Ok, I'm going to take a step back for a moment and think. Our basic motivation for visiting Giant Bomb is because we all "like" video games. I put like in quotes because I feel the word has varying degrees of applicability for such a diverse internet community. Some of us are casual fans, who enjoy an occasional expedition into the depths of the ever expanding gaming-verse. Others seem to almost live in and around this infant medium, leaping on every scrap of information like a pack of rabid goombas. This passion is clearly evident in the Giant Bomb wiki, a treasure trove of video gaming knowledge created solely from a legion of loyal fans, who through an unending number of keyboard taps and mouse clicks have crafted something that, within the microcosm of the gaming community, stands above the norm as a significant stamp of pride. But the fuel for this fiery passion has to come from somewhere. Some would argue that it stems from the communities basic love of video games or just the fact that people finally have a venue to open the floodgates on a furious tide of video game knowledge. I would contend however that it comes from a much simpler place. The Giant Bomb crew themselves.

Giant Bomb is a freak of nature. A website that boasts a strong and vibrant community who are intrinsically linked with the website they surround. The barriers between the audience and the Giant Bomb staff seem as minor as they could be without violating some form of privacy law. The relationship that inevitably forms as a result of this is something I like to think about often. I've never met these people in person, they have no idea who I am, they live thousands of miles away in a place I've never been before and yet to a large extent I feel closer to them than I do many of the people around me. If I were to meet Jeff, Brad, Vinny, Ryan or any other members of the Giant Bomb family in person there would be significantly disproportionate levels of excitement between me and them. Like meeting an old friend to find they don't know your name. All I've done is watch them in a little window on my computer and yet to quite a large degree I've built my life around them, constantly checking the web for their next exploits, staying up late to watch TNT episodes. I watch old Giant Bomb videos and listen to the backlog of podcasts every single day, when I'm at home there are only a few fleeting moments when I can't hear their voices in the background regardless of what I'm doing. It is weird when you think about it.

Perhaps psychologically there is a reason why I do this but I feel its merely because this website is so incredibly exceptional at what it does. At some point I feel that I don't visit Giant Bomb for video games, I visit it for the people. The crew has created a website which almost seems to transcend the conventions of your typical gaming website becuase it offers strictly human focused coverage as opposed to the mass of seemingly robotic entities who hide their faces under piles of review scores and masses of text, the only sliver of humanity coming from their name at the bottom of each published piece. The mass effect of the Giant Bomb model is spreading to other similarly focused websites who were previously guilty of this robotic approach.

The reason for Giant Bomb's success is pure and simple, the people. This is something that other websites will find very very hard to replicate.

Yeah Giant Bomb is somewhat of a rarity for me. The only other site that I came close to liking to the degree that I do GB was Destructoid some time ago. The personalities of Jim Sterling, Brad Nicholson, and others were what I enjoyed about the site aside from the news. Their podcast, "Podtoid", was the podcast the Bombcast replaced when I found GB. I even listened to most of the early episodes of "The Electric Hydra", if anyone even knows what that is.

The Bombcast is a weird thing for me. I just love it so damn much... If I have to do something I don't want to do, I throw on the Bombcast and I'm okay with doing it. Hell, I throw it on even with stuff I like doing. Earlier today I was playing Skyrim and put it on during random dungeons and traveling from place to place.

Yeah it's pretty unique website that's for sure. It was mainly the wiki that impressed me but the fact that they just started the P4 ER a month after I joined really solidified my stay here not to mention that was when I actually realised the site was run by ex-Gamespot employees. The QL's, podcast and articles are great too since they feel honest and personal then some other sites.

Having said that there's also a lot of things I don't like but it's nothing to warrant a bitching about since they can be ignored for the most part. If there's some things I'd like to improve though is more attention to the wiki/community, less buggy tools, more PC coverage and some research before QLs. GB isn't a perfect site by any means but it does a lot of different things that make it worth visiting everyday.

@Sanryd said:

Yeah Giant Bomb is somewhat of a rarity for me. The only other site that I came close to liking to the degree that I do GB was Destructoid some time ago. The personalities of Jim Sterling, Brad Nicholson, and others were what I enjoyed about the site aside from the news. Their podcast, "Podtoid", was the podcast the Bombcast replaced when I found GB. I even listened to most of the early episodes of "The Electric Hydra", if anyone even knows what that is.

The Bombcast is a weird thing for me. I just love it so damn much... If I have to do something I don't want to do, I throw on the Bombcast and I'm okay with doing it. Hell, I throw it on even with stuff I like doing. Earlier today I was playing Skyrim and put it on during random dungeons and traveling from place to place.

Nice to hear someone else shoves it on randomly!

I came for the Bombcast (as a HotSpot listener, to ArrowPointingDown, to here) so I was already tied to the particular brand of personality-led discussion being offered each week. GB is definitely top tier gaming content in my book.

The wiki seems cool (and helps drive the forum where you can drill down into sections and see occasional conversations over months in low traffic areas as well as wiki edits to add information to any item) but I've always been partial to MobyGames (especially the retro focus) so I don't spend that much time using or contributing to it. The forums are a bit too active to follow everything going on (which is my preference for a forum size).

The reason I come back every day and subscribe is the video content. QLs mean I've always seen 30mins+ of a game is it is a major release and helps me filter the list of games I don't want to own but should probably rent to get a feel for how they play; ERs are a great look at long form gaming (with enough commentary and sidebar conversation to stay interesting, bundle in Random PC Game, Breaking Brad, and Load Our Last Save into that bucket too); TANG and other short form stuff (end of year vids, mailbags, etc) is great; then there's the Q&As of JarTime every now and then; and finally the TNTs (which I have as background listening when doing other things).

That's a lot of great, unique content there. It's basically all personality based and the site has a great roster of strong personalities to feed it.

@JJGIANT said:

... I feel that I don't visit Giant Bomb for video games, I visit it for the people.

This echos my sentiments fairly accurately.

I mulled over the same observations when I finally went premium. I don't consider myself a "fan" of Jeff, Ryan, etc. because that would mean I put them on a pedestal and worship them, which is the opposite of what they strive for. They're experienced every-men, accessible and frank. People I'm happy to have in my life, people I respect, but ultimately just people. Yet I can't say they are friends since they have no idea who I am. So what do we call this weird space we exist in? I'm not sure there's a precedent for it -- certainly not for me at least.

Giant Bomb is also attractive to me because it's casual entertainment. I can watch five minutes or five hours and pay as much or as little attention as I want to and still have a good experience. TV shows, for example, require a lot of investment. There are commercials to wait through, plot progression that has to be watched from beginning to end during a set period of time, long waits between seasons... Sometimes shows are worth the investment, but still, something like Breaking Bad fills a very different entertainment need than that of Giant Bomb.

Naturally, I'm also a gamer and interested in the raw information provided here. The wiki is cool and crucial to many people in the community, although I don't use it. I like hands-on information, which is why I gravitate to Quick Looks. I can see a game on a system I don't own and know what I am or am not missing. I can discover new games that I would never have naturally found, that can end up being some of the best games I've played. Giant Bomb is an excellent place for that sort of exposure.

So yes, Giant Bomb is what it is because of the personalities in charge. Take them away and everything will fail. However, I don't think they are the only successful element involved.

@Melos said:

I mulled over the same observations when I finally went premium. I don't consider myself a "fan" of Jeff, Ryan, etc. because that would mean I put them on a pedestal and worship them, which is the opposite of what they strive for. They're experienced every-men, accessible and frank. People I'm happy to have in my life, people I respect, but ultimately just people. Yet I can't say they are friends since they have no idea who I am. So what do we call this weird space we exist in? I'm not sure there's a precedent for it -- certainly not for me at least.

Giant Bomb is also attractive to me because it's casual entertainment. I can watch five minutes or five hours and pay as much or as little attention as I want to and still have a good experience. TV shows, for example, require a lot of investment. There are commercials to wait through, plot progression that has to be watched from beginning to end during a set period of time, long waits between seasons... Sometimes shows are worth the investment, but still, something like Breaking Bad fills a very different entertainment need than that of Giant Bomb.

Naturally, I'm also a gamer and interested in the raw information provided here. The wiki is cool and crucial to many people in the community, although I don't use it. I like hands-on information, which is why I gravitate to Quick Looks. I can see a game on a system I don't own and know what I am or am not missing. I can discover new games that I would never have naturally found, that can end up being some of the best games I've played. Giant Bomb is an excellent place for that sort of exposure.

So yes, Giant Bomb is what it is because of the personalities in charge. Take them away and everything will fail. However, I don't think they are the only successful element involved.

I almost with I could copy and paste some of these points into my original post, well said.

@Melos said:

I don't consider myself a "fan" of Jeff, Ryan, etc. because that would mean I put them on a pedestal and worship them, which is the opposite of what they strive for.

No that's not what 'fan' means, double check your dictionary.

I like hearing and watching Jeff and co. talk about video games as well. The only similar phenomenon is the way people feel toward popular persons who get on TV and talk (think Oprah Winfrey, think the interviews people have with celebrities, etc.), though even that isn't the same because it still seems, to me, like they're behind a mask. Like those celebrities who people love and follow keep a wall in front of them. The GB crew doesn't seem to do that at all.

Not that the Giant Bomb guys are the only ones like this. A lot of podcasts with frank and honest personalities exist or existed at some point (GFW podcasts, one I recently discovered, seems like so) but the duders who founded this site seem, to me, the best at it. Awesome fellows, they are.

@James_Giant_Peach said:

@Melos said:

I don't consider myself a "fan" of Jeff, Ryan, etc. because that would mean I put them on a pedestal and worship them, which is the opposite of what they strive for.

No that's not what 'fan' means, double check your dictionary.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. "Fan" is a loaded word. My point was I consider the personalities of Giant Bomb to be peers, not rock stars. I don't want their autographs or to make shrines of things they've touched. How would you describe "fan?"