Has Fandom done anything beneficial for this site since the acquisition?

Hello All,

Between layoffs, breaking old videos (Some now actually play video but then error out) and general slowdown/stoppage of output (1 QL video in April according to the QL Show page) Fandom has done a great job of ruining this site. It's getting to the time where they have to put their money where their mouth is. Either shutter the site or actually invest in Giant Bomb, Hire more people and do SOMETHING with the website.

As much as I love and respect the 4 "cast" members (And I generally and genuinely do). I don't believe they can't carry this much further than they have.

So Fandom: Are you sabotaging this site on purpose or are you just mismanaging this website to Elon Musk levels of incompetence?

Justified question given what just happened to Waypoint. Let's see if we get a genuine answer. I've already said this website has less than 5 years now if lucky. But I'll keep on keeping on until the day its announced that its finally over.

The people who really know can't talk and the people who can talk don't really know.

None of us knows what's going on behind the scenes here, nor what was going on before the purchase. All you can do is assess whether you think the site is in a good place or has good or bad momentum.

Fandom doesn't "have" to do anything. It's a very rich corporation. It can run the site however it wants and deal with the consequences, which considering its financials aren't going to be super impactful to its overall bottom line.

Fandom got what they wanted. Giant Bomb and Comic Vine, were just part of the package deal. The site is still up. So that is a positive.

They sent everyone to DreamHack. I don't know if it was beneficial or not, but it's a thing they did.

Gamespot is getting some new shows apparently. So, no.

I'm surprised that this site is still up to be honest, so I consider that to be something. Any comparison to something like Twitter is pointless because Fandom owns a a lot of sites and most of the time they probably don't even remember that Giant Bomb is one of them.

https://www.giantbomb.com/articles/the-community-spotlight-2023-04-29/1100-6297/

With the video player, there have been multiple tickets filed, the lead engineer has been notified, and the entire team has been working on the issue. They thought that they had fixed the issue, but it appears that does not appear to be the case. Feel free to file a comment in here. Continue to send in emails to support@giantbomb.com and keep dropping comments in the bug reporting threads. As Dylan put it, we want as much ammo to show that this is a priority.

I can tell you that everyone from Fandom I have talked to, whether it be community outreach or the engineering team, has confirmed that they view this issue as a problem that should not exist and can confirm that it's not a sign that they do not care. It's absolutely okay to feel frustrated and angry that such an important part of the site is not working. Everyone there agrees.

From what i have seen posted, when the site was sold they lost some of the tools that they used to have. That and they want things moved over to the tools that all there other websites use so you don't have a mishmash of things to maintain and keep up with. I believe this was also a thing every other time they have been sold. They cant just pop this stuff out and toss something new in and expect it to work. So far the random layoff of the staff that produce the videos on a site that makes videos has been the only straight up dumb move off the top of my head.

The only thing we have to go on is what the GB staff say. And they have said that Fandom has been working with them and listening more then the past owners. You just have to hope that that is true, and don't expect these changes that they are making to be fixed overnight.

I've still been enjoying the output. Not sure about Fandom's role but the current duders are still a blast. Minotti as a +1 is a great addition.

@lego_my_eggo: Fandom has made it very clear they don’t respect or care about Giantbomb’s legacy. They don’t care about the API, third party apps, or even their own native player; because it doesn’t earn them money. There’s a reason everything is now “free” but hosted on twitch/youtube and only slowly brought over to here. The future is ads: ads on the website, ads in the video player, and ad money through youtube/twitch.

I’ve got bad news for ya’ll; the player and the APIs aren’t going to get any better than they are. They will only get worse until they are completely removed once they decide to stop hosting all their legacy premium video content.

@ev77 said:

Except the change for more free content was made when they were still owned by RV, so your line of thinking doesn't make any sense. As mentioned above, no one really knows what's going on behind the scenes so stop being part of the doomer community on this website or just leave.

They haven't shut it down.

@drgonzo456: I’ve sat on my hands for months, but now they hurt so I’ve stopped. I’m a software developer and the only reason major issues (like with the player and APIs) are still around after a few months is because they are features and not bugs. They made that extra clear when they added 5 minute timeout and expiration keys to the videos basically crippling all 3rd party apps.

Two duders gone, and the video player hasn't worked at all for me for the last few days. (The latter being why I'm scanning the forum now.)

So, no. It hasn't. As far as I can tell, the only positive thing that has happened, the store reopening, isn't something for which it can take credit.

@missashley: While I don't have an issue with the player, besides it sometimes causing double audio and with me having to reset the page many times and until it stops, its best to watch on Youtube or Twitch. Since a lot of live shows are streamed on Twitch and later uploaded to Youtube. Then a link of some kind is forwarded to Giantbomb. This is why the player works for some, but not others.

Michael Higham is officially back at Gamespot. Hopefully this means Giant Bomb will be rehiring people too... right? RIGHT? I could really go for some Jess right now, let her cook with Hot Takeouts.

They have mentioned that behind the scenes people are more open to their feedback, so there's that.

And as far as I know, they're still doing whatever the hell they want so that counts for something.

@av_gamer: So does engagement on the website do anything for them? There have been times where I have just watched on YouTube and came back here to post something. Am I wasting my time?

@retris: I wouldn't blame Jess if she never wanted to come back here again. It's too late for Fandom to save face when it already showed its ass.

To be honest, I don’t really want the corporate owner to “do anything” most of the time anyway.

The video player being fucked is bad and should be fixed, but beyond that my hope is that Giant Bomb meets whatever arbitrary metrics/KPIs that Fandom expects from them, so that they continue to get their budget/expenses paid for and are allowed to just fuck off and do whatever ideas Bakalar and Dan come up with.

Agreed that I’d like Fandom’s people to provide proper web development support for the website (and API and so on), so we’ll see if that ever gets better. But all I really expect from Fandom (or previous owners) is to handle hosting, engineering, paying for stuff. I really don’t want any mandate coming from ownership to waste the staff’s time, because I’d rather the GB staff devote most/all of their time on their own editorial/content ideas.

To give one small example, it does kinda seem like Fandom foisted the Dreamhack trip on a lot of the on-camera staff at Fandom/Gamespot/Giant Bomb. I don’t know what the general vibe is on that trip, between the audience or the staff, but it did strike me as a big time commitment and a little out of character, when GB otherwise isn’t doing panels at cons (what was the last PAX they did, 2019?).

@missashley: I'd like to think so. The website is still here after all. If a day came where people just stopped using the website period, Fandom wouldn't hesitate to shut it down. Its clear this website is an afterthought to them as those layoffs, like what happened to Jess proves, while they invested in Gamespot recently to get a bunch of new hires and shows along with them.

To be honest, I don’t really want the corporate owner to “do anything” most of the time anyway.

The video player being fucked is bad and should be fixed, but beyond that my hope is that Giant Bomb meets whatever arbitrary metrics/KPIs that Fandom expects from them, so that they continue to get their budget/expenses paid for and are allowed to just fuck off and do whatever ideas Bakalar and Dan come up with.

Agreed that I’d like Fandom’s people to provide proper web development support for the website (and the store and the wiki and API and so on), so we’ll see if that ever gets better. But all I really expect from Fandom (or previous owners) is to handle hosting, engineering, paying for stuff. I really don’t want any mandate coming from ownership to waste the staff’s time, because I’d rather the GB staff devote most/all of their time on their own editorial/content ideas.

To give one small example, it does kinda seem like Fandom foisted the Dreamhack trip on a lot of the on-camera staff at Fandom/Gamespot/Giant Bomb. I don’t know what the general vibe is on that trip, between the audience or the staff, but it did strike me as a big time commitment and a little out of character, when GB otherwise isn’t doing panels at cons (what was the last PAX they did, 2019?).

Im curious to see what exactly happened with Tamoor and Lucy. Their presence on the site has been almost non existent lately.

Jan and Grubb and Dans ideas are what keeps me coming back to the site, so its not like im missing their content, but it seems theyve all but been replaced by the two Mikes who, in all honesty and as polite as i can say it, just arent my cup of tea. Through all of the staff and format changes this site has ever gone through, theres only one person whose content i will actively avoid or turn off if i hear their voice, and its not one of the "site veterans"

@retris: it's difficult to imagine an employer more frequently on the precipice of reduction than giant bomb. unless they were promised a minimum duration of employment, or golden parachute should they get cut anyway yet again, i can't think of a former employee of giant bomb who has publicly disclosed that they are in a position in their life where they are comfortable taking the very real risk of losing their job again in six months.

No more episodes of Reel Layers is the only benefit I can think of.

I can’t see the site lasting much longer. Someone said 5 years, it’ll be lucky to last 5 months. I just hope that there’s a way to access all the years and years of glorious archive material when the shutters finally do come down.

... the forum still works...

The video player being broken this long is insane.

@cornfed40: Tam and Lucy are Gamespot employees first and foremost. They come on GB every now and again to support the site. That's as far as it goes with them.

@cornfed40: The big problem for me is that Jan's been mostly reduced to the guy who hosts the Bombcast and then spends the rest of the week editing videos and putting out fires. That fucking sucks.

. . . for the 15 or so people who use still it regularly . . .

Rather than struggle with considering the end of all things; I figure it is better to watch -enjoy teh view while savoring what we have. There is a point in all 'disaster movies' where some characters just stop running to just turn to face the wave - to stretch their arms out to embrace the blow.

There will be a day, and hour and a minute where Giant Bomb will experiences a “rapid unscheduled disassembly”; But that day is not today.

♪♫♫
Truckin' - Up To Buffalo
Been Thinkin' - You Got To Mellow Slow
Take Time - You Pick A Place To Go
And Just Keep Truckin' On
♪♫♫

I hate all the doom and gloom, but I also agree with it. It really just seems like the entire games press won’t exist very soon, with just a few scattered survivors floating on patreon lifeboats, but those will also eventually dry up. I wish it were all wrong, but I don’t think it is.

@tartyron: Yup. The other shoe of too many patreons eating each others' viability will drop at one point or another. Heck, even now I was somewhat happy that with Giantbomb having much less content I could focus more on Waypoint... and that didn't go well. I guess there's always Nextlander to go to?

@retris: I feel like Nextlander, along with Minnmax, no clip and Kinda Funny, all more group efforts instead of single content creators, are managing to do the patreon thing the best. But yeah, I only give money to nextlander with any real frequency because I can’t afford $5 a months at ten different things and most other folks can’t either. I gave Gerstmann and Jess some cash when they got the axe, but I can’t sustain so many subscriptions. Even nextlander I can only afford to sub to every few months to catch up of their bonus podcasts.

@therealturk: Its also pretty depressing when you see the comment count on the latest videos or bombcast. Most seem to get around 5-10 in a week.

@therealturk: Yeah, it seems like the only time a lot of people who are members of the site post in the forums or videos, is when there is more bad news and even that is starting to slow down.

I listened to that last Discord roundtable a few days ago, and the acknowledgement of the recent layoffs followed pretty swiftly by 'new hires maybe on the table' left a pretty nasty taste in my mouth, I must say.