Was Giantbomb part of the CNET Sale?

@conmulligan: Yeah, we were a medium sized deal LOCALLY 4 years ago. When i started i we all fit in one large meeting area. We now have like 14 offices around the fucking planet. If i didn't work here, i wouldn't know about us either.

@chaser324: I appreciate the info. Can't say I'm optimistic. I have been a bit worried about GB in general for a bit and I worry about what new ownership will think about it and keeping its odd set up. We can all talk about the many sites we know that went to shit with new ownership.

@squigiliwams: Thank you for your post. It's much more comforting to hear from a fan in the inside of the new company.

Are you aware of any other brands in the company that run like GB? Primary subscription, secondary advertising? I'd hate for GB to go all free and have to see ads again.

@canadiancowz: Thats getting into 'dude i have no fucking clue and if i say the wrong thing im fucked' territory.

I think the closest thing we currently have to a GB would be ThePointsGuy. If you swap games for 'how do i game the credit card point system for trips.' I don't think its got a sub, but its got a cult like following.

Other than that, im not going to speculate on how things change. There WILL be change. I'm just praying its all good. Again, im a nobody on the other side of the company (and the country).

There, rightfully, should be a lot of apprehension about this but as people not directly involved, speculation does not help. Large sales like these can range from having virtually no effect to tanking the company. I've, personally, been a part of the tank. There are many many details that need to be worked out; work space, support staff, etc.

At this point, no one knows anything. As consumers, we'll only ever truly know what the GB crew tells us.

Worth thinking back on the doom and gloom about the prior sale before immediately settling again to do it over again.

Indeed. I've signed plenty of that over the years, although it usually relates to confidential information about individuals, for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXgjWOOuwEE

Here's a little something from Red Venture's Youtube channel, lets all hope that the new plan with this buyout is a big change from what they currently do! Cause I'll be honest, no thanks if GB is "integrated" into this current model.

CNET and GameSpot fit in with this to a degree, GB less so...

I have absolutely seen NDAs tied to M&A. Especially as part of retention agreements for key staff they want to keep through transition.

But wither way, this conversation is moot since it is clear from his post this morning Jeff knew nothing about this. But I expect one of his meetings over the next few days is to get him and his staff to sign retention agreements with stay bonuses if they last through the end of the acquisition.

I do agree.

@tonal: My foot is in this video.

Okay that makes me smile at least!

If Jeff is excited i'm excited.

It would be unprofessional for him to say anything else at this point. The cheerleader in here only weirds me out more. I'd always assumed Jeff did well enough in the sale to CBS that he could walk away at any time, if he wanted to, and now he's older and has a family I think the possibility only becomes more real if this PE/Marketing firm or whatever is just as clumsy as...oh, I don't know--any of the PE and VC groups that have taken working websites and drowned them in the toilet in the last decade.

What I'm worried about is that if Giant Bomb evaporates, I don't think we're going to see renegade Jeff back in a sausalito basement, I think he'll be like...someone who occasionally streams old games and writes something once a year on medium. and that makes me sad!

CNET especially seems made for this, the question is if they can maintain their journalistic integrity.

Giant Bomb I am a little worried for, I think it's hard to just keep pushing further and further into Twitch territory (dropping articles, written reviews, etc) and compete with Twitch, it's almost the same business model at that point and Twitch has a lot more reach. One way to differentiate is more studio shows with developers, but that's difficult with the current lack of office.

This post speculating about the secret motivations of Jeff and the personal details of his life is easily weirder by one thousand times than the guy talking about his personal experience working at Red Ventures.

The Saga of Jan's Thermos really took a turn

@kcin: I don't think saying "Jeff has a family and has been doing this for a long time" is me concocting some wild theory.

Let's not get too caught up in speculating about this or being too pessimistic. By all accounts, Jeff and the rest of the staff (at GB and the rest of the CNET sites) are only just starting to learn about this, and it's going to be months before the details are sorted out and this deal is closed.

It's wild speculation hours after the sale has been announced with nothing to go but a quick tumbler post by Jeff. This is before he's even been apart of any meetings. At this point, there's nothing to discuss. Neither good nor bad.

If I was Red Vector, I would be looking to turn CNET into a Wirecutter competitor. That feels EXACTLY in their wheelhouse of current websites they own. Not a bad thing. I think we need more sites like Wirecutter.

My hope is if this does go south, Jeff and co. can go rouge it up again in some fashion somewhere on the net once again... which would probably be more interesting to me personally anyhow.

I fundamentally disagree with the notion that it is appropriate to take what little we know about the personal lives of the people who work here and guess at what their inner lives are like.

Jeff didn't reveal that his family was expanding until his child's birth. I don't blame him for maintaining that level of privacy when people are incessantly projecting their hopes and fears onto an imagined version of him that they've based on the details they were able to scrape from thousands of hours of videos and podcasts.

Everyone trying to game out how this is going to go down less than 12 hours after it was announced - especially the ones who are scared - should log off for awhile, for their own sake.

Ok now the most important question: Who will retain ownership of nuke.com?

Will this be like divorcing parents fighting over their favourite child?

I'm not sounding any alarms about this. It's way too early to know their intentions. And they've got smarter people than us.

You are absolutely right, their is no reason to freak out about the doings of a corporation's internal business moves. I think a lot of people get a little too wrapped up in their favorite brands. Remember at the end of the day they are all brands selling you on something.

But also for me at least I just love to think and talk about interesting things and this is something that is interesting to talk about on the site, for me at least.

@kcin: You're projecting weird para-social stuff onto what I'm saying and I want you to stop. Here's my thesis for you again:

Jeff will retire someday and I would hate for some company to come in and destroy the website I've been using since I was 12. I hope Red Ventures is a great fit! I hope they allocate all of the resources that Giant Bomb needs and help them grow their audience and maintain quality work.

My caveat to that is dire! That's fair to say. Being all doom-and-gloom the same morning that a lot of CBSi employees received surprise invites to Zoom emails is a quick turnaround on some heady proclamations that I'm certainly not alone in.

But I think that concern is in no way unwarranted. As an on/off freelancer I've seen absolutely no shortage in OK-to-great websites being mishandled until they went out of business. I've also seen a great number of talented people be reduced to perennially job searching on Twitter every eight months.

Are you saying this is the absolute and one true determined fate of the Bombcrew, from coast to coast?

No! Absolutely not. It's far too early to say or know anything. The only people who are liable to know anything right now are execs at CNET Media and Red Ventures. But this is definitely something to discuss the ramifications of.

Right! Discussion is fun and exciting. I personally can't be against it. People just need to keep themselves in check on whatever side of the discussion they think they are on at the time and put their critical thinking hats on and play some good old devil's advocate! Might just be my personal point of view but I can't see why people would have a problem with that?

I fear change, so I do not like this news.

That would be terrible lol

Not to mention videogames.com

It's 2020 so I understand the instinct to assume the worst, but I am excited to see how this plays out.

I think it speaks volumes about how stodgy CBS has been as an owner that Jeff seems initially excited at changing ownership.

People need to remember that Giant Bomb is unique as far as revenue is concerned so it's a pretty self-contained thing that just needs good support. It's also super lean by most large website standards. The staff and budget for GB is small for the audience they have.

If I were other people at CNET, that's where my worry would be about layoffs.

I wonder if Red Venture came a knocking or CBS was looking to sell.

@squigiliwams: this was a great bit of context thank you! \

also, from one black engineer (who got out after 11 years for exactly the reasons you mention) to another, congrats on finding a place that feels like they actually give a shit. i know how rare that is, and how rare it is for people to GET that.

It seems like this is all cost savings that ViacomCBS has been exploring since late 2019. Stories about CNET potentially being sold started popping up early this year around the same time that they announced selling the CBS building in midtown Manhattan and looking for buyers for Simon & Schuster.

Vinny returns to so many changes since his vacation.

@temg99: yeah adjusted for inflation it's a loss of 1.6 billion in today's dollars.

I hope the guys can figure out accommodations now that they will more than likely have to vacate the SF and NYC offices.

It’s not a VC firm, so that is a good sign. And they are privately held, which means no shareholders demanding growth. We don’t know much, but they didn’t spend the money for the brand names. They wanted the talent and to grow their marketing portfolio. I’m sure Jeff and folks can explain how to market to the GB audiences.

The main concern is the office buildings and if the crew has to find new spaces. My bet is in the long term they will, but that is pure speculation.

Or maybe it explains why so many of them have been on vacation lately.

@tonal: Doubt it, Jeff's answer to all this was along the lines of this being news to him like the rest of us.

I expect everyone has been taking vacations because they have all been working their asses off for 6 months straight.

Sure there's no way for me to know anything obviously. But hey the timing just makes you wonder. I really hope this doesn't sound jerkish, but does Jeff have to tell us the truth? Not saying he did know anything, I'm sure a company like CBS Viacom would make moves like this without telling anyone that isn't absolutely needed, but also as a brand personality he has to make the best decisions for his brand... I'm sure if you're in his type of position you have to constantly be considering everything that's public let's say.

Jeff's made a career on being open, honest, and candid with his followers when legally allowed. If there's any idiot on the internet I'd trust, it is this Jeff Gerstmann idiot.

Well, the CBS thing didn't go _too_ badly in the end, but we all know this is going to suck for a while content wise.

Sorry, but reading this then reading the rest of your post gave me a good laugh.

You didn't just drink the koolaid, you're currently doing laps in a swimming pool full of it.

Not entirely true. A private company also has shareholders, some who can be as shortsighted and profit-focused as public company shareholders. But there is a significantly greater likelihood many of the shareholders are in it for the long term and willing to think potential.

@afroofdoom: If you wish to interpret my 'i like what i do and i get to help people on company time, too' enthusiasm as drinkin the cult juice then :shrug emoji:

You do you boo!