inspectorfowler

I know, I know, using the community as tech support. But I thought this brain teaser might interest some folks and help me figure out a vexing issue.

We've all been doing more video meetings over Zoom, Teams, whatever.

I sorted out some USB interference issues a while back and for normal sounds such as game audio, video audio, whatever, my wireless headphones sound nice and clear. No stuttering, cutting in and out, etc.

However - incoming voicefrom video meetings has stuttering and chopping issues persistently. If I switch mid-meeting to my speakers, the voice is clear and continuous. So it's not a network issue - the voice data is getting to my PC just fine.

I have adjusted every single setting I can find in my Windows audio settings, the software that came with the headphones (Logitech G-Hub), and Zoom/Teams. I have tried routing through and also avoiding apps that "clean" the sound like Nvidia Broadcast; neither option seems to make a difference. I keep coming back to the reality that the second I switch the output to the speakers, the sound is cleaned up.

The speakers are being fed by a 3.5mm jack, the headphones by USB, but again - all other audio besides incoming voice is crystal clear.

Any thoughts on what is happening here?

I think you might be a little salty yourself.

Most of the criticism in this thread ranges from nostalgia for older content/staff to people who simply don’t like the new stuff - all of which is behind a paywall, which means you’re paying for something you don’t like.

I think in general people are being pretty fair and honest. If you like GB and you don’t like the new content it seems fair to tell them why before you unsub or stop listening/watching.

It is awesome that you still love it enough to insult people but FFS it’s okay if something changes like 80% overnight and people drop off. You can stay here and support them without being rude and people can keep voicing their opinion also without being rude.

Best case scenario is that between feedback and raw viewing numbers they get the info they need to keep a few different audiences happy and the site gets to grow.

@mkennedy: I am legitimately glad that people do enjoy it. In a way I feel like this version of Giant Bomb is “peak Jeff” - the new site feels like a bunch of random things he has talked about being into over the years. You have Grubb doing the news thing, there is a ton of retro content (which is 100% not my jam but I think it’s cool that people love it), you have a music thing, you have people talking about shows they are into, you have people getting into internet culture.

I don’t have any conspiracy theories about this - JeffG is smart as hell and while we all have bills to pay and I’m sure not every meeting with RV bosses is maximum awesome, I think he’s probably navigating this the way he wants. I‘m sure they talked for months about hundreds of possibilities with both GameSpot and GB between those two teams, and I’m sure that within the boundaries given JeffG is doing what he wants to do.

For me, almost all the new content falls flat for me or it falls well outside my interest area so I’m out. If they bring back in a core podcast/QL team that has some ”traditional” content I’m right back in. But the fact that there still a bunch of people who love the new stuff actually makes me really happy because everybody who works at GB is still really cool and they deserve a fan base even if it does rotate through some new people. But like people have said, I think they also need to hear the feedback on why people are or are intending to unsub from premium.

I’ve been a subscriber for a while as well and as mentioned above, the feedback is worth providing if somebody is going to - or is considering - cancelling their sub. It’s like ghosting an ex ;)

I feel like Jeff has probably lost interest in the old things they were doing. He has mentioned a bunch in the podcasts that the internet sort of “became” Giant Bomb in that recording ”let’s play” videos and playthroughs spanning dozens of hours and streaming your shenanigans so people get to know your personality is normal.

The issue is that nobody does it as well as GB did in the past and so with no place to really go, I do feel a bit “cast out” by the cessation of old-style content and the sudden influx of random stuff. JeffG is right - a lot of their style of content does sort of exist elsewhere, but finding and gathering it is a nightmare. Twitch (sorry to Merry Kish) is a hellhole for discovery - suffering through dozens of streamers who are doing anything they can to keep the under 13-crowd watching while I am trying to to find one well-informed person who can help me make a decision on a game is not a struggle I’m going to engage in.

GB was founded by a core of people with irreplaceable experience in and knowledge of the games industry who also had a spectrum of personalities that made them the model for giving informed and helpful commentary about games while sometimes stepping out of that and having off-topic fun. It may have been one-time lightning in a bottle but it was a hell of a team.

I enjoy taking games seriously and stupidly at the same time, which GB has been great for. Now it’s a hodgepodge of random content and I just couldn’t care less about most of it because it doesn’t help me know what games I might like or would hate or think are great…from a distance. It’s slowly becoming one of those internet culture hubs and I don’t want that.

If a new “core crew” comes in and has the knowledge and ability to be that source for excellent games/gaming commentary and fun then I’ll hop right back in, but until then I’mma let my sub run out and keep wearing my GB hoodies until they all get holes in ‘em ;)

What industry would they be unionizing for? I think at this point “journalist” doesn’t necessarily apply - I’ve always thought of them as “enthusiast press” but they are now branching out into very broad “hub for internet content” territory. Look at the spectrum of things Red Ventures has.

I don’t know everything about unions but typically they are organized to protect employees at a specific - large - employer (large police unions come to mind), or to protect employees in a single industry/field across multiple employers (SAG and UAW come to mind).

Generally people will also want a specific set of grievances before they start shelling over 1-3% or more of their gross salary to a union. I’m not in a union but I’m in a general protective organization and I’m about to switch to a competing org because they’re cheaper - they don’t waste my money on Christmas parties, raffles, and other stuff that only the people who are way into the organization want in the first place.

I dunno. The general GB sentiment seems like it’s been “unions can work for people who need the protection” but I don’t know why they would suddenly demand one from their employer when the remaining employees seem pretty happy there.

I have not quit a game, but I definitely will love a game so much up front that I get afraid it will let me down and I hit this weird speed bump - usually for a few months - where I just sort of enjoy the feeling the game gave me and I don't move on. Yakuza 0 all the way back in 2017 was this way, as was Horizon Zero Dawn (I live where HZD takes place and I'm also an absolute sucker for "humanity does itself in" stories).

I am that way with some TV shows I love as well, where I am afraid to keep watching subsequent seasons because I like what I have already watched so much that I worry they'll drop the ball and I'll feel let down by the whole thing.

It seems like people who leave GB can rarely resist streaming a bit now and then (or every day) and I’d like to keep up with these folk.

I think I found Brad’s Twitch - do Vinny and Alex have channels? I know they‘ll likely take breaks from public gaming/streaming for a while but I’ll be damned if I miss it if Vinny streams another factory/crafting/strategy/4X game down the road, or if Alex picks up his steering wheel for another trucking run, or if Brad decides to break himself.

This is devastating news. I love the whole gang and I want everybody there to be happy, but the simultaneous loss of so much talent is...wow.

I came on board as a fan sometime in the late 2011/early 2012 era. All I remember is Vinnie getting teased a little bit for his prepper stuff and yammering about his HAM radio license and I was immediately hooked. What do these people talk about for 2-3 hours a week? It was so different from the other content out there.

After a while, the appeal of GB for me became the deep knowledge base. No other group came close to being able to recollect so much video game industry history while maintaining positive connections to luminaries from Dave Lang to Phil Spencer. Combined with their obvious personal ease with each other and their dopey and evolving senses of humor as staff came and went, it's been a no-brainer to remain on board.

The 3-5 hours of podcast content a week from these folks have put out has been a lifeline for me at work, where long hours alone in a car and a sometimes deeply negative environment make having a group of chatty "friends" a massive boost - as I am sure it is to many people.

While I'm on board with just about anything these folks choose to do I will miss what is lost and I'm super grateful to have had it at all. I ain't leaving but I sure am gutted right now.

@tunnelman: I do wish I had done that but due to some bad timing I built a pretty great system in late August anticipating at least sort of reasonable availability for the new GPUs a few weeks later. I even got a PCIe 4.0 MOBO and a PCIe 4.0 NVMe 2TB SSD - I felt so fancy! It cost me a ton of OT (thanks to mandatory OT I worked 245 hours of paid OT and about 100 hours of comp OT last year).

For routine work it obviously kicks butt, but a 1080 really throttles it if we’re talking about MSFS 2020, Cyberpunk, etc. Didn’t even try Cyberpunk, actually :(

In the scope of overall life it’s bleh - I have way worse stuff going on in terms of family health and I know people who are really struggling right now. But I’m 43 and I can’t remember a time when - nearly four months after launch - I couldn’t find a video card :(

Well, it might not get better anytime soon. A friend linked me to some rumors yesterday and it looks like PCGamer has now run an article confirming some of it (https://www.pcgamer.com/tech-tariffs-and-scarcity-add-up-to-big-pc-hardware-price-hikes-and-asus-is-kicking-it-off/) saying that the expiration of the tariff exemptions from our war with China will increase the prices of cards. From what I could tell, it looks like the scalpers are adjusting their business model accordingly so it’s a nightmare all around. Starting your 3080s over $900 is insane.

I am really regretting when I chose to rebuild my PC and have learned my lesson but we’re coming up on four months since launch and even with a scraper bot at my side I still haven’t managed to come CLOSE to finding a card. Sigh.