First Giant Bomb Video (+ Video that sold you on Premium)

It occurred to me the other day that Giant Bomb has been around for almost a decade. I was thinking back to the first video I ever watched on the site (~8 years ago) and how a lot of members probably don't go that far back into the catalog. I was wondering what were the videos that everyone else first watched on Giant Bomb (or what was the video that sold you on a premium account)?

Here's mine. The combination of Vinny and Dave playing a next level bonkers MMO sold me on the site immediately.

When they first started subscriptions I balked at the idea. I made the excuse that I'd subscribe to Whisky Media if Vinny and Dave ever played Baldur's Gate II. Sure enough, a few years later this video happened and I signed up next month with my paltry stipend. I even remember calling Dave on the Big Red Phone during a live show and telling him about it

The first one that I watched was the FEAR 3 Quick Look.

I was actually gifted a year of Premium long before I paid for it within my own money. I enjoyed a lot of Giantbomb content that year and saw what I was really missing out on, so later on I started paying for it again and kept watching stuff. And I'm still doing that.

I don't remember exactly which video was my first, but the one that convinced me to pay for the premium was the Euro Truck Simulator 2 quick look with Vinny.

"Adele, help"

My first GB video that made me go to the site is the breakfast announcement stream that they were bought by CBS. There's not one video that sold me to buy premium as it was just because there was the PAX East sale.

I'm pretty new to Giant Bomb compared to a lot of y'all. I had heard of them for a long time, mostly because my friends Scott and Terence seemed to regularly RT/interact with the GB folks on Twitter. But I never thought to see what they were really all about.

I finally actually saw one of their videos in February or March of last year. I was doing a video search for Devil Daggers because I had just heard of it and the aesthetic sounded way up my alley, but I wanted to see it in action before buying it. I thought their Quick Look was really informative and entertaining, so I subscribed to their YouTube channel.

Then Mario Party Party happened. I saw the first one on YouTube, and kind of forgot about it because I wasn't aware there were subscriber-only videos. But then earlier this year I remembered Mario Party Party existed, and then found out that they did ALL the Mario Party games for subscribers. And at the same time, I found out that they were having a sale on subscriptions, so I decided to give it a whirl.

Now I'm in that sweet sweet Content Heaven and I watch Giant Bomb stuff pretty much every day. I do freelance storyboarding work for a living, and I've found that series like Vinnyvania are REALLY GOOD for putting on in the corner of my screen while I crunch on cartoon drawings.

I first found GB by looking for gameplay videos of 2010's hit game MAG, Jeff and Ryan together was always gold, I was instantly hooked.

Then about an year later this gem made me take the plunge (the fact that I had just gotten a new better paying job helped too)

Maaaaan, random pc game was so good....

Not going to post it, but the first one I watched was the first episode of the P4 endurance run. I joined before premium was a thing, and didn't have cash to subscribe at the time, but I bought a subscription as soon I could.

My first gb video was the first episode of the deadly premonition endurance run. The first things I watched when I went premium were the Drew is back from north Korea podcast and the upf where they played Lego island.

I tried to sign up for premium several times during my first year, but my credit card got cancelled with each attempt, so I can't be sure what was the very first thing I saw that made me want to go for it. But when my payment did finally go through, I clicked on this faster than it was humanly possible.

Like I said in the thread about how long we've been with GB, I first became aware of the site during E3 2012 so my first videos were something to do with E3 and it's all sort of a blur. I signed up for a monthly premium account at the same time because I was a really big believer in their style of video game coverage and had never seen anything like it before; I watch all their content to this day but I don't base my decision to remain a premium member on whether I like the shows or not; as I've said elsewhere, I use plenty of their video stuff, even subtitle-reliant content like Beast in the East, primarily as background audio while I do other things, and I've "watched" a lot of stuff I couldn't care less about as a result, especially on the Quick Look end. I pay the membership fees as much for the free content as the pay wall stuff.

I followed the site from when jeff left gamespot. The first video that made me want to sign up for premium was the first wipeout quick look with Ryan and vinny. It's hilarious and makes a terrible game in many seem like a lot of fun. Since signing up I have never doubted the purchase. Even if you don't like everything there is on the site there is so much to go back and watch. If you haven't seen the wipeout quick look though, go check it out!

My first video was an early one in the Deadly Premonition ER with Vinny & Jeff. I watched both ERs of the game and watched the Persona 4 ER while I was waiting for new episodes.

Then I toyed with the idea of premium for years, but stuck to Quick Looks and the occasional free stream.

Until, the Contradiction Quick Look. As soon as I found out GBE had played the whole game and only premium members could watch, I finally got round to throwing money at them.

Clips from UPF and "Backflips in Bioforge"

First episode of the Persona 4 Endurance Run and I was hooked. Vinny and Jeff were setting high standards in the early days of 'let's play' style content as far as showing off a great game and adding in some hilarious commentary and comedic bits. For as much as Jeff plays up the "anime is for jerks" part of his personality, the videos of anime games have often been some of the site's best content. Endurance Run has always felt like a misnomer considering it implies that they're tolerating a game that's 'so bad it's good' which could only really be applied to Deadly Premonition and carried over to Shen Mu. Now a lot of the features are largely about tolerating bad video games for the sake of tormenting coworkers on camera and then expecting them to produce comedy gold.

I subscribed when they first announced premium because I was determined to try to give back for all the hours of entertainment they'd given me since the beginning.

I'm also fairly new here. I've known about Giant Bomb forever, but always got convinced by the internet they are jaded, negative people (which of course is totally not true and I was an idiot. I'll never believe the net again forgive me). What got me interested enough to finally jump in was Metal Gear Scanlon and overall some highlights from all their stuff on youtube (DMX goomba). Soon enough I registered (i think in january 2017?) bought a premium and binged watch all Metal Gear Scanlon V and Mario Party Party.

Now i'm a regular premium subscriber and I'm watching all unprofessional fridays from the very first one with the help of the Quick Look Crew site. I love all the current content as well! GB is awesome and I wish I jumped in sooner. Every crew member be it east or west is awesome! Honestly, I haven't laughed so hard while watching stuff in a while, practically every video there's something that makes me super happy and just laugh like crazy!

I can remember watching Jeff on an episode of The Lobby with O'Dwyer and thinking, 'That guy's kinda cool,' and jumping over to GB to see what it was like.

It was Metal Gear Scanlon that made the decision easy for me to get a premium membership.

Does the Hotspot videos from Gamespot count? I wasn't actually the biggest Gamespot fan, but I was looking for a new podcast and I heard that Jeff started up something called the Arrow Pointing Down podcast and decided to give it a listen. Weirdly enough, I saw the original videos that GB produced (maybe the Bad Company 2 review was first, I dunno), but I never really started watching GB videos because my internet has ridiculous bandwidth caps at the time (IIRC it was 20GB a month).

As for premium videos, it took me a good year to hop on the premium bandwagon (it was the first $35 premium sale because t-shirt shipping costs were ridiculous for non-americans) and I am fairly certain it was one of Vinny's random PC game segments that I watched first. I am not sure which one it was, but it might have been Daggerfall?

It was the podcast. I pretty much decided it was entertaining enough that I wanted to see more. I guess that curiosity about Unprofessional Fridays was part of that.

I don't remember if premium was available from the get go, but i used Gamespot for years before uh... Kane and Lynch came out... so i was here day 1, given the chance to help fund Jeff and Ryan's adventure i threw my money at them as soon as i could.

I heard of Giantbomb when Ryan Davis passed away. So it was probably some compilation of his best work. Especially him wearing the mexican outfit and burning the moneypile stand out to me.

I've been watching the guys since Gamespot, so I've been watching GB from the start.

I only got premium in this spring's sale. I think the YouTube premium samplings they posted last year helped convince me, but there wasn't one video in particular that got me to sign up. Funnily enough, by and large I prefer the type of content they've made after I signed up compared to before, but I've been working through the archive of premium stuff and there's a lot of good stuff. I'm a fairly atypical user since I almost never listen to their podcasts and rarely watch UPF.

My brother told me about the website. The first thing I've ever watched was the Red Dead Redemption Quick Look, since that's what was on the main page. Loved it. Stayed.

As for going Premium, it wasn't any particular video. It was the ability to download the files.

Metal Gear Scanlon 1:1. Saw a clip and have been hooked since that day.

I can't remember the first video I watched (I've been following the gang since the GameSpot days) but I became a member when the Lincoln shirt was a thing

I had been listening to the Bombcast for some time, and probably watching a number of the free videos. When I saw there was a premium video scheduled for Sid Meier's SimGolf, speaking with Sid Meier, I subscribed and have been a subscriber ever since. I never owned SimGolf, but I played the demo (presumably bundled with some other Maxis title, or on a magazine demo disc) quite a bit. Having been a big fan of the SimCity series (and others like SimFarm, SimTower, SimIsle), I really appreciated the building aspects and art style. It was a game I often thought about going back to, but it wasn't really available from the likes of Steam, GoG or Amazon. So that premium stream got me to subscribe.

"Myshuno!"

Any excuse to watch this thing again

I guess the videos that convinced me were the Persona 4 Endurance Run. At the time, there was no subscription, but because of those videos, I decided I had to support them.

It wasn't a singular video for me, I just realised after awhile that I had watched GB content for entertainment more than other forms of video entertainment in general so I decided to start paying for it.

I think the first video I watched was probably Quick Look: Killzone 2 - Pt 1 which I found highly amusing at the time.

I'm a sucker for punishment so of course it was the Mario Party episodes, and since then I had been hooked.

How to Build a Bomb (I'd been following since Arrow Pointing Down and GameSpot)

I waited a week or two to get premium because, when they announced it, the plan was to split the Bombcast into two separate parts and essentially hold half of it ransom each week unless you were premium, which I didn't support. After a few days or a week or two they heard enough community feedback that they reneged on that plan and I subscribed.

Bonus: when the site started, I was coming from a bad forum experience (GameSpot and GameFAQs lol), so I was refusing to use forums anywhere. I finally ended up signing up to comment on a P4ER video, nearly a year after the site had launched.

I honestly don't remember, it may have been the Chrono trigger endurance run but i probably watched stuff before that. Also dont remember what sold me on premium, guess i just felt the content was worth it.

A quick look of Grin's Bionic Commando with some of the devs in early 2009. Link on a Swedish gaming forum. Then I watched the first episode of the Persona 4 ER and was hooked.

There really wasn't a video that sold me on premium I just subscribed when they announced subscriptions and have been premium since. I think HD videos was one of the things that sold me on premium. Otherwise I just subscribed to subscribe and support the duders.

I came in later than some but Metal Gear Scanlon was what got me to take the plunge. Haven't looked back since. P4 Endurance Run is still the gold standard for premium content on the site in my opinion.

I started listening to the podcast in 2014, but never saw any site content until a year later. That very first video was the E3 livestream in which Johnny V tweeted Lang's phone number. It was my first exposure to the site and I saw it happen live. That kept me around long enough to get invested in stuff like Mario Party Party and the Life is Strange playthrough, so I subbed to see those through.

Vinny: "Hey, everybody, it's Vinny. I'm joined with Jeff..."

Jeff: "Hey, hi."

Vinny: "We're about to go take a... lifetime's look at Persona 4."

After a few more episodes and more videos, I was hooked to this damn site.

I used to watch old Gamespot back in the day but fell off of it before Jeff was fired. I got back into Gamespot when Danny started doing all his streams and shows, I was watching one of his shows and the autoplay kicked in while I was on another tab. I was trying to find it to close and lo and behold I heard the unforgettable sultry tones of one Brad Shoemaker and did an auditory double take. It was this video:

And that was the first I had heard of Giant Bomb existing and then looking through the site and was immediately hooked. The thing that made me go premium was seeing the Metal Gear Scanlon stuff as I always wanted to know what MGS was about. According to my emails I went premium ~5 mins after registering my account.

@mattgiersoni: To be honest, this was kind of my impression of them, too. In the long, long ago, anyway. Some of Jeff's more negative reviews would be shown by people who hated him along with pics of the forums showcasing angry fans as "evidence". His Twilight Princess review was perfect for this because as far as dumb kids including myself were concerned, "who could ever dislike Zelda?" Being young and stupid and generally trusting the first source I came across on any given subject, I decided they must be jerks at best and corrupt at worst. I even saw one person try to spin the Kane and Lynch story as being a result of Jeff's unprofessionalism and laziness. Granted, this was after I had come to love GB.

I guess it's thank God for the Persona 4 Endurance Run. For the first little while, I had no idea who it was playing the game (I had been unknowingly watching a copy of the episode on a separate Youtube account), so it was the comments that finally tipped me off. This was a good while after I had grown up a little and wasn't one for snap judgements, so I don't think I would have hated them had I known it was them all along, but it is true I had pretty much forgotten GB's existence. The ER was a good reminder and a Hell of an appetizer for the site at large.

It would be a good long while before I took the Premium bait. But relatively simple when I did. I saw clips of Patrick flipping his shit in a darkened room while playing horror games and was sold. Plus, I had just started college and needed something to kill the time between classes and the bus rides. With a backlog of Spookin' With Scoops, UPFs and TNTs and a rarely used Vita, this was achieved!

I am not sure it was the first video i ever saw on the site but the Euro Truck Simulator 2 Quick Look sold me on getting a Premium Membership. I had only visited a few times and came home from work and saw that Giant Bomb was about to stream, What followed was a couple hours of pure gold that made me want to support these guys and everything they do.

I think I had watched a few videos before, but Soda Drinker Pro QL with Dan and Jeff on the green screen sold me...

I can't remember and it probably wasn't any one video that got me to subscribe. Just generally liked what the guys were doing and wanted to support it so they could keep doing it.

1 short month after I joined the site as a member I saw Ryan and Jeff playing cooking mama, and I laughed so much my face started hurting. I paid for premium shortly there after.

same

I can't remember the first video that led me to giant bomb but it was some years (and accounts) ago I think 2010-2011. I remember the old whiskey days well and the first time I went premium was for the whiskey media happy hour.

It was their Matrix Online series for me. I had seen the Nintendo Wii launch stream stuff they did on Gamespot before then, but had no idea about who any of these people were. It was great discovering the site and then digging into all of the podcasts and older videos. Then I got into the endurance run of Persona 4 and I was hooked.

No idea what the first video was, but going back to the end of the line of videos I recognize most of those. So.. the first video? Anyway, I never had a video that sold me on premium, I was sold on premium when it was announced for no other reason than wanting to support them for really liking their work.

The first video I watched (I think), was the Quick Look to Dead Rising 3.

For premium, it was honestly the ad free videos and being able to download them for offline viewing that made me convert. At the time, I don't think I knew what UPF was or their back catalog, so it wasn't because of any of those videos. I can't remember when I signed up, but I distinctly remember watching the Thief Quick Look and thinking "Man, I sure do watch a lot of videos here. It would be nice to not see these ads." I'm pretty sure the first premium video I watched was this one:

First video I watched of them was their quick look preview of Pid, back in mid 2012. I actually went back to it several times because I kept forgetting which game it was and who was doing the quick look.

I have no idea what prompted me to subscribe to them. I probably started listening to the bombcast back then and I had so much fun with their antics I felt I couldn't really pass up their offer. My email says I subscribed in October 2012. Probably to watch TNT and Breaking Brad -- there didn't use to be as much premium content back then as there is now. I remember singing up for the monthly $5 just as a trial run of sorts, and after having so much of their content in my daily routine, years later I ended up upgrading to the yearly sub.

I gotta say, this website has gone through some shit. I'm impressed with everyone's ability to pull together and get to where we are now, which is probably Giant Bomb's golden age in terms of content production. Some of the tone has certainly changed over the years, and it's really hard to fault them for that given the fact that so much stuff has happened, in Giant Bomb and elsewhere, over the almost ten years the site has, but they still manage to make it interesting, even if not all the stuff they churn out is my cup of tea.

I had listened to the bombcast for a while, checked out quick looks but can't remember the first one that brought me here. What made me sub was Metal Gear Scanlon. I worked from home at the time and I was actually writing game reviews/previews on the side. I had attended a MGS V: TPP event in June or July of the year and was super excited to see how it turned out but knew that was out of the loop as MGS was the last game I played but remembered how crazy it was. I wanted to play through them myself but didn't have the time, and this series was absolutely perfect.