Are we ever going to see Random PC game and LOLS return?

Random PC Game: MIA
Load our last save: MIA
Breaking Brad: MIA
 
These were three of my favourite features. Especially Random PC game. Vinny, Dave and a crazy old PC game. So good. It had some of the funniest moments on GB. After the move they put them on hold and claimed they were all definitely coming back. I even asked Patrick personally and he replied saying yes, they'll be back. Well, it's been months now since the move and a dry period of games across that time too. Why have they not come back? I feel like they really picked up subscriber content a lot late last year and early this year then as soon as the move happened, it all went to shit. If you look at the subscriber videos it's just been the occasional throw together video for 1 or 2 parts like Ryans Olympic stuff and Daves dwarf fortress. That stuff is okay but it's not regular or anything to keep looking forward too. Even Jar time has been less frequent. From about every 3 weeks to every 5 weeks. It can't be because they're so busy when Ryan goes "There's fucking nothing this week. Nothing!".
 
GB needs to bring back the regular subscriber content that we look forward too. When that stuff was at its peak it was amazing.

I think they are still trying to hit their stride. Dave is working on the new site, Vinny is getting the studio taken care of, and getting ready for the live show. So we'll get more eventually.

I suspect all this is going to come back soon. By the sounds of it, they're finally close to getting the set up on a par with the one pre-merger. At least I hope so....

They've done a Breaking Brad in the new studio. Maybe two, but definitely at least one.

Dave is busy rebuilding the whole god damned site.

Vinny and Drew are busy rebuilding the studio and getting ready for the Big Live Live Show: Live

Brad does a Breaking Brad whenever the achievement/moment seems right.

So no, they will never ever return and you should leave forever and ever and never make a topic again.

If these came back on a fairly regular basis, I'd resubscribe.

I belive Brad was thinking of doing more Doom 2 "after PAX", so hopefully we that will happen soon.

Dave is busy with the site redesign, Vinny is working on the studio. Drews trying to learn how to hook crazy shit up to capture gear per Jeffs requests. Jeff is still providing us with tons of sweet content. Ryan, of course, is the Bombcast/ live show master, and Brad... well Brad's doing something important I'm sure. That's pretty much the curent status as I see it.

Dave is busy rebuilding the whole god damned site.

Vinny and Drew are busy rebuilding the studio and getting ready for the Big Live Live Show: Live

Brad does a Breaking Brad whenever the achievement/moment seems right.

So no, they will never ever return and you should leave forever and ever and never make a topic again.

I thought this was covered on the last radio show. Dave is busy on the site at the moment but he found all the install codes for the games in his PC game folder in his recent house move.

In a big company like CBSi you can't just go and buy stuff to get things going like they did before, it has to be approved which is why things are taking so long.

They will be back.

"Putting stuff together" doesn't work after 6 months. Literally watched them build the site in the first place and it didn't take 6 months. Watched them move offices to a complete startup office, took a week to get back in gear, not 6 months.

Jeff managed to put up 4 hours of content yesterday. Didn't require a studio or a new site or very much at all, besides his time. That's one guy in his bedroom, you're telling me one guy in his bedroom has an easier time creating content than 6 guys at a video production office of a major media corporation?

They're apparently in meetings all day and night, but the actual content production is circling the drain. Those meetings are probably not drawing people to the site. Maybe they are. I dunno, the whole subscriber thing has been a real bummer the last 6 months.

They are of course getting ready for the Live Show, and it would be quite the coincidence to have a rush of premium content after a lot of people are on the edge of renewing their subscriptions...

I have to agree they have had 6 months now and still its like they just moved into the office last week.

@Brodehouse said:

"Putting stuff together" doesn't work after 6 months.

Sure it does. What do you know?

Oh look. Yet another one of these threads. You could probably just do a forum search and add to the myriad of other identical topics instead of making a new one.

@Brodehouse: Putting stuff together still works that way when you're not an independent anymore, though. Student films get made in two to three months; Paranormal Activity movies are practically annual; The King's Speech took significantly longer than those films because it was made for a much larger company and more decisions had to be made through more people. The CBSi merger is going to make everything take longer to get approved, as it's going to mean that Jeff can't just say "Yeah, fuck it, why not?" to anything they want to do.

More importantly, Brad has something planned for this week, I think, or at least I thought he mentioned it in the chat yesterday. As for LOLS and RPCG, those will come back when the new site is finished.

@Brodehouse said:

"Putting stuff together" doesn't work after 6 months.

Sure it does. What do you know?

Yes. Next question?

People will only let it slide for so long. I'm starting to feel slighted for renewing.

Everything is MIA =(

@chilibean_3 said:

Dave is busy rebuilding the whole god damned site.

Vinny and Drew are busy rebuilding the studio and getting ready for the Big Live Live Show: Live

Brad does a Breaking Brad whenever the achievement/moment seems right.

So no, they will never ever return and you should leave forever and ever and never make a topic again.

dude, chill ... thats a fair question. All of us subscribed to help the guys out AND because of the content, and the content side of things has been slim the last few weeks/months (premium content that is). With all due respect to the guys, at some point the "we are trying to set things up here" excuse gets old ... we are way past that in "thats BS or your company is terrible"-territory by now.

Again with this shit? Yes, they're doing a very poor job of putting up worthwhile content, the excuses were hard to swallow after a month but are now verging on being ridiculous, it's hard to see where any of their time is spent, the membership is worthless and the sky is fucking blue. 
 
It's time to get over it or move on. Making a new thread about it everyday will change nothing. You'll draw the ire of the GBDF, you'll gathering the whiners and you'll get people like me who're pretty tired of hearing about the same shit, yet still enter every one of these threads and bitch about it. The world will keep spinning.

@Brodehouse said:

Jeff managed to put up 4 hours of content yesterday. Didn't require a studio or a new site or very much at all, besides his time. That's one guy in his bedroom, you're telling me one guy in his bedroom has an easier time creating content than 6 guys at a video production office of a major media corporation?

Yes. For a few reasons:

1. You expect a different level of quality coming from Jeff's house vs the big studio. He doesn't have to come close to the same production values. There is a certain bar that the crew wants to hit when they are in the studio that Jeff cannot realistically approach in his fucking bedroom, so he doesn't need to bother. (With that being said, keep in mind how long it took him just to get a working Xplit setup.)
2. Less people along the chain to deal with. I assume they give him more or less free reign to put up whatever content he likes, as it was a holiday and they weren't going to have anything anyway.
3. It's very infrequent. They are attempting to structure their production office and their website to make content creation easier (and hence, more content) since they now have the resources to do so. They just aren't there yet. (There's a reason why Jeff doesn't crank out a video from his house every night or even a few times a week; his setup is designed around occasional content dumps as the turn around is just too time consuming to do anything more. Plus, his day job is GB after all.)

The one thing you lose when you go from an independent company to something in a corporate structure is swiftness. Everything takes longer to react because more wheels need to be put into motion. Let's have this discussion again once the wheels are spinning but we aren't going anywhere.

@Brodehouse said:

The value of a subscription in a post-CBSi world is demonstrably and permanently less than at Whiskey.

I agree, but for different reasons. My main concern is the loss of Tested/Screened to the overall package, not a decline in video production. They'll get that sorted or they'll lose subs, whereas those other sites are gone for good.

@Brodehouse said:

I guess I should just wait until CBSi screws this up and Jeff and all the staff quit and form another start up

I hate this thread in general terms, but if this happens it would actually be kinda funny.

Ah, to be impatient. For those who are using yesterday's four-hour game-a-thon with Jeff in their arguments: you know that content required almost no production. Anyone can do that, and Jeff so happened to have the free time to make it for us. On a holiday. I'm not there on the scene everyday, but from the sound of it, this merge has been tough on everybody.

I agree, the lack of content in general recently has been a bit of a bummer. I know Jeff feels bad about it though, because he took his free time yesterday and did a 4 hour live stream. This tells me they have their reasons and it will return but right now it's just a bummer. Really bad time too since there's been kind of a real games draught this year.  
 
There's been a few games worth your time this year but not many and it's been good time for something else. 
 
I don't know. I know they'll make a come back when they have what they need. It doesn't make it suck any less haha

@Brodehouse: Things work differently in corporations than in start ups. They are still in their temporary office space. They have to get union carpenters to do the renovations on their new office and studio before they can move in proper and get set up. When the new studio is set up it will be custom built from the ground up to fit their exact needs. For now they have to share a studio with the other major media properties in the office. Jeff can pump out 4 hours of content from home because there isn't another media producer that has scheduled time in Jeff's home.

Everything has to go through approvals. There are likely thousands of investors and if the company financials turn to shit they are going to need to be able to look up exactly where all the money is going. If they can't then the investors will find someone who can.

Can I just say one thing to the people saying that Dave is busy working on the new site and that Vinny/Drew are way busy doing production/studio building? They aren't doing these things 24/7. These content drops take a maximum of 2 hours, are you really saying these guys can't take these 2 hours out of their schedule in the past 6 months to create content for the fans and subscribers of their site? You know, the stuff that this site is built for?

I'm not trying to be a dick, I have basically given up just now waiting for content that applies to me, I know stuff will eventually come back to normal, but I'd just like to have a little retort.

I missed Jeff's livestream. I hope it gets uploaded if possible.

@Baillie said:

Can I just say one thing to the people saying that Dave is busy working on the new site and that Vinny/Drew are way busy doing production/studio building? They aren't doing these things 24/7. These content drops take a maximum of 2 hours, are you really saying these guys can't take these 2 hours out of their schedule in the past 6 months to create content for the fans and subscribers of their site? You know, the stuff that this site is built for?

I'm not trying to be a dick, I have basically given up just now waiting for content that applies to me, I know stuff will eventually come back to normal, but I'd just like to have a little retort.

If you think building a studio or, even worse, building a website that gets hundreds of thousands of hits per day is a job in which you can just "take two hours out of their schedules", you are very misinformed on the work required to do those things. Building a website is a fucking nightmare, especially one with as many functions as Giant Bomb and especially when you're a team of two to do it.

@aurahack: I see what you are saying. But like, isn't a main goal of this website user content? So Imagine it this way. Imagine I own a garage. It does two things. (1) Fix Cars (2) Provide rentals. But i spend all my time organizing my rental cars that i never fix any cars. I don't want to get involved in this thread, as I think there has been enough stuff for me to look at on GB, but can't you see the point this guy is making?

@aurahack said:

@Baillie said:

Can I just say one thing to the people saying that Dave is busy working on the new site and that Vinny/Drew are way busy doing production/studio building? They aren't doing these things 24/7. These content drops take a maximum of 2 hours, are you really saying these guys can't take these 2 hours out of their schedule in the past 6 months to create content for the fans and subscribers of their site? You know, the stuff that this site is built for?

I'm not trying to be a dick, I have basically given up just now waiting for content that applies to me, I know stuff will eventually come back to normal, but I'd just like to have a little retort.

If you think building a studio or, even worse, building a website that gets hundreds of thousands of hits per day is a job in which you can just "take two hours out of their schedules", you are very misinformed on the work required to do those things. Building a website is a fucking nightmare, especially one with as many functions as Giant Bomb and especially when you're a team of two to do it.

No, no I'm not saying it's an easy thing, but 2 hours out of a what? 8-hour day? I actually have no idea how long these guys work, but let's just say the work 8 hours a day. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. 6 months. 40 x 6 = ~240 hours. I'm just saying it wouldn't really make that much of a dent in their workload if they took 2 hours out of this. Worst case scenario the new site/studio launches a whole day late.

I don't think you really understand what I'm getting at.

The move seems to have affected things (which is fair) but I would not expect all the bonus content soon due to the big rush of games due out over the coming weeks means the team will have less time to cover older titles (or things like Breaking Brad) as the coverage probably will not get as much hits as the newer games coverage. However, I do not see why when a dry period comes around again that the team will not be able to start doing more of the community focused features.

@Brodehouse said:

"Putting stuff together" doesn't work after 6 months. Literally watched them build the site in the first place and it didn't take 6 months. Watched them move offices to a complete startup office, took a week to get back in gear, not 6 months. Jeff managed to put up 4 hours of content yesterday. Didn't require a studio or a new site or very much at all, besides his time. That's one guy in his bedroom, you're telling me one guy in his bedroom has an easier time creating content than 6 guys at a video production office of a major media corporation? They're apparently in meetings all day and night, but the actual content production is circling the drain. Those meetings are probably not drawing people to the site. Maybe they are. I dunno, the whole subscriber thing has been a real bummer the last 6 months.

You've never been part of a start-up before, have you?

@Brodehouse Somewhat off-topic, but is that stream available to watch somewhere? Cheers!

Never mind, found it!

http://www.twitch.tv/gbjg/b/330975844

@Brodehouse said:

@Splodge

@Brodehouse said:

"Putting stuff together" doesn't work after 6 months.

Sure it does. What do you know?

Because I watched them do it with my own lying eyes, twice! March of 2008 all they had was a blog, by July they had a whole site. I watched them take their entire Sausalito office, expand it threefold, and move it to a different city, there wasn't six months of "well, we'd like to do some stuff, but instead I'm just going to move papers around my desk".

@Little_Socrates Then "we'll be more capable of producing content with CBSi" was just gallows humor. And "things will clear up soon" is a fabrication, if half their day is spent being incapable of producing content because of corporate interference, that's not going to somehow improve. The value of a subscription in a post-CBSi world is demonstrably and permanently less than at Whiskey. Like I said, all it took was one guy and some consumer grade capture gear and suddenly the site has 4 hours of content. All it took was Jeff redirecting the chat window to a Persona 4 community tournament and there's content. If we're at the point where their office time is comprised of Vinny trying to rejigger a microphone with a pen knife because the MEDIA PRODUCTION CORPORATION he works for won't approve a new microphone, we're in a lot of trouble. You know what, I guess I should just wait until CBSi screws this up and Jeff and all the staff quit and form another start up. Same thing you do whenever your favorite game studio gets purchased by an unscrupulous publisher.

They were idiots to sell out.

They risk losing what got them there in the first place.

(Actually the whole whiskey media thing was what drew me towards everyone. It was just entertainment like no other.)

@Brodehouse Somewhat off-topic, but is that stream available to watch somewhere? Cheers!

@Baillie: I get where you're coming from, but I'm coming from someone who has been a part of similar endeavors. In my experience, disrupting your workflow like that does far more than take out 2 hours of your work. That's also not mentioning that Dave and Drew's jobs aren't to play games for the site. They have separate duties that fill up their workload on its own. Unless you're planning significantly ahead, it bones yourself and anyone else who's work depends on yours.

All in good time.

@aurahack said:

@Baillie: I get where you're coming from, but I'm coming from someone who has been a part of similar endeavors. In my experience, disrupting your workflow like that does far more than take out 2 hours of your work. That's also not mentioning that Dave and Drew's jobs aren't to play games for the site. They have separate duties that fill up their workload on its own. Unless you're planning significantly ahead, it bones yourself and anyone else who's work depends on yours.

You're making this out as if it's the hardest thing in the world, it's really not. They aren't constantly at work like this, they stop every day. Are you saying these 'breaks' disrupt the workflow too?

@BeachThunder said:

Everything is MIA =(

The Giant Bombsquad flies like paper, gets high like planes.

Breaking Brad is the one I miss the most. Watching his rage build up was just too funny. The PC features were OK, but they could be a bit dull, if you ask me. I don't like the Flight Club, though.

@Baillie: It is really hard if you're a small team (see: two people) taking on a massive project. There's also a difference between a lunch break and a break to play videogames for an undetermined amount of time. Again, I am merely speaking from experience. If I have a checklist of shit I need to do by week's end (or day's end), it throws everything off the rails if I just stop for hours to do something completely unrelated. My mindset is different and it takes time to get going full speed again. I can only imagine sticking to the schedule is even more imperative if they are working on the site redesign to launch in time for the Big Live Live Show, which is what I can only imagine they are trying to do.

Kinda missing all that and dwarf fortress, i bought another year with that whole we're gunna do a dwarf fortress thing, then Dave never got around to playing it again or didn't want to from the impression i got after the 2nd episode, they sold me on it then didn't do what they advertised.

Maybe they are busy and not the right peeps are around for what they wanna do,still busy making the site or they are 'still getting used to they're new office' but feels like it had been long enough just for them to sit and do at least something like the things that haven't been seen for awhile.

@Brodehouse said:

"Putting stuff together" doesn't work after 6 months. Literally watched them build the site in the first place and it didn't take 6 months. Watched them move offices to a complete startup office, took a week to get back in gear, not 6 months. Jeff managed to put up 4 hours of content yesterday. Didn't require a studio or a new site or very much at all, besides his time. That's one guy in his bedroom, you're telling me one guy in his bedroom has an easier time creating content than 6 guys at a video production office of a major media corporation? They're apparently in meetings all day and night, but the actual content production is circling the drain. Those meetings are probably not drawing people to the site. Maybe they are. I dunno, the whole subscriber thing has been a real bummer the last 6 months.

I was literally going to say this exact thing. The move to CBSi has completely destroyed the site's productivity. It's kind of sad to see. I've said for a while they have much more power to do whatever the fuck they want then they probably think. I think they are playing by CBSi's rules too much, when they could definitely just do whatever they want and there's no way the company could fire them.

The company can do whatever the fuck they want. Of course CBSi could fire them.

@Baillie: For what it's worth, judging by the Olympic games feature, the new studio seems actually to be coming along nicely. I wouldn't surprised if they're aiming at getting it done for the Big Live Live Show.

@glyn said:

They were idiots to sell out.

They risk losing what got them there in the first place.

(Actually the whole whiskey media thing was what drew me towards everyone. It was just entertainment like no other.)

Except Giant Bomb didn't "sell out" (god, what a silly sophomoric term.. I love punk rock but just...fuck that term, it's so ridiculous). Whiskey Media's investors sold out. Which is what investors in start-ups do.

In a totally unrelated note, I sure hope they do start creating more subscriber content because boy I am bored of these threads creeping up every 2-3 days.

@aurahack: So productivity is down because they only have two people who are rebuilding the site? What about the site they already have? I know launch is not far off and they are probably in a bit of crunch time right now, but come on. Just beacuse they have two people working furiously away, doesn't mean the other 6 can just sit around and wait for them. And vinny is probably working hard on that studio, though really, as somebody who has done studio designs before, it doesn't take that long to tell higher ups what you want, only a long time for them to get it approved, so his part of the process shouldn't take that much of his time, especially since he's done it before for the same group. I just don't get whats going on there. Maybe the CBSi infrastructure is far more fucked than any of us even know, but I doubt it. I'm sure its inefficient, but this is getting silly.