How is Giant Bomb feasible as a business?

i love the site, and still listen to the podcasts and watch the quick looks.

but I am just curious: how can they afford to keep the site running and pay salaries that allow the employees to live in San Francisco or NY? Everything seems like overkill, at least with the amount of content that they are putting out now. I mean, what does Dan really do? aside from sitting in the occasional quick look and bombast? I know that Brad edits the podcast, which is tedious and time consuming, but aside from that they barely play and finish games, and when they do they do it at their leisure, and there are virtually no reviews and news stories anymore on the site since Patrick and Austin bailed.

Also, Drew and Jason are great, but does it really take two full time video producers and equipment worth 10s of k to produce a quick look? they probably already have a template set up and hit record, something a freelancer could do.

Also, subscriptions are now basically just donations, as there is hardly any extra content (aside from Mario Party and drunk Dan and his dad recording on an iphone). Still really enjoying some of the content though, but I'm a bit worried that it will all collapse and we'll lose GB as they used to be.

I wouldn't worry about it. Some of your concerns here just show a general lack of understanding in the amount of work that can and does go into their positions. You haven't taken into account the business side of their occupation, and that video producer comment in general is really misplaced. That is not an easy job that someone can just walk in off the street and do on their more hectic days. They have a business model that appears to be working for them, and that's all that we can really say as outsiders to it. Any business could collapse, particularly a personality/entertainment based one, so don't over think it too much. Thinking about it is their job, and not ours. If you like their content, just enjoy it!

They're owned by a corporation worth 30 billion dollars.

Ads, merchandise and 200k+ subscribers. And I guess the 'brand' is worth something in CBSi.

They are great entertainers and very well respected in videogameland. That's not nothing.

You really don't understand what kind of work the crew actually does. They've hinted at behind the scenes things before, but they've basically said that they are so busy, that they don't have the time to review a game at work; among other reasons.

I didn't know you worked in their accounting department, is there something we should know?

From Jeff's recent Jar Time video he actually said subscriber counts have been on the rise as well as the money making ability of the bombcast thanks to ads. He always reiterates though that the subscribers are for the most part subsidizing just about everything.

They frequently rob banks.

Being a video producer in a real, professional environment is several magnitudes more difficult than it looks.

I'm speaking from experience on this one.

I'm just going to close this since the replies are all going to be largely speculation anyway, and the only people who know the specific internal business workings of the site aren't going to talk about it. Other than that it will be even more speculation about what staff members do when they're not on camera, and no one knows all of the details about that stuff either.

Jeff addresses some of this in the most recent Jartime video, you should check it out.