@strijd: Neither have I. it could be any random YouTube video, except I have the privilege of paying for it because I was suckered into renewing my sub in January before they announced the departures.
I just really don't understand how many people feel the need to pop into the comments of this show and drop lines like this. It's the same people who say "I can't believe my taxes are paying for [thing I don't like here]!" Sure dude, all $50 of your dollars are paying for exactly the thing you aren't watching because that's how corporate accounting works.
This is a ridiculous argument. No, a service you pay directly for is not the same as taxes which go to public goods. A tax is something we give up for a public good to help all others in our communities.
This is a service we are directly paying for and it is absolutely valid to criticize it if the value being offered no longer matches the $50/year i put in at the beginning of this year because I trusted the crew to make things that would be worth it to me.
Giant Bomb Premium is not a charity donation or a tax. It's not something you pay no matter what with the trust that it will help others. It's a subscription service you pay in return for access to a service. If that service stops offering the value you expect it is absolutely valid to criticize it. You might as well say I can't complain if a restaurant gets my order wrong or when the PS+ or Humble Choice games for the month are all bad.
And, personally, I'm not seeing much value in the direction the site has been headed. Nothing against the Albummer crew personally—they seem like fine folks—but I came to Giant Bomb for 13 years because it had a central crew of charismatic and compelling buddies who created a slew of original content that played into their friendly rapport. I'm not interested in Giant Bomb becoming a podcast network that hosts a variety of shows from randos entirely disconnected from the core crew of the site.
So two things here.
First of all, of course a paid subscription to a video game website is not the same thing as taxes. It was just correlation the logic in people who make those types of arguments. "I don't like everything that this money is going toward, therefore this thing should not happen." Well, other people are also paying into that service (be it taxes, subscription services, membership fees to some sort of club, whatever.) Those other people might actually like that content! Diversity of content is what makes streaming services appealing in the first place.
This leads into my second point. From the standpoint of your average user, do you think they view every single livestream, video, and podcast? And do you think they like every single one? There have been members of the staff I don't like. There have been video series about subjects I'm not interested in. I didn't go into the video threads and tell Jan he should stop playing Pokemon games because I don't care about them. I just let him have his thing because other people on the site probably like that. I get this is a different sort of branching out, but the site is down on staff and experimenting. How many people do you think subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, or HBO Max and get mad when they add a new series that doesn't appeal to them? I understand Giant Bomb is a more personal website, but it's still a subscription service for video content. A lot of the outrage really seems to stem from a viewpoint of "I should like every video on this website, and also it should only contain the same five people on staff for everything they upload." It's just asking a lot of them right now.
My point was only that a lot of the new shows have had people lashing out at the creators, or people outright stating that they refuse to even TRY it because a member of the GB staff isn't on the video. I get it, it's a different time for the website. If you don't feel like your subscription is worth it anymore or you don't think you're onboard with the new direction of the site, you can hold that opinion. I just don't think it's fair for people to leave pointed statements in the feed for the new shows. They're just taking an opportunity to do something new and fun. Put that feedback back into the actual website staff, because that's who you want to be actually listening to it.
@strijd: Neither have I. it could be any random YouTube video, except I have the privilege of paying for it because I was suckered into renewing my sub in January before they announced the departures.
I just really don't understand how many people feel the need to pop into the comments of this show and drop lines like this. It's the same people who say "I can't believe my taxes are paying for [thing I don't like here]!" Sure dude, all $50 of your dollars are paying for exactly the thing you aren't watching because that's how corporate accounting works.
Also, why not give the show a chance? @strijd basically calls out stranger danger as a reason to not watch a video on a website. Yeah, you may not have heard of any of these people before, but now you have a chance to become familiar with them! People you do know from this website have ventured out onto the internet, curated some new shows for you, and brought them here. Trying new things isn't going to hurt you. The worst that will happen is you won't like it, and you can just move on with life. It really isn't that hard.
Anyway, shout out to the 2M2LN crew. I've really enjoyed all the episodes of this show. I definitely think it was a fun surprise to hit on an album everyone actually liked!
I showed the intro segment to my wife, who is familiar with @danryckert antics, and she thought it was hilarious. She demanded that I get into the comments and suggest that the DK picture on the right of the Funky Shop be named Tiki Kong, to go along with Riki and Kiki.
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