Kinda Funny Games...Is Giant Bomb?

So Shane Bettenhausen linked that Greg Miller and a bunch of dudes from IGN quit to start "Kinda Funny Games". I went to their Patreon and watched the video pitch...which basically looks like they want to make...Giant Bomb? Good luck to them and everything, but I feel like Giant Bomb filled that void (that's what she said) for my "funny" game commentary (even though they do so much more than that).

Anyone actually excited about this who isn't a friend of theirs?

http://www.patreon.com/kindafunnygames

Best of luck to them. It does very much look like they are going to build their own Giant Bomb. Ill be watching with interest.

Seems like this could be a great move for them. I know that I'll personally be more inclined to check out their stuff now that I don't have to go to IGN to do so.

Good luck to them. I don't really like Greg Miller and definitely don't like Colin Moriarty, so I won't be following them, but wish them the best.

The MO for most games sites the last five years or so has been trying to be more like Giant Bomb. This was the first site to really embrace the concept of "Let's Plays" as content outside of random YouTube channels. Before Giant Bomb, the concept of releasing an hour long video on your site was insanity. Now, just about everyone does it.

The weird thing is from listening to their podcasts they don't play many games or at least many outside of Playstation.

They've been doing the Kinda Funny stuff for a while, they just changed the name from Game Over Greggy.

Now they're doing games I care even less. I stopped listening to any IGN content years ago, and I cannot stand Colin Moriarty. Good luck to Greg Miller though, he can be super funny, if a little overbearing at times.

So many f'in patreons. Best of luck to them though, I did quite enjoy podcast beyond for the period in which I listened.

Guess this is what killed Neogaf?

It will be interesting to see how this affects IGN.com as a whole. Right now it's by far the most popular games journalism site, but this is quite the exodus and comparable to "everybody" leaving GS after gertsmanngate I think.

I'm not really interested in other video game sites aside from checking out a KVO review or Danny vid on gamespot every now and then. Best of luck to them though.

Greg Miller quit? Weird.

Seems kinda of premature, but I guess I wish them luck. It's not like there isn't enough video game coverage, and I don't think those guys at IGN are funny, so this could potentially be a bad move. Or it's not. I'm sure he has fans and they'll split off to go see them somewhere else instead. Whatever.

I think trying to use Patreon to do this may not be the best of ideas, though.

I don't think any of these dudes are funny (well, I like laughing at Greg Miller but that's not really the same). I wish them well, though, they seem to be taking a pretty big risk.

But as @milkman said, this seems to be the direction the industry is taking. Smaller teams, more transparency, lots of video content, and building ways to directly interface with the readers / viewers. If anything, I think this will be even more common in the future.

I listened to some of their podcasts when they were still called Game Over Greggy but after a cople of podcasts I stopped. They're just not that funny, more grating than anything and I almost pity Moriaty for his political ignorance (then again, I am European, so I'm a bit biased when it comes to taxation)

Best of luck to them though, always good to see more people strike out on their own!

This is weird. I'll probably watch some of their stuff. I used to listen to podcast beyond and it sounds like they will be sort of doing that over on their new show. I used to watch their youtube podcast but have kind of fallen off of it a bit since they can be a little obnoxious and some of the topics are dumb.

I wonder how this will effect IGN though. I guess this is good for people trying to get into the industry since it potentially opens up some positions there.

Aren't they already getting over $13,000 a month from their first patreon? Now they want to double-dip.

The New Old Media exodus continues. All to YouTube/Patreon!

@lachrymoses: I had no idea they had a separate Patreon. Was that for their podcast or something?

I used to really like some IGN podcasts, three red lights was funny as shit back in like 2010

Too bad they didn't get Brian Altano to go with them since he has chemistry and history with them, and I believe he wrote most of the material for Greg Miller's Up at Noon show (which I freely admit I never watched).

I used to listen to podcast beyond but I am not sure I'll pay much attention to their new site. However, I think more is always good, so best of luck to them. They might have a winning strategy if they can get a percentage of their current fanbase to follow them onto this new thing.

It will be interesting to see what happens over at IGN but I don't think it's quite on that level. IGN has a huge staff and many personalities. This will effect many of their shows like Podcast Beyond, Up At Noon, etc. Also Greg hosted a lot of their live shows so there's also a void there. I'm pretty sure this wont really effect IGN too much and it will still be the most popular games journalism site.

This one: http://www.patreon.com/kindafunny

The pitch is even mostly the same. Maybe you get more exposure on patreon when you launch a new one I don't know. Seems kind of weird to me.

Tel that to The 1UP Show.

Never been to IGN for more than a decade so im not familiar with Greg and others, other than being guests during post-E3 podcasts.

Not really sure if it's fair to say that what they're going to do is Giant Bomb's bag exclusively. If anything, I think that's where this industry is headed.

@mosespippy: As a person who was with EGM and the 1Up stuff early on I will say what they did was completely different. The 1Up Show was a scripted 30-45 minute video and that was really the only video content they released on that site outside of the average preview crap everyone had. They did, however, get started on the ground floor with a bunch of podcasts.

I'm not really a fan of anyone of those other than Greg, and I tried but failed to like some of the podcasts they've released (Game Over Greggy etc.). So probably not for me.

Definitely not for me, can't stand his flatmate dude.

Yeah, there isn't really any site that would be an obvious choice to take over for IGN. Gamespot seem to be much smaller now and isn't in a great financial situation based on the recent layoffs. Giant Bomb isn't even trying to reach that broad an audience.

Podcast Beyond seem to be gone as well. If the new podcast Greg & co. are making doesn't hit it off in the same way, I could see a lot of people migrate over to the Bombcast.

Yeah, just like with Gamespot and Kotaku, most people visiting IGN probably don't care about the personalities at all, they visit because of written news and don't care who writes it.

From the video it sounds more like they want to do individual Patreons for each of their shows, so the ones most people are willing to pay for are the ones they'll support most.

Which sounds like a good idea, but dangerous considering the Patreon pledges usually come with a promise for X amount of content and I could see the less popular ones ending up behind while they fulfill the content promises of other more popular Patreons they run.

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I never visit IGN unless somebody directly links me to it, I do occasionally like and enjoy their podcasts though and this is a pretty big blow to those. Curious where IGN will go from here in any case. I could see a few more quitting as a result of this, such as Brian Altano. It's most likely though that IGN will just continue to move along with business as usual, with a couple new personalities.

I'm with @regularassmilk on this one - Giant Bomb might be among the best that do this kinda thing (and one of the few who runs it on their own site), but they certainly aren't alone on it. There are plenty of small groups of people who do podcasts/video series/streams together, and many of them are very popular. Best of luck to them!

Giant Bomb does differentiate itself in other ways, though - specifically with the database. It's easy to forget about it, because it's been a big part of the site since the start and it's so well-integrated, but I still find it incredibly useful on a regular basis.

There's nothing wrong with doing similar things and the audience for GB doesn't necessarily overlap with Greg and co.'s audience. Best of luck to them.

Is a big site like IGN sustainable if people only come for the news though? Especially since there's so many places you can get general gaming news now. I imagine this is one of the reasons almost all the larger gaming sites has gone towards something more personality driven in the last 5-6 years.

@ghostiet:

Out of curiosity, why? Lots of people say this, but I'm not aware of any specific reasons.

Independent voices built on traditional editorial structure are always a good thing. How it transforms into its own voice will be quite interesting. I hope it doesn't devolve into nonsense talk and boyish immaturity.

He's conservative with a big C, so I guess some people have a problem with that. Other than that he has a lot of strong opinions about a lot of video game-related stuff, and that will turn other people off who disagree. Personally I don't think he's very funny, that's my problem with Colin.

I think they're fun guys, but I don't think they're funny. Not nearly enough for me to pay them

Time will tell about that. Kotaku is certainly doing okay with only written content where most people probably don't care about the byline. IGN is still the largest gaming site by far and has been getting bigger this year I think (even though they've had layoffs). The thing is that I think there's still room for one or two such sites on the net, just not as many as there were before.

I remember when I first started listening to gaming podacsts in the late 00s and Greg was a brand new hire, guesting on their Game Scoop podcast. It's really strange looking back to notice that slowly but surely after that golden era of games podcasting (at least I think, let me know if I'm wrong) personalities were being created way before Giant Bomb took off. GB has certainly brought it to light and were the first to say "fuck you" and ride off into the sunset doing their own thing, but had it not been for the old HotSpot days where would we be?

IGN isn't in trouble, but It must be strange for sites like that to hire people first and foremost as writers and have them build up a big enough following to... well.. not outgrow you, but certainly enough to chuck the duces and seem better off without you. I dunno.. maybe they embrace it... maybe it's just me who feels this way... maybe I'm crazy.

Sounded more like wacky morning radio than Giantbomb to me. Wish them luck I guess, but I can barely stand them as it is I don't need a daily "personality fix" of those particular dudes.

Colin is a Conservative Libertarian.

I don't really follow the parties involved so it's a bit of a wash. I'll give it a try no doubt and if they manage to put out some decent content and develop a decent community who knows.

Good luck to them. They are monsters when it comes to doing those LIKE/COMMENT/SUBSCRIBE HOT GIRL THUMBNAIL youtube things though. Super off putting. I'll tune in when they have someone like Jeff on as a guest but that's probably it.

I'd be more likely to support a Patreon that kept Greg Miller off my screens.

Ya I like some of their stuff, see where it goes. Though now you just get more of them, if you like that.

Is it me or does 'Kinda Funny Games' sound like a place to play bad flash games?

Good for them! Creating a place where they can be more creative and not bound by other requirements is a great idea. GiantBomb was essentially that effort by Jeff and crew and they did it so well they can be themselves with the resources of a big company.

now that Patrick is gone, maybe Greg miller would....

@soulcake: hm?