So it's been about a month of Giant Bomb on Lockdown - what does everyone think?

So far I've found it satisfactory. How do people feel about the variety of games played?

On the one hand, I feel like proper Quick Looks are way down in number. I think there have only been like 6 official "Quick Looks" in the past month. BUT GB staffers have done 60+ minute streams of Half-Life: Alyx, Good Job, Control DLC, One Step from Eden, etc. They're doing a good job of trying to continue ongoing shows where possible (Sims Baby Challenge, Alexy Quest, etc.). I feel like there's been a HUGE uptick of people playing old (multiplayer) games (Bloodborne, Rock Band, Deeprock Galactic, State of Decay 2), which is a nice change of pace.

I gather that it is sometimes harder to stream for the family men of the site (Vinny seemingly has to spend most of his day hours teaching kindergarten/elementary school lessons, Jeff has to be quiet if his baby is napping, etc.), while the childless seem to have more flexible schedules.

I read Ben's original article (https://www.giantbomb.com/articles/giant-bombs-work-from-home-spectacular/1100-5992/), and I'm still unclear on why they switched to streaming nearly everything, all the time. Aside from prerecording a few Quick Looks here and there, I think the vast majority of everything from the past months was livestreamed, and archived later? I don't really understand why this was necessary for the work from home, other than as a favour to the community since so many more people are home than usual and can possibly watch livestreams. I don't mind it, but it's just bizarre to watch GB go from a site that does like 3-4 livestreams a week (Bombcast, Playdate, UPF, maybe 1 other thing) to suddenly doing like 6+ hours of streams each day. Also weird to watch staff members suddenly have to fill dead air like a solo Twitch streamer and talk to chat WAY more than pre-Lockdown.

Anyway, any impressions of this strange period in GB that you guys want to share?

I’ve actually been watching a lot more cuz I have a chance to interact w them. Hard to complain too much, they r doing what they can. I wish they were better about giving ppl ballpark times for each person’s stream.

I realize that the GB staff have the same fears and concerns about the pandemic and its ramifications, but their accessibility during this time has been comforting. and I appreciate their work.

They're doing a great job.

Personally, however, I'm watching way less. Working from home right now and the first week I had a side laptop playing their stuff. But frankly, solo stuff doesn't really play well as a background video. Turns out GB is something I mostly have as a background conversation during workouts and (now) work.

I'll still attentively watch a solo stream now and then if the content's for me (Brad playing platformers, Jason's streams, Bloodborne). But I've cut down drastically on what I'll watch.

My favorite current content is Mass Effect, Clue Crew, and the Quick Looks because of the team dynamic. So the usual stuff that's just recreating their regular shows, or the occasional team stream.

Granted, if there's more content that hits less for me, chances are that it'll still hit for someone else. So if there's a video or two per day that I'm interested in, that's still a few hours of stuff I got. So even if I'm watching like 20% of the content now compared to like 80% before, that's still plenty. I also just watch the archives so I'm not in the chat, which I'm sure a lot of people appreciate having available during all this nonsense.

I think the longer it goes on the better it's getting. Pretty much any team-up of Brad and Vinny is gold and I loved the return of Sea Beasts. I hope if that feature comes back full time that they have Brad continue with it even if it's after the lockdown is done.

My only complaint is that a lot of the free streams don't show up live in the Roku app on my TV. Sea Beasts was the only one I caught live as a result. Would be nice especially since I could use it as background noise while working from home. The Podcasts have been great for that.

It's good. Weirdly, I think it's given them the excuse to do something I wish they did more often before all this happened, cross coast content, especially when a multiplayer game is involved.

I find the solo streams less interesting because I think the beauty of GB is the crew interacting with each other, but I feel like some of the videos with multiple people have been just as good, if not better than, the stuff they were putting out before the quarantine. Also, the increase is community interaction is very welcome.

Overall, I think they're actually making something great out of a shitty situation.

I think it's great and we've been totally spoiled for content. As an added bonus, the timing and length of each day's schedule gives me a better opportunity to watch stuff live than I usually get in my timezone, which is probably true for a reasonable number of other people, and I've enjoyed participating in the chat more etc. In a way, it kind of reminds me of how much I enjoyed the regular schedule of the Persona 4 ER back in the day, knowing I'd have a new episode to get stuck into every evening of the week.

The situation kind of inherently means that the production side of things can't be as slick or professional as the office studio obviously, but it feels like they're taking advantage of that to experiment a bit or to do more stuff that would require a lot more work behind the scenes to pull off to the standard the production crew would want to do if they were in the studio etc

Prefer their lockdown content to normal stuff

I think it's awesome that they put in so much effort to keep things going and that we get to hear some of the crew more than usual e.g. Jan building legos and Alex drumming. This is kind of wild conjecture but it also seemed like an experiment for all those cats complaining about slow weeks when there weren't any new games?

On the other hand I'm not really into aimless solo streaming like kids are these days, I guess? I don't really follow Twitch streams in general but I feel like there are plenty of those already.

There's definitely been plenty of content for freeloaders like me (I'm only just interested in podcasts and quick looks) so I'm guessing they would need to put more stuff beyond the already continued shows behind the paywall if this continues.

EDIT: Also I think it might help GB if they do the setup to allow subscription through Youtube (even if it would require giving Google a cut) because that's where I watch their videos primarily and I think premium videos aren't available on Youtube right now?

This is the most GB content I’ve watched in years. I love the guerilla styling of it all And I think everyone is doing an amazing job.

I've said it before but I enjoy when they get a more than one person on a stream. Otherwise I'm not very into it. I don't say that to shit on their efforts but, if they consider my input, to shape it.

Besides the one stream for RE 3 where Vinny was way behind in what he was seeing, everything has been good too and made for some good combinations, but execuses to see co-op games which I love.

So basically for me right now the highs and high and the lows are low.

They've made the best out of a bad situation and in turn really rejuvenated the site with this new approach to content. Sure we lose great stuff like Ranking of Fighters and Mailbags, but I kinda hope they stick with this set up to some extent. Like do they even need to continue with the traditional method of GotY after seeing how well they can do this sort of thing from home?

I'm happy with the two or three things I've turned into watch. Between work, school for my kid, and keeping my home running I just don't have the opportunity to watch stuff from GB.

Alex's drumming sessions have been making my week, really happy with the content, I am constantly surprised they can output so much stuff.

I've been consuming most of it, to be fair. It's become weirdly dependable but I can't wait for those guys to get their hands back on the Telecaster.

yeah- that's exactly where i'm at. i think the entire crew has stepped up tremendously and it's pretty rad to have something to throw on everyday- not to mention they're interacting with the community WAAAY more than they would be otherwise. so good on em, it's sincerely appreciated! i'm also really enjoying (to borrow the parlance of twitch) the 'just talking/IRL' and podcast streams the most as it's fun to hear the gang talk about gear, hobbies, and just vamp about the times...it comes off as authentic in way that can sometimes get lost when you do the same stuff week-in/week-out. ben building gundams and brad talking about game music and putting heatsinks on capture cards has been fucking rad.

...but i'm also watching less because:

a) turns out working from home means i'm just working all the time now

b) i haven't gotten the hang of the schedule and i'm way less likely to catch something midstream than start from the beginning (and watch the whole thing).

c) solo streams of 'hey let's just play some of this game' don't hold my attention.

I've been loving a lot of it. The spontaneous feel of a lot of it, especially when staff or guests pop on and off the streams, it all has a light, friendly, fun feel. The only streams that I have not cared for are those whose subjects hold no interest to me, so that's a given. Can't do much about that one.

They have made me smile while I work from home, terrified that layoffs or illness may befall me or my family. They have reminded me of why I game, and to an extent reminded me that I should really become more involved in gaming communities and make some new friends.

I have to say my personal MVP of the lockdown is Brad!

While typically having the reputation for being sleepy and subdued, Brad is a great host during his solo streams. I like that he chooses a different game to stream and always seems to be upbeat about it. Honestly haven't seen Brad this energetic since listening to those tech podcasts he does with Will Smith (sadly they are not my jam). It also doesn't hurt that so far Brad has played a bunch of games that I personally find fun to watch.

As for the format itself? Well obviously more people is better but sometimes, not so much. When there are obvious mic issues, video delay or weird clipping where people get cut off in mid-sentence, those things actually make it hard to listen to overall. In those situations I think a solo stream is probably better than three people talking at three different volumes all in different and varying levels of quality.

It is actually weird to see GB produce so much content under the most spartan conditions. Either way I enjoy that there is typically something for me to watch. I don't watch all of it - there are some things I never watched before the lockdown and nothing has changed, but there is a lot more to choose from thats for sure.

It's been great so far. There's something consolatory to seeing others trying to work from home. The content itself has been better than I could've imagined. I feel like we've been spoiled for choice. Perhaps it's the solo nature of the streams that allow for more spontaneity, but I'm happy there's a lot more variety. I too would like to say that solo Brad is awesome.

That said, I caught a glimpse of a UPF playing on Infinite a few days ago, and I couldn't believe it's only been a month since the crew started working from home. It felt like UPF was a show that's been discontinued for ages.

It's hard to be critical considering they're dealing with the same pandemic conditions everyone else is along with coordinating and running hours of live shows every single day from their homes.

I miss the studios and shows but with what we are all dealing with I am more than elated with the results.

I'm loving it so far. There's been a much larger breadth of content than pre-lockdown. It really felt like the site had been taken over by FPS games, fighters, Pokemon, and wrestling but it seems like we've been getting a lot more variety in the lockdown - Bloodborne, Nioh 2. Legos! A bunch of stuff you probably never would have seen if they weren't stuck at home.

Agreed. They are being super productive with a very small team. When compared to some outlets with twice as many employees, I think GB is managing to do what they like while providing interesting content. They are not replicating content they made before or even trying; they are making far more personal content. Seeing Alex drum, not just do his typical content, is so nice. Having Jeff talk about the baby more because it IS more immediate to his life - that is great. Even just having Jeff pop into Beastcast is super fun - we don't get that often - our cup runneth over!

It's made my backlog of GB content way worse, but that's hardly a thing to complain about. I've been in chat and talking with other duders more than I have been in years and it's great. GB has carried me through all the hardest times of my adult life and seeing them step up to the challenge of the current situation and succeed with such aplomb has been a thing of great comfort.

I think it's remarkable they are doing all this for everyone. We are basically getting 10x the content and I think technically everything is running way better than I would expect.

I hear you, in that I definitely understand what their schedules are even less right now than usual.

Under normal circumstances, I can chalk up most activity to "if they're a producer, they're doing whatever video/studio work" and if they're an editor it's "they're dabbling in games to know enough about a game to Quick Look it, and sometimes that time is wasted if they take a shot on a game that isn't even worth quick looking, and sometimes they're playing a game for review or doing an ongoing premium video series."

At the moment, the producers are doing less production work but solo streaming a lot more. As for editorial, it feels like they're doing way less "try out a bunch of newish games to prep for Quick Look", and a lot of them are just jumping back into an old game that is a known quantity which feels like it requires little prep work other than a basic "does this game stream out on my current setup." This still seems weird to me, I know some of this is a substitute for UPF and Playdates, but holy cow, they're streaming sooo many old singleplayer/multiplayer games.

I'd have to check the actual cumulative hours per week, but to an outside observer, they're spending 8 people's time to keep 1 Twitch channel running something like 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, plus some amount of video each week like Quick Looks which are prerecorded without live chat interaction. It's definitely a shift in format compared to how the site is normally run.

My only problem is that not everything gets archived to the site and a fairly sizeable chunk of stuff is only archived on Twitch. For a long time I thought Jeff was too busy taking care of his family to do anything but podcasts and the occasional pop-in. Same with Ben and Rorie. Turns out they've been streaming regularly and it's only in the Twitch archive. I understand the work it takes to export and bring it over to the main site so I'm not going to shout about it. I find Twitch pretty gross and its a little frustrating using that site and muting their adds.

I think I just want a little bit more transparency about this. Unlike the rest of the world, I'm not in quarantine and have a full-time job in an office. When I get home I help my wife and look after our two kids. I watch every bit of content that GB produces.

The actual content is extremely commendable. I'm highly impressed with what everyone has been able to do under these circumstances. The actually production and content has been above and beyond my expectations.

Glad they are doing what they are doing, but I am not watching much of it.

My only complaint is that if you miss watching live, much of the content is simply disappearing and not being archived, and some of the content does not "feel right" when watching it later because it hinges so much on being a livestream with chat interaction.

The only thing that I'm not enjoying is Jeff's nightmarish abuse of the soundboard.

@bisonhero: Now that some time has passed it is a little puzzling how some of the content for the streams is chosen. For instance I still think Brad does a great job of playing different things and revisiting different games and thats fun. Jeff does his old games bit and while personally that has never spoken to me I know a lot of people like seeing these super old titles played so sure. On the other hand when I see Alex is mostly doing Truck Simulator and drumming I get a little confused. In a time that they can finally use to play those games they never have time to play, it does seem weird to see Jeff fall back on the MisTer and Alex just play the things he would always be playing at home.

I mean listen I get that there are definitely people that are more than happy to tune in and watch Alex play drums or what have you. It's just that as stated above the crew usually bring up their lack of time and ability to get into a lot of games they want to check it, and now that everyone is stuck at home it's the perfect moment for some variety. Sometimes it just kind of seems like a bit of a waste.

@humanity: Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm getting at. It's like as soon as the lockdown started, they adopted this puzzling initiative of "drop everything, time to play a bunch of old games/wacky fun time multiplayer games." Outside of DOOM/Animal Crossing/Half-Life Alyx/FF7 Remake, it's been a bit of a slow month for major releases, but I swear there are still games they could be doing Quick Looks and Unfinisheds for. Unless I missed a stream and they didn't archive it, absolutely no coverage of Murder By Numbers happened, for example. There's still games coming out, so it's weird that now of all times they've suddenly decided they have the spare time to do a regular Brad+Vinny co-op stream. Why not before? I feel like the audience has always wanted more cross-coast multiplayer between the East and West staff.

Alex's streams are fine, but I'd put them in the camp of "they're fun to watch live with chat, but there's almost no point watching the archive." It's like "yep, that sure is a lot of 100% drumming or a lot of European trucking." If I miss it live, I don't feel like I'm missing anything super important that I have to go back and watch.

Credit to GB for getting many of the premium shows back off the ground. I still wish they would do fewer solo streams, even if it just means getting one more person in Discord and screensharing with them so they can banter a bit. When it's literally 1 person solo streaming for like 2-3 hours, I have no real concept of what the other 7 members of the staff (8 if you count Rorie) are doing. I don't get the sense that they're prepping games for a Quick Look/Unfinished, because half of the streams are just "let's roll right back into some old games on the Mister/Rock Band/Euro Truck/some old multiplayer game."

Not trying to slam them or anything, but I kinda wish there could be minimum 2 people on each video they do, since frankly they're not as comfortable just talking into the void of chat as most solo Twitch streamers are. Unless the other 7 staff members are doing something dreadfully important all the time that prevents this.

I've watched more Giant Bomb content during the pandemic than I have in months, but it's hard to say if my own situation isn't an influence there. Love seeing more cross-coast content as a result of this whole thing.

i realize things are necessarily ad-hoc/seat-of-yer-pants right now, but part of me kinda wishes they just had a live google spreadsheet with their schedule/plan on it. i suspect that would come with it's own set of problems, but it would be cool to see that info in a timetable format that was kept up to date (vs. the 'upcoming' module on the homepage which just doesn't seem very accurate most of the time).

@nicolasvh:

Uh... OK?

When the collective output of GB is far more than I can keep up with, I'm not going to get too bothered about micromanaging their time cards.

I think they are getting better every week. The cross coast group stuff is fantastic. Outside of that I’ve been enjoying Alex and Abbys stuff. Big fan of the trucking; it’s just really chill.

The variety and volume is dope, my only concern is missing some of the live stuff and it not always being archived =( but even if i miss half the stuff there is still a mountain of content!

The chill streams are my favorite type of content anyway so I'm thrilled

Also "They're home all day and they don't tell us what they do at work when not streaming" is the most narc take I've ever heard

Yeah, the idea that they're just hanging out when they're not streaming kind of blows my mind. Vinny has to play teacher for his kids and split time with them with his wife so she can work and Jeff has a damn baby at home. This is all new to them from a tech perspective, so I'm sure the producers are going crazy trying to get everyone up and running and I can't imagine coordinating with IT or any external services the site relies on has gotten any easier. Jeff, Vinny, and Rorie all have non-GB bosses, who I have to assume want information on how things are going from a profits perspective, current years budget, what they want for a budget going forward, justifying various purchases, demonstrating that they can operate from home and produce quality content (and do the rest of their jobs) so they can all keep getting paid, etc. Mods need to be coordinated with, prioritization of shared resources (i.e. engineers) needs to be handled to keep the site up and running, everything around merch (concepts, sourcing, costs, etc.) needs to be handled by people, 3 hour long podcasts need to be prepped, and that's just a few things off the top of my head.

Basically, they run a weird/unique website with multiple employees and services they rely on to keep it going. I can't imagine a pandemic has erased all the old responsibilities they had in the office.

Back on topic, I like the content with 2+ people, even with technical jankiness, far more than the solo streams. I'm hoping as they keep getting better and better at doing this from home they start to move in that direction a bit more.

This is mostly what I was trying to say. It's not that I really care what the other 7 staff members are doing with their time, but if they're not absolutely swamped, it would be nice if the solo streams could be upgraded to a duo stream more often. Except for Alex's drumming stream, that would be kind of pointless to have someone talking over.

I am totally with you.

Or doing pre recorded multi person stuff as well.

Some people overreact to comments on behalf of the staff. It's feedback and I think most people saying it just want the best content. I'm definitely cool with less stuff coming out than they are putting out now, I just like the group together. Quality over quantity.

I know some love solo stuff but to me the group is Giant Bomb. If its just a solo stream I may look elsewhere. There are tons and tons of options for that.

My unexpected MVP stream was Jason going thru his box of stickers, part of it with his son. Just made me super relaxed and happy.

Thanks for all the content, Giant bomb folks!

I love Lockdown. I think this is the best Giant Bomb has ever been, with mostly fun streams and a lot of different games covered. Jan made me play Bloodborne, and the first episodes in that series is really, really good - espcielly the one with Vinny. Vinny and Brad's adventure in space is so relaxing and nice and Abby is making alot of great content - I especially enjoy the Clue Crew with Alex.

I only wish they would separate the videos more and maybe drop the Lockdown-tag for most videos that are a part of a series. I feel like I've missed a lot of content, sadly.

I really like Lockdown, it brings out some of my favourite parts about Giant Bomb that don't really shine through as often in Quick Looks or Unfinisheds. It's nice seeing them go deeper into games rather than just showing off a vertical slice, and it's also nice to see them talk more casually, joke around and discover stuff. Quick Looks have their purpose, but I personally don't enjoy it when they go too heavy into explaining systems and showing off menues. I feel like some Quick Looks start with a good twenty minutes of just menues and explanations when I'd rather they just play the game and talk with eachother or chat, and explain things as they come up in gameplay.

I miss some of their weirder content like Steal Your Sunshine or Mario Party Party though, but that can't be helped what with the pandemic and all.

So happy 4th of July to Americans if you celebrate that. First of all I really enjoy the cross coast Hotspot and Astroneer content so I'm selfishly happy that that became a feature.

I'm not going to tell the crew how to do their jobs but after hearing Vinny being frayed on the latest Beastcast and Abby taking time off, I think they should scale back for a few weeks to the predetermined features only (regular podcasts and features based on specific games). They set the bar really high and it might suck having to admit it was too much but noone wins if anyone on the crew taps out due to being overworked.

Hope people get to take some time off even if it's just to read a book or go for a walk. Vacation from work might not be available to all Americans as necessary but you should do it if you can, just to remind you that you are worth more than your job alone or your last paycheck.

I was talking about this with my friends recently. There's a serious culture of overwork in North America, even in Canada where I live. A couple of weeks ago we were slammed at work and had to stay an extra hour-ish, and I expressed in a bit of exasperation that I was just looking forward to going home. I was met with hostility, the general sentiment being "so what, so you can play a game or read a book?" as if that wasn't a valid desire, as if just by virtue of being not-job, these other activities were somehow less important.

Yes, Chad, I want to go home and enjoy myself, instead of working to make money to pay for my bed so I can get rest before working some more. I want to, ya know, enjoy my life.

This is a long-winded way of agreeing with you whole-heartedly. Work culture sucks, having to crunch sucks, being made to feel like an extension of a company or an audience's will for their profit or enjoyment sucks. Everyone deserves at least an entire month per year off, and I suspect that many aren't allowed to have that because having that amount of personal time is a literal revelation.

Take a break, y'all. Giant Bomb, you're doing great. Stay healthy, stay happy.

The Hotspot is the best thing the staff has produced in along time. However I don't want the content to come at the expense of their mental health. If they need a break then they should take it.

Other than podcasts I haven't been watching much. Nothing against them, at all, it's just that part of what I enjoy is the chemistry between everyone while playing a game. Particularly UPFs where someone brings a game that no one has played or seen, even if it's bad.

Again, nothing against the crew, I have been enjoying a stream here and there, but what I enjoy most about Giant Bomb is hard to replicate remotely.

Think it started off strong with a bit more variety. A lot it it my disinterest in games like Astroneer and Minecraft which i personally just don't enjoy watching or playing.

But i still get the podcasts and a few good streams here and there, so that's fine with me. I will be happy to see when they return to the studios. Just a better dynamic when they are together.

It has definitely grown on me and now that my premium has run out for the first time since subscriptions launched I miss it. Jan is killing it with his bloodborne streams!

@thesquarepear: Agreed. There's so much content at this point that the only people that can follow it must be a small percentage of the audience. If they dial it back a bit, I would HOPE that the most diegard gamefans would understand.

If Vinny can take a full hour for lunch to relax a bit, I'm more than happy to sacrifice some video game streams. They do seem frayed, and we're all on edge a bit with everything going on. No need to add additional work stress on top of the general state of things. I know that sometimes working from home can lead to an unhealthy work/life balance, but sometimes you gotta go for a walk or something to clear your head.

And if management is telling them to overwork themselves, then something's wrong.