With Patrick moving, the crew needs to step up their game.

I get the concern over Quick Looks because Patrick is definitely in a lot of them. I would assume (and hope) that this would mean more Rorie in Quick Looks but I don't know. But I'll never understand this attitude about the "good old days." The site is the same, it's always been the same. The "jaded" complaints or whatever are such bullshit.

I think the "needs to step up their game" is a good choice of words.

This is my take on it. I think that Giantbomb actually have been stepping up their game lately. There was a period somewhere 2011-2012 that was the true slump, a period of time when the guys didn't have equipment after the move and that resulted in a lack of content. But when they got past that more liveshows started to emerge so I do not think this is the worst period of the site. It's already passed us.

Patrick on the other hand have been one of the main reasons that GB have gotten a lot of updates and Quick Looks since he participtes in almost anything if you ask him. he has been eager, enthusiastic, open to new things and he also been communicating with the community, something I think the rest of the crew almost never does which is a shame.

If GB dont "step up their game" we will get a reduced amount of content because Patrick was in almost all of it. And now I'm talking about the in the sofa, Quick Look and podcast stuff. I know he will still be around but it's different when he's not in the same building, when he's not in the core team.

So the big question is. Will the crew be able to still make the same amount of content with fewer people? Are they ready to take on a bigger workload at the office OR are they searching for a new crew member? No one really talked about this in this thread but there could be a possibility that we will get a new personality on the site because I have trouble seeing how the crew will manage to deliver the same amount of content without Patrick and still do their other chores (what they now may be). It feels like Patrick was the only crew member that didn't have any admintrative asignments that took his time.

Patrick will be missed. He was a cool addition to the team and I hope someone will try to fill his shoes in the future rather than that the rest of the crew will have to work double trying to create equal amount of content, something that probably only will make them more tired and non-enthusiastic.

I stil love the site and want it to making progress. No hating, just love.

@wjb said:

Oh god, I can't even count the number of "I Love Mondays" in which the entirety of them has been "Err - well, there's no games coming out this week. Well, maybe there are a couple of indies, so I guess we'll cover those - oh, and probably figure something out for TNT, too"

Cut to a video posted the same day or the next in which they receive boxes of old games and proceed to show all the disks to the camera...

aaaaaand the week goes buy with like 5 quicklooks (half done by Patrick), TNT, Friday show, and nothing else.

*sigh*

Jeff, at least, has been pretty forward with his acknowledgement of the Youtube community and how much content they are putting out by comparison. He's sited on numerous occasions how they are signs of the future and indicators of directions GB should explore. For reference, they totally operate how you're suggesting - they play a shitload of games, and post a shitload of video whether those games are new or not. If they get games for free, there is almost always coverage of them, too.

That said, I don't want GB to be a site where the dudes post videos from their bedrooms - no matter how much I like Jar Time and Spookin' - but seriously.

I disagree - I think the site has changed significantly, and numerous people in this thread have even sited specific examples. But, I can see your perspective and as that radio DJ would say - "you already know".

@jimbo: Nobody is at Gamespot who fired him.

@selfconfessedcynic: The scope of some of the content has changed but I don't see how someone could watch the BioForge stream or this week's TNT and think that their enthusiasm is gone or that they're jaded. Those were two of the best videos that Giant Bomb has ever produced. Not to mention all the Iceland stuff from the past couple weeks, which has been fantastic across the board. I'm just not sure what people want out of them. No matter what they do some people are just never happy.

@milkman: At the heart of it, some people just want them to remake Final Fantasy 7.

There is alot of talk about the guys being jaded now. Well breaking news, they have been for a while. I think it just stands out more in comparison to Patricks enthusiasm. When I first found this site, I actually connected with the cynicism, but I've been trying to be less jaded in my own life and I think Patrick's stuff has helped with that. Ryan's still a huge part of the site obviously, but he really doesn't seem to produce much actual content. It's not like everyone can just leave the site though. They need work and "real jobs" are way boring, and I barely have one that counts as real.

This sucks. As others have mentioned, Patrick is/was the most excited and enthusiastic member of the crew. Listening to the Bombcast has been a part of my week for a number of years now, but to be honest, I'm getting tired of Brad being to bored with things that he has to keep playing with his phone, Ryan's asshole mentality is wearing thin, and Jeff's cynicism is getting old as well. And Vinny, well he's clearly run down from being a father. (This i understand as i have a 3 year old myself. Kids are exhausting.) Patrick was the great equalizer. He brought balance to the Bombcast. A perfect example of what frustrates me is Skyward Sword. Patrick played it and discussed it on the Bombcast and he seemed to enjoy it. Everyone else was completely disgusted with the thought of even talking about it, let alone playing it. Now, I know Zelda these days is a very polarizing topic, but it's importance in the world of video games can't be ignored. And for video game professionals to openly shit on a game that they haven't played is annoying to say the least. If you care about the lore of Zelda, that game does some pretty amazing things at the end. Anyway, thats my 2 cents worth. I can't fault Patrick for taking advantage of the importunity, I'm sure anyone would if they were in his shoes. Good luck Scoops; Godspeed.

It's sad to see patrick go, but at least he'll still have some input on the site.

Well, from what he said, that's gonna be Patrick pretty soon too.

@milkman said:

Yeah, I don't think they're jaded either - and I've been spouting about how awesome that Bioforge stream was a couple of times in this thread alone (I should do better stuff with my time, but fuck it, it's a Saturday).

I'm not sure what people want, but if I were to sum up the top 3 things I would want...

/rant (and @rorie for good measure)

It's true, haha - both literally and figuratively - and both in terms of GB and Square.

@insanegenis said:

Uh huh.

Hardly the same. Different content, different personnel, different ethos, folded back into same old business structure that they were (rightly) shitting on while they were Whiskey Media, etc.

I agree that Ryan and Jeff haven't really changed in their attitude towards games. They've always been like that, and personally I like that they never faked enthusiasm for games where it wasn't warranted. I do think there's definitely a sense that since the move back to Gamespot, Giant Bomb has gone from being 'their baby' to being just a job though. There was a genuine passion and belief about the site and what it could become, which I just don't think is there anymore.

It does make you worry about the future of Giant Bomb.The way things are going now, where do you all see the site in a few years? Does it need to be highly successful in that time span to remain viable for CBSi? If it fails to reach its set expectations will it be shut down or merged with Gamespot? It's something I'm quicker to consider when all these high-profile staff changes are afoot.

Now, let me play devil's advocate here, because I don't see the Patrick change as anything bad. First and foremost, he gets to go back home and be a family man. Secondly, Patrick actually gets to break news and dedicate his time to writing articles. Thirdly, we're going to still get a stream of content centred exclusively on the guy. We may even get Alex-Patrick dual content. While it can be said Patrick produced a lot, I have confidence in the remaining staff to fill in most of the hole. It's not a loss, it's a trade-off and I would imagine the recent changes to the production team to allow for Vinny and Drew to participate more is a part of this. I've never been a fan of Patrick so there's also that. On the other hand, the ability of Giant Bomb to freely switch community managers and move around editors is a good sign that they have authority over their own staff. This news makes me cautiously optimistic.

Just to clarify, Daily DOTA isn't premium. The live stream is free and the archive can be accessed on twitch for free just like TNT. It's only the archive on the site that is premium.

i miss you already patrick

<3333333

You know, I would absolutely love for Giant Bomb to kidnap Danny O'Dwyer and make him a part of the Bomb Crew :o

I gotta agree although not as harshly. The Daily DOTA isn't a huge deal. It's a game that Brad likes to play and decided to stream from the office as there isn't much else going on. If Brad was actively tutorializing the game as he plays and teaching everyone the basics of how to play that might be half decent. As it stands Daily DOTA is literally just Brad playing DOTA. He even admitted himself that it's "self serving" in a way (not his words obviously).

If the staff has one huge problem that they need to work on it's definitely commitment and scheduling. The chaotic nature of the site is interesting but very frustrating at the same time. A lot of people love Bradley May Cry but were left in the dark as to when or IF it will even continue. Same thing with BioForge. One of the most hilarious segments in recent months and yet who knows when part 2 is showing up - could be next week and could be in 2 months for all we know. Not to compare GB to GameTrailers but over there you know there's going to be a Pach Attack every week on a certain day.

But I know nothing about running a website so who knows.

I know you're just throwing this out there jokingly and it would really never happen but seriously. I would fucking love this. Danny is actually enthusiastic about games and is known for producing well written and researched videos that are really entertaining.

He's like the opposite of Brad.

Everyone stop saying Chicago is on the east coast. It's not even in the same time zone! C'mon son.

I actually think this has the potential to be excellent. It sounds like Patrick will be enabled to focus more on the things he excels at in my opinion. I always enjoyed his long form articles and thoroughly researched news stories much more than any of his other work. I hope and fully expect this change will put him in a position that resembles the specialized "news guy" role more closely. I'm excited for that.

The change does raise the concern that GB's, at times, spotty content output might suffer again. I think they did a lot of good and entertaining stuff very recently and I'm pretty happy for the most part (especially Drew doing more stuff in front of the camera!). I wonder if long-term plans are already in motion behind the scenes though. It seems relatively transparent by now that CBSi bought GB in part to utilize the extensive experience of the staff to modernize and transform their other outlets. Especially Jeff and Ryan seem to be stuck in fucking corporate meetings a lot and that absolutely sucks since I really like pretty much all the content they do. I'm glad GB didn't just blow up when Whiskey ended and respect CBSi for its part in that but I don't give a shit about them otherwise. Every hour GB staff has to piss away with meetings is a massive waste of their talents to me (it's likely not that simple, especially Jeff seems to like some of that role, some of that time will indirectly benefit GB and so forth but it still sucks).

With that in mind, will this situation...

a) ...be temporary? GB guys will give their input during a long transitional period but will eventually be free from acting as managers/ advisors/ consultants or whatever they do precisely and return as full time editors.

b) ...be the new status quo? OG staff will transition into the background and be responsible for more than just GB. Their work shifts behind the scenes. Maybe they've just had it with covering games 24/7 and actually want a change of pace. Maybe they've got no choice. This is the unsettling scenario. It could lead to a slow decline of GB or to massive changes if or when they eventually hire new editors for GB to replace or compliment the original crew. In that case it all depends on what brave people get hired and how we'll respond to them.

The actual situation is probably nowhere near as binary or possibly even nothing like that. But it's my explanation for the uneven content and Patrick pulling so much weight by himself in recent months. So far I'm slightly worried and largely very satisfied. I just re-upped premium for another year and hope for the best. It'll continue to be interesting either way.

TANG reboot with Rorie.

What?! Leaving already? This is genuinely shocking. I really hope the crew doesn't just not acknowledge and talk about it at all like they did with Dave's departure, though. That would be really sad. Who am I kidding? This is sad. I'll miss Patrick's presence here, even if he'll still technically be on the site.

Man, is he at least gonna be at this year's obviously crazy, news-bearing E3 (the most crazy, news-bearing E3 in YEARS)? I was looking forward to that... damn, bro. Damn.

GOD YES! YES YES YES

On a sitenote, I'm curious if all the "MEH, another QL with Patrick. SKIP" people are now going to complain that there is less content. Cause there will be less content. It is inevitable cause they are down one man (two if you count Brad since he is lost in a deep, deep Dota hole)

This is the best idea.

@pillclinton said:

Yeah, another example of Giantbomb not pushing information to the site properly. They expect us all to constantly keep up with all of their twitters and read every forum thread instead of just posting a story to the front page. I still don't actually know how/when/where this information came from.

I'm sure the site will be fine. It'll be a bummer to lose Patrick in video content, but the site was awesome before he came along and before he got super engaged with creating content, it'll be awesome when he leaves. If anything, I think it might be a good thing. I don't really feel like Patrick has created a shit ton of new content, I think he's just been in a growing portion of content while also contributing a decent bit of more content. Hopefully this'll encourage the other guys to spread out the workload a bit and they can start appearing in stuff to bring back some of that diversity.

Was about to suggest the same thing! I've long said in the past that Alex at least doing some sort of TANG write up would have been awesome, but now that Rorie's here it'd perhaps be a better fit if we got some regular-ass video TANG lead by Rorie every so often.

As a non-subscriber I definitely do think that the site is not what it used to be. Maybe they do have amazing enthusiasm, but I'm not seeing it on the site or it's "for plebs" content. You know what would help me not think that? If the staff actually interacted with the forums and addressed the complaints and feedback. I get that Jeff has a tumblr where he answers questions, but that isn't enough. Having the community come to tumblr or twitter to find answers to their questions regarding this site does not give off a good image about how much they actually care about the site, the community, or the worries that people have about it. Have some kind of question asking feature thing on the site or just interact more with the community on the actual website. By not doing that it shows that you have no confidence in the website or the community. That may very well not be the case, but that is certainly the image you are giving off. I know you hired Rorie specifically to fill that role and he has been doing a great job, showing the enthusiasm and interaction he had on Screened and on his tumblr blog after leaving Screened. He helps close the gap between staff and community, but it still feels like there is a one-way barrier there. There should definitely be boundaries, but it often times feels like the Berlin Wall.

It came from the latest Worth Reading. In the opening paragraphs.

Plus Patrick's planning on writing up an official post about it as well. Though he perhaps should have left the news for that specific post and not let the cat out of the bag so soon before hand.

People say this (myself included) and it's great in theory but what videogame based films are there left to do?

A few, but there really aren't that many, unless you really want to stretch it out and include anime (which Ryan was not willing to cover) and garbage like the straight-to-video WarGames sequels.

GB is run by people- if we (the community) give a shit beyond CONSUME we should be understanding of the way they change and various life events. Treating GB simply as a product that must meet our needs would just turn it into any other gaming site, which it is clearly not. I know we put money in, and I know GB is keenly interested in keeping the community happy- but the community needs to avoid becoming an entitled group o assholes.

It came from the front page

Off the top of my head there's:

• Tekken movie
• The latest live action and CGI Resident Evil movies.
• The second Silent Hill movie.
• That Dragon Age animated movie.
• I'm pretty sure there's a third BloodRayne movie.
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
• EDIT: Plus there's at least two animated Dead Space movies isn't there?

There's seven episodes right there, which they can sparse about across the year well enough I'd say. Put in the same dedication and effort as that Iceland video and each one would be spectacular. Plus that's operating purely on the ruleset of TANG; if it were to carry on as WUTANG, where Cloak & Dagger of all things got an entry, then there'd certainly be no shortage of content.

It's great that Patrick is pursuing what he really wants to do at the place where he really wants to be. Everybody should do that if they get the chance to! But I agree with a lot of folks in here that this might be more than a little bad for the quality of Giant Bomb if not accounted for. One or two new, eager, young editors (one of them perhaps Drew) will probably be needed to make up for his enthusiasm and thoroughness.

On the other hand, it's a great opportunity to grow Giant Bomb as a business and to work towards a gentle, sustainable growth for the next few years, provided there is enough money to pay for this. I really hope they have already been working hard behind the scenes to accomplish this. Sometimes it feels Giant Bomb has no real clue what it needs to do from a business perspective in order to make sure the core staff can focus almost completely on doing what they like to do: creating awesome content. I hope that I am wrong and that they have a vision towards which they are working, but it doesn't always feel like this.

You can say that about Endurance runs too, "Fuking let's plays? Really? That's what we are going to hang our hat's on? The most generic, laziest content that literally anyone can do?"

People also always forget the hot garbage that was the King of Fighters movie.

Ryan does nothing, he should get replaced.

@hailinel: @bocam: Good to know I guess, but it should have been stated on the front page. I don't ever read Worth Reading really, at most I'll browse to see if there are any interesting things mentioned and then go explore those on my own. I'm sure plenty of people don't read the feature, and I'm a little tired of them not just putting up stories that explicitly state things are happening on the actual front page.

That's not true. He posts on twitter and adds songs to his spotify playlist.

boom

Change kinda sucks.

And with the release of the Reus quick look that makes 5 this week... all with Patrick. They really do need to step up their game.

In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.

(Also, there are plenty others out there)

Sick burn! And also kinda true and sad... because now that you mention it it made me realize that i barely ever see anything from him since i've stopped following him on twitter... and spotify isn't yet available in Canada either.

I made myself sad.

They keep Ryan for the sole purpose of reviewing Assassin's Creed games.

I think Patrick will be well suited to the out of office role, like Alex.
Good luck to him.

Just need a few more Fortune Street TNTs to bring Patrick down.

He plays them so Brad doesn't have to.