Will there ever be a weekly non-premium live stream again?

I'm just wondering how non-premium members feel about the amount of live streams they get.

• As TNT is dead
• That Giantbomb/Gamespot show isn't coming back
• Daily DOTA is now when Brad Feels Like it DOTA

Nope, never again for the rest of eternity...

Abandon all hope ye who don't subscribe here.

Yeah I feel you guys about not getting any free streams. They should just let unprofessional Fridays be free since it's really hit or miss a lot of the time (mostly misses).

God I want that wednesday show back

I will be picking up a sub soon but i always welcome new content!

The Wednesday show was basically like Unprofessional Fridays, except it was, well, professional. It reminded me a lot of Gamespot's On The Spot that Jeff and Rich ran. They'd take a look at some of the new games, talk about them a bit and then move on to the next new one. I feel they should bring back Thursday Night Throwdown since they can focus on one game and play with the community (that's what everyone liked about it, right? Playing with the staff?)

Unprofessional Fridays have also been, like someone said in this thread, a hit or miss but mostly miss. Vinny's FMV corner thing was entertaining for a bit but it quickly got old for me. Drew would show some neat games every now and then but the games he's shown have also been more miss than hit. The best streams for subs so far are Load Your Last Souls and the Pathfinder stream. Everything else is pretty much up in the air in that nothing else that's scheduled is that fun to watch. Actually, Spookin' with Scoops is good, but everything else is pretty random in that they'll just happen a few days in advance.

Never Coming back

To answer the question in the title, no idea. Wish I knew but I don't work there.
The good question however is, yeah, what do nonsubs think about the lack of free streams?
I know there's other free content (videos as well as written stuff and the podcast) but still.

Maybe? I've got ideas as to what they could do (simple easy to set up and upload) but I ain't in charge.

Man, this thread sort of bums me out. It made me realize giantbomb is like 3 things for me now: bombcast, quicklooks and forums. My reasons for visiting the website are getting smaller by the day.

• Bombcast is still awesome and always on point. No complaints there.
• The video player on giantbomb is completely useless. It simply does not work. All other video services online (firefox btw) work just fine. It's good most QLs are on youtube but man, why even come to giantbomb if I can just subscribe on youtube?
• Notifications and messages are broken too. This makes coming to the forums pretty lame too.

So yeah, all that along with no BLLSL, premium stuff that doesn't interest me and no talk about their plans for the release of new consoles just makes me question what the future of GB really is.

Feel free to tell me, but I won't get your response because....well the notifications aren't working....

@vinny_says: Double check the notification settings on your settings page. I've had notifications working consistently for about three weeks now.

@vinny_says: What sort of plans for the release of the new consoles do you wanna hear about though? "Guys, don't worry, we will still be doing Quick Looks when the new consoles come out. And yes, obviously shenanigans during the launch of these platforms" or something like that?
Or do you mean like, if they have specific features planned out for them like "Which falls faster from a tall building, PS4 or Xbox One" ?

That last one would be fun actually.

Nope. I am loving this. Us premium subscribers went a long time without any decent premium content. Now, we are finally getting a ton of it. Let us have our fun!

Honestly, aside from the podcast, GB now for the most part is all business. The spark that is the original site is in the subscriber content. It was all to clear when my silver membership occasionally ran out (as in dirt poorness). The friday show, spookin with scoops, the breaking brads and Vinny old school games. Wow, I just realized they each have a type of game they always play, Jeff is the only one who doesn't (aside from Jars, which is not actively playing games). But, I will not hold this against Jeff, since he does enough stuff randomly.

CBSi is probably aware of what is and isn't making them money.(Subscriptions are what interested them in the first place, right?) I'm guessing if they could get sponsorship for live streams, then they would do more free videos.

I guess I could see that, and yeah, I might not be missing the spark as much because I always have all that Subscriber content to look at as well and never really think about it as much.
I hope something at least comes up for free members though. Wouldn't want it ending up like a terrible mobile game or something.
"Oh you wanna write a comment? sign up for a subscribtion or pay 5 dollar for one comment"
"You wanna type the letter A? Sign up for a subcribtion or pay 1 dollar per letter"

I kinda doubt it. I mean, I don't think that TNT is returning, at least not as a weekly thing. Any time they do some stream that's free, it's a one time deal, like that GTA Online and Windjammers thing (that was free, right?). And aside from the Bombastica thing (which, really, is just the return of the Quick Look Throwback under a new name), I'm pretty sure that all the new features (not counting the now defunct Wednesday show) they've created since the implementation of the premium thing have been subscriber only, and that's what they're going to keep doing.

I think.

@mooseymcman:

Bombin' the A.M. is free.

@dallas_raines: Ah, right! I forget, given that I only ever watch the archives of that, and I am premium.

I miss Mondays.

We all do.

:_(

So if the BLLSL isn't happening, does that mean the membership sale that usually happens during it won't happen as well? That's usually when I would resubscribe. And yeah, in the month or so I've been non-premium it has finally dawned on me that pretty much every stream/video feature is premium. Feelin' kinda left out in the dark, but hey, I guess that's the point.

Isn't bombin in the am free?

I mean, a lot of people were complaining for a while about how the premium members weren't getting anything, so we can't exactly complain about them getting stuff now. And the staff are sort of constantly rejiggering what they put out anyway, so I'm happy to just see what they come up with, so long as quick looks and podcasts remain. Like, Guns of Navarro is gone, but now we have the Morning Dump show (yes that's what I still call it) so it all works out.

(Also, while livestreams are fun, they are also a dangerous time-sink and it's probably healthier for me to not spend all week watching them).

Totally. I don't regret becoming a subscriber, but I haven't actually felt like I was getting my money's worth until fairly recently.

I miss Mondays and mailbags the most. :(

Souls, Unplugged, Unprofessional and Spooking now going on it almost feels like content overload right now. I'm very happy.

Those are all premium shows though.

Yes. It already exists.

They usually have weekly Quick Looks, that helps right? :P

As for Bombin' the AM; it's neat that at least Patrick & Alex are doing something but at this point I feel I see Patrick's face more than any other on this site. And while I've never been unsubscribed I can only imagine the two people you get to know from videos would mainly be those two, which is weird to me since they've basically become 'the outsiders' yet to people who don't subscribe Patrick might seem like the only active person with a face attached. At least it's a pretty face!

It might be nice if Giantbomb made older premium shows free; maybe make the live broadcast premium and then have the archived version available to everyone. And if not instantly, maybe have it viewable by all after a week? Then again I vaguely remember it being mentioned that this was impossible for some monetary reason.

Anyway, what was the question.. uh.. Oh yeah, I don't know if there will be another free weekly show, but I certainly hope so. I won't ever stop my subscription but in the interest of keeping peoples' interest or bringing more people to the site, more weekly routine shows might help.

I don't mind. At this point, all I care about is the Bombcast and the occasional Quicklook.

Patrick does a lot of interviews. You should check those out.

Suck it up, look under the couch, pay them their 50 bucks. I would too, I just don't have time to consume so much content.

Doubt it.

₲฿ is all about dat paper.

I don't really see the point, unless they see a drop in viewership because of the lack there of. Other than that, they are a business, and businesses want to make money. To satisfy people with free-content only leads to the cluster-f*** nature of "f2p" games where only 3% of the consuming party throw money at it.

I get the feeling that the people who are suggesting Patrick interviews as a substitute for the crew playing games on the couch don't really "get" what makes this site special.

I don't really mind on the whole. Quick Looks keep me satisfied.

I am happy that the subscribers are finally getting weekly content, though to me it feels as if they may have gone too far in the other direction. It's isn't super inviting when you look at the "Coming Soon" section and like 75% of it is routinely things I can't watch.

The bandwidth on that much archived video would be pretty rough on them. I think Roosterteeth (the makers of Red vs Blue) does almost the opposite. Their members get access to the whole archive, but nonpaying folks only get access to a rolling set of videos that changes at some interval, as well as the most recent season a few days after the supporters. Something like that might work here.

I do miss the dota. But then again, load your last souls is simply the best thing ever soooo...You win some you lose some.

I actually really like the sound of that. There's enough of a backlog now that it could totally work.

That's not what Vinny would say! You are an impostor!

They should just make UPF free once every month or so. I don't care though, I'm a richsubscriber.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I want to say Worth Playing is also free. I think the question is valid in the sense that it's addressing that something was there for free that is not anymore as opposed to simply adding subscriber features on top of what was already being done. I hate to say it but I also think one less staff member is making it harder to offload things; also Ryan's passing did have an appreciable affect on the direction of the site in terms of exploring stuff more loosely and personal to them.

Although I guess it does say something that I find it surprising not to see that emblem underneath the avatar.

Bombin' the A.M. in my opinion is one of the best features on the site. Two a week and free.

I don't think we have any immediate plans for a recurring weekly free stream, but I have a feeling that there'll be a few longer-form streams around when the consoles are coming out. Maybe if we get some more people on board we can look into doing something, though.

@somberowl:

Definitely and it's nice that we little guys have that at least. But yeah, it does seem like the trend has been towards less free content and a lot more premium content. As a fan who used to enjoy the fairly regular streams it is sort of a bummer that the main office is basically subscriber only now.