Should the price for premium come down?

@goosemunch: GB is much bigger than those streamers. I think its not just 6 people at the company. Its huge by comparision. Much harder to manage so many people. The crew explains sometimes just how busy their days are and its full of stuff like meetings, there's really no time for stuff yet they put out a decent amount of videos, that said I respect people's decisions to feel differently, given I can see their point.

https://www.giantbomb.com/infinite/

Yeah... but what if instead of deciding what you get to see with dumb ideas like voting and democracy, we used capitalism instead.

I've followed the crew since early (2005) Gamespot days, been a subscriber since day 1, still am, created a burner account to avoid my main account catching a ban from a ban-happy mod.

Sorry, this is beyond ridiculous.

Let's look at a very specific example for a second, Dan Ryckert.

We all know Dan works full time at WWE, yet he still manages to organise streams, with multi-cam in his house, face cams of up to 3/4 other people on his stream, no audio issues, upload it to YouTube within 24hrs, and still guests on MinnMax streams and now has the Fire Escape Cast.

Are you trying to tell me that having meetings takes up more time than a separate full time job?

The truth is, Giant Bomb has fallen way behind the times. I don't know what the corporate structure and day-to-day workflow is like, but whatever it is, they're no longer the trendsetters moving away from the old school mentality, they've become the old school mentality.

It's now faster and easier than ever to record streams, encode them, and upload them. It doesn't require an obscenely expensive tricaster or anything like that. Look at the thousands (tens of thousands) of streamers on Twitch, YouTube etc with better production values, busier schedules, and more output to see that.

I don't doubt that a lot of their day is taken up with corporate BS, because Jeff B himself said the same as soon as he jumped over to the gaming division, but the lack of quality content can't be handwaved away because of that. There's 8-10 hours in a working day, and most of Giant Bomb's streams require literally no planning.

"X, Y and Z will play this game, let's go"

That's what every other streamer in the world does and it works - usually a lot better than GB's output.

Also, they have 2 producers (Jan and Jason), which most streamers don't, so why is this a bottleneck? It should improve productivity and their ability to streamline their approach, surely. In terms of official on-air talent, it's Jeff, Alex, Vinny and Brad - just like it was a four man crew for many years.

If it was like the old days where industry guests and insiders had busy schedules they had to work around, especially with WFH, it would be more understandable, but aside from Danny on the Bombcast, we don't even get that any more. The glory days of having John Vignocchi, Jeff Green, Adam Boyes, Dave Lang, Rich Gallup, Michael Pachter, Will Smith regularly pop up are long gone.

I've stacked up on my subscription for several years, so unsubscribing isn't an option for me, but if it were I think I finally would.

And that really bums me out.

What bums me out even more is there are a lot of unhappy paying fans here and none of the staff even post on the forums any more to engage with us.

Most of the staff have made it clear that they want absolutely NOTHING to do with the fanbase whatsoever

Very true, and it's sad, because the backbone of the site was built on this community. I don't know how many hours I used to spend in the chat room and forums back in the day.

Look at the stuff that has been abandoned over the years:

Wiki: At one point the main focus of the site, talked about on the Bombcast, generated interesting discussions, they used to incentivise users to keep it updated. Now most new games have nothing, it's a dead feature.

Forums: The staff used to post quite a lot, now I don't think they do at all, they just use Twitter. Even Jeff uses his obscure Tumblr for engaging with fans, rather than his own website. Outside of the small group still here, it's nearly a dead feature.

Quests/Site Achievements: Used to be really fun to take part and build up your profile, again abandoned and long since dead feature.

Thursday Night Throwdown: Get together and play MP games with the community, had a good run, but now long dead. Don't think they've involved the community in any streams since.

Blogs/Articles: Again, totally dead feature. News segments on the two podcasts are all we have. Outside of those comment sections, no way to discuss/debate topics. Giant Bomb used to break and cover news stories and I vividly remember the likes of Jeff, Ryan and Patrick always in the comments as we discussed them. Relic of the past.

It shows that the content produced is not the only issue with the site - it's a total shift away from what the site was built on.

Also, I like Brad and Will's TechPod, and on that they always mention the community feedback, and the fact Brad spends so much time on their Discord. It miffs me a bit that Brad is willing to spend so much time with the community they've built there, but there's no such community engagement/Discord for Giant Bomb? To me it looks like it shows the energy is still there, but for Brad at least, it may not be focused towards games/Giant Bomb any long.

Apologies if that's not true Brad, but it what it feels like when you see the difference in attitudes and effort.

People can do whatever they want with their free time, but boy it sure feels like creating an alternate account just to voice your disdain with the site is a kind of shitty use of one's time, when one could just as easily just...no longer subscribe?

After all, they don't pay attention to what you have to say anyway (according to many of the people in this thread) so...what's the point other than to just shit on the staff? Just move on if you hate it so much, it's really really that simple.

@sethmode: He is obviously voicing his criticism because he is invested and likes the site and it is very well articulated. But I guess you think it's better if the long term subscribers just quietly go away instead, I'm sure that's way better for GB.

I do, actually. Especially if the complaints are that they don't read the forums or listen to complaints. If you don't think they're listening, who are you complaining to?

At some point people just have to decide if this is what they want and go from there. No one is telling people what to do, but it is getting a little tiresome listening to people with zero empathy for the staff go on long-winded rants when the end result is still probably the same: no longer subscribing.

Likewise, one can not engage with me/this discussion if they think it's pointless. Simple as that really.

Fair enough, enjoy...wasting your money and screaming into the void, I guess?

@sethmode: Why WOULDN'T the staff want to come hang out in a thread where a bunch of people are calling them lazy and over the hill and claiming that they don't do enough work? I know that if I was at work and some customers in the hall were loudly talking about how much I sucked the first thing I would want to do would be to go hang out with them.

I'm surprised that this thread has lasted as long as it has considering some of the stuff that has been said. My guess is that the staff has looked at it and has said to just let it run in the interests of letting people voice their discontentment.

But man...

It's one thing to say you're unhappy with the product you're paying for. That's legitimate and it's even useful criticism because at least if you unsubscribe the company knows why you did and can take that under consideration. But to call out people on a personal level for your perception of their work ethic on their own website is really uncool.

The truth is that we know nothing. We have no idea what's going on behind the scenes. We don't know what personal stuff people are dealing with or what tech/business issues the onboarding has created or basically anything else about their working situation.

Jeff and Vinny aren't stupid. In fact they're really smart. They know their output has dropped and they almost certainly also know that people don't think they're putting out their best content right now. I'm sure that if there were a relatively easy way to improve things or bring in new people at present then they'd do that. For all we know Red Ventures has a hiring freeze until they move back into the office. Or there are other issues we haven't even thought of.

It's fine for people to say that they don't like the current state of the site and it's more than fine for people to unsubscribe if they feel like they aren't getting their money's worth, but the personal attacks on other people whose circumstances they just don't know are just gross. If you've been a fan of Giant Bomb for many years then these are still the people who built the site you loved and I think we can all trust they still want to put out the best product they can and are trying to do so. And it's not like there aren't a lot of obvious and totally valid reasons why things aren't operating at their peak.

There's been a pandemic, wildfires, a change in companies, personnel who left, and health issues over the past year, but nothing has stopped the Bombcast. It shouldn't be a surprise that those things have slowed some other stuff down.

@bigsocrates: Well said.

How is asking for bit of transparency or engagement a gross personal attack? This isn't a big site like Gamespot and ign, to expect a small site driven by premium subscriptions to have some sort of transparency isn't crazy.

You are right, we know nothing about what's going on and that is a big part of the issue.

@sethmode:

I thought his criticisms were pretty darn valid, lots of features falling by the wayside, staff being involved with communities of other endeavors more than the actual site, etc.

He said he stacked subs so it is not as simple as unsubscribing. Its valid criticism from a paying customer and it should be able to be voiced without just being told to go away.

Except Giant Bomb isn't a small site. It's massive in its fanbase

@bleichman: Asking for transparency is not a gross personal attack. But other people have called them lazy, said their passion is gone, said that now that they've got kids and are busy they should just move on from the site (even though Vinny and Jason have had kids for a long time) etc... As if the consumers have a right to expect them to either sacrifice their families or leave their jobs.

Those are the gross personal attacks.

I myself have expressed frustration with the lack of transparency on the site, numerous times, and there have been attempts to address it (such as through Jar Time and Vinny's forum updates and newsletters) that just have never stuck around. It has been a problem since 2013.

But we also don't know what they can and can't say. We know that Vinny and Jason have battled health issues because they've discussed them, but there could be other issues that people haven't discussed going on behind the scenes. It's possible that part of the problem is that Red Ventures is demanding a complex business plan and that everyone is busy writing and rewriting it for hours and the site staff members just have no control over that. Do I know that to be the case? Obviously not, but there are lots of things like that at large companies, especially when they buy a subsidiary.

If the issues are related to health or higher ups in the company obviously they can't just announce them publicly. They've certainly hinted at some of the problems with CBS after they've left.

Transparency isn't always possible.

Of course they COULD be more transparent about some things (such as announcing upcoming livestreams sooner and maybe giving an idea of some of the series and features they're considering) but they've been bad at that for a long time. That's not really an excuse, but it's just sort of baked into the way Giant Bomb operates.

You can't just compare the output of a site like Giant Bomb to individual streamers or other sites etc... because specific circumstances vary wildly. Streamers don't need to write business plans to the specifications of higher ups. They aren't required to use software mandated by a parent company that may or may not work with what they're doing (Vinny has mentioned multiple times how difficult it was to get the Internet permissions they needed when they were at CBS).

As long as people stick to just criticizing the product then it's fine. It's when they start making assumptions about staff members that it gets gross.

@heelbill: I'm really done discussing this. If you want my opinion, you can basically just look at what @bigsocrates said.

Dan was and still is hungry. Whatever the contributing factors may be that inhibit GB's content quality and quantity (corporate/management overhead, technical workflow/pipeline, leadership, etc), they've clearly established a groove in terms of what they accept from themselves and I'd expect that to continue for as long as they're earning enough to pay salaries.

@bigsocrates: Either the mods are doing a good job of cleaning it up or we have vastly different ideas of what constitutes as an attack on someone's character. I'm seeing a lot of people saying "the output has dropped" - not a lot of "Staff Member is so lazy, what do they even do??"

The most insulting thing I've seen are people making statements about other peoples finances because "It's one banana? How much could it cost!?".

Regarding knowing nothing - Vinny tried to remedy some of this by posting in the forums "Here's whats coming up on GB this week". And then that stopped four months ago. Notice a pattern about what people are upset over?

EDIT - while killing time in a meeting - nobody in this thread has used the word lazy other than someone saying they themselves are too lazy, not a member of staff. You are the first to bring up that accusation of someone accusing them of being too lazy.

People saying "Their output is lower than a solo streamer or <insert any other group like MinnMax/KFG>" is not calling them lazy.

@bigsocrates: I have not seen a single person in this thread calling them lazy, I don't know where you have seen that. People are wondering why the output is low compared to other streamers and outlets and of course the sites previous output in general. Some have expressed that worse and some better. A lot of people have expressed understanding that the crew have other committments with children and life and what have you. I don't really see these wild attacks that you and other people seem to see, almost everyone here is very reasonable, maybe the mods have cleaned them up?

Claiming that very constructive and reasonable feedback constitutes and attack is strange.

But as the output is so low people will start hypothezing, it's inevitable. If they would just go out and say they are working on production pipe line x to do y, that some of them are having health issues or ANYTHING at all about their plans at least I wouldn't complain and would probably re-sub. There is no way that Red Ventures have any opinions about talking about topics like that.

@bleichman:

Here are just SOME of the easily found statements from this thread:

"I've personally said more than once that a major factor is the original staff getting older, especially Jeff and Vinny who are also married with children. They are no longer the youthful bundles of energy they used to be. They are middle age men with families and its only a matter of time before they'll have to put family first and move on."

Essentially saying that the staff is so old that they can't do the job anymore, as if this job was elite athletics or they were in their 80s. How many people have done TV/Radio into their 70s? Podcasting and streaming is no different. To claim that 40-somethings can't do it anymore is just insulting.

Numerous comments along the lines of: "When they up the quality and quantity of the content and certain members of staff seem to care about games again i'll resub for sure. When 6 people cant put out even 10% the amount of content solo streamers do in a week, something should change."

Speculating about how much the staff "cares" and how dedicated they are to their jobs, as well as comparing their output to other people, which directly implies that they don't "care" enough to put in the work.

They have in fact discussed some of their health issues. Jason was laid up with a foot infection for like a whole year, yet nobody seems to be taking that into account. Vinny had an operation. And sometimes there are health issues that aren't directly one of the staff members (like a sibling with cancer or whatever) that you can't talk about because nobody wants the toxic elements of GB's fanbase complaining about their sister's illness.

I don't really know why they don't communicate about their plans better but as I said it has been an issue for literally more than half the site's existence. Basically since Ryan passed away. If I had to guess I'd say it's probably because people get even angrier when they say something is going to happen and then it doesn't, but the other thing that we don't talk about here is that the podcast may be a much bigger focus than the video content at this point because podcasting is very lucrative and they have a big audience, while their streaming/video audience seems to be not that big.

People have complained that the site moved away from things like the Wiki and premium video but that may be a natural business decision based on revenue, and may not be under the staff members' control.

I'm not saying that things are going great or can't improve, but we really don't know what's happening, they're not obligated (or able) to tell us everything, and criticizing people's "passion" or saying they're too old for their jobs is, as I said, gross.

I think the examples of people that stay in broadcasting well into their senior years are probably the exceptions rather than the norm. They also happen to be working in an industry that is highly competitive, so there's constantly pressure to be 'on' because there's always new people ready to take their job, or competing on other stations/networks. In the case of GB they're not really in direct competition with anyone, because what they're selling today isn't simply content, but a continued parasocial relationship they've built with their audience over many years.

@bigsocrates: You are reading so much into those comments. Do you think they will be attacked if they mention any personal issues? Of course people wonder if they care and what happens when so little content is coming out? Gross? Toxic fan base? These do not constitute personal attacks nor are gross.

@bleichman: Saying that people are too old and burned out for their jobs (in their 40s!) is, in fact, a personal attack. Ageism is very real and it's something that can be extremely hurtful.

But the people in this thread are not the most toxic elements of the fanbase. We don't see those elements on the board because the mods clean them up. They're definitely out there.

Regardless, people may not want to mention personal issues because they're personal. And as I said they may not be theirs to share anyway. They are entitled to share as much or as little as they want about their personal circumstances. As I have said multiple times they should do a better job talking about their plans for the site and that has been a problem for a long time, but you can criticize them for that without calling them old or saying they've lost their passion or any of that.

@hughj: People working into their 70s and 80s might be an exception (though if you watch 60 Minutes or a lot of other broadcast TV not as much of an exception as you might think) but nobody retires in their 40s unless they're super rich and don't want to do it anymore or they are forced out due to merger or scandal or whatever.

Giant Bomb is actually really good at not having much of a parasocial relationship. That's one of the reasons I like them, and one of the reasons they get attacked for being out of touch. People expect them to share everything in their lives like streamers do, but they're old school game journalists and they maintain work/personal life separation, which is a good thing. I think that aspect of streaming is very unhealthy for both audience and streamers.

Airing unsolicited grievances about a website on that website is fucking weird and gross, especially when it's framed as a call to arms to incite mass negative feedback.

Maybe you're desensitized, dude, but I think a lot of the speculation in this thread about the staff's commitment/interest is pretty distasteful. Also, for what it's worth, I never post on the forums, I've only lurked for like 7 years... and the complaining in this thread is what brought me to voice my opinion. It'd be one thing to have these conversations privately, or even publicly on a different form of social media, but to go to their official website and be like, "What's up with the output? Do they even give a shit anymore?" feels both creepy and disrespectful.

I have read through this thread multiple times, and the only useful thing I've seen someone suggest is the staff focusing on doing a better job of maintaining/updating the schedule. Literally every other post in agreement with OP comes across as spoiled nonsense that can be boiled down to "it should be cheaper because I liked it better before" or "because that's how I feel" and while everyone's feelings are valid, they can also keep that useless shit to themselves, unless they've got something concrete to add.

@thedrivein: There's a lot of concrete feedback in this thread. But as you and others seem to be very hostile and I've said my mind I'm out.

@thedrivein: Everyone’s feelings are valid, but they should keep that useless shit to themselves? Maybe you should keep lurking next time.

Throughout this whole topic I think what needs to be understood is the difference between “this isn’t worth x to me” and “this isn’t worth x” and those of the former have a completely valid perspective and I think those of the latter are more than a little unreasonable.

After reading all this, they should definitely up the price of premium.

@thedrivein: What circle jerk?

There's a handful of people who have said little more than "yes it costs too much" or "yes it's too much, I liked it in the before times". And when I say a handful, I mean like maybe 5 people including the OP who just flat out said yes with very little to no explanation more than what you allude to.

There's way more people saying they feel the price is currently not worth it and would not re-sub unless things improved - this is literally a question that would appear on an exit form from any subscription service or a customer happiness questionnaire.

There's plenty of people saying they just see the subscription as a tip jar and aren't overly concerned with the week to week output so long as the podcasts keep going.

There's even more people saying "no, the cost is fine, it's $35 a year and that's cheaper than most Patreon/Twitch subs" - though as others have pointed out - the $35 sub is already a discounted price which isn't available all year long.

There's even some people suggesting they wish they could pay more.

@thedrivein: If the content isn’t great, it’s not even worth negative $3, so that checks out.

The thread is full of people who take others’ words and twist them whichever way fits them. It’s easier to make the other party look unreasonable and wave them off, rather than engage in rational discussion.

I was the one who mentioned the three dollar monthly payment. $36 over the year. Price of membership on sale, plus a buck extra. Even if they would only offer it during sales, that’s cool. I’m just saying that’s the price I, personally am willing to pay, because $35 is fair to me, but I’d like agency over my subscription. I would pay the sale price of $35 dollars upfront, if I could “unsubscribe” at anytime and only receive money back for the months I’ve not used. That’s just my two cents, it’s subjective.

Objectively, however, what isn’t cool is taking a customer’s money, parting ways with 2-3 (depending when you subbed) members of staff during that sub, putting out less content than before all while denying customer refund requests (even partial refunds, I’ve only requested a refund for the time I’ve not used yet).

@nickm: Dude, you want to haggle over $2 with a website about video games. This is tacky, pedantic, and entirely subjective.

Please read Efesell's post over and over until it sinks in.

I knew this thread would turn into personal attacks against other users. To say there's not a "cult" aspect to the website is silly.

This is now a discussion about posters, rather than a discussion about Giant Bomb's content output, change in focus, and lack of communication.

I suggest that rather than letting someone like @thedrivein continue to derail the thread, we bring the focus back to issues on the site that we feel need addressing.

@sombre: Huh? What does this even mean!?

@thedrivein: Here you go doing it again. Just whatever you want to hear. I’m not haggling, please read my post over and over until it sinks in. And then read it a couple more times, just in case. I’m asking for accountability, not a discount.

@sombre: you're, right, I'm probably just a cult member because I like the podcast and don't like people being dicks.

Exactly! Not only that, but even Giant Bomb itself also has that exact same option for feedback when canceling a subscription!

(which Rorie actually reads and sometimes replies, btw)

@longtimesub: Well said! I think there are some really good, well-articulated, and civilized arguments in this thread that raised some interesting points to consider and it would be a shame if these attempts to derail the thread would devalue the conversation going on. It's clear that most people here are very passionate about this website, no matter what sides of the arguments they agree with. I hope that whoever reads this thread, either the staff or other users, understands that most of the criticism (or even calls to action) comes from people who still believe in this website and would be happier to see it return to glory than to leave GB behind.

It would not shock me at all if the lack of content is due to Red Ventures insisting that content should be sponsored, just like many of those wonderful Youtubers' streams.

To corporate overlords, shining light on any game when you don't have to amounts to free advertising.

I'm frankly surprised that the Kingdom Hearts playthrough is even happening.

Although I'm sure there are changes going on behind-the-scenes with RV, the fact these issues go back much longer than their purchase (in some cases, years) means we can't place too much blame on RV.

I wonder if anything in this thread will be acted on, at all, or it'll just get closed, and we'll have it again in 2 months

Well, referring to the lack of content, it does feel as though it dropped sharply after the acquisition. Through most of 2020, there was alot of content, albeit of somewhat lesser quality.

@longtimesub: This thread has never been "what can Giant Bomb do to improve." That thread would actually be useful. It started off with an unexplained statement that they should lower the price and it has splintered into several places from there.

I think there's a lot of useful discussion to be had about how the website can be improved, but most of the discussion here has just been "the content is bad now, and there's not enough of it" which isn't particularly useful. They know there's less content than there used to be and presumably they are trying to make it as good as possible.

More useful would be a thread about specific suggestions, like "we would like to know what features are upcoming" or "here are some ideas for ways to freshen up specific content" etc...

On the other hand such threads have popped up from time to time and they don't seem to do very much. I think by now it's clear that the minority of the users who are active on the forums (and it's a tiny tiny portion of their audience, especially for the podcasts) would like more information about planned content, but that's not a priority for whatever reason. And in the past they have been very resistant to community requests that they produce specific content. Their philosophy is very much "we make what we want to make" though they do seem to look at metrics and take popularity into account.

However constructive criticism is at least constructive and a thread about that would be better than a thread that's mostly just "site is bad now. No, it isn't."

@bigsocrates I can't speak for everyone, but I feel my two posts, quoted below, contained a lot of constructive feedback on where I feel the site is going wrong, what we've lost, and how a lack of communication has made things worse.

----

@longtimesub said:

I think the overall summary is that:

Many members believe the price should be lowered because of steady lack of content, even before the pandemic.

Many members know the content hasn't been good, but don't care because they believe in supporting the staff no matter what as a tip jar.

And you have some members who are willing pay even more money out of dedication and loyalty to the staff.

And you have some members who are perfectly fine with how things are and don't see a problem.

If this were a math equation, I'd say the price will not be lowered. Not enough demand for it. However, the GB staff would be wise not to raise the price, as those willing to pay more are in the heavy minority and they will lose many members, including many tippers if they do.

@av_gamer: I think another important point is that many people seem to think that $35 is the actual price, or is at least the price they are willing to pay and will make sure to "top up" during the sale period.