@giantbomb staff: Alex navarro. Hire or fire him

Basically, with giantbomb being build up as it is it makes no sense to have alex doing official reviews for this site. Giantbomb has always been about promoting ( not a bad word here ) the personality of its writers and staff and making the users feel like they know they know them. When i read a jeff review i feel like i know where hes coming from. I most likely am not gonna agree with him but the beauty of it all is that i kinda know that before i even click the 'review' button. Thats giantbombs thing and its great. After having watched way to many quicklooks and listened to giantbombcast more than i probably should i know everyones personlaity and opinions.This whole concept of promoting the personalities of the staff and writers completely contradicts the use of freelance writers ( which is basically what alex has become ) since the we have no investement in this guy. Not only dont i know him enough to know if im the same type of gamer that he is and if i can trust his opinions enough to purchase a game that he endorses, I SIMPLY DONT CARE WHAT HE THINKS. I dont just look at a review at giantbomb as a comsumer purchase guide, or to find out whether something is worth my money. Sure thats half of the reason but the other half is that i wanna find out what Vinny / Jeff / Ryan / Brad thinks of the game. Dont care what Alex thinks. Every time i open a review and its got a smug looking cartoon drawing of a guy wearing a military vest and an smg machine gun i know i'm not gonna read it through. So : HIRE ALEX NAVARRO FULLTIME OR DUMP HIM! This shit does not gel at all with how u build your site up

@OkTank:

He is hired. He works in New York. The rest of the staff is in California.

Alex is a far cry from a freelance writer. Dude's regular staff, he just lives in New York.

He is full time. He is just on the other side of the country.

Even then......i dont know the guy. This site is based of of video coverage. Last time i can remember him in a quicklook is what? that kirby game?

@OkTank said:

Even then......i dont know the guy. This site is based of of video coverage. Last time i can remember him in a quicklook is what? that kirby game?

he has plenty of personality in his writing, I don't know what you are talking about.

@OkTank:

He still writes news and reviews. You could get an idea of him from all that.

Who taught you how to give advice? I need to have a wee word with them.

Even then......i dont know the guy. This site is based of of video coverage. Last time i can remember him in a quicklook is what? that kirby game?

Wow, just wow.

he could be Tolkien if id care id still not open the review if i dont know the guy. Giantbomb has never been about the writing

@OkTank: If you followed the crew from the gamespot days, you would know him, and you would know that he's a good judge of game quality on multiple levels, a good writer and a cool personality. The rest of the guys know this, hence why they hired him.

Even then......i dont know the guy. This site is based of of video coverage. Last time i can remember him in a quicklook is what? that kirby game?

Alex Navarro is the best game reviewer out there in my opinion.

He's been hired for a while now.

This is the second fucking thread about this in as many days. Seriously, you guys?

This was the stupidest thing I have read all day. Gotta love the full moon.

@OkTank

Even then......i dont know the guy. This site is based of of video coverage. Last time i can remember him in a quicklook is what? that kirby game?

If he site is based on video coverage, why do you care about written reviews... I feel like I know the guy, they've been working together for ages. Giantbomb isn't made solely for people new to the site, a lot of us know him from the Gamespot days and respect his opinions just as much as the rest of the crew... This is stupid, wish I could flag from the mobile site.

@OkTank: Read all of his reviews in a medium-pitched, nasally voice, and add "because of course it does" to the end of every other sentence. And as if to prove to people he isn't sarcastic and snide 100% of the time, he will sometimes arbitrarily love boring games like Kirby's Epic Yarn.

There, you now know basically everything you would know about Alex if he were still on Quick Looks.

I agree. With a site built so entirely around on-camera personalities, having a regular contributor that neither appears on camera or in the podcast is very odd.

edit: for example, when I saw the Walking Dead review was up, my reaction was "Oh awesome! The guys have been talking about this one for months! I can't wait to get an overall perspective of the whole package!" Then it was an Alex review...I have literally not heard him say anything about it beforehand because he doesn't appear on podcasts or videos. Jeff has said repeatedly that the strength of Giant bomb is that their reviews have context. You get to hear their opinions constantly through podcast and video. You get a real sense for how they view games. Then the review is much more useful, because you know them as a person. Not so with Alex for many people. You can't coast on the hold-over Gamespot crowd's prior knowledge of him forever.

OP, you have 7 total posts on this website. I don't think you get any kind of opinion on who and how things should be run around here until you stick around for a while.

@OkTank:

@OkTank: There's some seriously awesome stuff with him and Matt Rorie in the screened.com archives. Just watch some of the "Besties" or "Defending Your Movie" vids for some great examples.

Also:

Your post makes you sound very ignorant of the history of this site. Alex Navarro worked at Gamespot with everyone back in the day, and joined Giant Bomb early on. A lot of us have been familiar with Alex's writing and personality for a very long time.

If you don't want to read his writing, don't.

@OkTank said:

I SIMPLY DONT CARE WHAT HE THINKS.

Cool story, bro.

@OkTank said:

Even then......i dont know the guy. This site is based of of video coverage. Last time i can remember him in a quicklook is what? that kirby game?

Alex has been with the crew since the GameSpot days. Your lack of knowledge of him is understandable if you are new, but you'd best reconsider personally ignoring him without dragging others into it as the rest of us have a very good grasp on his personality.

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

Alex Navarro is the best game reviewer out there in my opinion.

He is defiantly up there.

I still chuckle a little bit think about his big rigs review :D

I agree. I like him so I wish he could be in quick looks and such. I don't care about reviews so for me it's like he barely exists on the site at all.

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@OkTank said:

Even then......i dont know the guy. This site is based of of video coverage. Last time i can remember him in a quicklook is what? that kirby game?

You dont know him? You sound like some old shut in scared to check emails because of the aliens and the government takin yur jurbs.

What does he have against me? Why would I want his jurb?

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@OkTank said:

Even then......i dont know the guy. This site is based of of video coverage. Last time i can remember him in a quicklook is what? that kirby game?

You dont know him? You sound like some old shut in scared to check emails because of the aliens and the government takin yur jurbs.

What does he have against me? Why would I want his jurb?

Y'know, this topic is not necessarily as dumb as it seems if you step back from your perspective of already knowing who Alex is.

I'm not saying I agree with the guy necessarily, and this anecdotal evidence shouldn't be taken as law, but maybe it's a sign for Alex to start looking at providing more content of him that isn't just written word.

As this site grows and becomes more successful (as many of us have hoped) there are going to be more and more new people who don't have that Gamespot history that longtime members do. A lot of these new people are never going to forge that connection with Alex that they do with other members of the site. Since this is a personality driven site, it may become important in the future for Alex to promote himself as a creator of content and full time staff member through more than just his (admittedly) unique writing style. In fact, the more I think about the more it seems certain that this issue will only become more prominent in the future. Something to think about.

I think Alex is awesome, I like reading his words, I hope he makes the trip across the country to film GOTY content.

yeah, he became full time employee when whiskey sold Giantbomb to CBSi (or just a little before that happened).

Why is everyone all of a sudden defending Alex? There are so many Alex-haters out there who despise his snarkiness, where did they go?

I think the OP has point, but it's ALEX NAVARRO. Awesome man. Not his fault he has to be in NYC ya' know.

Pretty simple solution. Don't read his reviews and everyone wins.

Alex basically writes the majority of the GB reviews at this point. He does good work with them too.

@OkTank said:

Basically, with giantbomb being build up as it is it makes no sense to have alex doing official reviews for this site. Giantbomb has always been about promoting ( not a bad word here ) the personality of its writers and staff and making the users feel like they know they know them. When i read a jeff review i feel like i know where hes coming from. I most likely am not gonna agree with him but the beauty of it all is that i kinda know that before i even click the 'review' button. Thats giantbombs thing and its great. After having watched way to many quicklooks and listened to giantbombcast more than i probably should i know everyones personlaity and opinions.This whole concept of promoting the personalities of the staff and writers completely contradicts the use of freelance writers ( which is basically what alex has become ) since the we have no investement in this guy. Not only dont i know him enough to know if im the same type of gamer that he is and if i can trust his opinions enough to purchase a game that he endorses, I SIMPLY DONT CARE WHAT HE THINKS. I dont just look at a review at giantbomb as a comsumer purchase guide, or to find out whether something is worth my money. Sure thats half of the reason but the other half is that i wanna find out what Vinny / Jeff / Ryan / Brad thinks of the game. Dont care what Alex thinks. Every time i open a review and its got a smug looking cartoon drawing of a guy wearing a military vest and an smg machine gun i know i'm not gonna read it through. So : HIRE ALEX NAVARRO FULLTIME OR DUMP HIM! This shit does not gel at all with how u build your site up

Wow.

I suggest you go back (WAY back) and listen to about the first 3 months or so of the Bombcast, and The Hotspot before it.

Listen to this, and look at some youtube videos (just search "Alex Navarro" and "Gamespot" and you'll get everything you would ever need to know)

http://www.thisyearcollection.org/2011/02/2-hotspot-2006.html

http://www.thisyearcollection.org/2011/03/5-hotspot-2007.html

http://www.thisyearcollection.org/2012/02/25-giant-bombcast-2008.html

@Dtat said:

I agree. With a site built so entirely around on-camera personalities, having a regular contributor that neither appears on camera or in the podcast is very odd.

edit: for example, when I saw the Walking Dead review was up, my reaction was "Oh awesome! The guys have been talking about this one for months! I can't wait to get an overall perspective of the whole package!" Then it was an Alex review...I have literally not heard him say anything about it beforehand because he doesn't appear on podcasts or videos. Jeff has said repeatedly that the strength of Giant bomb is that their reviews have context. You get to hear their opinions constantly through podcast and video. You get a real sense for how they view games. Then the review is much more useful, because you know them as a person. Not so with Alex for many people. You can't coast on the hold-over Gamespot crowd's prior knowledge of him forever.

I think the OP is basically terrible, and I like Alex's writing, but this is a very salient point . It's a weird disconnect when you want to see how some of the opinions expressed on say, the Bombcast, ended up gelling into a review, and you don't get that.

i like when alex posts none-GB trailers and stuff, just random game trailers, he always puts the best taglines haha.

actually i'd say his writing has more personality than anyone else on the site, i can read a tagline on a trailer or something and instantly know he was the one to post it

@OkTank said:

Even then......i dont know the guy. This site is based of of video coverage. Last time i can remember him in a quicklook is what? that kirby game?

He was on the BLLSL 3

I agree that Alex needs to show himself a little more. I don't know if i trust his tastes. TBH the only thing I remember about Alex is the screened stuff, which is good memories but still... i barely categorize him as a gamer.

@OkTank said:

I SIMPLY DONT CARE WHAT HE THINKS.

Hey thanks man, we all feel the same way about you.

I wonder if your 8th post will change that.

Why is Alex in NY or wherever? Is it because of his family?

I think this OKTank character is just trying to get a rise out of the community. Ignore and move on.

I think everyone should take a step back and look at the argument and not attack the OP.

If I was new to Giantbomb and I dug into the quick looks, endurance runs, and podcasts - I'd slowly start getting to know the guys. Then when a review from one of the editorial crew comes out, I'd understand where they came from. As much as I love Alex, I have to agree that it would be hard for anyone new to understand his style. Sure Alex "goes all the way back", but why should a new user dig into the backlog of old and retired games and videos just to find out more about a writer?

I personally have no problems with Alex and love his reviews, but I think that the OP's arguments, although not well structured and phrased, still logically stand.

PS: To users attacking the OP just because his post count is low, not everyone uses the forums. There are tons of dedicated GB fans that have little to no posts.

This thread just reinforces the need for a mandatory written test upon joining GiantBomb

Don't try to criticize anything on this site. I love the site but the community is nothing but fanboys.

The west coast can kiss my ass. East siiide. Navarro holding it down.

@TheUnsavedHero said:

I think this OKTank character is just trying to get a rise out of the community. Ignore and move on.

You should ignore him, but not his point. Going into the future Giantbomb will have an increasing amount of users that don't have history with the site staff. This means that if one staff member does not promote themselves in any way but through their writing, which is contrary to the way that all other staff members promote themselves, that staff member will not achieve trust with those new users in the same way that others will. It will become increasingly necessary in the future for Giantbomb to brainstorm ideas for Alex to have a larger video or audio presence on the site, even if that doesn't include his physical presence in the same office.