "radio show", there's been almost nothing. It appears the Dwarf Fortress series has been aborted too after two episodes, since one hasn't appeared in nearly a month.

I'll keep paying because I support these guys and the stuff they do, but for people who are more judicious in trying to justify that subscription fee with tangible content - it's probably been pretty difficult.

But to bring it back, since I got on a pretty crazy tangent there - the Bombcast is still great. I've long feared that they would cut back on the length of it, much like they did with TNT (which with rare exception is now 1.5 hours tops, usually slightly less due to starting a little late), but it seems to keep getting longer. Long-form hilarious nonsense is what I come to Giant Bomb for.

Again, how would moving the off-topic conversations after the game content hurt the people who like that stuff? I listened to Bombcast for many years because I think the crew has a very honest and conversational way of talking about new games that give me a better handle on where to spend my money than just reading a review. I miss that since I have moved on. It's just too hard to skip through the stuff I don't care about for the stuff I do when I'm driving or exercising (my usual podcast consumption activities).

Why not make both camps happy by putting the game talk up front and the other stuff after some kind of jingle that lets me know when to stop listening?

@AlexanderSheen said:

@Brad said:

Mountain_flames more like Mountain_LAMES

*Pff* hahaha. Thanks Brad.

Oi, no problem mate!

I think it is better than ever. Most of what I want to listen to is the guys bullshitting. They genuinely hilarious. If you just want in depth games coverage there are a ton of other podcasts that do that thing.

last podcast was pretty good. i fell asleep about 2/3 of the way through though due to drowse-inducing medication.

Despite the fact that your post is virtually illegible, I kind of agree to an extent.

Ryan is a great host who knows how to keep things on topic but the last few weeks contain virtually no video game talk for huge chunks at a time. Vinny's radio obsession and other tangents are interesting, but not 30 minutes of interesting. It's not This American Life and I come to listen to game talk.

I know that it's been a dry past few weeks but man, sometimes the bombcast hardly feels like a game podcast at all. Also, for your listeners across the pond in the UK and Europe, so many of the cultural references are so obscure that entire sections of the podcast can be completely redundant to us. It's always fun to try and piece things together and most of it you can get from context but seriously, the talk about certain restaurant chains, esoteric tech practices and the like is starting to grate.

I think there have been a few podcasts recently where the game talk doesn't start until 40 minutes or so in. That's just not well produced content.

I love the bombcast and the crew but recently it's just not been up to standard, and it pains me to say that.

My favorite part of the bombcasts are always the unplanned, non-gaming parts. There are lots of other podcasts that you can check out with a heavy structure that will get down to brass tacks and only take an hour. Listen to those instead.

Bombcast continues to be the best Podcast ever created as far as I'm concerned. With only GFW Radio coming in a close 2nd (Don't tell Jeff Green I said that!).

I finally stopped listening to the Bombcast a few weeks ago, and to be honest, I should have done that a while ago. I'm all for quirky personalities and a few tangents, but I come to Giant Bomb for video game coverage with personality, not post-modern comedians that sometimes talk about video games, and that's what it's been slipping into.

And for all the joking they do, there's a real undercurrent of weary cynicism, and that's not a compliment. There's very little genuine joy showing through in what they do; maybe that's ultimately what happens when your job and hobby are the same thing, I don't know. What I do know is that the Bombcast has become taxing to listen to. It just isn't fun any more, so I moved on.

I still value Quick Looks and especially the Random PC Game installments. My Premium Membership just renewed, and I'll hold onto it this year, but I have my doubts about sticking with this longer than that. Not sure why I even wrote this all out, considering I'm most likely to just receive insults for it. I do want to enjoy the Bombcast, I really do.

I can't speak for everyone but I do feel the Bombcast has been lacking in oomph for the past few months - actually, probably since the media blitz from E3 ended.

I don't mind non-game talk as long as it's funny. I also don't mind when they talk about food and drink, being a fan of those things myself.

But, man. I know they're friends of the show, but all this Cards Against Humanity shit is getting tiresome. The last Bombcast I listened to (I think the one right after PAX) had Ryan prattling on about it for the first 40 minutes of the podcast. It's gotten more coverage than most legit releases do.

The pessimist in me just thinks that the guys are losing their interest in games.

Quit resurrecting this miserable shitty thread please.

Brad Shoemaker. End of Discussion.

you should listen to every bombast, simply because of the aforementioned reason amongst many other.

For someone complaining about others not being busy with work, you have a lot of free time to listen to dudes talk on the Internet.

I always look forward to this time of year, when they don't feel obligated to just give me the rundown on a bunch of games and can mess around and say goofy crap. The discussion about cleaners, Jeff's adventures in real estate, any talk of Max and life with a baby have been great.

Why do people keep commenting on this? I've never seen a thread last this long before

I'm going to use this thread to post my own views on the bombcast so as not to clutter up the forums.

Today's podcast, 2012-09-18, was terrible. Its revealing of some real structural/functional problems with the site and personalities. All I could hear today was burn out. Low-engergy and worse, low investment in videogames and their job of illuminating/entertaining us on the state of game.

Very glaring was Vinny's complete un-involvement in looking all even the most perfunctory spec-sheet of the WiiU nearly a week after the curtian was lifted. Why were there so many inane questions like "Does it have X" "Does it come with Y" "What happens with Z?" type of lazy information getting. Its Your Job to be ready to talk about things. Should the bombcast turn into an information rehash zone for people that dont care enough about the biggest launch this year? Is that really the purpose of getting a team of long-term industry veterans together for 3 hours? No, It isnt, and the culprit isnt Vinny, its burn out. If he wasnt prepared to discuss the week of video games, he should have not been there. If his other business/video/life priorities have kept him away, he should have tagged out. That was a wrestling analogy. Burn out, is another quasi-wrestling analogy. WWF has no off-season, neither does the bombcast. Its a gruelling schedule for both groups. One way to keep things fresh is a longer-term rotation of people. Perhaps not Ryan, who manages the show so well, but the rest of the crew need a breather if they arent invested the same way their listeners are.

Let me make that clearer. Respect your listener more. If you cant be assed to look at a WiiU spec sheet, why would I be assed to listen to you if you cant bring any insight to the table? Its courtesy, yes, but its also part of the underbelly of the Personality-Driven site's problems. What do you do when a personality starts to flag. The answer, should be, time away from the camera/mic.

Secondly, and again, focusing on burn-out, not grudges with bombcast members, was Patrick. His apparent scoop of the Bioware founder departure was presented in the most low-energy way i've ever heard. No insight, no analyis, just barely mumbling out a line and letting Ryan tell the tale. He brings NOTHING to the "news" segment... when prompted, he sighs out two huge obvious headlines, again, when prompted. And then its back into weak, somewhat uninformed discussion. He is the DEDICATED news guy, he should be brimming with stories that come in from eveywhere, small things, exciting things, obscure things, things that only tertially relate to videogames but impact the industry.... maybe a word on the state of video-game specific schools, new storage technologies and how they could apply to future consoles. Anything! Again, a table full of industry veterans to chew the fat as they say, and Patrick, recently, has only been serving up gruel.

Maybe, he could be brought-in for the news segment and take the two preceeding hours to load up on news stories to present to the group. Then he'd have energy, and the bombcast would have new topic to really dig into. It would liven up the normally moribund last half hour. There is another benefit to stopping to recharge before the news comes on, Brad could use that time to check his emails when he is outside of the recording booth. For the past month Brad goes completly silent unless prompted for input. Reference has been made in the past to Brad investing himself in other work while recording. If that is the case, why is he there? The site is suffering from a lack of content, is Brad's time best used half-listening to 2 hours of discussion he isnt invovled in? Again, it seems to be a fair case to be made for burn-out.

The Ex-Whisky Roster is what, 10-12 people? Could no other people lend up to an hour and a half each week for a month to add some energy and excitement to the sites most popular feature? Why wasnt this put forward as an idea before? Is there a protectionist mindset at work? I mean, they dont even have to be the most up to date on industry news if they are more development and design oriented, again, back to the Vinny example, it was somehow acceptable to show up and not have the slightest clue about the WiiU, so you cant say a new voice would be any worse.

That is my screed. I just want things to get better. The lack of energy, effort and investment is apparent, lets think of creative ways to fix it. Or we can all just attack me for writing and caring too much.

@ChrisTaran said:

Bombcast continues to be the best Podcast ever created as far as I'm concerned. With only GFW Radio coming in a close 2nd (Don't tell Jeff Green I said that!).

i think the original 1up Yours with Garnet, Shane, Luke and John Davison was the best ever podcast.

the Bombcast is the best around now for sure.

@TudsGamol said:

I'm going to use this thread to post my own views on the bombcast so as not to clutter up the forums.

Today's podcast, 2012-09-18, was terrible. Its revealing of some real structural/functional problems with the site and personalities. All I could hear today was burn out. Low-engergy and worse, low investment in videogames and their job of illuminating/entertaining us on the state of game.

Very glaring was Vinny's complete un-involvement in looking all even the most perfunctory spec-sheet of the WiiU nearly a week after the curtian was lifted. Why were there so many inane questions like "Does it have X" "Does it come with Y" "What happens with Z?" type of lazy information getting. Its Your Job to be ready to talk about things. Should the bombcast turn into an information rehash zone for people that dont care enough about the biggest launch this year? Is that really the purpose of getting a team of long-term industry veterans together for 3 hours? No, It isnt, and the culprit isnt Vinny, its burn out. If he wasnt prepared to discuss the week of video games, he should have not been there. If his other business/video/life priorities have kept him away, he should have tagged out. That was a wrestling analogy. Burn out, is another quasi-wrestling analogy. WWF has no off-season, neither does the bombcast. Its a gruelling schedule for both groups. One way to keep things fresh is a longer-term rotation of people. Perhaps not Ryan, who manages the show so well, but the rest of the crew need a breather if they arent invested the same way their listeners are.

Let me make that clearer. Respect your listener more. If you cant be assed to look at a WiiU spec sheet, why would I be assed to listen to you if you cant bring any insight to the table? Its courtesy, yes, but its also part of the underbelly of the Personality-Driven site's problems. What do you do when a personality starts to flag. The answer, should be, time away from the camera/mic.

Secondly, and again, focusing on burn-out, not grudges with bombcast members, was Patrick. His apparent scoop of the Bioware founder departure was presented in the most low-energy way i've ever heard. No insight, no analyis, just barely mumbling out a line and letting Ryan tell the tale. He brings NOTHING to the "news" segment... when prompted, he sighs out two huge obvious headlines, again, when prompted. And then its back into weak, somewhat uninformed discussion. He is the DEDICATED news guy, he should be brimming with stories that come in from eveywhere, small things, exciting things, obscure things, things that only tertially relate to videogames but impact the industry.... maybe a word on the state of video-game specific schools, new storage technologies and how they could apply to future consoles. Anything! Again, a table full of industry veterans to chew the fat as they say, and Patrick, recently, has only been serving up gruel.

Maybe, he could be brought-in for the news segment and take the two preceeding hours to load up on news stories to present to the group. Then he'd have energy, and the bombcast would have new topic to really dig into. It would liven up the normally moribund last half hour. There is another benefit to stopping to recharge before the news comes on, Brad could use that time to check his emails when he is outside of the recording booth. For the past month Brad goes completly silent unless prompted for input. Reference has been made in the past to Brad investing himself in other work while recording. If that is the case, why is he there? The site is suffering from a lack of content, is Brad's time best used half-listening to 2 hours of discussion he isnt invovled in? Again, it seems to be a fair case to be made for burn-out.

The Ex-Whisky Roster is what, 10-12 people? Could no other people lend up to an hour and a half each week for a month to add some energy and excitement to the sites most popular feature? Why wasnt this put forward as an idea before? Is there a protectionist mindset at work? I mean, they dont even have to be the most up to date on industry news if they are more development and design oriented, again, back to the Vinny example, it was somehow acceptable to show up and not have the slightest clue about the WiiU, so you cant say a new voice would be any worse.

That is my screed. I just want things to get better. The lack of energy, effort and investment is apparent, lets think of creative ways to fix it. Or we can all just attack me for writing and caring too much.

I think you bring up some valid points, but I don't think the Bombcast ever gets super deep into the things you want. I can't recall anyway. Also, Vinny is into games, but he's probably the only one of the crew that isn't really a games journalist per se. He's the video guy that knows a bunch about games and reviews stuff from time to time. Also, bear in mind that the guys just did the BLLSL. I'm sure that preparations and the execution of that took something out of them.

@Nightriff said:

Why do people keep commenting on this? I've never seen a thread last this long before

I think it's much better for people to keep airing whatever dissonance they have with the Bombcast here rather than making new threads for it. It's a topic with an actual ongoing discussion. In the grand scheme of things this is probably a pretty pointless topic because the way GB works right now is that the guys will do things as they please and if you don't like it then you don't have to listen to it. Maybe not the greatest attitude when you consider they push paid memberships, something which I usually mention, is somewhat unprecedented in this whole games coverage industry (point me towards any other gaming news site which has paid memberships that hide actual content from the users as opposed to only hiding ads and tacking on some bonus features) Still it's much better to have people vent in one place and maybe find other like minded individuals to share their frustrations and not be subject to the typical insults that are slung towards anyone that says anything derogatory about the site.

It's only terrible at the moment because videogames are not being released as frequently at this moment in time. Therefore they have fuck all to talk about.

I agree that the show should be shorter during the news/topical drought though.

I will admit that sometimes their funniest stuff emerges when they're struggling...the whole Ham radio saga has been a laugh for example. However, for the most part....yeah....TUESDAY! TACO BELL! E-MAILS! etc etc.

Glad the crew hasn't been paying attention to the haters over the past weeks.

Hope it stays the way it is because that's what makes the podcast so great. If you want pure video game coverage in your podcast go listen to any other 900000000 game podcast.

This is my favorite podcast. Between this, the Comedy Button, and MBMBAM, I have a full plate every week. Who the hell doesn't want to vote for Jeff and his Shoot People into the Motherfucking Sun policies?

How can people be against this insanity?

@Brewmaster_Andy said:

This is my favorite podcast. Between this, the Comedy Button, and MBMBAM, I have a full plate every week. Who the hell doesn't want to vote for Jeff and his Shoot People into the Motherfucking Sun policies?

How can people be against this insanity?

I didnt realize that their where so many Comedy Button followers at GB. i love it.

@TudsGamol said:

I'm going to use this thread to post my own views on the bombcast so as not to clutter up the forums.

Today's podcast, 2012-09-18, was terrible.

I thought it was really good. I especially liked the WiiU and Vinny related segments. I don't know anything about the system and they were asking the right questions.

wow since you find it boring, it must be boring. they should definitely change it up.

Hey, at least they don't spend (what seems like) an hour every week talking about AT&T/Verizon like the Tested podcast. This Is Only a Test has gone from my second favourite podcast (after the Bombcast) to something I skip most of. Phone contracts are boring enough, but for someone outside of the US, it's the worst. I love tech but I don't give a shit about US phone carriers.

Bombcast is still my favourite thing about Giant Bomb. I think it's stayed pretty consistent quality-wise which is CRAZY considering they've been doing it for so long. Still listening to this weeks but it's sounding pretty goooood so far.

Personally, I was ecstatic that they were talking about games in the first 5 minutes. It was very refreshing.

I'm curious if there's an overlap of people who "think off-topic Bombcast is the best" and people who "complain that GB doesn't play enough games to adequately cover GOTY". I know it would be unfair to generalize, but there's got to be at least a handful of people here who exhibit such cognitive dissonance.

I'm probably going to like the Bombcast always. But after weeks of being off-topic, I miss video game discussion. I look forward to Vinny or Patrick playing games in their Pile of Shame, and I kind of wish the rest would do the same. So what if Vinny is playing Homefront? Of course it's garbage, but at least he's playing something. Who cares if a title came out 7 months ago or is not revelatory? I get the feeling I play more games than people who play for a living, and I don't really have that much free time because I'M AN ADULT.

I just get annoyed when GOTY rolls around, and out of all the games released, maybe one or two are played extensively by the staff. What's the point then?

You know, a month later and this thread starts to make a (very small) amount of sense. I particularly like that over a month ago people were defending a lack of content with "they're just getting things together" and we're still hearing that same thing now.

The worst part of the Giant Bombcast is when they talk about video games.

You've got to remember, there's been a big lull in games at the moment. As things begin to pick up, more video game discussion should find it's way back in the Bombcast.

I honestly don't mind the off topic discussion, it's easily still one of the best podcasts out there at the moment.

@dinkys:

There's been a lull? Sleeping Dogs, Darksiders 2, Borderlands 2, Dark Souls (PC), WoW: Kung Fu Panda, Torchlight 2 and that's just what I've seen on PC in the last month. Yeah, it's no Fall line up that we'll get in November, but it's certainly no lull.

@kkotd: whole lotta sequels on that list

As it usually is, that said, the ideas of 'What a sequel means' has changed a bit. It used to mean 'continuation of story' where now it can mean anything from 'a new adventure with characters x, y and z' or 'we made a new game and slapped an old name on it', which for us the gamers, isn't really a bad thing. New IPs aren't normal at the end of a cycle, but atleast we're still getting games and some damn good ones at that. Sleeping Dogs, Darksiders 2, Torchlight 2 and Borderlands 2 are all excellent games in very different ways.

Lots of people here gay for sloven mediocrity. Good to know there's so many suckers out there. :)