A little background
Heya, my name is Meteora, I have been around here since at least June 2008, right before when this site was a mere blog needing love and nurture from its readers. I sort of consider myself as a one of the more older members that has been around for longer than I should have been. I'm far from a core member. I'm not cool enough for that. But enough of that, I wanted to talk about something about this whole subscription business. DISCLAIMER: Note that my opinion should not be held higher due to my *cough* seniority; I am as much of a member as anyone else is here who loves Giantbomb.For quite a while since the early days of the site, the Giantbomb community has been very supportive of the crew and the Whiskey Media family. A large number of us has been nagging the guys to donate money to support the crew before the whole subscription idea really got off the ground. They refused, they didn't want to take money and basically do nothing with it. They felt that we should get something, offering to sell T-shirts to members as a means to receive money from us, yet giving something back for our money's worth.
We have held admiration for the guys behind Giantbomb/Whiskey Media for their idea on how to run a gaming site and a business model, continually impressed with the performance they have held up throughout its life. However, today we hit a stumbling block that let all hell loose on the forums.
If you haven't heard yet, the subscription fees included a change in the Bombcast format. Normally the Bombcast ran for more than 2 hours worth of awesome podcast coming from the Giantbomb crew. However, with the introduction of the subscription fees, it will become a podcast that is more or less changed for the benefit of those who paid. Basically, it will be split into an hour each for session. The first hour can be heard when released, but the second hour will not be heard until next week; while subscribers will get it all at once. What did the community think of it?
They don't like it. Not one bit. Well, most of us except that fellow named jorojoserojas ;)
The issue at hand
I can see where we're coming from, and I can also see where Whiskey Media stands on this. No matter how hard we try to think otherwise; Whiskey Media is a business and it has a business model. It runs on cold, hard cash (unfortunately whiskey didn't work so well while fueling it). However, Whiskey Media is a company that has avery supportive community, willing to help the guys out by throwing money at them as a tribute of sorts. Not many companies has ever achieved that sort of status, it is certainly a unique thing to be seen.This whole idea of taking what was there and making it a premium content is a little mind puzzling for me. I'm a bit worried. Am I pissed off? No, not really. Though most are pissed off and losing their minds, throwing whatever backlash at the crew after all these years of love and adoring. Is it painful to see them go in this direction...? Maybe, but its more painful to see that the community has been more or less torn apart by the recent announcement. Do I blame the guys for making what I seemingly always presume to be a serious error and oversight like I normally do for just about everything else? Fuck I don't know.
Do I want to go on with my reserved honorary "I have been a member of Giantbomb for X amount of time; this sucks!1ONE11!" speech? No, not really.
I think the Whiskey Media crew needs to take a step back and take a look at the bigger picture. Taking content out from what is already free and making it a premium does not bode well and only results in backlash and negative perception from the community, as seen from this thread. The business plan is flawed. I can understand the need to put more features for premium content so it becomes more enticing to subscribe, but that's why you generate more features, not take existing ones and make them it a subscriber's feature. I don't think that works well. Doing that would be the same as Sony putting in a mandatory subscription fee for the PS3. One reason why people bought a PS3 was because of free online gaming; because it has always been free from the start.
What I think they should do is remove whatever plans they had for the Bombcast and come up with an alternative feature. There have been some suggestions that the Whiskey Media crew's podcast can do video podcasts as a subscription feature. I know many of us would be dying for that sort of feature and could pursue quite a few of us into subscribing. I know I would; though PayPal isn't supported. =( In any case, there are other things they could include in the membership plan that doesn't involve taking what exists already, and making it a content that you need to pay for. If necessary, they could shrink the subscription fee and exclude some other features that don't need to be there (such as T-shirts).
Actually, to be honest, I'm pretty sure the guys who will support Whiskey Media wouldn't mind at all if you took away that whole Bombcast idea and will still be gladly to subscribe.
The Verdict
Whiskey Media needs to know and be reminded that it has a fanbase that is willing to support it for being awesome and continually awesome; but that this isn't awesome at all. We as a community do not like being treated in a certain way that ticks us off. We love this website and we will continue to stand by it. But, all of us have our limits. This isn't necessarily a threat, rather a simple message that, as regular and obsessive visitors of this site, we want to have a pleasant experience. No hassling thought that there's some change that would bug us simply because, there's a feature that was there before, and now is more or less gimped simply because we get the content later. Yes, the content is still there, but the change doesn't feel right. There's many of us who feels the same, especially given the time gap between first and second hour of the Bombcast.Let's make it up Whiskey Media. How about you find a solution to this problem in which seems to be upsetting everyone in the forums, fix it and we'll totally forget all about this business and forgive you? And like I said, you can totally remove that feature. People will still subscribe to your membership. You do not need to split the Bombcast into two sections to get people to subscribe. Now that I think about it, its pretty trivial to even include that. Its no offence, I'm just thinking aloud. I hope you drop the idea, fix it, whatever, and we can hopefully get along together in the future.
Sorry about the loud read. Its been emotional roller coaster. <_<
~Meteora
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