Is this the Beginning of the End for GB?

I've been following this site since the beginning and although I think Jeff is great and has a tremendous talent evidenced by building this website into what it became... It just feels like since Brad and Vinny left it's just so empty feeling. Like maybe this is too much of a loss to keep the momentum going. Also, the current cast is lacking something. I don't know. Perhaps I just fear change... My fingers are crossed that they can make it through this and get back some of what has been lost. Am I crazy???

Nah, they'll be fine. The site will look different, but GB will still be GB.

It's a bit early for total doom and gloom. Things will be certainly be different, but that doesn't mean that this is the end.

Every time somebody leaves or something changes people say this.

My opinion?

Sit back and enjoy what it is right now. If you like it support it, if you don't then you find something else.

I mean, they said on all the official channels that May was going to be a rebuilding month. They even gave every premium subscriber a free extra month because of this.

I think they could be a little more transparent around these things and get the message out better, but this was wholly expected.

Jeff said they’d take a month or so to re-direct the vision of the site and it would be pretty quiet till then. Kinda early to be casting any hard reads till it’s well in motion. Patience is key, this site and it’s people have given years of non-stop content and entertainment and they deserve a breather to figure out what’s next. I’m personally more than willing to subscribe, wait and see what comes next after years of goodwill

I think it's the end of the beginning.

I've followed the team since they were on Gamespot and here. I was saddened that some of the team members left and I will miss them. I don't like and I am scared of change, however, it will fine, I trust the team that are still there and they're not strangers. It's all good.

Site will be fine. Any worries immediately went away after the bombcast and unprofessional Fridays. Looking forward to the future.

Weird, I'm more optimistic now than I have been in a while. Not that I don't miss the guys who left, but maybe I'm just ready for GB to do new things.

I miss seeing the guys who left on UPF and hearing them on the podcasts but I'm excited to see who and what else comes to the site. Jeff has been wondering out loud for a long time what modern video game coverage looks like now and I'm looking forward to what he and the rest of the people here come up with. Still enjoying all the current content though

Still too early to say. I’m hoping for the best but to say that this transition will be anything but difficult would be foolish.

I gather next week Jeff is gonna announce that’s he’s going back to the family business after all, selling Giant Bomb, opening up a tire shop.

it hit hard to Jeff and the entire website staff. But Vinny has his reasons and Covid was the final burnout for him and the rest of the cast. I trust in Jeff judgment to puss the website in new ways and hire the right people and to be honest... Giantbomb was a living corpse before Vinny, Alex and Brad depart. Now it's time to change, get the right people and do new quality contend.

Now Jeff, Roire and the rest of the cast have work to do. This is a new beginning for everyone, be patient.

@chaser324: agree

Jeff has a knick for hiring people. Things will be fine.

Honestly things still feel great.. Quality podcast this week which I enjoyed as usual.. The boys who are still there will be fine

Honestly, and this may sound harsh, maybe it's just over for you? And that's okay. I've seen your posts on other boards and I know the site meant a lot to you (and alot of us). But if you're not getting the same enjoyment out of it, that's okay too? Maybe just take a break?

As for me, this month's Relaxed Friday Streams have been really good. And Jan seems to be shouldering alot of the load right now while the Jeff's are doing their thing. And he was great hosting the "We Talk Overs..." If anything, I feel like the past two weeks have proven that GB isn't going anywhere.

Yes, it's the beginning of the end of this iteration of GB and the start of a new GB. I doubt anyone involved right now is like YES... this is peak giantbomb era and we're firing on all cylinders. Right now it's barebones and they make do with the resources they have. You can't really judge whether the fate of the next stage will be a success until we're actually in it. Things take time to take shape. It will be different, it will be divisive, but i have no doubts that there will be plenty of fun people & content in the pipeline.

@noboners: I agree, especially in regards to Jan. Really seems to be coming into his own and I'm enjoying his patter more and more. Still miss the guys that left, but I'm hopeful for the site's future.

I don’t think it’s doom and gloom to acknowledge that like... yeah this is a definite possibility.

There’s always been moments of change and upheaval in the site but this is the first time I’ve really felt like everything is truly up in the air.

@rejizzle said:

Quoting for emphasis. Also on the last Beastcast, Vinny said that Red Ventures and Jeff Bakalar both give him hope for the future of the site. It may seem quiet right now but that's because there's a lot going on behind the scenes that we're not seeing. What comes out might not be what you want, who knows! But stuff is happening.

Yeah, put those kids to work.

Nobody knows. It's obviously a period of great upheaval, but it seems like the remaining staff is going to try to continue to make it work and rebuild. Will that be successful? Impossible to say when we don't even know what that looks like.

I will say that I wish they were giving us more information on this. We got a free month of premium, but that's almost up now and we have no idea whether we'll get another free month or whether they're going to announce new staff or contributors or...basically anything. Jeff said there would be announcements about the future of the site in the week after people left but all we've gotten have been drips scattered across different content and not actually offering up anything remotely clear.

I understand that things are probably still in flux and they can't give concrete plans or a timeline or anything, but it would be nice to get even a clear statement like "We're still working on things, progress is being made, we don't want to make a premature announcement but we'll check back in two weeks from now and hopefully have more to say then."

Just some acknowledgement that they understand that the paying customers want some news of what their subscription will be buying, and empathy that they can't offer that quite yet but they are trying to get it out as soon as possible.

The free month of premium did accomplish that to a large extent, and it's appreciated, but the lack of communication since then is frustrating. I'm not asking for some "influencer" style oversharing about how stressed out everyone is and how hard they're working etc... just a simple professional media company check in, like game companies offer when they delay a game or are working on a patch or whatever. Giant Bomb is currently working on a big patch and it'd be nice to have some idea how that's going.

@shindig: as a new father, I can assure you the little ones are difficult to train into any productive capacity... unless you consider excrement production... excellent work ethic there.

On a real note, from what I've seen of the "rebuilding" month, they are doing a great job. Jeff and Danny are great and I expect more great hires are on the way. The lack of content production is very understandable considering where we were a year or so ago (Abby, Ben, Dan, Brad, Vinny, Alex, more if your older than me). That's a lot of shows that ended and it's gonna take some time for new people to find a niche for the kind of shows they want to make.

They're just getting used to the new office.

@the_nubster: How can they get used to the new office when there is no office?

Oh no. Giant Bomb will be stuck in limbo forever without a new office to get used to.

EVERYBODY PANIC!

@hairyreddog: No, It's not. Relax.

Back in my day a Nintendo cartidge used to cost 1/100th of a bitcoin you kids gotta learn the value of money

Goes to show some people could see the upside in almost anything, which isn't necessarily bad I guess. I kind of look at it like sports, all but a few veterans left the team or were traded, new blood will fill the spaces and flush it out, there will be a lot of growing pains and you probably wont see a championship for awhile...if ever, but it will still technically be the same team.

I wish them the best, but in my opinion what made Giant Bomb great for me was the OG personalities, and their comradery Anymore GB has just seemed like a stepping stone for new hires and less a place with any kind of permanence. just my 2 cents

@the_nubster: beat me to it

Nope! I actually think the Bombcast is currently great. Everyone seems in a good mood, hopeful. It's a refreshing change. I also gather that Bakalar is now in a powerful position when it comes to HR/ signing things off, so having him there will be very good for future content. Chin up!!

Or, is this the end of the beginning?

Or, did it end after they left Whiskey?

Or, did it end when they community lost Ryan Davis?

Or, did it end when Patrick left for Chicago?

Or, was the end when Vinny and Alex went East?

Or, was the end when _____________ turned into _________?

Or, did it end EVERYTIME each snowflake said they were no longer subscribing because they felt offended?
(Oh, boy, they sure showed us, right?!)

Or, will the site experience regeneration endlessly like Dr Who?

Or, will the site be reincarnated like the movie, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975) ? "Marcia, don't!" [bonk]

Or, has it all just started?

I know it's been a quiet May but we do have some exciting stuff that we're nearly ready to announce. Stay tuned for a little longer; it'll make sense when we start talking about it!

@rorie: Sounds exactly like something a person about to secretly close down a website would say!

I've changed my subscription from annual to monthly, I'll keep subbing for now to support the troops and to have access to The Vault, but at some point the value proposition of the site needs to be looked at. I look forward to hearing what they have in mind, but it better be something good.

Glad to see so much positivity. I thought mine was the general sentiment. I’m happy it isn’t. I’m always hopeful.

The real Giantbomb is the friends we made along the way.

While of course I have no idea on how Giant Bomb will do going forward I will say I'm concerned. For me it's questioning the timing of the entire situation, I feel there were clues that things were going to change months ago (e.g. Alex mentioning he may move out of his apartment during one of his drum streams and I believe Bard mentioned a possible move at some point in the recent past both kind of off hand but still). Vinny getting that major surgery done earlier this year could have been timed such that he still had health care coverage which he would lose once he left RV.

Just guesswork from me of course but those small breadcrumbs make me think that Vinny, Alex and Brad's leaving was not a "putting in our two weeks notice Jeff, see ya later" type of deal but planned months ago which begs the question Why need May to refresh and rethink the site? They knew it months ago but still have no real direction on where they want to go? I'm just not fully onboard with their story so far. Again this is a conversation I have inside my own head and probably completely wrong but it is how I think of the site.

@otterchaos: Yeah as May has come and gone and they still flounder around, I get less interested about what will happen more and more everyday, its good to see people being positive though, I hope what they are getting ready to announce is really cool.

@quasiconundrum: I'm with you. Over the last year, I lost most of my interest in Giant Bomb, and I felt like I was moving on. Over the last month, however, I feel it's been rekindled. I like the remaining staff, I like Danny guesting so often, and I have the utmost faith in the Jeffs to come up with a great new concept for the site.

I will never not miss Vinny, Alex, and Brad, but I will never not miss Austin, Abby, and Dan, too. I will always cherish the past, but the future looks promising.

I don't want to read too much into this but I'm pretty sure that it means that Giant Bomb is going to an all puppy format where they have puppy Vtubers reviewing games, and they are bringing on the We Rate Dogs guy to review puppies on the site.

Pivoting to video is so 2010s. Giant Bomb is going to win the 2020s by pivoting to puppies!

Vinny and Alex have yet to reveal what they're up to, but aside from Ben, all the people that left are still making some form of content that appeals to GB fans. In a weird way, even though they've technically lost a lot of people, the roster of talent is still growing if new people are brought in to whatever GB will become.

I feel like Giant Bomb has been slowly dying the last few years now, even pre-pandemic. I just don't think the quality of the content is the same as in years past, and even on the bombcast and other podcasts there just doesn't seem to be the same amount of enthusiasm that there used to be, kinda like they are just going through the motions rather than doing something that they truly enjoy. Maybe it's because people left, maybe it's because they're just getting older, maybe it's just the recent crop of YouTubers taking what GB did back in the day and bringing a freshness to it, I don't know. I just know I dropped off GB pretty hard over the last few years and it makes me sad. I used to visit this site daily and consume as much content as I could. Now, I check in once a month or so and go "yeah... They're still doing that..." and leave. That's a huge bummer.

I wish Jeff & co all the best in the world.

I will wait to see how this plays out, but they need to get things rolling again soon. Just having a podcast and an UPF isn't enough, especially for a subscription based service. I'm sure there are some people who will pay them even if they did nothing, but I'm also sure everyone isn't like that. Once silver lining so far has been Jan. The guy has really stepped up since Vinny left and has done a good holding down the fort. We should get a good idea if GB will survive or not by the end of the year. Jeff said during his Garage series that he isn't going to rush to hire new people. He is going to vet them to see if they will fit among the crew. I understand this, but time is short. I hope GB is able to survive this big hit it suffered in the end.

Every time over the last decade+ that I've thought "GB won't be the same after this" ... well, I've been right, but more importantly: GB has then gone on to be fun and interesting in whole new, different ways every time.

Though people will always be missed, I have yet to be disappointed by any era of GB. I feel no reason to be skeptical now. I'm excited to see what the new era brings.

@superkenon:

I see what you mean but there's a huge difference between one member leaving and 3 OG people leaving at once and the whole east coast of the business ceasing to exist.

If there's one thing I know about Jeff, is that he knows when to chase a trend and when to start a trend. He saw that video game coverage was going personality based video coverage, so he created a site to take advantage of that. Then he made the long form video look a thing with Quick Looks before Let's Plays were really that popular. He knows his business, no dick-riding intended.

Now what would I like to see from a new Giant Bomb? Honestly, I'm 40 damned years old now. I think most of us core Bomb crowd are slipping into their late 30s/early 40s. I think a site that embraces this great hobby as a mature person, as a family man, may be what separates Giant Bomb from all these other sites that feverishly court the youth demo. There are still a lot of us who embrace this hobby with the same fervor as a sports fan or a racing fan, but trying to find coverage from people with our perspective is tougher and tougher with older voices retiring all the time.

Now that is not to say that I just want a bunch of old men on the site, lol. Austin Walker is like half my age, but he was the closest to my personality type on the site. Most of my favorite features were driven by the younger members getting the old guys into a fun situation. I hope we see more of that too.

If so, it had a great run. I don't necessarily see any writing on the wall though, the site will differently be different like post whisky media.

It's the question most of us have in the back of our heads yah? It seems like for sure they are saying (See Rorie's response above) that they are not gonna cease to exist though. It's not the end of GB for sure.

Wether it is the "End of GB as we formly knew them?" I mean from the outside looking in there is no way to know. When they announce whatever it is they are going to announce about the future, we can make up our mind then. Either whatever the new stuff for GB will be worth paying premium for, or it won't. Same as it always has been.