Splitting the Bombcast? So much for not splitting the userbase...

What a bold-faced lie. The GB crew said that Whiskey Media had no intention of splitting the user base. And how is hiding the entire podcast behind a microtransaction NOT splitting the userbase? Yeah, we'll be able to listen to the whole thing a week later, but the stuff being covered on that second hour of the Bombcast will be old news by then. All this is doing is creating an artificial barrier that frustrates free users into spending money on something that almost every other website I know of charges NOTHING for. 
 
What a slap in the face to the people who have been here from the beginning and have spread the word about this website.  
 
I'm in college. I'm taking 15 hours of classes and working an extra 20 hours a week to pay for my rent. I have no other income. Not everyone has their parents credit card that they can spend whatever on. Please reconsider.

Yeah, it sucks. I didn't think they would do something like this.

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Honestly if they didn't split the bombcast and charged about 20-25 (but extra for the shirt) I bet they would get 2-3 times as many subscribers...maybe I'm crazy.

What's going on? 
 
EDIT: Now that I'm informed, that really sucks, but it's understandable.  
Still two hours a week though so it's fine, you'll just have to wait a week for the next myNotebook announcement. 

I don't know how I feel about this...

They're doing what now?  
 
I'm not sure what you're talking about but if they're doing that, then yeah, that's a shitty move. If you want to make money, add new features and charge for them, don't suddenly start charging for shit that's been free, that's just a dick move. 

Ya this can only go bad. Even if we pay for it. Think about there going to tinker with the bombcast now. So they fit stuff in the first half. So wont the second half be crap.

Well they did say they would reformat the podcast so that anything in the 2nd half wouldn't be news or time sensitive.  
 
I suspect it would be emails and stuff along that lines.  
Not to mention they need to make money somehow. 

" They're doing what now?   I'm not sure what you're talking about but if they're doing that, then yeah, that's a shitty move. If you want to make money, add new features and charge for them, don't start charging for shit that's been free.  "

" What's going on? "

I have a feeling that the two hours are going to be distinctly different products. 
 
They aren't just splitting it down the fucking middle and fade to static.

To me it's honestly not the end of the world.  It sucks, it's totally stupid, and it's crazy but I'll live.  I don't want to support such a decision, so I'll just listen to the podcast a week late.
 
In the mean time if people want a proper weekly gaming podcast that is also free, they can check out ours.

I dont see a big issue with this. I am paying for content I love and if you choose not to pay you just have to wait a little bit longer. Similar to XBL gold and silver you get gold you get it a little early. You are not really losing much from the site. Everything else is staying the same. I support an will be a day 1 subscriber. Hopefully  we will see more crazy videos because of this.

The news is still so fresh but already the reaction to the Bombcast split has been pretty volatile. I wonder if they'll end up changing this part of the subscription service based on the community's reaction. I still plan on getting a monthly membership for now but even so- the split really feels like a shame. Very un-Dude. Everything else they mentioned was great so I don't want to just focus on the negative. The pay-for stuff is great. The Bombcast seemed like the only part where they knew it would bother some people. 

This is absolute bullshit.  They stressed that content available now would remain free.  Giantbomb has gone down in my eyes drastically.  And don't give me some garbage about how they need to make money somehow.  There are plenty of other things they could add to this site and charge for without delaying the availability of one of the main draws of the site.

So you'd be paying for something that we are already getting now? Sure, the rest of us get it later, but WHY split it up like that?

Please GB Crew, don't do this. If you're going to do something with the podcast, put it up on monday night  for subscribers. But same time or Wednesday morning for everyone else. Splitting the bombcast into 2 parts is just mad IMO.

god, I love them and I totally might have paid the 50, but I don't think I could pay now. That's such a shitty move.

No more mindless rambling that i've come to enjoy from the bombcast. They're going to get straight to the facts and i'm afraid the bombcast will lose it's personality. 
 
 
I hope i'm fucking wrong...this sucks

Whiskey media, not pissing of the internet since 2007

wow, I think splitting the podcast is a terrible idea.   Even for paid users its a terrible idea.  Does it mean the paid up users will need to download 2 separate files?  that alone sucks.   Guys you need to be careful how you handle this paid shit cause bombs about to drop in this mother.

I'm sorry, but I've practically lost all respect for Whiskey Media as a whole for all of this. Segregation over content that was already FREE is just unnecessary.

This bombcast idea is so wrong.

The backlash is going to be huge. 

" No more mindless rambling that i've come to enjoy from the bombcast. They're going to get straight to the facts and i'm afraid the bombcast will lose it's personality.    I hope i'm fucking wrong...this sucks "

" What's going on? "

From what I heard on the bombcast for the memberships, the paid members will get the full bombcast right away where non paying members get the first hour. However.. the non paying members will get the 2nd part of the bombcast a week later, sooooo your still getting the full thing, just a bit of waiting time. So are people complaining about not getting the whole bombcast which you are (just have to wait a week) or the fact you have to wait? 

That sucks. The bombcast is the best thing on the site. The other podcasts I listen to are free......

Yeah I think the subscription issue is going to have a lot more user related problems than people were expecting, 
Site usage may very well go down due to this shit

you know, I was saying this to myself the other day. "I could really use less bombcast in my life."
 
and what do ya know. (lol)

" @LordXavierBritish:  Dude, Giant Bomb is basically GIVING us listeners! "

" From what I heard on the bombcast for the memberships, the paid members will get the full bombcast right away where non paying members get the first hour. However.. the non paying members will get the 2nd part of the bombcast a week later, sooooo your still getting the full thing, just a bit of waiting time. So are people complaining about not getting the whole bombcast which you are (just have to wait a week) or the fact you have to wait?  "

" @TheCreamFilling said:

" What's going on? "

they just said what the subscription is going to be. one of the things is going to be 2 hour podcast but one of the hours is only going to be to the subscribers while the other ones that don't subscribe can't hear it.   pretty lame to that. i wish they would make other things good. "

This most retarded fucking idea I've ever heard of.  

A broke motherfucker can't even a full podcast for free anymore.

Wow, I wasn't really worried that the site would lose any of its appeal once this whole thing started, I really had faith in them. can't say I'm not a bit worried now.

This is incredibly depressing and disappointing. I'm not an internet business guy, so maybe I'm missing something? Maybe? But... why do this? I don't even understand the logic other than "if we do this, less people will download 2 hours worth of our content, and that's great." Why is that good? Wouldn't videos cost more money bandwidth-wise? Isn't this place basically a video site? What am I missing? 
 
This site is run by incredibly  smart people. I... jh-... dude what!? 
 
So many ideas are going through my head on how this could've been done better. 
 
1. Members get to download the 2 hour podcast via iTunes. Non-members can download the first hour via iTunes, and they have to go to the site to download the second part (if getting less people to listen to save on bandwidth is actually the goal. Which still seems CRAZY to me). End of the first hour has a fifteen minute pitch (hey guys, if you want the second half, just go the giantbomb, click on Bombcast, blah blah blah. Then, they have an idea of actually how many people are downloading the podcast, and can tell advertisers "this number are listening to just the 2nd hour, and we estimate this much increase for the first). 
 
2. Members get the full unedited version? If that's actually not horrendous? 
 
3. Record an extra fifteen minutes for Members. 
 
4. Cut the podcast length. Seriously. By 30 minutes. Take out the DSi-Ware stuff, being stricter during the first segment, ta-dah. Ryan saves on editing a bit, everyone saves half an hour. 
 
5. Three man team with special guests who aren't employed by Whiskey. 
 
6. Make an extra bonus hour and sell it for 99 cents every week, or free with year memberships. 
 
7. DUDE ANYTHING BUT THIS WHAT ARE YOU DOING? 
 
This is unbelievable to me. I was totally onboard with buying a membership just to support these guys. I was thinking to myself "these are some smart, good people. Whatever they're going to do for memberships, I'm sure it'll be ok." This one announcement made me go from a day-one subscriber to completely hesitant. How insane is that? I would have subscribed with everything they announced, minus the podcast stuff. So, it would change nothing for me personally to just subscribe, because that's exactly the same situation for me. But... DUDE WHAT!?
 
Sorry folks. Did not mean to write that much. /rant

" Please GB Crew, don't do this. If you're going to do something with the podcast, put it up on monday night  for subscribers. But same time or Wednesday morning for everyone else. Splitting the bombcast into 2 parts is just mad IMO. "

I like podcasts cause they are free entertainment. i'd rather go buy a cd than subscribe. 
 
And since the bombcast is the reason i visit giantbomb, i'm one less person looking at advertising

Yup, I never thought I would see the day where IGN has free podcasts, while Gaintbomb doesn't. I always thought it would be the other way around.

" @Diamond said:

" @LordXavierBritish:  Dude, Giant Bomb is basically GIVING us listeners! "

I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that the Luchacast is still going strong. "

I think I agree with some of the sentiments here. I enjoy the full bombcast. I don't want only a portion of the bombcast and I really don't like the idea of waiting a week for the full bombcast. Most video game podcasts are out of date in a week. new announcements, interviews and news comes in a week's time. 
 
I think they could have come up with something new to offer instead of breaking up the podcast. Maybe offer a video of the podcast to paid subscribers, and unpaid just get audio.  
 
Again, it kind of sucks, the two hour podcast was perfect for my NYC commute. Damnit.

Those of you with concerns about this who haven't listened to the almost hour long podcast they just put up tonight about the new WM business model should really go listen to it.  
 
No it's not ideal for users who can't afford the $50 per year (though I find that hard to believe for a bunch of video game enthusiasts...buy 1 less video game...or buy the same number, but wait for 3 of them to drop $20 in price before you buy them.  Then you've got an extra $10 lying around for durgers.  It's called managing a budget, we adults do it all the damn time), but it's a very reasonable way for them to continue to do the bombcast without it essentially killing an entire work day, and it provides a perk for subscribers without excluding anyone. 

Bombcast is still free, only delayed. Much more elegant solution, than, say, the retroactive switches from free to paid that happend to Never Not Funny and the Ricky Gervais Show.