Giant Bomb hires Dan Ryckert and Jason Oestreicher

Hooray! Yaaay Dan! Yay Jason! Yaaaay! Hooray!

Congratulations to Dan and Jason, looking forward to Giant Bomb SF being able to produce a steady stream of content without depriving Jeff, Brad and Drew of sleep. For those who missed out or are disappointed...The Giant Bomb expansion has just begun, there will be other chances. In the meantime, consider supplementing Giant Bomb with our friends at GameSpot, that's what I do. It's all one big happy family, guys. To those of you resorting to hate speech, regardless of your opinion, there are plenty of cesspools on the internet for you to crawl into, consider spending your time there. But before you do...Try growing up. I'd also like to thank the Mods for their hard work dealing with the fires that have been breaking out. Congratulations to Dan and Jason again.

Clearly people have gotten under her skin. Instead of piling up on her for saying something out of anger, maybe we should direct our ire towards the pieces of shit that are harassing women in the name of Giant Bomb.

@octaslash said:

@jackhole said:

@octaslash: A few anonymous idiots from the internet said horrible things to them, and that makes it okay to respond to legitimate questions with "Go fuck yourself."? That makes it okay to act like a child and say, "literally everything i write is more interesting than everything most of the gb staff does."? I don't really think that justifies those tweets at all.

You know, I think it's completely understandable to go off on people after you've seen this.

But not justifiable.

Welcome, Dan and Jason. Sorry you had to be white males in this day and age. It seems to have backfired on you.

@strife777: I agree. It just feels like two groups of people shouting at each other so loudly that neither can hear what the other is saying. The true message, the lesson to learn, is lost in the noise.

I feel like Dan is going to be a perfect fit for Giant Bomb, I'm really glad it turned out to be him and I'm excited to see how the site is going to change moving forward. I have no idea who Jason is but he seemed awesome on the Bombcast and I wish him a warm welcome as well!

Let's all try to ignore the angry internet people and express ourselves in constructive and polite ways.

It's been a hell of a ride.

Pretty much how I feel about this situation. GB hires 2 awesome duders and the internet derails it.

Lets just get back to being awesome cause "Everything will be OK."

I love that you put "harassment" in quotes. As if threats and transgender slurs aren't really harassment.

There are ridiculous people on all sides on the internet. We can still make a judgement call like telling someone to "fuck off" is unreasonable and rude. It just is.

A lot of that is people registering an account just to comment, like when Brad gave DmC 5 stars. And the most heinous comments pretty much always get people banned. Twitter is a free-for-all nightmare and I think society would be better without it.

Samantha and Leigh are right to speak out against the idiots who are verbally assaulting them today, but I'm a little concerned about Leigh's tweet (I guess since deleted), that "literally everything I write is more interesting than everything most of the GB staff does". Calling out "the GB community", while reductive, is appropriate today - but insulting the actual GB staff like that?

At the end of the day, as Jeff et al. have said repeatedly over the years - Giant Bomb is a personality-driven site, so it makes sense that Jeff would hire people he knows very well, and thus thinks will mesh well with what they are doing. There is absolutely an element of unconscious institutional discrimination to this, because white male writers become friends with other white male writers due to the lack of diversity in the games journalism profession. It becomes a self-sustaining loop, that makes it unduly hard for women and minorities to "break in" to the industry. Acknowledging that fact should not sign you up for an avalanche of hatred.

However, I also earnestly struggle with the idea that Jeff should have consciously decided to hire a certain demographic (though that raises the further question of "then how does it ever get fixed?"). I think people should be hired for Giant Bomb, depending on how well they think the personality will fit. If they hired Cara Ellison as a writer tomorrow (in the same vein as Scoops), I'd be thrilled, because I think she's cool, and a good writer. I think Ryckert was a great hire, because of his interests and personality, and his rapport with the GB guys - and because he has no doubt been signed up to do lots of on-camera work with the guys, where that rapport is important.

At the end of the day, this whole shitstorm is just disappointing, and has overshadowed a couple of great hires I was excited about. I get that some people jump to defend the GB guys, because they perceive them to be getting "attacked" despite not doing anything "wrong", but they are more than capable of taking criticism, and answering it if they decide it needs to be. As for the misogynists in our midst - maybe go find another website to pollute, if you haven't already.

I was more in the boat of Chris Antista from Capcom since he was laid off, good audio presence, good familiarity with the field in general and already Bay Area local. But alas no I guess, plus he has the LaserTime network he's trying to grow more currently. Cannata would have been quite a stretch...has a fair amount of plates spinning right now to drop it all for a full time gig at GB, wouldn't make sense. Long shot was Carrie of course since the recent closure and past interactions with the team during the HotSpot days, but she's been fairly adamant in not returning to that side of the field unfortunately. Although an actual developer and that specific perspective would've made for some riveting podcast discussions like the visits of David Lang and Paul Barnett, a damned shame. :( Perhaps a developer focused spinoff podcast discussing the field overall?

I agree. We should turn this mess into something positive, like an anti-Twitter movement.

I'd rather not dwell on... whatever happened... too much, but can you or someone else tell me why everyone is in an uproar this morning? What did I miss? Can someone give me a link or something? I assume any negative comments in here will have been deleted, so I can't just look to see if the "damage" was done in here. I'm confused. What prompted Patrick, Jeff, etc. to publicly shame the assholes in the community? What happened?

Like I said, I'd rather not keep the issue(?) alive and ruin this thread, but can someone put it in a spoiler tag or something just so I can figure out what happened?

I only sorta barely know Ryckert and don't know O-Stryker at all, but I'm stoked for new duders! I've been going crazy wondering who they'd pick ever since it was mentioned (months ago?!)!

All the best to the new crew, and I can't wait to see them show up on the first UPF! (Haven't had a chance to listen to the new podcast yet either, so I'm curious how they gel)

@development: Leigh Alexander and Samantha Allen (maybe some others) tweeted their disappointment that Giant Bomb hired two white dudes (with some general pot-shots taken at the site and its community as well) and then were attacked by the legions of the internet, everything escalated and suddenly Twitter is on fire.

So we can all agree that "Games Journalism" is a farce, right?

Another sad thought: this just completely derails any potential hires that Giant Bomb might want to make in the future, such as to expand GBNY or getting Patrick his own video guy etc.. You've either got to give in to the people who desperately want to force societal changes regardless, and hire someone who isn't white, male, cis, or straight regardless of qualification; or the next white cis straight male is going to approach the job knowing that this kind of shitstorm is coming, for no reason other than them being who they are. Neither of those is desirable in the least. Mark today down as the day that we poisoned the well.

Social justice is supposed to be about making sure everyone in society feels like they matter, are accepted, and that their voice can be heard. Let's all try and remember that.

I still don't get how Samantha is justified in telling someone to go **** themselves when all they said was "what if he was the most qualified person available for the position?" That's a pretty legitimate point there. Maybe they are the most qualified, how would Samantha know when A) She's not a part of Giant Bomb, and 2) She's not the one hiring?

@likeassur: keep in mind these guys were also just basically making Quick Looks for another site. This job is perfect for them.

Can we go back to nice things?

Wow. I come back from vacation and GB now has two new employees. Welcome!

@metal_mills said:

Can we go back to nice things?

That looks like my dog. My heart feels like clouds right now.

God what a sordid series of events. I mean I'm all for diversifying the industry but these last few weeks have been really pushing it. It's just stupid to be upset because of what something isn't. Dan and Jason don't deserve this.

Leigh and Samantha should be expected to act like professionals, and ragging on the Giant Bomb crew is the opposite of professionalism. Simple as that.

@video_game_king: Disagree. Totally justifiable. You have to remember that being angry is a biochemical response that lingers. It's reasonable that they wound't reply to each message with careful consideration at a second's notice, that's what being angry does to you. I wound't be at all surprised if they have the shakes after all that adrenaline. Other people are just simply not subject to that kind of abuse.

So yes, that was not the best response, but you have to take context into account. A good reasonable conversation that makes sense is conditional....and those where not the conditions to have one.

Also welcome guys!

For context Samantha's outrage is in defense of Maddy Myers who did apply for the job and who in terms of writing credentials is as qualified as Dan if not more so.

Please use a clip from this Dan Ryckert sound board to accompany each incendiary comment about this whole thing :D

http://www.soundboard.com/sb/unastrike

Yeesh. I'm just gonna quit reading these forums for a while and bask in the Danly musk wafting around GB now. Can't wait for UPF!

@castiel: I appreciate your passion but "holy shit people are fucking morons" is not an appropriate response to people who are expressing their opinions about these hires.

Why does everything have to be a race or gender issue? Progress is when we can see two people as individuals/humans, rather than discussing their skin color or gender. We know the giantbomb staff is not racist, so why create an issue out of nothing. Welcome aboard Dan and Jason!

VIDEO GAMES!!!!!!!!

Yes we can, my friend. Yes we can. But could you imagine how different the world would be without twitter? Some can't help themselves.

Hopefully this doesn't sound aggressive, but even though the position does say "editorial," how much written work do you really see coming from the editors? I don't know who Maddy Myers is, but I would assume that the experience in front of a camera and making long form video was at least, if not more, valuable than any writing credentials.

That makes the act understandable, not justifiable.

Both sides of this pointless firestorm need to calm down. Here's an idea - and I am being totally serious, not sarcastic or facetious - why don't some of the notable female game journalists band together and create their own game journalism site? It may be too expensive to create a "female Giant Bomb" right off the bat, but it might grow into that. Just like Kevin Smith has said of people wanting him to read their scripts: "Don't beg me to read your script. Make the movie and I'll watch it."

I'm excited to see what the new guys bring to the table, really wish that this could have been the happy occasion it was supposed to be.

I personally think the Giant Bomb community is pretty great, and for the most part respectful. But I suppose we should try to do better if this is what other people think of us, it seems we have some room for improvement. I was kind of shocked to see all the hate for the Giant Bomb community, didn't think we were regarded in such a way. If you truly think its OK to be hateful or violent because someone has criticized you or something you care for, I'm not sure you belong here, or anywhere for that matter.

Just an opinion.

@smcn said:

Why do people think that writing qualification is the most important part of becoming part of Giant Bomb? Have people not noticed that it's very much a video-based personality driven site? Brad and Ryan are/were outstanding writers, but those talents are rarely let out because of how much of their job is focused on putting out video, and that's fine, because they are/were amazing at that too.

Just one other way in which like people are being really naive about all this. Jeff is old-school and as savvy as they come, but that doesn't mean he's some hardhearted businessman who doesn't care for social issues and hires people based on whether they like wrestling are are fun to have a beer with.

Before this whole thing, I had never heard of Maddy Myers. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, or maybe she's not done enough to make herself stand out in terms of personality. But I watched a bit of the Sore Thumbs podcast she does and my first impression of her is that she doesn't seem like she would gel with the GB staff at all.

Hey guys! Thanks for reminding me why I stay away from the forums. Keep it up!

Yo Dan Ryckert is pretty awesome. Not sure if everyone knows that. Just sayin.

I'm happy for the future of Giant Bomb and happy for Dan and Jason.

The folks being hateful suck, so fuck 'em. Let's get past this sordid chapter ASAP.

I would love, fucking LOVE, to see the people at each extreme of this...well, whatever this is to sit down in person, offline and talk about their perspective. I bet all this vitriolic speech would die and they would both find some common ground.

I swear, the worst part about the internet is that people use it with no real, actual consequence.