With Patrick moving, the crew needs to step up their game.

I really do think simple communication on the website itself would quell things a lot. Like I said earlier in the thread, it really says something rotten about your site when the best communication we can find is an outside source like tumblr or twitter. Try communicating with your community on the website that you run why don't you? I think you'll find that would lower people's dissatisfaction with the site, or at least there would be a mutual understanding and patience. As it stands, we know nothing, are told nothing, and must simply speculate. But eventually we run out of excuses to tell ourselves like E3 prep, babies, PAX prep, moving into a new office. Eventually we run out of excuses and we simply have to ask, sometimes in a loud frustrated scream.

I'm not saying we deserve answers. But a simple acknowledgement, a simple "we understand your concerns, but we have lots of duties to fulfill that may not be apparent up front. We're continuing to try and find awesome ways to provide content, but this stuff takes time." I, personally, don't need specifics, just acknowledgement that we are being heard and not dismissed as rabble.

It's not slightly similar. Bradley May Cry or BioForge are "Endurance Runs" just put behind a paywall.

I see no problem calling out the bombcrew over stuff. But it does feel like bad form to bring up their personal business, no matter if they put it out there or not. They put it out there cause they trust us and think we're cool enough that they put that shit out there. To take that trust and turn it against them just seems...wrong. I will never begrudge any of them for slowing down for weddings, babies, family deaths, or any major personal stuff like that. That's their personal shit and I'm not going to tell them how to live their personal life. If Ryan and his future wife want to meticulously plan out their wedding and put it ahead of the job, I can't blame them. It's a special day that comes once in a life time (hopefully).

Hey duders, you can be afraid of things that haven't happened yet, but let's keep it civil. No need to be dicks to one another or the staff.

Giant Bomb will survive as long as we believe.

Or as long as CBSi wants it to.

CBSi could kill what we now know as Giant Bomb and they'd still exist as long as we believe in them!

Giant Bomb...

@wjb said:

So. Much. This.

I've been increasingly amazed with how downright perverse the reaction to content requests has gotten. "If we make them do more content, they'll get angry! We don't want Jeff to be angry! The staff might throw a big fit if we keep asking them to do things!" Like, what? How insane is that conversation? They're grown ass men and providing entertaining content is 80% of their job. Why do we act like if we don't talk real softly around the staff they'll get an upset tummy?

This thread is mostly a lot of people thinking about the future without Patrick in the office anymore, and how the main content providers of this site will pick up the slack in that absence. That's a completely fair question, since Patrick has basically been the engine to half the content on this site and participates in anything he can participate in. He's going to leave a pretty big hole in this site's content output once he leaves for Chicago, and aside from Vinny and Brad, I don't see a lot of content coming from the main staff.

I just don't understand why the discussion around these subjects can't be more mature and accepting of the questions. What is Ryan doing lately, for instance? I understand the sentiment behind not wanting to intrude on the duders personal lives, but it's severely impacted his presence on the site lately and when it reaches that level of inactivity, some sort of explanation is completely fair to ask for. What keeps Jeff from doing more video content? Why can't premium features be more scheduled? What the hell happens to all of these crazy games they get sent and then proceed to do nothing with? Why don't you guys get Rorie in on more content; who the hell cares what he was actually hired for?

This site is still crazy entertaining when it wants to be. The YDKJ TNT and the Bioforge stream were fucking awesome. But questions keep piling up over time that stubbornly refuse to be answered and people in this community treat the staff like they're moody toddlers that can't handle them being asked.This should be the time of year when they are free to do the most time intensive kind of features possible, and instead, Brad plays DOTA and Ryan is... taking a nap somewhere or something.

I love this site, but with all the changes that have occurred over the last year, the acquisition, with Dave leaving, Patrick moving, Ryan getting married, Vinny having a kid.. I have this image of a site that is sort of just bumbling forward just barely keeping its shit together, with members of the staff getting scattered more and more every which way, and all of these things are going to come to a head of some sort if they don't batten down the hatches at a point.

/ramblingramblingrambling

Anyone think they can hire a new person to replace Patrick? Surely, he must be paid less now that he's moving out of the office and working from home, right?

To be fair, endurance runs are daily videos. Or rather weekdaily, while those ones are "whenever we feel like it." Other than that, yeah, it's basically the same thing. But there are only so many ways dudes can record footage of them playing games and talking about it before shit starts to get real similar. Play part of a game? It's a quick look behind a pay wall! What the fuck?! Play most of a game? It's an endurance run behind a pay wall! What the fuck?!

@truthtellah: man, you're good with them gifs, I'll give you that.

Thanks, Pill! I've been seeing more demand for them; so, might as well oblige. :)

Everything is just drying up video game-wise y'all. It's a particularly dry couple of weeks video game releases-wise, and with it being the last of this generation of consoles, there's not a lot they have to work with. Just wait till E3. We'll have TOO much content I bet.

Also, remember when Patrick had a Dishonored Quick Look go up on a Sunday? AND he got a Swery65 interview? That was all him man. He will be missed. Even if I don't particularly find him entertaining, he still actually...worked...a LOT

@minipato: yeah they play and talk about games for a living. Apparently it's a fucking ordeal and a half. You know there are A LOT of people that do back breaking labor all day everyday?

@marokai: yeah without patrick there are soooo many things that would never have happened. Here is your monster hunter coverage ((or anything Japanese)) without patrick. Cut to the last 5 seconds of a "i love monday video." JEFF: monster hunter? -jackoff motion- end of video.

I have no idea what post you are referring to. I have 2 on this page and like 4 in this thread.

I have no worries about the future of the site. I'm more excited for Patrick having more of a writing role, as I feel that's where he shines best. His "enthusiasm" that everyone seems to really respond to has always been interpreted by me as him yelling at me through the mic. I'm glad to have him back on the news desk to bring that dynamic of Giant Bomb back into the spotlight.

I want to add to the support of there being g more scheduled content to look forward to. Features. Scheduled shows that are filled with random are fun but there's a reason that having a known quantity to look forward to is a norm in the entertainment industry. Its nice.

Let's look at Bradley May Cry. Since we know that part of the reason the feature started was the response to his DmC review, it would have been great to know it was coming weekly or biweekly, with a little effort to talk about his feelings on the game being played in relation to his feelings for DmC. That would be focused, coordinated content with the added bonus of GB personality.

The gaming market is dried up right now. I'm playing Ni No Kuni at the moment and after that going back to Skyrim. It's the end of a console generation and frankly the staff is doing grown up shit. It really isn't our business what they do or why they are taking vacations, because every company does that. A lot of them have been taking vacations and you have to figure Ryan and Jeff also do payroll and booth set ups.

I also keep saying it over and over, but what is the deal with Jeff hanging with Sessler all the time lately? It's be awesome if he started guest hosting with Giant Bomb. Who knows, with the end of G4 there is a vacuum there to be filled. Not necessarily television, but a conglomerate site. Jeff can be cynical etc, but he did start a website on his own that survived what other sites can't survive. Hes doing business somewhere.

This place will be fine. I've been following it since its beginning and was never a contributor. I've only recently got the gold due to having extra money laying around. I have to be a demographic that you people weren't considering. I follow the site, but never followed the back room stuff.

@insanegenis: you do know adam has his own site right? Rev3games. Jeff and adam used to work together on gamespot tv.

Where the hell were all of you before he announced his move? Only now do you guys accept that he was more or less the reason we even got Quick Looks while the guys were "busy" during times with "no releases".

Yes so easy. How's the view from mothers basement by the way?

Butt hurt? Hardly. I just see a lot of typical internet man child whining and complaining, about things they know nothing of. Everyone is an expert, everything is simple and easy, etc.

With regards to Patrick leaving (or leaving the office to work from home or whatever): I'll be lying if I said I'm gonna miss his personality, cause frankly I've never been much of a fan. He did become more tolerable over time, more though sheer persistence of him being practically in every piece of content, but I will agree that he did at least put in plenty of work, even if I didn't always care for it, and he seems enthusiastic about what he does.

On the other common theme of this thread: Earlier someone used the terms ''Lazy, cynical and self-centered'' to refer to GB these days, and unfortunately I have to kind of agree with that sentiment. I've been around since the Arrow Pointing Down podcast, and I've loved so much of what these guys have done, with the P4 ER, certain podcasts and QLs, and a few live streams being the highlights. But in the last couple of years I've found myself not enjoying GB as much as I used to.

They definitely still have their moments; they still show enthusiasm for big events like E3 or a console launch, and those scripted videos they did for the GOTY stuff last year were brilliant. But by and large, the main crew just aren't the same as I remember them. Some of it is probably down to them getting older; some of it is down to complacency following the success of the site and therefore not having the hunger of those early days; and some of it is probably down to the changes behind the scenes with the business side of things (CBS, etc.).

Whatever it is though, I think the quality of the Bombcasts and QLs have taken a dramatic turn for the worse in recent times. Listening to them talk about their household appliances or obscure things happening in their particular region of the world for the first hour of the podcast is just not that interesting anymore. There was a novelty to the tangents and free-form nature of the show when they first started, and more importantly, it was almost always funny. These days it just feel extremely self-centered and bloated. And when they do talk about games, there just isn't as much enthusiasm; especially Jeff's ever worsening curmudgeonly nature towards anything that isn't what he already likes. Same with the QLs, where it just feels like they are going through the motions and not really trying to be all that entertaining. And the other content is very hit and miss; they just can't seem to nail any one thing that is of consistent quality, or they just don't follow through on things. Stuff like these Dota streams are not what I'm looking for at all, especially if they are supposed to be primary content and not just a throw-away thing.

Honestly, these days I get most of my games related videos from Youtube, where if you find the right channels you can get increasingly entertaining content released daily. And you don't have to pay a premium fee for it either. I find it quite ridiculous that the GB crew got so uppity about the idea of doing another ER; as if filming your play-through of a videogame to put on the damn internet is that big of a deal these days.

GB used to be the only site I visited for games related content and I use to re-watch most videos multiple times and listen to the podcasts over and over again, cause most of it was just so damn good. But now I'm starting to skip some content and one listen of the podcast feels like more than enough even though I'm only half-listening most of the time; and the only re-watching of videos I do is because of the broken video player forcing me to keep restarting. Look, I know this sounds like I'm just shitting all over GB, but I only feel this strongly about it because I used to fucking love this site a whole lot back in the day. And I still do like plenty about it. I know that Vinny has a kid now and I do appreciate that he continues to bring a lot of the energy despite his personal life concerns. And I like that Drew has been a lot more involved recently and he's been carrying a lot of the production side of things, with Vinny being busy and all. But sadly I just don't see enough from Jeff, Ryan and Brad.

To conclude this pointless rant of no consequence: I know things will most likely pick up around here again soon with E3 and new consoles, etc etc. But even in the absence of those things, putting out regular content and being enthusiastic about a job where you get to play a lot of video games, shouldn't be as hard as these guys sometimes make it look. And If it is, then there must be something going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. Because plenty of people out there are now doing the type of content this site was built on and they are starting to do it even better in some cases; so yeh, as the thread title suggests, I really hope the GB crew step up their game.

Long live GB!

@brendan said:

Yeah, I'd like to see more focused content on the site as well. The site feels a little directionless when the content primarily consists of a smattering of Quick Looks and a few hours of wacky antics via UPF and TNT. I think there's room for more diverse content on the site and it'd be nice to get them more regularly.

I know it's not everyone's favourite feature, but I've actually been enjoying the Daily Dota a lot. It's cool seeing Brad n' pals regularly dig into a game they're fairly deep into on a regular basis and it's gotten me real interested playing it. Having regulars like Kessler and Pascual makes it a lot of fun to watch and a rotating panel of guests would also be real cool, if that ends up working out. It'd be a real bummer if it were to fizzle out the way Bradley May Cry sorta did.

I agree with most everything that you said, but, to be completely fair, Brad playing Dota is fucking awesome. Also, this is the only time of the year in which something like that could ever happen.

Wait, Patrick is moving to Chicago over the rift that formed between him and the rest of the crew over Yoshi's Island? Truly, Yoshi is the destroyer of worlds.

@jz: yes, but isn't he able to work freelance? Jeff was with him on the Bioshock spoiler cast and they went together to Los Angeles last week.

Except for the people who don't give a fuck about MOBAs

Get a fucking gripe, kids! Can you guy PLEASE stop using shit like "having a kid" and "getting married" and "outside work commitments" as an excuse for a (perceived) lack of content? Can you imagine going to work, not doing your job, then going "Well, sorry! I'm getting married," and then keeping your job? I don't believe any of that shit is the case, or that the site is in decline, or that Patrick staying/leaving does anything to the content quality, or that any one member of the crew doesn't pull their weight/is jaded/is dumb, but if you're going to get into these arguments at least use valid arguments that aren't complete fucking nonsense.

@dexterkid: Well, I read your entire rant of no consequence, and I feel basically the exact same on almost all points. The decreased consumption of content especially has dampened my spirits concerning GB. I used to listen to every Bombcast, in its entirety, without fail, and watch almost every single video. Now, I have a buildup of recent podcasts I'll likely never get to, and I essentially skip most of the videos these days. I've noticed this decrease in my enthusiasm for the site slowly progress basically since the CBSi acquisition.

Admittedly, I was all ready to be cynical and lose confidence in the crew's autonomy as a result of the move, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and tried to be optimistic anyway. But despite that, they never really seemed to bounce back completely. It's like the "they're adjusting to the new office" never really ended, not to mention it took them like, what, 8 months to get a damned personal computer to play video games... for their video game website... under a big media corporation with purportedly more resources than WM. Just one small example, but in line with the whole theme as I've seen it since the move.

The truth is, these guys kind of have a fucking dream job, AND a ridiculously loyal and enthusiastic fan base, yet they often come off as if they're just reluctantly, even begrudgingly, going through the motions. I still think they secretly feel burned by Shelby Bonney cashing the fuck out and forcing them to uproot everything and break up their cozy little internet family we all grew to love. Maybe something is going on behind the scenes that's just putting a damper on things. Whatever it is, they certainly don't make it known to us, as is par for the course these days, though. Things seem to just sort of chaotically happen now. And man, with all these recent staff shake ups (of which the only positive is the addition of Rorie), things at GB appear quite unstable and unclear.

@kishinfoulux: Wow personal insults because i said weddings aren't as hard to plan as people make them out to be. And guess what? They aren't that hard to plan, only if you're crazy obsessive about it being absolutely perfect. But you know, just insult me instead, really makes me respect and take you seriously. Real mature.

This so much.

I can't believe people still use the "But they're still settling in!" argument. It's been over a year.

How about we all just calm down and see what happens. The Giant Bomb hasn't exploded yet.

No worries... I laid out complete facts about how things are he resulted to insults for me as well. Look at his post history and you see this is his general attitude. Can't argue with those people.

I haven't seen anyone actually use this excuse not sarcastically for a while, even in this thread.

now, plenty of people are using E3 prep as a reason, which while really fucking dumb at least makes sense if you don't think about it too hard.

I was starting to like him a lot. :(

I think Patrick, Vinny, Jeff, Ryan, Brad, Drew should start a new website call "Little Bomb"

Maybe Patrick is moving back to Shy town to start this secret project!

@themanwithnoplan said:

I agree that many are being a bit rough on the crew, but silence is how things stagnate and/or decline.

One could argue that the only two ways to provide criticism for GB in a way they will hear it are;

• Make lots of noise - be loud and clear, but fair. (like much of this thread)
• Unsubscribe / convince others to unsubscribe as a statement.

I'm not going to do the latter because I love Giant Bomb, and I think things like that are more often than not just stunts or stupid.

If ANYONE can bring to light a way to voice our opinions in a constructive manner and hopefully at least impress upon the staff that we do have concerns, please state it.

We haven't even had a Whiskey Media Radio Show for ages and ages - nor big red phone - so our avenues to provide feedback are hella limited.

What makes things worse is that I am almost certain that the only staff member who seems to be paying attention to stuff like this is @rorie , and none of this stuff is his fault (for lack of a better word).

Take your rationality and get the fuck out of this thread.

Dave left and took the : random pc game feature, the flight club, the radio show, and quicklooks of Russian games with him. Patrick leaves what is he going to take with him?

Sorry I hate to be that guy, but it's actually Chi-town.

Also this is just me, but I wouldn't call any of the GB crew lazy to do things as we don't know 100% of what they do day-to-day.

To single this one part out. Whiskey Media was pretty unsustainable. GB, obviously out of all the 5 websites, was the one bringing in the audience and the one that brought in most subscriptions. All of them were planned to be pretty huge websites and they were. This transition to CBSi probably has so much more going on behind-the-scenes than we could know. One of the cool things about WM was that it was small and family-like and information could be shared a lot more easily. Being owned corporately now, there has to be stuff they can't tell us or it has to wait a lot longer to be told. I also imagine since being corporately-owned Jeff and probably Ryan as well get pulled into meetings a lot more.

What the site does need is something like Radio Dave to happen again. Something that is transparent and lets us know what is happening with the site and whatnot. I wish it was monthly, which I think Radio Dave was supposed to be. Hopefully with the lack of games in summertime and now that they are setup and settled in, they can do this sort of thing and provide more content.

@jz said:

Potentially 30% of all quicklooks, coverage of many more obscure games and a lot of positive perspective on the bombcast / other live shows.

random PC game feature left with Dave?

so what was the bioforge thing?

and the flight club is not here because there aren't any flight sims.

also what was the last "russian" game Dave looked at?

(you should know that most of those games were Ukranian and not that obscure)

@selfconfessedcynic: You make a good point. I agree it's good to voice any ideas or criticism in a constructive way, but It just seems like people are panicking a little too much. Maybe that's justified and I should be more worried than I am. I don't know, but I definitely agree that there's plenty of potential content that's not been taken advantage of in this dry spell.

ily

Wait...

This thread is on page 7.

On page 1 someone posted him denying the move. But on tumblr he's saying he's leaving?

What is going on?

@animasta: bioforge was unpro friday part 2. Wheres the radio show?

I don't know but there are 92 davelooks, which is a hell of a lot more than you'd think.

@barrock said:

A few days before he announced he was leaving, someone managed to weasel their way into getting the information about him leaving before he revealed it. Several days back, the people who heard of that posted here about it (and subsequently got their threads locked, being accused of lying and being crazy people) and someone asked about it on Twitter, Patrick flat-out denied it three days before confirming it.

He probably felt the need to announce it earlier than he planned because it leaked, but basically, it got out before he wanted it to get out, and a bunch of people got accused of lying/trolling, who were actually telling the truth. Patrick announced it in more detailed in the most recent Worth Reading.

@barrock said:

I think @mariachimacabre asked Patrick about that before he announced his departure.

So? by that metric we are losing more with Patrick since he's been in more.

and there is literally no difference between the bioforge thing and, say, the second blade runner thing. Or the sim golf thing. They are all the same goddamn thing, so saying Dave leaving means 'the end' of that segment is either incredibly semantic or really really dumb.

As someone who liked those 'russian' games, I never felt Dave showed them off that well. Patrick works much better as a "this is why this game is cool", whereas Dave's stalker QL for example was terrible with showing off why that game is cool. I love Dave but he's not perfect

and the radio show wasn't on for months before Dave left... and it wasn't that great anyway? the only good one was when Karen was there.