What’s your favorite Giant Bomb era?

I've been following the site since 2012. Gotta be 2014-2020. Was great with all the new hires - they were all fantastic imo. I'm currently optimistic for the site. I like a lot of the new content, and I think once the main roster gets filled out to do the standard game stuff, I'll be stoked with it again.

Excellent write-up! I've been a fan of the crew since the GameSpot days and my favorite era was the Whiskey Media time. The vibe that their offices seemed to have from the outside looking in felt so dope. Just a big open area with everyone working on their stuff, but still leaving the door open for random shit to happen. Like Ryan listening to Buckner & Garcia's latest jam, Brad running around with StarCraft 2, or anyone in the office randomly answering the Big Red Phone and talking to a random user for X amount of minutes.

That whole energy was great and, since I was in college at the time, I remember fantasizing man, what if I get to work there one day? Like within that whole squad in that area? I don't know. That was really a special time.

@myke_tuna:

Thank you :) While I personally picked Austin era because I'm just a huge fan and there were so much good stuff being produced on both coasts, I get what you mean.

Whiskey Media era in the basement office really had a special feeling of anything can happen. There were a lot of diffent people in the office and it felt like cool people could drop in on videos any time. The was just a real free spirit to the whole thing, that definitely lessened after the sale to CBS.

I loved TNT and having Dave for Random PC Games was the best. Tested's influence on the site was also fun, lots of Starcraft, TF2 and Minecraft.

I love the early UPF era to this day, there is some pure gold in that first half of 2013.

But Austin coming to GBeast and the prime of this past era with Jeff/Jason/Brad/Jan/Ben and Vinny/Alex/Dan/Abby are also phenomenal.

OG and Whiskey Media Premium eras, for sure. Early Ryckert is a close second though.

Whiskey basement era. Not to poop on the other ones, but it was cool to have a big office full of people from a bunch of sites interacting. It felt like a little village on the internet.

When I think of that time, I think of Brad getting Starcraft 2 and running around with pure glee.

Probably the era of the Beast Cast just after Dan joined, but before Abby did

It was sensational

To be honest, I don't have a favorite.

I got into the site around the console launches of the PS4, and thanks to having a job I could listen to podcasts all day long at the time (and I was just getting into podcasts through that job, so I didn't have a huge roster to pull from) I wound up spending a lot of that time listening to old Bombcast episodes chronologically, then going home and watching the Quick Looks or premium features from the same time as the episodes I'd heard that day.

So for me, 2008-2014 is one huge blur as I was listening to contemporaneous and historical episodes at the same time while also experiencing current and old video features concurrently. I just can't separate any of that content from each other, which makes 2013-2015 probably the most excited I was about the site, and without that experience I probably wouldn't have continued to fight to make room for it in my life the way I have.

That being said, I don't think Giant Bomb will ever recreate the pure giddiness I felt when the first Demo Derby feature dropped. Only the first Game Tapes came close for me. I've said it multiple times here and on the subreddit, but if Giant Bomb had become nothing but Demo Derby and Game Tapes for the rest of its existence I would have been paying for the absolute best video game website in the world. I really, really miss those features.

I would say Whiskey Media premium and early CBS rolled in to one honestly, but I voted for Whiskey Media premium which edges out the win just barely. I have really enjoyed the entirety of time the site has been around, but in those days I never missed any videos.

I like all of them but I find I go back to GBeast content the most, no matter which era of it. All of the GBeast content from when it started until the pandemic always had a certain atmosphere to it that was amazing. I've been watching all the GBeast Playdates again while I play Factorio and there's something very... comfy???... about them. No matter what they did, they always seemed to have a good time and struck the right tone with humour.

Those original 2008-2010 videos will always be special though.

Whiskey up until Dan left. The rest has been a slow decline for me.

unlike alot of ppl here i didn't start coming here till after dan came over and patrick had just left , so my favorite timeframe was from then till austin leaving , i liked how dan meshed with the west coast crew more tho he was still great over east too, but nothing like austin's discussions with vinny. its not that abby ben jan joining era was bad so much as abby and ben's humor never really clicked with me , she was still great anyway tho with the rest of the guys helping balance it out but ben i didn't warm up to till just before he left but i skipped alot of stuff i just didn't care about from west coast during his time there which is why i didn't really notice how good jan is till more recently since idc enough about pokemon or kingdom hearts to watch those things having played them plenty myself.

but my vote goes to Austin joins, GBeast finds its groove era cause it was my favorite mix of staff( personality distribution/balance wise) and content.

I spent the majority of my time here in 2008-2010, when I was still a teen and had ample time to edit the wiki (remember that being a thing) and keep up with all the videos, reviews and bombcasts. Randomly watching the mario party party videos on youtube in 2018 got me back into the site, but mostly to work my way through the bombcast backlog from the very beginning and to dig into some of the video content I had missed like game tapes, breaking brad and demo derby.

I would say 2008-2013 is perfect giant bomb for me, that core of jeff, ryan, brad and vinny is untouchable. The middle part of the 2010s post ryan davis still seems to have some good content, but the past couple years feel like diminishing returns and the one-two punch of covid forcing all of the content to be done remotely and then the brad and vinny exit has utterly destroyed my interest in the site. Jeff is my favorite personality in the industry so I'll still be intrigued in stuff like garage talk, but motherfuck the rest of the garbage this site is producing.

Nice write-up, I appreciate the loose summaries you did - it really reminded me that each era had something really special about it that I look on fondly. I've been a fan of the site since the start in '08 and I love every era, but if I had to pick one (which is really tough) it's gotta be Austin Joins and GBeast finds it's groove. It was a long time coming and even though they were cramped in that little studio, it felt like such a triumph for them to be firing on all cylinders with the west coast half of the site. There was a sense of growth and expanded reach that the site had that was really great to see after what appeared (at least as a viewer) to be tough times for some at the site. GOTY, Pax, and E3 felt really significant with both coasts joining up, it had that extra reunion sauce to go atop the already great content.

Also let's not forget...that era included June 2016 which was WEED3 lol. That was a great E3 and the Giantbomb at Nite interviews were just incredible

I haven't been around as long as some of you guys. I started really getting into Giant Bomb while Dan was there, but he didn't just join. I never got to experience much of Austin, Patrick, or the really OG days at all including Ryan, which I feel like I missed out on judging by how much people love those old days. So basically my whole Giant Bomb history has been 2016 onward. I guarantee I'm biased by when I joined, but Jeff Bakalar with the GBeast crew was always awesome and I really loved the energy Abby and Ben brought to each coast. I picked my favorite as Young Blood era because of that, but honestly I've loved all their content from 2016 forward because that's when Giant Bomb came into my life in a major way so I could totally pick all of them from then on and it would be satisfying. The only one I'm iffy on was 2020 and recently, although I don't really blame them as there were such huge changes. COVID obviously, but also major departures one after the other and then a regrouping now in 2021. I'm hopeful for GB's future as I really like a few of the new shows, and I'm gladly enjoying their old content too. I'm just now finishing Steal my Sunshine and I love the energy the East Coast had. I really miss it a lot and Dan Ryckert leaving hit me really hard since that was the first departure in my history with watching Giant Bomb.

I really need to go back and watch older GB stuff. I've heard so much good about them, but I've only really seen highlights of it from popular clips on YouTube or the Best Of videos.

Era of the Big Live Live Show Live.

I mean I guess Whiskey Premium/Early CBS for largely the same reason, before various site and staff splits happen due to folks moving when everyone related to the site is available to be in the same room.

That said I do think GBeast at its Maximum Power produced some of the best videos on the site.

I do miss the Sausalito office, but I really liked all of the Whiskey family coming together for the Happy Hour episodes.

Impossible to say as there are things to love of each era. The worst era by far were the months after Ryan's passing which is pretty understandable. The thing is, is that I started watching Breaking Brad last year and discovered a lot the great ones are from that time. I really loved those chill streams with Brad, Rorie and Vinny. Original era is amazing though. I rewatched Deadly Premonition series last year and that's still a lot of fun. Then you have all the vlogs, FMVinny, Old PC Game streams with Dave, and so much other good stuff like the Mortal Kombat tournament with staff which would just never happen now. GB is a good site...

As far as Bombcast though, those first years were amazing and never the same after. Not only Ryan and Vinny but Jeff was absolutely nuts back then. The whole eshop thing was amazing. I should relisten to some of those sometime.

While I visited teh site when it debuted I really was not hooked or even interested in GB until a few months in. I've said this before, but I was not really a fan of Jeff and Ryan at the start.

When Jeff was fired it was big news in the industry, but I had not been a consumer of Game Spot at that time, so I had no clue who he was or what his writing orn on screen personal was. At that time the last breath was being wheezing out of 1UP.com and i was looking for a new gaming website to frequent. Before that I had been hanging around UGO websites and before that Nextgen.com in the late 90s. In the early 90s the first video game website I frequented was www.playstationgallleria.com; this is a site long forgotten and lost to history.

Thus, when I hear that Jeff was fired over a review, I watch they story develop and likely when 1UP said "Oh, they have a website", is when I looked that Giant Bomb. And, what I see is a Jeff being a snarky guy, and was likely being more ironicly snarky in retrospect. But my first impress of Jeff is, "Wow, what a dude-bro ass!" LOL! Eventually, I figured out that Jeff in many cases is being extremely ironic. So, while I was aware of the site from nearly the very start; I was not a huge fan until a few month in.

"Young Blood Era" has probably been my favorite.

13 Deadly Sims, Burgle My Bananas, Ranking of Fighters, All Systems Goku, Clue Crew, Get On My Level, Mass Alex, Million Dollar Abby, Die Another Friday, Beast in the East, and Six Crazy Frights. Ben and Abby were good additions to the site, and Dan continued to bring a welcome energy.

Which means next on my list is when Dan had just joined and they were getting into Mario Party games and such. GB Makes Mario, Metal Gear Scanlon, Demo Tapes, and just the nonsense that Dan brought to the site in general. And just roll that into the next two eras, I'm a Drew and Austin fan too.

Overall I like it all, but I guess those would be my favorite time periods in general.

Dan was the best thing to happen to GB in the wake of the worst thing happening. Metal gear scanlon got me to become a premium subscriber and I will be one until the site goes dark. I watch it once every couple years. Jason and Dan saved the site. I Still miss his contributions to this day.

I also desperately miss the business Dave top 10. That was my highlight from the last era of the bomb.

Original era, my pick, came along at such a great time for me. It got me through grad school, and I was happy to follow Jeff post Gamespot. I really loved Metal Gear Scanlon, that was a good time as well. It’s all been good. Looking back on Giant Bomb is like looking back on the end of my youth. Fond memories that now make me feel old.

Thanks for putting that list together. It was nice and descriptive and brought back some fun memories of watching the content. Really makes you realize how Covid threw such a huge wrench into the system and changed everything up. Some for the good some for the bad.

My favorite years that I fondly look back on were from the very beginning till the end of the Whiskey Media partnership. Fun times watching the guys play snes games for hours with Tested and celebrating the Xboxalypse playing Halo 2 while singing Hello, Goodbye with lyrical changes.

OG and the early Whiskey Media/Premium days are the highlight for me. That lined up with the end of school/start of university for me so I had nothing but time to play games and watch content.

It sort of felt like anything was possible with the website.

I think Giant Bomb is like Mario Kart - your first Giant Bomb is your favourite Giant Bomb. :)

i think this is probably pretty close to true i mean while i started coming just before austin after dan i really started actively paying alot more attention vs just here n there , i think i missed half? of dan's first yr if i had to guess

Looking back the most fun was when Austin Joined GBeast and they started exploring new types of games and content.

Young Blood era was peak GB for me. The list is missing "Ranking of Fighters" for that era and I think it's worth the mention.

Everything until 2020 on. It's been awful this year and seems no signs of improving. It's barren. Hardly any gaming stuff. What is there is YouTube stuff you can get anywhere for free. Just feels like no one cares anymore.

I loved the Original Era, and it got my vote. To this day the Persona 4 Endurance Run is my favorite video series on the internet, and so many of the best Quick Looks are also from this era (the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince one is my personal favorite). The Wiki was also in full swing, and you can tell it's fallen into disrepair since then, as many, many articles need updating.

That said, late Whiskey Media era/early CBS with Drew/Patrick, early Ryckert, Austin at GBEast, and late-Ryckert GBEast gave us some good stuff too. I really enjoyed Metal Gear Scanlon, Beast in the East, Kerbal Space Program, Breaking Brad, Steal My Sunshine, Mario Party Party, and these sorts of long-form videos with wacky, weird and interesting games and/or rules.

I still appear occasionally on GB but I almost never watch anything they put out anymore, and haven't for quite awhile.

@ryudo said:

Vinny, Brad and Alex leaving killed Giant Bomb. Now it's decomposing. Hopefully it stays just for the tons of great videos, like a VOD service or something. I'd hate to lose all of those great moments.

I loved almost everything here but 2015 and forward was amazing!
Vinnyvania, This is the run, Steal my sunshine, X-com and so much else! The playdates were amazing and the guests of the time were all people I liked.

Hoping for more game stuff in the future but not really feeling this era yet.

I honestly can't pick one, I've been watching since the Gamespot days and I've loved at least aspects of every era ever since. I do find it a bit harder to go back to some older stuff, both from a production standpoint things being a bit rougher and the culture of the site had a lot of growing up to do. But at the same time I fairly regularly will go back and watch stuff like that non-archived last stream of 2012 of Jeff and Ryan going through a ton of famicom tapes, and of course stuff like Endless Ocean Blue World or Crash Time. I had a bit of a lull in really following GB after Austin left, but I can find plenty of things from that time period to still watch and enjoy. Hitsmas, Beast in the East, and as a Shenmue fan I do go back and watch that Endurance Run of the honestly-not-great first game. And the more recent years have been incredible, Jan is an absolute treasure.

That said, there is no way I wasn't going to pick the 2015-2016 era because Project BEAST is the greatest drama in human history.

Edit: I'll also just say that, having been here the entire time, there has literally not once in this site's history where people haven't said "this new person is terrible, they're ruining the site, I can't believe the new direction things are going in" and I find it incredibly funny that almost every single time, after about three or four years, it then becomes "that era of Giant Bomb was incredible, but this new one is awful." Everyone is going to have their own tastes, but jesus christ the way people expect the folks who work here to perform the same dance over and over for their entire lives with no changes whatsoever is baffling to me.

Around the time Steal My Sunshine was happening is the era I look back at most fondly, but am still really enjoying the site and the crew.

From best to worst:

1. Whiskey Media Premium

2. Early CBS

3. Early Ryckert

4. Original Era

5. Passing of Ryan

6. Austin joins

7. Ryckert joins GBeast

8. Young blood

9. Covid

Web Site about videogames ???? Where ? Videogame web sites are for boomers.

Wait. Wasn’t Ben born in October 1989? If this is true, that would make him only marginally younger than Dan (1984), Patrick (1985), and practically the same age as Drew (1986). Also, at the time of his instatement in may of 2017, it would make him older than Brad was when he joined in 2008. I don’t see much of an age difference here sir. So, I reject your assertion that he is somehow much younger than the others, especially Dan and up. Also, I reject your assertion that he was even younger than GB’s average hirees at the time they were hired. Sure, Ben was 28 or so just like Brad, but Patrick was 25 or had just turned 26 when he was hired, Dan was 28 too, and Drew was just 22. In fact Patrick and certainly Drew could have gone to the same High School at the same time as Ben had they lived in the same school district. Sure they would have been upperclass men and Ben would have been an underclass men, but then you are really just splitting hairs. Also, Abby and Jan might be a bit younger, but everybody past and present on GiantBomb, even Jeff (1975) are in the same generation. They are not boomers like our parents.

Sorry for the rant, but this false “young blood/too young” theory that Abby and Jan are somehow in a future generation Z has been kicking along for far to long, and, frankly, it is starting to sound disrespectful.

I loved the original and whiskey media era, as well as the very early cbs days, say up to 2012. My highlights were the bombast of course, the P4 and DP endurance runs, the birth of the quick look, especially the Killzone 2 wack a thon early quick look ( when they drew most of it), and Alex joining.

I've been re-listening to the Beastcast from episode 1, and man - Austin is fucking S-tier.

Dude brought humor, insight, improv, chemistry, kick-ass GOTY arguments - you name it.

The chemistry between Vinny and Austin was goddamn perfect. Although it felt bad when he left, the Beastcast era with Abby and Dan is a close second to the Austin-era for me.

Man, I miss the Beastcast so much.