csl316

@arbitrarywater: They'll let anyone on there, won't they? *shots fired*

AP is great, but I'll admit that I started skipping it when the GB staff wasn't there.

Hopefully if it returns on a less frequent basis, we can have one or two people from the staff on each episode.

I just hope they take some of those ideas, and put it in a Hi-Fi Rush sort of scoped game. Instead of shooting for infinite money they could make something smaller and work a Game Pass deal with MS (assuming those deals are worthwhile).

Multiplayer games of any kind seem like such a risk as people stick to their Call of Duties or Leagues of Legends or Fortnites. Feels like it's harder and harder to peel people away from the big ones.

For all the doom and gloom in this thread, pretty solid week of stuff got posted this week.

@topcyclist: "People still claim 2d was bad as well, sure nearly 30 years later it won't be mind-blowing."

I disagree, still mind-blowing.

Infamous 1 and 2 were excellent. Open worlds that weren't too big, really fun traversal, solid story and characters, and some of the best combat of the era. I heard someone compare Forspoken to Infamous and my eyes lit up, but it just made me realize how much I want to play those games again.

They're hard to go back to because of the PS3 frame rates, unfortunately. I'd love seeing some of those gigantic battles at 60fps.

They're just uncomfortable admitting that they love a beloved icon for children.

I grew up with 16-bit Sonic and loved everything, until it went 3D and became very, very hit or miss. Poor guy got a negative reputation but it's not 100% unwarranted. Even if there have been good to great Sonic games consistently released since inception (especially the handheld games during his bleakest times), there have also been so many high profile clunkers.

Sonic '06 was sandwiched between the fantastic Sonic Rush and Rush Adventure, but you'd think that franchise was a joke around that era because '06 was so god damn bad.

@theonewhoplays: US companies generally give zero notice. The etiquette from the worker is two weeks so your department has time to react and get as much job knowledge from you as possible. But the company doesn't need to, it's at-will work.

Layoffs are a 4:00 on a Friday thing when you're ready to leave for the weekend. Or in this case, Wednesday before your next show. It sucks and I'm quite sad about this, but it's not uncommon.

The thing is, since I'm not in meetings with the Board, I usually have no idea if we're looking to staff up or have layoffs. We've been in both positions over the years but my job is to just report the numbers.

Here's an example of how many levels buying some laptops can go through, as a standard budget item:

- Marketing hires a sales rep that needs a new laptop.

- IT says we need laptops.

- Staff accountant prepared a budget in late 2022, with one laptop as part of thousands of other expenses.

- Accounting manager finalized the budget.

- VP presents the budget.

- CFO approves the budget.

- Board decides we should execute the budget. These are the final decision makers that will never think about that specific laptop.

This is a simple example, but gives you an idea of how numbers get lost in the shuffle as you move through levels. And how at any point, the budget can get moved back a step and reappraised. It's just the way it works. And a company like Fandom surely has a way more complicated process than that.

With people, it's obviously more in depth. But the last step, that the Board will never think about that specific person, that's where the decision is made. Then it goes back down the chain to get rid of two out of three video producers on a video-based website.

I'm getting off the point of this thread, that Jason and Jess are fantastic and I hope they can land on their feet sooner than later. Two of my favorites on the staff. I don't watch every GB video, but I would never miss a video with either of them on it.

As someone that works in corporate accounting, I would guess that Giant Bomb is just another division/department/whatever dimensions they use. Someone in my position probably pulled the numbers from an ERP, set up a report, filtered on the Giant Bomb portion (more likely a level above even that), and management looked at it. They looked at the budget to actuals, asked a couple of questions, and went "ok, we forecast this percentage change in 2023." And then the changes are in motion.

It really is cold, hard numbers in business. Analyzing the numbers is a detached process. Frankly, I have access to detailed payroll but it all goes into a bucket and there are no names attached. If I run a report, it's another line on the ledger when I'm in a meeting, there is no "Did this person meet their performance review goals? Can I watch a video they made? How's their attendance?" Once the decision is made to hire or fire, it's someone else's jobs to carry out that task.

Financials are a guide to management, and a lot of managers prefer simplified presentations. I'm doing a year end report now and the notes section for a line is usually one or two summary sentences to kickstart a conversation. So it's gone through a ton of filters before the decision makers even see it. I'm just trying to provide some context into how financials are used and presented in business.