Where did everybody go?

These recent post made me realize that I jumped off the Bombcast at the right time.

@kone: very disturbing. Chilling even. A shiver wracks my spine with each sycophantic transposition of Jan over a hot dog and every gruesome gif with Dan crowbarred into a fridge questioning soup or whatever. Just vile. These "fans" need to be stopped.

Edit : I wonder now if this is where the over reliance on the C word has come from? These outside agitators. Or outside stimulators, even.

@remotesilver: It's been a while, but I'd heard that Jeff had already approached them about his intention to leave. In the UK (at least) you'd get paid severance if they terminate you anyway. I've had that in the past.

It's weird, because when the old gang were together, it was the perfect mash up of every personality type. Much more so with the original 4, but even GBeast and early West crew (with Vinny and Dan still there) gelled really well. Everyone had their own chaotic levels of energy that clashed well with the others in the room.

Now you have Jeff G doing his own thing, with no one to bounce off of. (Jeff works really well with someone to hit him back. Ryan in the beginning, and then Vinny.) Nextlander is extremely safe, almost to a boring level, where they won't talk about or say anything that might have the slightest bit of edge to it. Fire Escape Cast where they talk about literally nothing for an hour, sometimes it's really good, sometimes it's really bad.

And then Giant Bomb, the weirdest of them all. I like the addition of Grubb, Tam and Lucy. But there just isn't enough content here. I agree with someone else here who said they should just hit the reset button and start anew. They tried doing that with the weird new face of GB video (Ghost Dan) but then fell back into the routine just as quickly. I do like the Dump Truck though.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Blight Club remains the best show currently going on the site. It's a top ten GB show, period.

@remotesilver: Apologies, I said I thought that Jeff had expressed his intention to leave, he was definitely looking fed up. It does look as if they were balancing the sheets. I'd been thinking of a famous BBC radio celebrity in the UK who was only allowed to stay until the end of the week, despite the fact that he wanted to work one week more. That's probably because there was another BBC DJ who was told to move on to a different station, he used his last show to have a go at the BBC about that. Bitterness seems to grow quickly under those circumstances.

There's very little content I still catch. The Bombcast used to be an absolute day 1 listen. I have maybe listened to 1 or 2 in the last several months. I miss well done Quick Looks. Honestly most of the reason I don't listen/watch is Dan. GiantBeast era Dan was great. I just can't take EVERYTHING being a wrestling reference and the dialing up of "I don't know what that is/how that works" to 1000. It's insufferable. I'm sure when Dan reads comments that people don't dig his schick it make him happy but it's actively driving away people to this site. He's a brand not a person. I feel everything he does is in service to when this site folds and he just becomes a famous Twitch streamer. I hate that this turned into a Dan rant but I feel like if the powers that be don't hear this feedback nothing will change. Unprofessional Friday's used to be fun, now they spend whole episodes ranking mundane things. I look at how many people they have in their Twitch streams compared to when Jeff G or Nextlander are streaming at the same time and it's usually at least double for the non GB streams. Anecdotally it seems like a LOT of people have fallen off which is strange that they haven't course corrected. But I could be wrong. Could be they have more viewers/listeners than ever. I really miss Jess and Jason. To fire them and bring Mike M on for almost everything is baffling. I get it that a contractor is much cheaper than a full time employee but it's like a thumb in the eye to Jeff and Jess.

@rlatham: I just realized what it is specifically. I loved the era of “new Dan.” Right after he met Bianca and he was actively trying to be more open to new experiences, and ask smarter questions instead of just declaring anything he didn’t know as dumb. That was the era he found the right balance, from about 2015-2019, which was the bulk of his run. If he would stop screaming defensively after anyone informs him of something, he would be right back to one of my favorite people. It’s not that he doesn’t know stuff that bugs me, it’s that he doesn’t seem to want to learn anymore.

I don’t hate Mike, honestly, he is fine and I don’t get the dislike he receives. I think it’s more that he is the “replacement” for full time employees like Jason and Jess, but that is not his fault at all.

Dan thinking he's some stupid wrestling "Heel" made me stop watching GB content. He's just actively trying to be a twat nonstop. For a man almost in his forties, it's just embarassing.

And you can't escape Mike either. Good job GB runs on nepotism

Jeff said on his show on Twitch months ago that the firing caught him off guard. Yeah, he was planning on leaving, but before he let them know, they fired him. That's why he had to hurry up with the Patreon account and such. luckily, like Vinny, Brad, and Alex, he got a lot of support out the gate.

No worries, no apologies needed @mekon.

Seems like in general judging by the feeling here that even those who are enjoying the “new” content and it's creators, that maybe a redesign or a rebranding may be a better option as opposed to piggy backing off of the name of Giant Bomb.

I was a member since day 1 and bounced when Red Ventures came calling. I coughed up my money when the stupid idea of holding the bombcast hostage came about. I gave up the remaining months of my subscription when I asked Rorie to delete my account. I saw a lot of good times here, and a couple of bad. This place was important to me, as I am sure it is to many of you still, and there is nothing wrong with that.

The only thing a paid membership really gets you is access to content which was created by people who are no longer here speaks volumes in my opinion.

The fact Mr O'Dwyer has ended up with the legacy content from GameSpot frightens me in respect of Fandom's apparent lack of care when it comes to legacy content. A fact I would be concerned about even more, if I still maintained a paid membership here.

You would like to think that someone like Bakalar would be able to take a look from a higher position and acknowledge that a redesign going forward would be best for all involved. Maybe section off the Whiskey/CBS content and build from there. I get an already established brand name isn't something you give up but when you appear to be doing damage to said brand, I don't know how much value it still holds.

I suspect though that would require engineering and a cost that I frankly don't see anyone willing to implement. I hope I'm wrong.

This is why I invested in a nice 1TB external hard drive before I let my sub lapse ;)

@remotesilver: Jsut two things, and I'm mostly agreeing with both. Danny getting the gamespot archive is worrying in how fandom values it, yes, but it's encouraging that he was able to get it, meaning it holds out hope that when/if the lights go out here there is a good chance he will make efforts to grab it.

The other is that I totally get the rebrand idea, but there is no way in hell that will happen in the disinterested executives mind. This is a bran that sells until it doesn't then it's killed. Just like Gobots, Rainbow Bright and New Coke. The effort and cost needed to rebrand, rebuild and relaunch under a different name would far outweigh the momentary lift in profit of not having to pay any of GBs salaries anymore and maybe rolling a few of them into the more marketable GameSpot. It sucks, it ain't right, but you know that's how it'll go down. Fandom may already have that timeline mapped out. For an example of a similar thing, look at the Stitcher podcast network. Totally getting killed, the whole business, the talent scattering to the winds. Some folks got rich due to that. Folks that likely worked there for maybe a year or two for the exact purpose of getting rich off of shutting it down.

I think a lot of people yell too much all the time on the live streams- im old and I keep having to adjust the volume

Frankly Jeff Bakalar is the worst part of GB, and him having a authoritative role really has ruined the site for me personally. Grubb, Dan, Jan, Mike, Lucy, and Tam are great, but that is not the lineup of this site consistently. Quick looks were super useful by simply showing what a game was regardless of commentary, and now those have been reduced ten fold. I renewed my premium half a year ago to support the site but honestly I’m about done.

I think this is the problem for me - I'm sure the videos are good, IF you watch all of them. But you need to watch all of them, because there don't seem to be any distinct series. I started watching the Sonic 06 playthrough, but then that turned into Blight Club halfway through, then there was Blite Club, then I think a bunch of other playthroughs came from Blight Club but they're not actually called that. BattGrubb is on the Blight Club carousel, but ArmaGrubben isn't. A lot of videos aren't linked to shows at all, so I'm not sure what information to rely on.

Maybe I'm just really not paying much attention at all. I missed where/when Mike Minotti was introduced and I don't really know who he is, so he feels like an inside joke the staff have between themselves. It doesn't help that he has so many names. Maybe he's like a new era Matt Kessler/Bodega.

@eccentrix: He's grubbs friend. That's about it.

@eccentrix: I don't mind saying that i have not had enough Matt Kessler in my life.

Wherever he is i hope he and his gigantic wallet are doing well.

Not a big user of the site anymore, where it used to be my go to thing. It's still the first link in my bookmarks, but I think that's just because I can't bring myself to change it. Having so few Quick Looks is the big miss for me, as I used to love the informative commentary, reactions and humorous musings on new games, and what felt like a trusted curation of games I might want to check out. (Where is the Bomb Rush Cyberfunk Quick Look???) Unprofessional Fridays was another main source of that, but that has kind of just turned into a Playdate, where they might play one game, more often than not that I have no interest in. I used to like watching Dan, but Dan without Vinny is like a rabid dog off the leash, just terrorizing the neighborhood, but fully aware that he has rabies, and he likes the rabies. If that makes any sense. I don't care for wrestling talk and just about everyone on staff now loves wrestling, so there is no suppression of that, whereas before I think they might have curtailed it for the sake of their castmates. It's good news for everyone who loves wrestling though I guess. You sickos all have a home (I was an attitude era man myself). Overall, I think what's mostly missing for me is that humor... that semi-professional improv vibe that Vinny, Abby, Jeff, and Ben brought to the table (can't forget about Ryan). The stuff that I feel like not a lot of people are good at, myself included. (I'll throw Alex in there too because I watched him get better at it... though on Nextlander, I get the vibe that he's kind of always looking for the joke, to a detriment). Jan's got the spirit, just doesn't have the people to properly bounce off of. Missing also is the elder statesman pro game knowledge that you'd get from a Jeff, Brad or Vinny. I've been maining Nextlander since the inception and I think that suits me just fine, though I'd like more of it. Solo Jeff is not really my thing, but he seems to be doing well. This post is not to bash the site, since I will always have a place in my heart for GB, just an honest assessment of my feelings on where things stand (for me). I wish everyone still here on this site the best, and all the duders still around, I'm happy that there is still support here. More than anything, I hope the legacy content will forever have a home here.

PS Jan is still the man

@mistersims: The reason the current GB content is so lacking and all over the place is because Jan is the only video guy the site has now. He has a huge load on his desk everyday and has to pick and choose what to focus on. The firing of Jess and Jason really did a huge damaging blow to the site, arguably even more so than Jeff G's firing.

And if you noticed, before this happened, GB was slowly getting back on track.

It's a real shame.

I also don't think Rorie would have left if this didn't happen. But I could be wrong about that one.

@av_gamer: I totally agree. It is a shame. But hey, its still chugging along. And my heart goes out to Jan for having to be the lynchpin here. He's pretty much the duct tape holding the site together. I mean, Grubb is doing his thing, but GB is kind of just The Jeff Grubb Show these days. Shout out to him. Maybe the site will have its second wind sometime soon. Or is it a fifth wind at this point?

@mistersims: it's in a second wind right now. I love a lot of the content. The live stream numbers have risen consistently, although slowly. I think a lot of folk are digging the site, they jsut don't post on the forums. Going by this topic you would swear it's the Mike minotti show featuring Dan literally shitting on the floor.

The live stream numbers have risen? I was curious by you saying this so I just checked. Jeff currently has almost triple the views of the bombcast happening right now. Are you telling me they were worse than this before? Bloody hell things are more dire than I thought.

Been around since 2010, but I mostly jumped ship once the Fandom acquisition happened. I check in every so often, but it doesn't seem like I'm missing much. Just look at the latest content field and you'll just see it's mostly the Giant Bombcast (stopped listening), Game Mess Mornings (not for me), Unprofessional Fridays (doesn't hit like the old ones), Voicemail Dumptruck (not for me), and the very rare Quick Look. The series they do now don't really interest me because I don't really care for the current lineup on the staff and they don't really have the spark of the old days. Only one video producer on staff certainly doesn't help in that category either. Honestly, give it a few years and I wouldn't be surprised to see Fandom shuttering the site as sad as it is to say. Nextlander is the closest thing to a neo-Giant Bomb at this point and I've been happy with their content selection.

@remotesilver: Jeff is doign a watchalong with ONL, GB is recording the podcast.

Didn't realize it was a competition, though. If that's the angle you are coming at all this from, then I wonder what you are even here for.

@splodge: I think it was more to show just how much the viewership has fallen off. Also what people are preferring. When Nextlander and/or Jeff G are streaming at the same time as GB the preference isn't GB. Especially when GB used to get the numbers that we're seeing from the combined talent that has left.

Old GB had the major advantage that many of the original staff members were friends, and everyone worked in the same place (and later, in two places). That's a strong starting point for building rapport and chemistry and makes for fun videos and podcasts. When they did have to hire new people along the way, they very clearly vetted new hires' ability to play off of and build on other staff members. It was a good system.

New GB does not have that luxury. A remote distributed work force is worker-friendly and I support it, but you lose the interpersonal connections. To me that's the main thing that's missing now. Many of the streams and podcasts have the flavor of a work Zoom conference. A bunch of people who kind of sort of know each other interacting in the polite way that coworkers do. I am not looking for constant drama (that's exhausting and sometimes a little bad-vibey) but it's very clear that we're no longer in the era of friends who are comfortable with each other and know where each other's lines are.

They were right to bring in Mike Minotti, honestly. Full disclosure, I'm a member of Jeff and Mike's patreon - I like those goobers. Jeff and Mike have actual friend chemistry that's fun to watch. They know how to rag on each other without going too far or being offensive. Contrast that with how Jeff interacts with almost anyone else(*), which is basically good-guy "yes-and" type interactions. I get why it's this way, and Jeff is doing a lot better job with it than I could. It's nobody's fault, but it just highlights how hard it is to do group-based personality-based content in a world where in-person interactions are rare.

(*) I am not counting chaos agent Dan, who is openly playing a character even though role-playing is for huge nerds and not cool normal guys.

@daiphyer: Definitely agree about the 3 shows you mentioned, especially Nextlander. All great and fun people, but too safe and boring. I say it all the time, it’s really impressive Jeff G can carry a podcast on his own. I just can’t listen to one guy talk to himself for that long. Bombcast has good people, I just no longer find myself interested in most games they get involved with. I don’t have a “go to” gaming podcast anymore.

Jesus christ these kinds of posts always bring out the dregs of this community.

@splodge: sigh, yeah...

The cast of characters has never been entirely to everyone's liking, but I think that Giant Bomb's biggest issue right now is the lack of consistency. Nextlander and Gerstmann's Patreons adhere to a very reliable schedule. I feel like Giant Bomb posts shit at complete random, and is really does feel rather scant compared to those two smaller operations. I guess that Ryckert has been in the process of moving over the last few months, so that might have something to do with it. I'm hoping that things will pick up a bit once he gets settled.

And you think that GB's traffic is bad? I still frequent GameFAQs because I just want to talk to people about video games and that place is a fucking ghost town.

Jeff G is crazy insightful for good chunks of his pod

Man, haven't posted anything here in QUITE some time. I was one of the original beta users of the site. It's just sad seeing how it all crumbled. But even more sad than that is the long time bridge that seems to have been burned between Gerstmann and everyone else. Ex GB members and contributers Dan, Mary, Mike, Vinny, Alex, Brad, Abbey, and Backalar all regularly or semi regularly interact with one another, talk one another up, etc. They NEVER bring Jeff into conversation. Obviously there's no real proof or anything but it seems somewhat obvious that there was a massive falling out. I have a hypothesis on what happened but I won't get into that. I love Fire Escape because they're so ridiculous. And I like Nextlander so long as they keep Brad from droning on and on and cutting people off. Giantbomb has fallen to a distant third place, if you can even call it a podium finish. I will listen to a bombcast if I'm on the road and have literally nothing else to listen to. Sad but true...

@ultimaxe: All of this right here too. When i watch GB vids anymore, its usually on yourtube so i can watch on tv in my bed. Its kinda sad that ill watch the newest quicklook, and the next 6-7 video recomendations are always either Nextlander or Jeff. Rarely if ever is there another GB video unless i do a direct searrch for something specific.

I also dont really believe in a falling out between Jeff and any former staff members/associates. Gotta remember that by games journalism standards, Jeff is an old ass man that would rather reminisce about his favorite COmmodore games than talk about new ones. Hes got 2, soon to be 3 kids. Hes just doing his thing, on his schedule. Also pretty sure i remember Ben at least making an appearance on one of his pods.

The reality is that if you picked any point in the last decade you'll find threads just like this one, with people either complaining about the current staff or, just as often, complaining that the current staff aren't producing enough content. We keep a tally. Even back in the Golden Age of Giant Bomb with all the original staff, Patrick, Austin, Abby, and everyone else you grew up listening to, we had the same complaints. You learn, over time, that some people are never happy and there's always going to be someone who feels the need to complain at any given moment, regardless of what changes.

So you're welcome to vent. But honestly, if you haven't yet figured out that the dynamic of the site is fluid and constantly evolving then I don't know what to say to you, my dude.

That's wisdom to take with you through life. Nobody has to like everything, but sometimes people turn being frustrated into a hobby. It's good to put that stuff in proper perspective.

I like the current lineup. Minotti's an especially welcome surprise. He's a necessary chaotic element. The only change I'd make is the addition of another video editor or two to give Jan some support. It's fucked up that he's had to do this by himself for this long.

@noboners: Honestly thrilled that people are vibing with it, but yeah: it's just not MY thing anymore. Companies change and grow with the times, and it seems like GB is doing that. Thankfully, it's no longer 2010 and getting salty that my One True Videogame Website has changed is no longer the done thing since there is a LAUNDRY LIST of alternatives (check out the YouTube channel "Good Times Zone," it's like the Sebastapool office days!)

Or shouldn't be, at least.

i've never trucked with the seeming vocal minority that loves to pin a "decline" on specific people- that shit's toxic and unproductive.

i do wish, however, they get some new blood in that offers some new perspective. we've got an awful lot of dudes who are 'more do-y, less talk-y,' very up with nintendo, and love a good dick joke. none of that is inherently bad per se, but it does feel like there's less lively discussion and/or a little 1-note.

@amdman: Fire Escape is AMAZING agreed

Idk either... I kinda peaced out right before Jeff Gerstmann left... The goodbye stream w Brad, Vinny and Alex was kinda a clear indicator. I've been a GB die hard since like 2012 but it's just not for me... I wish the best for everyone involved... But it's only GB by name. Peace.

Remember in Wayne's World when the corporate entities take over the show, Wayne quits and Garth sits there awkwardly?

I feel like that's the era of GB we're in.

After Ryan's death, my time on the site narrowed significantly. I check back every once in a while, but video games aren't nearly as big of a part of my life anymore.

Once Brad and Vinny were gone, as well as Drew...like, it's nothing against the current staff. There was just something magic about that core group from the Whiskey Media days for me.

Still have love for Giant Bomb.

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I remember in the good old days, seeing that avatar all over the place. A symbol of a good post. Same with Hamz