Fandom has bought Giant Bomb

And GameSpot, GameFAQs, Tv Guide, Metacritic etc.

Another year, another owner.

Wild news. I can't say I had strong feelings about RV but it must be a logistical nightmare getting tossed between various owners.

First two questions that pop into my mind (after verifying this is indeed happening from Fandom’s press release):

1. Are we going to get nightmare autoplay video ads on the top and bottom of our screens while browsing this site on mobile?

2. Given that the conversion to redvideo felt like a work in progress, what will happen to the site’s video player moving forward?

Just hope this isn’t a “Univision buys The Onion and AV Club” scenario.

I think we can all safely say: Fuck Red Ventures :)

I don't know what the future brings, but good to have that chapter end fairly quick. At least Fandom knows what a video game is. I hope they treat their people well.

This is obviously a better fit for Giant Bomb than Red Ventures seemed to be (I'm not even sure what they did with the site, and they didn't seem to be either given how quickly they ended up selling it) so I'm optimistic.

I feel bad for the staff who are going to have to deal with ANOTHER corporate switchover and onboarding process, though. Hopefully this will be a good thing in the long term but I'm sure @rorie and the others have had their fill of putting together new paperwork, possibly switching health insurance and learning new corporate cultures for a good long time at this point.

I know of Fandom, which is more than I could say for Red Ventures when that deal went down. So this seems like good news and a better fit for GB?

I guess?

What's Fandom?

Surely this acquisition will work out. lol. lmao.

Gonna make sure metacritic weighs giantbombs review scores correctly one way or another huh

@brian_: That's my question as well. And what, specifically, makes this a better fit?

@daavpuke: I've been thinking more and more that the number of key staff that had left had to be tied to RV, but I'm not sure how. Why 'fuck RV'? Not trying to start shit, just genuinely curious...

I'm curious of what changes, if any, are made to the premium model or the content/types of content produced. Also curious as to what attempts at 'censorship', for lack of a better term, on language etc. will be put in place... Change and uncertainty are motherfuckers...

@himsteveo: you may know Fandom as the old Wikia. They also own Curse. They're essentially the other big wiki site. If you've looked up a wiki for video games, it's likely them.

As to all key staff leaving, they've each individually said at some point that they were being stifled creatively and told to chase trends they weren't comfortable with. I'm sure someone, somewhere clipped those times Jeff and Vinny mentioned them. But they are the primary reason everyone left. On top of that, putting ads in front of every video, making it harder to watch anything. Switching the premium model to Discord ties that make it redundant to be premium. Just a list of a thousand cuts, all at the result of the RV buyout.

I only know Fandom from using the vtuber wiki, so i assume their primary income is ad related.

Fandom better not fuck up the GB wiki. Honestly this is pretty worrying. Fandom has not only the worst designed websites on the planet, but also the worst ads.

@daavpuke: Huh, didn't know they owned that much.

I do remember Jeff saying he was feeling burned out, and I think I'm remembering Jeff say those things too. I was wondering why the premium model changed - I was thinking changes to what premium got you was super weird, but just, for whatever reason, didn't think it was because of RV. Naivete on my part I guess.

I would have to agree, just based on the times I've ended up there. I would go so far as to say that their wikis are borderline unusable without an ad blocker.

Which two Jeffs are you talking about here? There are too many damn Jeff's now!

@sethmode: fair call lol - Jeff G, after he left

Can't say too much, however, Tom Caswell, a host at GameSpot has clarified that all staff across all purchased sites will keep their jobs, titles, and salaries. Also, the acquisition will be discussed during game Mess Mornings.

@zombiepie: hate to be that guy, but they get to keep their job right now. When one company buys another you don't make changes on day 1 let alone month 1.

My gut reaction is to keep an eye on the wiki. I haven't heard great things about Fandom, but we've got enough evidence that RV isn't any better now so whatever. That's capitalism baby, love a good consolidation. Hope things work out in the long run for everyone involved.

Dear ${diety}, please let this go well. 🙏

@sethmode said:

I use adblockers, and Fandom sites are still very obnoxious to use, especially on mobile. Still, I use their wikis all the time, except when there are good alternatives such as Elder Scrolls.

Wish the best for all around the different websites. Hope the Giant Bombathon was planned with this in mind, get some sub goals and be more independent. I figure it's still happening despite the timing! Can't wait for this fun week of shows y'all!

Buddy of mine said the same. I try not to use my phone as much as I used to, and I just stopped using it entirely for some sites like that one, because yeah, they're almost unusable and they MURDER battery.

I wonder if this will end up with the same shitty SEO fuckery fandom does with everything to ensure they get the top billing in Google.

@himsteveo: To be fair, most of that stuff about what RV did is just complete speculation from the toxic part of Giant Bomb fans.

This is exhausting...

Gross, every time I go to a Fandom link it's just absolute garbage.

This made me laugh, despair and nod in agreement all in equal measure...

not gonna lie this is suprising . that said honestly RV just wanted cnet i think so its also not too surprising they would shed the 'bloat' that it came with if they didn't see a use for it, honestly idk if this is a good or bad thing for everyone but frankly after the VR year we had that was disappointing idk how i feel about this .. hopefully everything works out great for everyone here in the long run , it seemed like the site was just getting better again.

@retris: regardless of whether RV exerted some sort of influence on GB or not, the word on the street from everybody I know in games writing is that they've treated their staff at a number of their properties *horrendously*

I think Grubb shrugging off the concerns of the audience about Fandom and the purchase at the top of GMM was not a good look. A sizeable portion of us have been here since Whiskey Media and we've seen it turn for the worse with every single transfer of ownership.

@bawalo: What would you rather him say? People that are upset but still here from the Whiskey days are going to be upset no matter what because there is literally not a single person *staff member remaining from those days.

Any fears people have aren't going to be dissuaded by Grubb being positive, negative, or anything in between. I don't know what else Grubb is supposed to do but shrug.

@bawalo: Disagreed, there's no point in always being in doom and gloom pessimism before everything happens. Heck, when Gerstmann left GB people were declaring the site dead and it turns out him leaving just made the site better and Gerstmann feel better too.

@retris: I agree with you in general and a lot of the threads here were disgusting parasocial nigthmares, but this does appear to be a case where folks were on to something with people being unhappy at RV. At least, I just saw this now.

Dan Auer on Twitter

I hate saying this fucking sentence, but Jeff Gerstmann "liked" it.

@sethmode: Whats wrong with Gerstmann liking that comment? It's just wishing everyone the best.

@f1rev2: Nothing is wrong with him liking it, I just hate saying that sentence in general, because I hate using social media "likes" as some sort of barometer for any kind of opinion (even though I'm basically did just that - hence why I hate the sentence). And you're right, it could just be wishing everyone the best, but Dan does go on to throw shade in the most respectable way possible, it's hard to assume Jeff doesn't agree with the entire tweet.

This Rorie erasure will not stand.

@bruno0091: Holy shit I feel terrible! I forgot that national treasure and all around problem solver. Hell, he's the only one I've actually talked to via message so it's doubly terrible I forgot about him.

Of course the staff is going to have to stay positive regardless, and maybe this changes nothing. But when RV swooped in the reaction was very much "Who the heck is Red Ventures". With this, there's a lot more "Oh god not Fandom".

The pessimism and hand wringing can be obnoxious, but I do feel like there's more behind it this time beyond the anxiety of seeing a website change hands.

It'd be possible to sit here and theorize about how bad RV was as a corporate overseer, and some of it is almost certainly accurate. That said, a lot of the talk about RV will always be a game of guessing and assumption, usually about the very personal lives of very real people. Meanwhile, I can directly point to the many ways in which Fandom has deteriorated since they first started to catch on around 2015, both in their own website design and in that of every website they subsumed along the way (RIP CurseForge.) No matter how bad RV may have been, there is zero possibility in my eyes that things will improve under Fandom.

This acquisition is a transparently-blatant attempt to develop more of a monopoly on movies/comic/games fandom than Fandom already has, while also eliminating no fewer than three of Fandom Wikia's few remaining competitors (Comic Vine, GB, and GameFAQs' wikis.) As someone who hates the now-inescapable refrain of bloated megacorps acquiring everyone tangentially related to their business, and also as someone who values immensely the Giant Bomb wiki as well as almost any wiki not powered by Fandom, I fail to see a single angle of this that isn't just bleak.

Everyone on staff was publicly super positive about the Red Ventures acquisition. I'm not saying that they can't genuinely be happy or excited about a new parent company. I am saying that no one on staff can publicly be upset, apprehensive, or uncomfortable about a new parent company.

In other words, we shouldn't take staff's social media postings to mean ANYTHING.

For now, I'm just thankful that people have their jobs and bask in the uneasy glow of uncertainty.

@franzlska: I agree with this take. Regardless of whatever happens on the content creation side of things (which is primarily what the staff is focused on, from the sound of things), this purchase suggests bad things for the website, especially the wiki. I looked up something on a Fandom page last night and had to close two separate ads for Genshin Impact before the video that I couldn’t close just crashed my mobile browser. As someone who primarily uses this site on their phone, I can’t say I’m looking forward to Fandom’s consolidation.

@sethmode: It's not surprising that people would make the accidental omission, the often bold and intriguing character of Rorie having had so many recasts since the beginning. Each adding their own take on the character. It is easy to forget he is the same person. Hopefully the new show runners handle his character with the respect he deserves. I don't expect anything as good as the "dark showers" arc but in the right hands I think they can swing something close to it's caliber.

Who knows, maybe this will be good. Maybe that alleged new third tier of membership will get rid of ads across ALL Fandom sites!

Gotta feel bad for GB and everything the crew has been put through. Really hope things get better, more stable for them.

I hope the best for the staff and that they are treated well by the new corporate bosses.

That said, I won't be shocked to see someone like grubb go out on his own if things don't go well. He has enough of a following on his own to make the patreon model work if needed (in my opinion anyway).

Please keep wild speculation and conspiracy theories to a minimum. I've already seem them in other places and they really don't help anything.

I just hope that the staff are in a good place. That's what matters ultimately. Hope they don't have to worry about being axed, hope that the new owners recognise the value of Giant Bomb (& Gamespot for that matter, & the other assorted ex-CBSi employees still hanging in there), & on a purely selfish level I hope they don't cover the site in auto-playing videos. Or if they do at least start with the video muted for the love of god.

I really haven't kept up with the Red Ventures gossip aside from Jeff G leaving. But the content I've seen since the "soft reboot" for a lack of a better term has been enjoyable & I hope that the team are able to keep doing that or whatever else they want to

Yeah I also don't know why I'm supposed to be more optimistic about this one. I certainly didn't trust RV but I know that Fandom websites are fuckin' garbage.