Jess and Jason have been laid off (Updated)

I'm keeping my sub to support Jan, Dan, Rorie, Grubb, and all the other wonderful people who keep this site I love going. Or at least that's what it feels like I'm doing, as there is zero sense to be made from this in the grand scheme of things. I'm sure similar things would be happening no matter what corporate entity owns Giant Bomb, be it RV or whoever. But my heart breaks for Jason and Jess.

@alistercat: Forking was also canceled for tonight.

My sincere well wishes to both Jess, and Jason. I canceled my premium some months ago and…yeah. This has been said before but you really should have started an archive of your favourite GB shows, I’m not expecting this site to exist in its current form by 2024. Much love to the remaining staff <>

I wish all the staff at Giant Bomb the best of luck. Just when things were just starting to get fun again....

while i get your sentiment and half agree the buggest issue with that as always is still theres only so much money to go around. i would love the rest of the staff to say screw this n do their own thing hopefully together plus some but the fact is even if you love a bunch of these ppl and want to support them independantly who can afford to. i already personaaly do a yearly waypoint and nextlander sub n those were a bit of an ask given my financial status , i wanted to support jeff G but as it stands i don't have the cash for him too so he only gets tossed some sporadicly , and a youtuber/streamer from the uk already gets my twitch prime every month , as it stands he's put out more content single handedly in the past number of years than the rest of them have as a whole so he ain't getting cut .. adding another into the mix that already exists is just a hard thing to try .... that said i sorta hope they do. as it stands i don't see GB lasting the yr at this rate , more likely they get consolidated into gamespot at this rate which is sorta fucked if you consider the history here, but given tam n lucy who are bearly on things here already pull double duty it would just be the business move that makes sense...sadly i would assume more lossses would occur doing that too

This is absolutely terrible. Jess is awesome and Jason is a good dude. I've tried to keep a positive outlook over the past few years of turmoil, but this makes it incredibly hard to believe GB can continue to bounce back from all these devastating setbacks. Good luck to Jess, Jason, and all the remaining crew.

@alistercat: Ah yeah i figured there was no way they could make content like nothing happened today. They gonna need time to figure out where to go without them

It still felt as if Jess had only just joined GB. This is a big loss for the site - and now I can't help but think about Jan's "joke" on this week's GBcast about the staff walking out of the company one-by-one (during the Africa song segment).

I hope they land on their feet - especially Jason with his health issues and insurance being tied to your job in the US.

I haven't really actively kept up with GB content in a while but heard the news and also wanted to wish Jess and Jason well. Very big bummer.

That was quick.

ALLEGEDLY (as Jan and Grubb would say) this meeting had been scheduled for 2 months. So Fandom made the decision before Thanksgiving and kept everyone in the dark.

This sucks. But, I want most to do is wishing them both a safe landing at another job and to thank them for the content they brought to us. I cannot change the economy. I cannot change the trajectory of games media. All I can do is show the support and love I had for what they created.

I end with a song by Perry Como, Bing Crosby. Sometime a song can say it all.

♯♪♫♪♪

If wishes were kisses, I`d still be kissing you

I`d hold you in my arms again the way I used to do

If wishes were kisses, how happy I would be

I`d always have you close to me to thrill me through an` through

If dreamers were schemers, I`d make my dream come true

If wishes were kisses, I`d still be kissing you!

If wishes were kisses, how happy I would be!

I`d always have you close to me to thrill me through an` through

If dreamers were schemers, I`d make my dream come true

If wishes were kisses, I`d still be kissing you!

♯♪♫♪♪

I love Jan and the remaining folk but my time with this site is well and truly done. I hope Jason and Jess land on their feet and the others get out whilst they can. Time to delete account and never visit again. Fandom get get fucked. GLHB to everyone else.

Yeah it's a bummer. This has been the best gaming community on the internet, thanks largely to the folks who helped keep it going. I guess we'll see where things go from here, but this is a kick in the teeth. Hope Jess and Jason find great new opportunities and look forward to seeing that come to fruition.

After Jeff and the others took off, I held off on renewing my sub as I wasn't sure I was going to click / gel with the reorganised crew - Jess was one of the main reasons I was close to renewing. So....fuck this noise.

Well, this is terrible news.

Remind me what I'm paying GB premium for, again???

and here I was thinking they might bring Abby back...

ohhhh this is awful. Just awful. Hope the best for Jess and Jason.

When Ryan died it was a monumental blow

When Vinny left for the East coast it was a huge shift

When Austin left it left a huge hole

When Dan left it felt like the ideas were leaving

When Vinny, Brad and Alex left it was the end of an era

When Jeff was fired it was truly the end of an era

But through all of that I was optimistic. This really kills my optimism. This sucks.

Existing staff. Please do not let this new management buddy up to you and talk sweet to you. They are not your friend. If you have inherited more job responsibilities because of this layoff, you are entitled to more pay.

Mostly silent paying member since 2015. Follower since 2010ish

Had been considering staying on Premium after the last year went surprisingly well.

Haha, nope.

Dan, Jan, Jeff jump ship while you can

So very sorry to the remaining staff but i'm out, just cancelled my yearly subscription. Incredibly disappointed, it seemed that after all that happened the site was getting a new life while trying to respect it's history, but now I see it's just going to happen again and again until all the soul gets sucked out and then thrown to the curb. Fuck corps, fuck capitalism.

Well this is some shitty news to come home to. I asked myself at the beginning of the year if GB will survive 2023. This certainly doesn't alleviate any concerns.

Wish nothing but the best for Jason and Jess. Hope they got a decent severance and they bounce back ASAP.

@haxadecimal: Covid was the start of the site's downward spiral, but after Nextlander guys left it was clear that it was running on fumes and flailing around trying to find out what to be now.

At least the new crew tried something new and had a sort of direction, but when none of the original personalities are left on a personalities driven website, it's gonna be pretty damn hard.

Now it's clear to me that Fandom has no intention of doing anything to let GB trive. The site is just going to die a slow death.

Thanks so much, Jess and Jason, for all the hard work you've done and all the great moments you've given us. Wishing you both nothing but the best for what comes next.

And yes, Fandom sucks, but no more or less than any other corporation. Stripping the copper from their own walls, the lot of them.

Fuck Fandom, they're a retched scum fuck of a company with dog shit leadership. Everything they touch turns to garbage. Firing Jeff, and now Jason and Jess? Yeah, lets buy a website based on personalities then fire the personalities. Excellent ideas!

This sucks. I wish Jess and Jason all the best and hope they bounce back soon.

This...sucks. Thought they had found a good groove with this new crew; apparently Fandom thinks otherwise.

Cancelled my annual sub, which I've had going since...god a full decade this year. Best of luck to the remaining staffers (for however long they let you remain I guess), and all the love and support to Jess and especially Jason that guy has been secretly the funniest motherfucker on this site since he came on 9 (NINE) years ago!

<>

Awful news.

Maybe someone can make separate appreciation threads for those who lost their jobs so those sentiments don’t get lost in the (rightful) Fandom criticism in this thread.

I have updated the post with links so people can follow and support the people affected.

Well this sucks. Also Jason was critical for prob. my favorite Giant Bomb moment. The actual feat of Dan and Jeff going crazy long on the fire jump rope, only to fail at the same time, is great.......but Jason made it an all time classic Giant Bomb moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krVJ1DrHScA

Pretty soon it will just be a website where Jeff Grubb sits in a stream by himself and proudly says "We get to decide what Giant Bomb is now." over and over again.

I'm so bummed out by this. Jess has brought so much LIFE to the site and Jason has been awesome since he joined the site. (I miss Fighting Science!)

I've been a Premium subscriber since day one. So what's the point of subscribing if the people I want to support get chucked to the curb?

Firing two members of a personality based videogames website makes me think that Fandom doesn't understand what it bought.

The current round of tech layoffs is just a form of a market disease, everyone is laying off therefore everyone else should be laying off. Shareholders want blood for blood's sake.

But giant bomb wouldn't have existed if Patreon was around during the kane and lynch debacle so maybe it was always on borrowed time.

At this point I’m just hoping the remaining staff team up with the folks who got fired and create a Patreon for a website about video games called ‘Large Explosive’ or something like that.

I’ll continue watching GB, because I still love the content and the people who make it, but I’ve cancelled my subscription.

I was happy that, when Fandom acquired GB, they weren't immediately hit with layoffs. That gave me optimism. Today, that optimism has run out. A lot of former GB staff have gone independent in the past couple of years, and I can see why.

Jess and Jason are awesome and they will be sorely missed, I hope they go on to do great things. And for the remaining staff, this must really suck.

Add me to the list of loyal premium subscribers who have now cancelled. Mine just renewed in December, so asshole capitalists at Fandom probably won’t care since they got my money for the year, but maybe if enough people cancel subs and autorenewals they’ll realized they fucked up something great.

Best of luck to Jason and Jess. You both deserve better!

I'm out. At least with Jeff we know he intended to leave anyway, even if he was forced to do it on a fucked up timetable. Straight-up layoffs are where I draw the line. A personality-driven site where the personalities are expendable is nothing. Love to the current and past crew, hope you all find something better.

I've been a subscriber since it was an option. This news sucks. I really liked Jason and Jess. I also still really like the current crew. I've cancelled my subscription for the first time ever, but it's good through October. I'll continue to listen to my premium feed of the podcast, but after that, who knows?

Hard to believe this site's been going for 15 years now. Whatever happens, at least I have a lot of fond memories from it.

I have a bad feeling this will lead to Giant Bomb having to cut on the amount of content they will produce per week because poor Jan wont be able to do the work load by himself so a lot of shows are gonna stop :(

Jess, Jason, and our sweet little art boy Justin - I'm so incredibly sorry that this happened to you incredibly talented people. I was SO OPTIMISTIC that Fandom would be such a better fit than Red Ventures could have been. Things were picking back up with the current staff. I'm bummed as hell that it went down in such a scummy way as well and shows that they're just another shitty company to work for after CBS, who just let you all do your thing and left you alone for the most part, like they should have. (At least forward-facing, no idea behind the scenes BUT IIRC anyone who left GiantBomb pre-RV actually got proper send offs, not fired, and were able to leave of their own accord. The disrespect is inexcusable.

As Reggie Fils-Aimé famously said - "Fuck 'Em"

See you guys elsewhere.

Also been lurking ever since the firing of Gerstmann. Hopefully everyone will find better pastures, but most of all: Fuck Fandom and Red Ventures!

This is a real bummer, the current crew has been excellent since the revamp and this feels like pulling the rug out from under them. The most love to Jason, Jess, and Justin, of course, but also thoughts with the rest of the team that has to deal with the fallout from this.

It's not my position to apportion blame (nor is this likely anything like the be-all and end-all) but GB has always felt like it came too cheap. It's what, like 40 bucks for a year? That's certainly not nothing and I appreciated the value it offered me but a Twitch sub is 60 bucks a year and that's usually for a single person. Past the twitch subathon they did it doesn't really feel like there was a great attempt to rectify that monetisation, if it was an issue.

Anyway, the backend doesn't matter; this was a mistake, and it's only going to hurt the site.

I can't think of anything that hasn't already been said. It felt to me like Jess had really settled in, and Jason was always going to be here. I wish them (and Justin Vachon) well in finding new jobs.

And I was looking forward to "You're Gonna Jimish It".

I shed tears when Ryan Davis died. When Patrick left I felt like I was losing a friend. When Drew decided to leave I felt like a member of my family was moving away. When Austin left I was sad to see a true voice in the medium leaving the community. Dan left and Originality and chaos were gone for a bit. Then the Nextlander folks left and I was truly done. Vinny was and still is my shining light in the dark of video game journalism. Alex is and forever will be my favorite horrible game reviewer, and Brad with his golden voice.( see his rendition of Common People in karaoke) Then the True Leader of this website Jeff left some months ago. With that I felt like the idea of Giant Bomb ended. A website started as a middle finger to the corporate side of the business, inevitably swallowed by the same people it was created to combat. I know hindsight is 20/20 but I think if Whiskey Media didn't sell to CBS in the beginning than we wouldn't be in this situation, or at least not one as turbulent as this. I will forever be a Member of Giant Bomb. I'm so glad that this site and the personalities who make it were a part of my life. A BIG PART. I just want everyone who truly made this site great to know that your work positively and forever changed my life. We share an interest sure, but the joy and companionship that you brought us fans will never be forgotten. At least by me. So in the end all I can say is Thank You. And good luck, Have Batman!

I have no idea what this site is expected to be when the personalities that drive the site and make people want to visit it keep getting fired/laid off/encouraged to leave of their own volition. It's really strange.

I'll stick around to support the remaining staff, but, jeez, man. Upper management sure is making it difficult to want to do so.

What's the reason these kind of tech-company layoffs always have to be so ruthless without giving employees a heads up a few weeks beforehand? Is it out of some fear that newly-laid off people will unleash their anger on the product in the last weeks?

Then again, wouldn't someone that hears their job is gone on the last day without a heads up, also be furious enough to fuck shit quickly up if they want to?

This has weirdly hit me harder than the Vinny/Brad/Alex departure and even Jeff G. There was a kind of inevitability leading up to those instances, but nu-bomb felt like it was really finding its feet and this has just sucked all the wind out of the sails for me :(

I have been a Giant Bomb fan since 2019 and a Voidburger fan for even longer. I had actually cancelled my yearly GB sub when Brad, Vinny, and Alex left but then renewed it when Jess became a full time employee. It felt like it an out of left field miracle, like your old favorite athlete joining your new favorite sports team. Even before she got hired she was a fan of Giant Bomb herself and when she announced her hiring she called it a dream job. I know it's all just parasocial but I felt excited and proud of her for all her hard work paying off. She finally managed to land a job relevant to gaming instead of being a streamer with a normal day job. I have seen so many people on various forums say that Jess is the glue holding "New Giant Bomb" together and the suits have failed to see that. I can only hope that Jess, Jason, Justin, and the GameSpot employees will be able to find new jobs where they are secure and happy. I have cancelled my yearly subscription and I don't see a reality where I would ever renew it.