Multiple staff members are undergoing serious life changes right now. There is a severe drought of games. They've honestly played everything they're interested in playing for the cameras; that's why they're considering NeverDead, because there's not really anything else they want to play right now. You can maybe bitch that you'd like to see the staff play Ocarina of Time, but Jeff's video review of the WiiWare version is still up on GameSpot now, and they've done a more recent QL of the 3DS edition. When you operate long enough, you'll eventually have played nearly everything on camera, and just drudging up the same stuff every five years when there's a drought will probably run dry sooner or later.
GiantBomb WAS my homepage, I miss it
@Brodehouse said:
@kmdrkul said:
@Brodehouse said:
@kmdrkul:... Because Jeff says himself that they're not journalists, they're writers. The same way Roger Ebert or Dave Barry aren't journalists.
Pffft. What a cop out.
What?! You said they're sorry excuses for journalists, but they're not journalists.
They're sorry excuses for geologists as well. They don't know fucking shit about quartz.
Oh brother.
@Little_Socrates said:
Multiple staff members are undergoing serious life changes right now. There is a severe drought of games. They've honestly played everything they're interested in playing for the cameras; that's why they're considering NeverDead, because there's not really anything else they want to play right now. You can maybe bitch that you'd like to see the staff play Ocarina of Time, but Jeff's video review of the WiiWare version is still up on GameSpot now, and they've done a more recent QL of the 3DS edition. When you operate long enough, you'll eventually have played nearly everything on camera, and just drudging up the same stuff every five years when there's a drought will probably run dry sooner or later.
you cant use personal life as an excuse. if i started sucking at my job then blamed my personal life, i'd get fired. most people would. thats not a valid excuse. remember, they're not your friends.
They seem like the same old guys to me, they have always been a little apathetic when no new games are coming out
@burnttoast said:
@thornie said:
@Humanity said:
The arguments for these sort of threads never get any less real and the response of "wasn't there a thread like this just a month ago?" doesn't actually resolve anything.
Yah there was a thread like this a month ago, and no there still isn't any more content than last month. They're not settling in anymore. They have all their equipment. Quick Looks don't take a long time to do, I've done video editing and I'm no pro so it's impossible it takes Vinny that long to slap intro/outro bumpers on unedited footage. For whatever reason people thought that the lack of a studio was stopping them from getting more Quick Looks and original videos done - now they have a gigantic space for themselves. Brad complains about how theres nothing to play and nothing to do - quickly followed by saying he doesn't have time to get into a game. That Never Dead copy has been sitting on his desk for over a week now. It's an AWFUL game, whatever, just record yourself playing it thats all people want. They said they are not planning to do an Endurance Run any time soon when it's basically just doing 1 Quick Look a day. Theres no games out right now so why not, what else are they doing? Oh right, Brad goes to a lot of meetings, a lot and lot of meetings.
Listen I get it's the Giant Bomb and Jeff and crew don't give a fuck. Don't like it don't watch it. The crew doesn't feel like doing an Endurance Run so fuck everyone it's not happening, despite an obvious drought in gaming where this one piece of content produced daily would keep people super satisfied. But that sort of attitude seems strangely out of place when you're asking your fanbase to pay a yearly subscription for things like listening to Dave talk about vague details of the future site redesign or the Flight Club Quick Looks. Some other sites have paid memberships that only affect ads but I think Giant Bomb is the only website that I personally know, about video games, where you have to pay to see certain footage. I hate to dredge up this conversation but people paid because they saw GB starting up in a tiny murky basement and they were doing wacky, fun stuff and were all pro-members. People just want more of that crazy fun stuff. Why is I Love Mondays just a flipcam recording now? I just don't understand some of these changes and they never go on record saying "hey we're not doing XYZ because XYZ."
I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.
Agree with this and agree with a prior statement that only Vinny/Drew/Dave seem to have much enthusiasm anymore.
I would argue that why I, and a lot of the community, paid for giant bomb is that when we paid there was a lot of very funny, very creative, very original content. I would never pay for a no-ads on a straitlaced review or video game news site. Giant Bomb was something wholly different.
By no means do I think it was a bad idea to pay (its not that much), but will I renew? That is much harder this time. Giant Bomb seems to have transitioned or is transitioning into a more traditional video games site. It doesn't seem that the culture that came up with TNT/Endurance Runs/Breaking Brad/or the current form of the quick look is in full effect. I don't think new unique features like that are going to come up anytime soon and it will just be the grudging continuation of those existing features (note that I consider flight club/dave fortress as awesome but they aren't really any new feature, just the great technical game Vinny/Dave/Drew feature).
The one way Giant Bomb has added content in the last year is by adding more news stories/coverage/trailers. That content is pretty worthless on the internet and tangential to why I am on Giant Bomb. I think GB would benefit from a refocus on making funny videos and just drop everything else.
Begrudgingly agreeing with all this (apologies for the big copy-paste), bar the slightly extreme "drop everything else". To make a sweeping statement, i think premium members are backing an echo at the moment - the predictability and lack of personality Giant Bomb has been seeing lately certainly aligns towards a more 'traditional' (read: professional) model, and perhaps longtime users (of which there would appear to be many) are banking on the crew re-finding that spontaneous "you're hanging out with your friends playing video games on a friday night" tone the site's content used to be saturated in. 'Traditional' doesn't necessarily mean 'boring', but Giant Bomb's core philosophy of video games coverage was (is?) so refreshing that the transition seems more apparent than elsewhere. I kind of miss the days when i would get back from university with a cheese salad from the shop, and rather than put on the TV, go to Giant Bomb, put my feet up and know that i could rely on being able to watch the next installment of Jeff playing the hell out of Star Trek Online... whereas last week, maybe we were going to have a Dwarf Fortress Part 2? It was a 'maybe' and then sadly, Friday went by and it didn't happen. I think @burnttoast is on the right lines; the 'culture' (and perhaps punctuality) has dissipated - i can only hope it's reigned in. I know websites like Rooster Teeth are targeting comedy videos and not journalism, but Giant Bomb has Jeff Gerstman, and that guy is incredibly funny - the site's humourous potential and lightheartedness used to be a main attraction, and the team used to play towards that strength, but now that tone seems more background-orientated. And i've got to agree - as essential as trailers, news and coverage supposedly are to a video games website, they are in actuality largely redundant and interchangeable with all other video games websites. That's not really 'content' in the user's eye per se.
(Funny: i.e. Jeff fucking around with that Russian Ham Radio beeping sound in the Bombcast a few weeks back. Hell yes i was laughing).
@Clonedzero said:
@Little_Socrates said:
Multiple staff members are undergoing serious life changes right now. There is a severe drought of games. They've honestly played everything they're interested in playing for the cameras; that's why they're considering NeverDead, because there's not really anything else they want to play right now. You can maybe bitch that you'd like to see the staff play Ocarina of Time, but Jeff's video review of the WiiWare version is still up on GameSpot now, and they've done a more recent QL of the 3DS edition. When you operate long enough, you'll eventually have played nearly everything on camera, and just drudging up the same stuff every five years when there's a drought will probably run dry sooner or later.
you cant use personal life as an excuse. if i started sucking at my job then blamed my personal life, i'd get fired. most people would. thats not a valid excuse. remember, they're not your friends.
You are not an entertainer. You also do not work at a company where you are your own boss. If CBS tells them to get their asses in gear, I'm sure they will. But there are plenty of reasons there's less content, and honestly there's more than I've been able to keep up with this summer.
@Little_Socrates said:
@Clonedzero said:
@Little_Socrates said:
Multiple staff members are undergoing serious life changes right now. There is a severe drought of games. They've honestly played everything they're interested in playing for the cameras; that's why they're considering NeverDead, because there's not really anything else they want to play right now. You can maybe bitch that you'd like to see the staff play Ocarina of Time, but Jeff's video review of the WiiWare version is still up on GameSpot now, and they've done a more recent QL of the 3DS edition. When you operate long enough, you'll eventually have played nearly everything on camera, and just drudging up the same stuff every five years when there's a drought will probably run dry sooner or later.
you cant use personal life as an excuse. if i started sucking at my job then blamed my personal life, i'd get fired. most people would. thats not a valid excuse. remember, they're not your friends.
You are not an entertainer. You also do not work at a company where you are your own boss. If CBS tells them to get their asses in gear, I'm sure they will. But there are plenty of reasons there's less content, and honestly there's more than I've been able to keep up with this summer.
Yep. I'm still not finished a lot of quicklooks from the past few weeks because they were so long (not that I'm complaining just saying there is a lot of content for me). Added note here, my father had some heart problems few years a go and had to undergo multiple surgeries, I can say that summer really sucked for me and I barely got anything done, I was really not productive at all. People are human and personal problems do weigh in a lot. Also, again I don't feel like im getting screwed over any content right now from GB, in fact im having trouble just keeping up. Plus its the summer, end of the cycle. I would love to see an endurance run, but i haven't even finished any of the previous ones yet; they are just too much of a time commitment for me, but I also feel a good endurance run is when the people doing it are actually into it. No need to have Endurance run/ other premium content just for the sake of it if the person is not into it, quality over quantity for me.
Bottom line people have different utility and different usage on this site, I can see how someone feels that there isn't enough content on the site ( or not appreciating Flight Club, Dwarf Fortress etc), but for me and the way I spend my time on GB there is almost too much content (since most of the videos are really long). Again different people have different needs etc. its not one size fits all scenario here. Plus they have gotten considerably better at posting content post E3 compared to pre E3, so I see signs of them getting back on the trail.
Maybe they're burned out. It's quite a small staff and each person's individual responsibility is large. They can't really report news because most other sites' larger staff usually have it covered already, and doing game previews and reviews is the same old stuff they've been doing for over a decade.
I know they like the intimacy of the site, but maybe they should focus on expanding the business? Hiring more energetic young staff while promoting themselves to more managerial positions might help them get out of their rut.
They need to provide more stuff for me soon or I'm seriously doubting I'll renew my sub. I know the move hurt their productivity, but that was a while ago. Let's start seeing more QLTB's, BB's, Office Videos, etc.. Anything, really.
I think viewers are also pretty bored with today's games. I mean, what was the last big game we were all truly excited for? star craft 2? skyrim? Diablo three? but even those were all predictable sequels... certainly good games but they each added so very little to the medium.
when was the last time we were truly surprised by gameplay innovation? for me, it was Braid, which was years ago...
@liako21 said:
the podcasts have been better than the rest of the content overall. Flight Club still amazing though. Maybe because Vinny, Drew, and Dave are a great combo.
Its because Patrick hasnt been there
@Dagbiker said:
@skelington_: They totally did do a Dwarf Fort part 2 last friday.
I'm aware of this - it was just make the point about the lack of punctuality. Thanks for pointing it out anyway though :)
@Geno said:
Maybe they're burned out. It's quite a small staff and each person's individual responsibility is large. They can't really report news because most other sites' larger staff usually have it covered already, and doing game previews and reviews is the same old stuff they've been doing for over a decade. I know they like the intimacy of the site, but maybe they should focus on expanding the business? Hiring more energetic young staff while promoting themselves to more managerial positions might help them get out of their rut.
Yeah, but can you imagine the shitty comment complaining that would happen?
It's be this:
@PulledaBrad said:
@liako21 said:
the podcasts have been better than the rest of the content overall. Flight Club still amazing though. Maybe because Vinny, Drew, and Dave are a great combo.
Its because Patrick hasnt been there
X10.
@CrossTheAtlantic said:
@Geno said:
Maybe they're burned out. It's quite a small staff and each person's individual responsibility is large. They can't really report news because most other sites' larger staff usually have it covered already, and doing game previews and reviews is the same old stuff they've been doing for over a decade. I know they like the intimacy of the site, but maybe they should focus on expanding the business? Hiring more energetic young staff while promoting themselves to more managerial positions might help them get out of their rut.Yeah, but can you imagine the shitty comment complaining that would happen?
It's be this:
@PulledaBrad said:
@liako21 said:
the podcasts have been better than the rest of the content overall. Flight Club still amazing though. Maybe because Vinny, Drew, and Dave are a great combo.
Its because Patrick hasnt been there
X10.
Ahh, but my bitching goes to 11.
@Clonedzero said:
@Little_Socrates said:
Multiple staff members are undergoing serious life changes right now. There is a severe drought of games. They've honestly played everything they're interested in playing for the cameras; that's why they're considering NeverDead, because there's not really anything else they want to play right now. You can maybe bitch that you'd like to see the staff play Ocarina of Time, but Jeff's video review of the WiiWare version is still up on GameSpot now, and they've done a more recent QL of the 3DS edition. When you operate long enough, you'll eventually have played nearly everything on camera, and just drudging up the same stuff every five years when there's a drought will probably run dry sooner or later.
you cant use personal life as an excuse. if i started sucking at my job then blamed my personal life, i'd get fired. most people would. thats not a valid excuse. remember, they're not your friends.
You're right to an extent but at the same time, while I don't know what you do, I'm guessing your job isn't putting your personality out there for people. When that's a big part of what your job is, then yeah personal stuff is probably gonna take a toll on how 'on' you can be. You can't compare a normal persons job to what they do. I'm pretty sure they'd have to seriously screw up a lot to even have to worry about CBS saying anything.
@PulledaBrad: You conflict me. I can never not love a Spinal Tap reference!
@Korosuzo said:
@Slag: You can only say that for so long though and I had thought Jeff's family stuff was getting better or "resolved". Patrick I completely understand but they made content without him for years...I don't think he's holding back anything from happening. Also, Patrick has continued to put out content in the form of his weekly Worth Reading columns despite all he has been through the past week along with a wedding on the horizon.
Even if it it is resolved you aren't instantly all better once it's over.
everybody handles stress differently, Patrick may feel the need to bury himself in his work maybe Jeff is different. And since he's the leader what he does or doesn't do can filter through the whole crew. The crew doesn't feel apathetic to me, just stressed out. Dunno just speculating.
Jeff has responsibilities the rest doesn't and given the site revamp/CBSi merger I can only guess show much behind the scenes stuff he might be juggling that normally doesn't have to. There's a lot of internal processes that probably used to be automatic that are likely being rebuilt as we speak and are hard to show off. When you add the fact they are now corporate, they probably can't change stuff with the same speed they used to either.
I'm not saying people should have indefinite patience, but I think they deserve some slack given what they have going on and have had going on. If it's still like this this fall then I think people are right to be really concerned.
Giant Bomb could probably end all of this angst if they clued us into what their timeline and plans are. That's half the problem, the users are still really unsure how the merger is going to change Giant Bomb.
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