Fandom has bought Giant Bomb

@finaldasa said:

The Giant Bomb Staff is going to be replaced by GODDAMN MOON MONSTERS that want to put Fluoride in all our cheese!

@merxworx01: My personal favourite is the 5th Rorie (portrayed by Edward Norton). He brought a certain quiet dignity to any scene of Rorie meeting a pup on the street and posting it to his socials. Really a master of his craft.

Wow, things have finally come full circle. Giant Bomb was created by guys who were sick of Gamespot and left to do their own thing. Now those guys are all gone, and their creation becomes a part of Gamespot.

Could you point me to some VALID concerns that fans brought up that he shrugged off, or is it just more "CHANGE IS HARD AND I HATE IT!!!" doom-and-gloom borne from ignorance?

@paulwgraham: I mean the truth is more than welcome.

I can't be positive about this. All I can do is ready myself for the day when the rest of the people I enjoy here reconvene elsewhere under a different name.

Also: Fuck Red Ventures and (especially) fuck Fandom.

None of us have flown out yet! We learned about all of this a few days ago.

Do we know the fate of the GameSpot video tape and game archive? I assume the SF office is still RV so all that stuff will have to go somewhere?

We shouldn't need to do any moving for months yet, so we'll determine all that at a later date!

@bisonhero: Everyone loves Norton's Rorie(Aka Norie) and I too am a fan but I think Idris Elba's 11th season of Rorie is on the same level, it's quintessential Rorie firing on all cylinders. His many calls backs weren't just simple homage. His call backs added layers to an already complex character. When Idris's Rorie asks a quesion on from chat that was just answered a minute ago most other actors would leave it at that but during an interview Indris mentions that he tilts his new monitor just enough so the camera can see he is split screening Mr Shifty and WOW on the same monitor. A trait that we see in all later iterations of the character. An actor that searches for a character's truth and captures it speaks a lot to me.

as a long time user of the gb wiki api (heck its the main reason why I still sub to premium at this point), the thing I'm worried about is the future of the api and access to the wiki data in general - it seems like this move is 100% aimed at reducing fandoms competition in the fanwiki space and forcing every request through their add ridden platform. fandom's wikis have nothing like gb's api for accessing their wiki pages, and I'd hate to see it disappear

It'll probably be a while before we start figuring out any wiki impacts. I'll try to keep you all in the loop as we do.

Giant Bomb? MORE LIKE HOT POTATO!

Seriously, the domain is available.

Hope they don't decide to merge wikis... Giant bomb wiki has always been far superior in regards to trying to catalog anything and everything relating to games.

The press release being mostly about hyping up ad revenue and shit like that does not sit well with me. It barely talks about the sites themselves but more talks about their "data platform" they're going to interject into them.

I very much hope there are no lay-offs and GBI stays up. Y'all are great and I've never stuck with a community for so long.

Best wishes GB and GS staff!

I would also like to voice my concern over the wiki. Please do not touch it. The wiki being community generated is the best part about this website. Any tweaking to it should be handled with extreme care.

Wishing the crew all the best. It's been 10 years for me coming to this website, with multiple owners over the years, and this website is still a daily thing for me. Impressive what you guys have done and still looking forward to a lot more so long as the crew is still having fun with it.

Well every other acquisition has turned out great. I cant imagine this being any different.

I'm not sure this is a good thing, Fandom have just aquired 2 video game sites. I bet within the next 6 months the sites merge and there are job losses. Also when the Red Ventures aquisition happened we lost Ben, Abby, Brad, Vinny, Alex and finally Jeff. They all stated publicly it was nothing to do with the aquisition but it was 1000000000% to do with the aquisition.

I would be very surprised if any Fandom higher ups involved know that Giant Bomb has a wiki, just sayin'

1. Giant Bomb gets to continue to exist
2. Giant Bomb will still be a sister publication of TV Guide

And the game of hot potato continues. Pass it on!

I do appreciate and echo the concern for the wiki and wiki API. I do have to echo as one of the primary moderators for the wiki that the current wiki is in need of additional UI/UX improvements and could use a strong team to work on it.

I'm not sure how this acquisition makes them "a part of Gamespot." Both sites have been subsidiaries under the same umbrella since CBSi acquired Giant Bomb in 2012, and I haven't seen anything indicating that Fandom is looking to merge or reorganize the sites.

Wiki articles do appear pretty often on Google searches of obscure games. I'm sure they want some of that sweet SEO action.

Thanks, man. I'm sure you and the staff will make it work. The wiki is definitely the sweet spot between the general "games-as-a-product" part of Wikipedia and the sprawling pages of minuscule data on other Fandom wikis, and I hope it comes out okay.

What a weird business.

@zombiepie: Were it former Gamepedia employees managing the wiki business of Fandom, I'd have some hope. But most of them abandoned ship not long after the domain merger as I recall. Does the GB wiki have any kind of Creative Commons license, to allow a fork if the worst comes to pass?

I'm just trying to be positive, I know the crew here can keep going no matter the change of ownership, I'm just so afraid with the direction so many game websites are going where they are here and than boom everyone is fired the next day and that's just so cruel and unfair.

My best wishes to all the crew.

At least this owner makes more sense from a games media perspective. I hope all it means is a new person to report to and everything continues as normal.

I've really been digging whatever this newer version of GB then I have in years. So there's that, and IMO this all seems like a much better fit fit the Giant Bomb Brand. Can't wait to see you all Wednesday!

I'm in the minority, but I actually like using fandom for walkthroughs and reading lore. The ads are a pain the ass though and their sites are not mobile friendly.

So far it sounds like the staff are all okay, but I would hate to see Fandom grab tech-stack (API and wiki) from GB and just dump everything else.

Wow, I didn't know "TV Guide" still existed.

WHAT ABOUT MY GAMEFAQS??

One step closer to Giant Bomb getting Embraced.

Giant Bomb has and always will be a commercial website. You can use the wiki for noncommercial purposes but the API strictly prohibits the creation of competing services, platforms, or websites.

Sooner or later corporations take over everything and destroy everything you love.

The theoretical and ethereal connection of TV Guide + Ryan Davis is kind of perfect. Like the (drunk) Leonard Maltin of video games. Long live TANG. I’m so thankful the vast trove of our collective memories are always here for us. Until one day when perhaps they are not? Good luck all. and dog bless

Wow. I admit, this news caught me off guard. I guess it serves as a dirty reminder that there are always two parts of running a website -- the content part, and the business part, and you need the business part to get to the content part.

Good luck to everybody involved.

I'm really starting to feel a "hot potato" fatigue here as a fan and I can only imagine how the staff is feeling about the news.

I hope everyone lands on their feet. GB deserve so much better than this because the incredible work they do is nothing short of magic.

All I can say is it’s wild Waypoint has more or less kept their independent voice within their behemoth parent company and haven’t been tossed around. If people aren’t already, I strongly recommend giving them a try for that old GB vibe, their in person shows are legendary.

On this one, I feel better than I did with Red Ventures but I wouldn’t be surprised if more people leave. Being tossed around like this can get exhausting and I feel bad for everyone (Rorie and Jason especially). At least they’ll be kept busy for a while. Must be difficult to make a career or move up in seniority in this kind of environment.

You can not get off the ride.

The ride never ends.

GLHB to all duders with this latest acquisition .

Right to the unscored section, you mean?

@zombiepie: . . . for now.

And just when the site seemed to find its new footing and gather steam...

At this point, whatever happens happens. Giant Bomb is different but does seem to have found its footing and it would be nice for that not to get fucked up. Just hope for the best for all involved.