F*** Fandom aka F*** Capitalism go home.

I may just be yelling into the void here and that's fine I just wanted to get this off my chest. I will be cancelling my premium tomorrow sorry to the remaining duders but I cannot in good conscience support Fandom after this. HOWEVER I would fully support the team if they decided to quit in mass and start up a Patron (and I'm sure I'm not the only one here who would) call it Giant Bomb + or the new new Giant Bomb or some shit. But fuck this corporate ownership garbage.

Upvoted

Grubb's big anti layoff speech during game mess this morning suddenly makes a lot more sense. But yeah, F this noise.

Please please please pleeeeeease do this. TY

Just keeping tis bumped. Here here! Our capitalist overlords no longer seem to care at all about enthusiast-focused content, as long as they get our sweet, delicious data. Feels stupid to pay them for the privilege of screwing us over and firing the people we’re trying to support.

Just like OP said, I know this is not in any way on GB. This is on Fandom or whichever VC vampire, man baby owns them. Will unsub and gladly support any/all of the crew should they strike out on their own.

On the upside, I can use the money I save to finally officially join over at Nextlander, which I should have done a year ago.

Without premium, are the archives of UPF and TNT still available?

Mod note: cleaned up profanity in the title because that's been a rule here since the Whiskey Media days, but I definitely sympathize with the frustration and agree with the sentiment.

Paying workers directly for their labor and not extracting/making money from the excess value they create is fairly anticapitalist last time I took economics.

@panburgerpartner: The excess value you are extracting is the product. Otherwise you are just paying people so they can exist.

You are asking people to make their own small business. Most likely an LLC. That IS capitalism.

@chaser324: My B duder. Thanks for not taking it down.

@theodoricfriede: my dude, I’ve been a GB member for 12 years, or was until a couple hours ago anyway, so you can assume I play games, which means I have consoles, a computer, a TV, and some means to post here. Of course I regularly participate in capitalism. The only other choice is to live off the grid like some crazy anarchist. It’s literally the only available option. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to eliminate/avoid as many of the barriers as we can between workers and profits. Successfully self-employed people are able to gain more direct value for their own labor. I don’t feel that’s remarkably controversial?

Just canceled. What am I paying for at this point? I was paying $50 a year to 'support' this site. I'll take that money elsewhere and pour it into a Patreon instead.

Giant Bomb staffers - Get out of here. Rise up! This site is over.

@panburgerpartner: You seem to be misunderstanding my point. I was pointing out the irony of someone complaining about capitalism, while asking people to do the most capitalist thing possible.

Download all the content you like on GB before Fandom kills the site. Not an IF but a when

There was a ton of content from previous web sites like Screened that is just gone forever now. Sure would be nice if there were some sort of “plex server” that archived their stuff before it got shut down and then shared that through some means of “user network” if such a thing existed, especially the stuff that was widely considered the best of what they did, before it went dark. Just a thing that would have been nice, with advanced warning signs the site was likely gonna go down. Just saying.

My best advice is download favorite content while you can. If you made Wiki entries you're proud of, copy it now. I feel this is the end of GB. And I don't see a mass rebellion happening. It would be nice, but times are hard and people need to eat. The Jeff rebellion at Gamespot was a rare thing.

@tartyron: There's a few youtube archives going around like this one.

-edit- also this one.

@rhombus_of_terror: I was using a subtext there. About smash and grabbing all the GB content we can while we can. But fuck masking it, everyone grab what you can!

it’s obvious how much of the community would put those sub dollars into supporting a Patreon for a year instead. rather that than going to the pockets of some dead eyed suits.

@theodoricfriede:

Do we have a list of shareables for former site members and the various ways to support them?

Letting people go is never good, but I never really engaged with any of the new content and haven't for a while.

I also see more of Jeff, Vinny & Co than I ever did on Giantbomb.

Which I'm guessing isn't a unique problem.

"I cancelled my subscription years ago after X left, how dare Fandom now make cuts to the product that I'm not paying for"

There is a strong anti-capitalist movement gaining traction these days, and I totally get it for the most part with companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook making record profits and the average person isn't seeing any of that. But is it so hard to believe that Giant Bomb has not exactly been printing money the past few years (if it ever did), and the Fandom managers aren't out there buying their 12th mansion off of Giant Bomb profits. None of us have seen the site's financials, yet somehow we all act like we know what's happening there? The grim reality is that if a site isn't making money it either gets trimmed or killed. And I still like this site enough that I'd rather see it trimmed so that it can keep existing.

I'm paying $5 per month for Premium. I'm not going to suddenly start paying $5 per month per every Giant Bomb member, past or present. So maybe don't try to promise too much on behalf of the "community".

I can concur with that. When I was premium, which I gladly did until the dumb Discord shift, paying that 40 bucks was a cost I had to justify. And that's per year. I can't do that justification for the current fragmented mess of $5-10 Patreons everywhere per month.

anyway, just wanted to chime in with a 'fuck Fandom' of my own. Just an unbelievably incompetent decision.

I've been a premium subscriber from the start, but these layoffs and the way they were handled are the last straw for me - I've canceled my membership. I should have done it in the aftermath of Jeff leaving, with everything about how that went down, but I can't support this anymore. I apologise to @janman, @rorie, @jerf, and Grubb (and shouts out to @unastrike and @voidburger on what is such a shitty day for them - hope y'all land on your feet safely), as they've been doin' dirt in the face of a whole bunch of shit over the last 12 months or so, but it doesn't feel right to support the bullshit that's happened/been happening with RV/Fandom... Should've maybe pulled the trigger sooner, but damn it all if it just doesn't sit right anymore...

@theodoricfriede: You don't seem to understand the definition of the word capitalism, that's what people were pointing out. Capitalism != market. Most criticism on capitalism is the criticism of the existence of the venture capitalist / landlord / owner class. In other words, it's criticism of the middle men that do not create value, but still reap the profits from the product. Hoping someone will get the full product of their labor is literally the core of socialism.

Just dropping in to say that I'll be dropping my premium sub as well.

I love the past and current duders and I love the shows you are all making. What I don't love is this yearly trend of firing someone random on the team to cut costs and then going for the usual "strategic hires" afterwards as damage control. Fuck that and fuck Fandom. The community deserves better AND THE PEOPLE WORKING AT GIANT BOMB DESERVE BETTER! How can any of the higher ups at Fandom even sleep at night?!

I'm ready to support a new project if you all drop Fandom and decide to start something new. Love you all! I'll see you on the other side.

Cancel your premium subscriptions, folks. It ain’t worth it. Been following Giant Bomb since circa 2008 and that original spirit is now dead.

I agree so hard with this. No company deserves Giant Bomb.

What’s aggravating is that Jess was what reignited my love of GB content.

Imagine Blight Club now.

Fandom screw up so much harder than they know.

And on top of that, I can’t help but worry about Jason and his family. I love them so much.

I’m so angry.

It's fucking sad watching the games media landscape that I grew up on when I discovered Gamespot by during the early 2000's be killed. So many talent people going unappreciated by short sighted greedy dipshits.

@mkennedy: It's all media. Not just games. The newspaper industry has been gutted even worse, and so has academia in many ways.

Yeah this pissed me off more than anything else because we know both Jess and Jason wanted to be here. All the other departures, even Jeff G came with some level of them wanting to leave even if Jeff got forced out early. Jason has been dedicated to the platform forever and Jess responsible for some of the best new content on the site and was a much needed point of diversity since Tam and Lucy aren't available nearly enough. Welcome back to the white guys+Jan show everyone.

If anyone here has a bunch of money to throw around, please buy GB and then let them do whatever they want. And instead of hitting arbitrary profitability and growth estimates, just let them pay for themselves. Please and thank you.

I was very happy with the direction of the site since The Ritual but that took everyone to make it work. What happens now? Who the fuck knows, they'll probably just hire someone in a few months and pay them less, hoping they can fill shoes that were already happily filled.

I've become increasingly convinced that the only viable path forward is for everyone involved with the site to go their separate ways. Everyone who has left so far has proven they have a loyal following that will support them through Patreon or Twitch subs or the like. I think Jess straight up doubled her Patrons after getting axed. Hell, most of the staff currently have successful platforms elsewhere. The audience and the connections made through GB won't go away, even if the name does.

The brand is getting more and more toxic with each passing month. The negativity attached to the smiling bomb logo is only growing. Get out now. Hand the forums over to the bots. Let the wiki become a billboard for ads. Just let this long death spiral come to an end and give everyone closure.

Popped in to see how long it would take for the Bors comic to be needed and yeah that seems about right.

@bigsocrates: I have a close family member that works in radio/television and the same is happening to them. They had contract work being a voice for something like 7-8 different radio stations and news stations around our area for my entire life (31 y/o), he and many people he worked with haven't heard a peep about work since early 2022.

Your absolutely correct. Gutted.

Jeff just had an open convo about his career on his Twitch, and revealed that had Ryan not passed that GB most likely would have shut down within 9 or so months.

@efesell: It always blows my mind when that guy shows up "irl". It's like that can't be a real guy can it? CAN IT? But unfortunately that guy absolutely exists.

Yeah this whole fiasco really makes it hard to justify maintaining my premium. I have no issue directly supporting people, but these firings show me that my money is not doing what I thought it was.

I was really excited to see where the site was heading, but this really took the wind out of my sails.

Going to obviously give the remaining team the time they need to adjust and figure things out, but I really feel like I’m not getting what I pay for (which is for the GB crew to stay employed).

Grubb said this morning on Game Mess Mornings in response to the two big questions:
"Isn't our premium memberships supposed to keep this from happening?" - They thought so too
"How are they gonna produce all the content with only one video producer?" - They can't, they'll be less content.

So....I'm supposed to pay the same price for premium to make sure I get content from the creators I enjoy....except now less content from fewer creators?

Get Bent, Corporate Fandom suits. I quit my premium today. Nothing against the remaining crew, I'm a huge fan of all you, but this is the final straw for me. Hopefully the execs who made this call see all the people quitting the next day and learn a lesson, but they're too busy being piece of shit fucking assholes that jerk off looking in a mirror to actually learn anything.

@givingupthefight: I agree. I'd hope that seeing the loss in revenue in direct response to these firings would sway them, but I doubt it would. I tried to "Vote with my dollar" but doesn't seem like my vote counted for much.

I'm here for the people, not the name of the site. Slim odds, but I'd love to see others quit and start something of their own. Giant Bomb can burn as far as I care.

honestly same , but thats a hard slop to do if you try it that i wouldn't blame them for not doing it either sadly. i lack money too frankly and i already can't afford jeff G most months , given the amount of ppl already getting those 'extra funds' from ppl like us theres only so much to go around so leaving a unstable yet still paying job is an understandable hard ask when theres no guarantee it'll work either way

Never thought the day would come. Almost 10 years of uninterrupted premium. It was fun while it lasted. Fuck Fandom. Feel sorry for the guys that are staying, but i can't support this anymore.

Fuck you guys are right. I was just gonna be mad and see what happens, let it ride, support the site.... but our sub money isn't going to the creators anyway. It's been a fun ride but I dipped out too.

@blabbermouth64: thank you for being way more eloquent in describing the situation than me :-)