Why does Giant Bomb layout look like Polygon/The Verge now?

What the heck? I miss the old layout.

I heard that CBS didn't own that Whiskey framework, so they just had to make a new site. Or something like that.

It looks nothing like The Verge?

And besides some big images on the top of the front page and at the top of reviews i don't see it either in regards to Polygon.

@cynical_gamer:

They changed because they didn't own the framework that the old site was built on. I'm not sure why you think it looks like Polygon/Verge. It doesn't really look that way to me.

^That. Also the redesign was being made before Polygon released their site. It's a coincidence they're similar. I personally don't think they're all that similar.

Giant Bomb

Don't

Care.

You miss it? Really? Well, here. Have fun.

I don't think they're very similar outside of modern design elements that come from them being created fairly close together.

Aside from looks, they feel very different to me. Polygon feels like a site where you can read stuff. Giant Bomb feels like a site where you can do stuff.

The designs for both GB and Polygon allow for automatic site scaling. Expand and withdraw the horizontal length of your browser window to see what I mean. This means that there is only one site for every device you can view this on, be it computer, tablet, or smartphone. This is where modern web design is going.

Phone friendly sites are more and more ubiquitous and they all look very similar.

Because responsive design is the future of the internet and you should get used to it. That's why.

Tablets yo!

Why does your avatar consist of Tomonobu Itagaki?

A better question is why that isn't the default avatar.

The new one is very web 2.0 (or 3.0, whatever it is now).

I'm sort of glad that all of the professional type websites I use have stuck with the same old 2000 era layouts. Not as pretty to look at, but if you know what you want pushing ctrl+f will get you there. But for something like a medium speed news/content setup, the new giantbomb setup seems like a reasonable compromise.

I hope Devil Third is doing okay.

Because change is bad.

I really dislike the layout of stories/reviews on polygon, but I don't think Giant Bomb's new layout is much like it; at least not nearly so extreme. Polygon reminds me of infographics, where it looks neat for the sake of looking neat, not because it's more usable or understandable.

It's just...it's just not the same.

The light theme reminds me of IGN with all the white and red. They should really make the dark theme the default.

@darthorange: I agree. It's annoying when I log into my account on different computers and its not holding my theme preference. Very picky complaint to an otherwise great redesign!

Q: Are you going to read through all of the thread replies, and elect one as the clear winner, that most adequately answers the thread title?

Or is your question entirely rhetorical or opinion-based, such that you will not be selecting the "correct" answer? If this is the case, you have fucked up and misunderstood the purpose of creating a "question" topic.

This should appear before people hit the "Submit" button when starting a new thread.

Site seems to be more mobile friendly so i guy that layout seems to be a natural transition from old layout.

Because phones.

I don't think that's the case, because this site is shit on mobile devices. If I log into it from my ipad, I can't even post or reply to messages in the forums or PMs. The "reply/quote/edit" buttons don't even exist.

That said, I initially fucking hated the whole Polygon/USA Today "people are stupid, so have some enormous fucking pictures that consume all of your screen real-estate" thing was massively off-putting. I still kind of dislike it, but overall, I find the site an improvement and @snide and team deserve kudos. I know things will improve over time. This isn't a one-and-done. I look forward to improvements.

I also wonder if they'll start having to include Metacritic scores in the wiki and in reviews. I expected that almost as soon as they joined CBS (CBS owns Metacritic), but have been pleasantly surprised that it hasn't yet happened. In fact, for all the doubts I've had about GB maintaining integrity after joining CBS (not because of lack of faith in @jeff and gang, but because of my knowledge of how the media and corporations works -- and my specific insight into CBS), they have held up remarkably well. I always said I hoped I was wrong in my pessimism and doubt and, so far, I do indeed seem to have been wrong.

I hope you continue to be wrong about the Metacritic scores. As for the reply/quote/edit either Dave or Alexis said in one of the many bug threads that they'll work on that once the major stability issues are resolved. At the very least it seems like something they want to fix on this new design.

@branthog: I still think Polygon's enormous fucking pictures are really stupid. But then, I basically hate modern web design, because I think they pretty much figured websites out like 5 or 6 years ago, and now they're desperately treading water, trying to find extraneous features to add ("Everything ever needs to have comments below it!" - billions of pages with 0-1 comments on them), or cycling through pointless fads of design so that everyone feels the need to redesign their site every 2-4 years (I guess we're in a dumb minimalist-with-big-pictures phase right now or something?).

Honestly, UIs get designed WAY too often by big companies, and it always seems like a lateral shift, a reorganization of the same elements without any real improvement. Xbox dashboard? Facebook? Kotaku/Gawker Media? iTunes? Constantly redesigned, not to facilitate any real change in function or features, but to stay "current" and to lead the world into some bold new future of even less intuitive menus.

Big images that take the whole screen like on Polygon just break the flow of the site. It's really bad for a site that has plenty of long features. I think the size of images on GB is just right, big enough without breaking anything.

But the worst thing polygon does is using multiple font, font size and font colors. When within the same screen i can see 4 different fonts, 3 font size, 2 different colors and some text in bold and other in italics it's just stupid.

Aside from large images, the redesign doesn't look much like Polygon at all. It looks nothing like The Verge. Nothing.

I know dude, I know. Pro tip: black.

Honestly, the redesign is missing something vital to its existence and I think I've fixed it:

It isn't like Polygon, Polygon is fucking awful. The new format is fine, I prefer the old one but whatever. I just wish I could get rid of the community thing and replace it with my favorite boards, that was useful to quickly check if there was a new topic on something I care about.

Remember this thread?

http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/polygoncom-is-live-what-do-you-guys-think-564998/

I specifically remember Deusx's post from that thread. Jesus Christ.

@rjayb89: Perfect!

@rjayb89: Yes!

You can tell he really likes the site.

I don't think they look much the same at all, but I'm also in the extreme minority that is seldom bothered by site redesigns. I happen to like the design of both sites, and I think the new Giant Bomb looks a lot nicer than the previous one. The only thing I miss is the forum activity pane on the front page, but Dave has said they're looking into doing something similar down the road.

Unfortunately, there are web designers who know how to stay out of the way of the content and let the content be king. Then there are web designers who feel compelled to justify their position and salary. Frankly, I can't understand people who can't understand why people would find consuming enormous amounts of space to convey the least amount of information a problem.

I guess you mean the resizing shenanigans? Because responsive in terms of loading is something this site has never been, I've always found GiantBomb a little slower than most websites.

Oh shit, they have a Furnace of the Year article, sweet!

“I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”

That's pretty much what I thought of when I tried to read that sentence. I think I might agree though? At least in the case of a persistent content driven site.

But for stuff like marketing or the site for a game, I'm all for developers going crazy and making an awesome website. Everyone has a passion, and I think it's cool to see them go over-board with cool shit.

@sooty: I'm going to assume that the slowness of the site is a temporary thing that is less about the design of the site and more about back end stuff that's still adjusting, for lack of a better term.

I don't know what polygon or the verge is.... all I know is this new site hurts my eyes, too white too bright, I miss the old dark background.

Upper right corner, you can change between light or dark background, return to the dark side!

Ah nice, thanks.

It doesn't feel much slower to me than before, I always thought GiantBomb loaded quite slow, it's probably the slowest site I visit along with Reddit.

For a site that was designed to work on phones, I find the new forums to be pretty terrible. Tiny little text box, the edit function (now that there finally is one) is kind of ghetto and broken... Unhappy.