A time to buy and a time to sell

This is speculation on the business motivation for this deal on my part, not a judgment on the evolution or quality of Giant Bomb at all. But I'm thinking...this was all rather sudden. Jeff said that he had been in talks since December. That's barely three months ago and a company merger/acquisition doesn't usually take such a short amount of time, even with partners that are familiar with each other, unless the seller NEEDS to sell and fast. Combine that with the fact that didn't even tour the building before their first day and they packed up and out of the brick office in a week, things seem to have a urgency to them. Was whiskey media in the midst of a financial crisis? Shelby invested into these sites, likely with the intent to eventually sell them, sure. But the speed in which GB was given to CBS seems oddly quick. The Tested/Mythbusters deal I can't speak for, perhaps that was years in the making, but if that was sold off in a similar timeline, I'd say that there had to be some sort of leak in the boat that was gonna sink it quick if assets weren't sold. Either that or Shelby was retiring early, had a medical emergency or some other need for fast return on his investment.

Again, not a judgment call on the deal itself, just speculation on the motivation.

They needed the cash obviously. As long as they stay in control and stick to their guns in that sense I don't think we have anything to fear.

I don't know. Dec is when they started talking with CBSi. Seems about right to me. It's not like we're talking about a multi-million dollar company with hundred of employees.

I'm guessing that their October drive for submissions didn't do quite as well as they had hoped, and by December they realised they couldn't survive on subs alone.

I will bet that this was a multi-million dollar deal, though. GB has become a huge community and that has investment value. We are the Glengarry leads list and CBS just bought the right to pitch us. Three months just seems a tiny amount of time to work out the legal stuff for something this large.

I think that all of these websites probably took a lot of money to maintain and they just weren't making it with the memberships and the minimal advertisements that they had. Giant Bomb and Comic Vine were sold off to the big corporation because they had the largest userbases, and the other websites were sold off to another company (Super excited for Tested, not sure if Screened will be around that much longer, Anime Vice...) so that they could milk them for something or other.

I actually think that this will be a good thing for Giant Bomb. There will probably be a lot of advertisements on here once they do their redesign, but I'm completely fine with that. As long as they can continue doing what they are doing, it's all okay.

It happend. Id say most the deals were long in the makeing. While Jeff/Giantbomb going to Gamespot was a simple "You want us! All right. here are the ground rules...you accept? all right lets roll!!"

Not to mention office space in San Francisco proper ain't cheap, not is the rent for the tetrabytes of content in the cloud storage and...well, none of the editors are rich, but they do alright so payroll was also likely problematic, which would explain Jeff's relief and happiness if this deal means everybody at GB got to keep their paychecks coming without a big drop in pay (not in a greedy way, but rather in a 'some of us are homeowners and family men' sort of way. After Jeff's sick day video, maybe in an 'I'm a hoarder and need to keep my storage spot" kinda way. haha)

@Akyho said:

I think you missed the part were Whiskey media is being sold. ALL OF IT MUST GO NOW!

Thats what has happend. GB and Comic vine went to Gamespot.

Tested, Screened and Anime vice are sold to another company.

Tested get to work with the Mythbusters crew Jamie and Adam. While I donno the others do stuff.

I didn't miss that, I meant in a "Everything must go now or we all go belly up" sort of way. I dunno, it's just speculation. I bet they'd answer it openly if asked since they always seemed open about the business end of things for the most part. This also means that Shelby is out, retired or whatever, since this is his whole company getting sold off.

lol at that multi million dollar thing, thats funny

@Aelric said:

@Akyho said:

I think you missed the part were Whiskey media is being sold. ALL OF IT MUST GO NOW!

Thats what has happend. GB and Comic vine went to Gamespot.

Tested, Screened and Anime vice are sold to another company.

Tested get to work with the Mythbusters crew Jamie and Adam. While I donno the others do stuff.

I didn't miss that, I meant in a "Everything must go now or we all go belly up" sort of way. I dunno, it's just speculation. I bet they'd answer it openly if asked since they always seemed open about the business end of things for the most part. This also means that Shelby is out, retired or whatever, since this is his whole company getting sold off.

I edited myself since I miss read. But you quoted me quickly.

@d00dCOMEON: Why? Maybe it's not literally 2 mil or more, but I imagine it's close. Think of the equipment cost alone at GB. Look at the $10,000 cameras they use, the cloud storage rent, employee costs, office rent, maintenance costs. It adds up and if you are gonna sell, you sell for more than your investment, which at this point had to have been high for Shelby and the other investors. Plus, really, they are buying us, the potential ad revenue and subscriber base, not investing in the site just for their health.