Why is this site called Giant Bomb?

Title says it all.

I've been coming here for years now(lurking, had an account only a few months or so) and it just dawned on me that I haven't the slightest clue why this video game website is called Giant Bomb. Don't get me wrong, the name is great! But what does it have to do with video games? Is it an inside joke? Jeff doesn't really seem like someone who would do something without meaning...

I NEED ANSWERS DAMN IT!

They were spitballing names and registering dozens of URLs before the site was announced. As great as suggestions like videogamemountain.com, snakesnakesnake.com and thwomp.com were, giantbomb.com won out.

They discuss it on a podcast. A very early bombcast. I don't remember the date, but I know it was just Jeff, Dave Snider and Alex (long before Alex actually joined the site) because everyone else was out of town. Maybe someone can track it down based on that information.

They reiterated it during or just after the Ryan memorial podcast too. As I recall it they didn't want to have a name with "game" or anything like that in the title, just something evoking video game imagery.

Giant Bomb does evoke stuff like the big bomb boss in Mario 64 (and other Mario games), so I guess it was vaguely referential in the way they wanted.

always loved snakessnakessnakes ! They've also discussed more recently than that early bombcast I feel like.

@mattyftm: I listened to this not that long ago.

linky

Thanks for all the help duders! This site is leaps and bounds better than any other gaming site I've been apart of!

Because that way if someone asks how their website is going, they can say "It's blowing up!"

Because of Hamburgers son. lol

Greg Kasavin said it on a video once and the rest is history.

At least, that's what the conspiracy theorists would have you believe.

They chose the name so that you would get looks from TSA employees whenever you wear one of their t-shirts in an airport.

Needed to be catchy and memorable too, which is what the name is.

I thought it was so when they were building the website, they could say "We're building a Giant Bomb".

@flarephoenix: Dunno if you were referencing this or joking, but they did a video series called "Building a Bomb" where they showed the behind the scenes stuff of getting the site up and running. The recent videos Vinny and Alex did for showing off the new office were a callback to those very early Giantbomb videos.

Also, in one of those videos, Jeff explains the origin of the name. A lot of it had to do with the names they wanted all having been taken. People basically buy URL's they think people would want and then sell it to them for thousands of dollars at the point they actually want it. Since no one thought someone would actually want a website called Giant Bomb, no one owned the URL so they were able to get it for cheap.

Yeah, I've worn a sweatshirt in public a couple of times, and I had an older lady say, "Giant what? Giant Bomb? Is that some sort of... what is that?"

Because real terrorists advertise.

Ctrl+f thwomp.com

Good

Wasn't it "thwomped"?

Oh, I thought it was a reference to Tony Hawk Underground 2

I thought it was cocainemountain.com

Because Giantbomb, apply directly to the forehead. Giantbomb, apply directly to the forehead. Giantbomb, apply directly to the forehead.

They really ought to make a Video Game Mountain shirt; I'd buy that.

Sorry for bumping this thread but I wanted to add that I always thought it was a play off nuke.com which was the evil website in the Time Trotters series.

Nuke.com still redirects to Gamespot to this day.

Odds that's a Robocop reference?