people fear change. i get that, but think of all the good content these guys have done over the years of giantbomb. these are some great journalists who have done more than enough to earn trust and faith in their decisions.

@Jumanji said:

It's also possible that their shares got purchased too... so that flush of optimism may be the flush of "oh my god I just paid off my mortgage if I wanted to ditch this shit tomorrow I could"

Anyone who has been following Gerstmann and company since the Gamespot incident in 2007 should easily be able to tell that all the positive energy in this video is highly exaggerated in order to make us feel more comfortable with the transition. There is no possible way that Jeff Gerstmann is honestly stoked out of his mind to work down the hallway from Gamespot for the same parent company.

All the forced grinning and false optimism simply does not compute when you consider the circumstances surrounding the creation of Giant Bomb and the surprise development at Whiskey Media today.

I'd be a little more optimistic if at some point in the last twenty years of gaming and gaming-related media, there had been an acquisition that turned out well for the group being acquired. However, there hasn't been, and though I like Giant Bomb I don't think they'll be the first to pull off the equivalent of a miracle.

I just took a glance at the GameSpot forums and please, please, keep GB and GS forums separate at the very least.

@sofakingcool: When buyouts happen no one is allowed to tell anyone and only the bare amount of people are given any advance information. Moves are done at the very last minute and as quickly as possible in order to avoid any advance work leaking out.

It's a stockholder thing and when you're dealing with a company like CBS, you kind of just have to roll with it.

Almost as mind-blowing as when Jeff said "Handful of Action" on the bombcast.

Congratulations, Giant Bomb! You guys deserve all the success you get -- love you guys, love the site.

holy mother of gawd... :o congratz

anything to make the site better <3

So wait i'm confused, will Giantbomb still be a separate site or simply a tab on Gamespot? I stopped using Gamespot after you guys left and only venture onto the site for the marathon E3 coverage. I just hope any changes that are made are for the better. Keep it real!

I, for one, do not welcome our new CBS overlords. This is only going to end poorly. You can't immerse yourself into a mass media company next to a bunch of rather crappy/sleezy websites and claim "This time, will be different!" No. Slowly but surely quality, values, and spirit will be eroded. If nothing else, the community will be destroyed as it is forced to merge with Gamespot/GameFAQs disaster of a "community". I don't know what they pitched you guys, but in the end you're just a valuable asset they will manipulate as they see fit now that the deal is done. That value is going to crash once they inevitably infect it with their corporate culture, but by then I'm sure they'll be eying up another site and the cycle will continue.

Sorry, I have zero optimism for this as in my experience there has not been one time when something like this has not ended terribly, even if it takes time to become apparent. GB had a good run, but this is where GB ended.

Something I just thought of... Won't there be competition in the office? I mean, it's two sites serving the exact same type of content. When something big happens, both sites will have a news story. It could become a "My news story got more views than yours" kind of thing. Giant Bomb are cool dudes and won't worry about that stuff too much, but based on my occasional experience with GameSpot some of the guys there are uncool assholes. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a hostile work environment.

@Deusoma said:

@Brighty said:

@acrimsonbullet said:

Everyone that asked the question "how does giant bomb make money?" finally got their answer. They didn't

This, a thousand times this.

Also, ITT: People not understanding the situation, assuming the worst. The massive sense of self-entitlement that some of the more vocal members in this community seem to have is just pathetic, and how quickly they have such a knee-jerk reaction to this without knowing anything else is just depressing. God forbid the GB staff wants to keep doing what they're doing and not have to shut down, God forbid they want to actually turn a profit off their hard work. Do you guys have any idea how the world works? Not everything is about you.

Yeah, you ingrates! Everything is about me!

No, me!

@Still_I_Cry said:

I just took a glance at the GameSpot forums and please, please, keep GB and GS forums separate at the very least.

There's your answer.

Well upon hearing their happiness and thinking about it, some...

It'd be a dumb as shit decision for CBS to change up anything on Giant Bomb. They bought Giant Bomb for what it is, and for what it is, it will stay. If it was any different, people wouldn't like it. I'm okay with this, just keep your GameSpot out of my Giant Bomb. Seriously, I'm being serious.

Seriously.

@Elazul: They won't. Lets hope the G&L of games websites fills the gap and does it better.

@asmo29a said:

Great for the guys I guess, hoping for the best, even though I'm rather sceptical. They've said time and again how great it is to be doing what they're doing specifically because they're such a small group of people, and now it's all "we've got to grow so we can do the things we want". I guess I'll see what happens and maybe I'll like it, but I'm.. sceptical. Pretty much everything I like about the site comes down to them being as small a team as they are.

And come on, don't try to assuage people saying GB is going to stay GB, nothing's going to change in this or that department, bla bla bla - this is a huge change which will necessarily have huge implications on pretty much everything. Which seems to be the intent of this deal.

Much of this seems to contradict what they've said and done before (even though they have apparently wanted to do this for a long time, which I also cannot reconcile). And now they're assuaging/patronizing their customers, talking all businesslike - which is something I thought I would be spared on this site - so I find myself being weirdly disappointed. Maybe I just got the wrong impression. I dunno.

I completely agree with you. The way they justified all of this seems to contradict what I remember hearing in the past. I'm sure that I remember a video once of Mike Tatum and Will where they answered questions from the chat and one of the questions was asking them if they wanted to eventually "get big", and the response was pretty much that they were happy being a medium site because they got to do their own thing and provide original content with a close group of people. I'm sure I've also heard similar repsonses from other Whiskey people throughout the last few years.

As of this morning however, the same point of it being awesome because they can do what they do is apparently not because they are smaller than other sites but because they've been brought by a bigger company and now have more money and resources to create original content. It is a contradiction of sorts, even though I cannot really disagree with either viewpoint. But it's the fact that they also said this has been the plan for a while that kind of disappointed me as someone who respected the whole team for being fairly open about the events that go on with the company, even though I acknowledge that they do not have to do this at all, and also there are many business decisions that dictate what we can be told and when.

In summary, today's event felt to me at least a little strange considering their past opinions on what made Giant Bomb and the fans awesome, but I absolutely love the guys so much for bringing us all awesome content over the years and I am so glad that Giant Bomb will continue the way that they want it to, at least for the foreseeable future.

@MN_MiRajan said:

@Redbullet685 said:

After watching the video, I think that this is actually a good idea. Really excited to see what they'll do with the virtual set. Also, the live stream later about the Gerstmann-gate thing will be awesome.

Gerstmann-gate!!!! awesome name for it!!

Yeah, it is. I didn't come up with it though. Just look it up on google. Its been the name for it since it happened in 2007.

This makes me smile:

@WouldYouKindly: They're completely separate, they just have the same "boss". I think they're in the same offices as well, but I don't know.

I spent a few years on th GS boards. Some decent folks, but for fuck's sake, don't EVER compromise and merge these forums with that. It's almost as bad as IGN's boards.

@Brighty: What's with all the lazy "grow up" rambling? During my process of aging I learned my preferences. Giantbomb was nearly perfectly atuned to my gaming coverage and entertainment needs. Literally no other site I know of does what these guys did in the past years, or come even closse. Davison frequently does the opposite of what I find compelling. So does Gamespot. And CBS. The inevitable changes that will be coming have a high chance of being very disappointing to me. Thus, I wrote a very skeptic reply to this announcement - making specifically sure to mention my belief in the duders continued integrity.

Now along comes you, insulting my "boring life" because my favorite website struggles to stay afloat without becoming a corporate website again and I'm worried about their future. You see, I have mad respect for Jeff, Ryan and the rest of the team and will be grateful for years of entertainment even if they grow to big for me to like now. I don't however respect a single thing about you. You're just another random hater so fuck off and quit forcing your random concept of adulthood on me. Enjoy your exiting grown-up life of lecturing internet users about the way they should think and leave me to my skeptic opinion, will you?

I was scared initially, but I was a fan of these guys back when they were with Gamespot and there is no way I'll give up on them now!

I avoid all discussions regarding fighting games and I skip the discussions on the podcast. It's something I find boring so I skip it, it's that simple. I just don't care. Only opportunities can come out of this.

*checks to see if it's april 1*

Why on earth would you trust Gamespot to help you with anything? Pretty much blew the lid on their corruption when they fired Jeff. How long until someone at gamespot says, hey you can't do that! Or hey let's merge our communities.

I'm not happy about this news is at all. Feel like a slap in the mouth for Tested as well.

Hating Gamespot was probably the reason most of us are here..

We all know Jeff is going to become GOD and take over Gamespot and then CBS!

Excited about what Drew and Vinny could do with a VIRTUAL studio.

WAT

Too bad Tim Surette is at TV.com, not even sure where Tor is now.

What... I... April Fool's? Can't be right?

Cool, but like a lot have already said, please FOR THE LOVE OF HADES keep the sites separate.

@LeeroyPinkerton said:

@Still_I_Cry said:

I just took a glance at the GameSpot forums and please, please, keep GB and GS forums separate at the very least.

There's your answer.

It'll be funny reading these posts if not only do the forums get merged but also Klepek gets cut since CBS doesn't need two game news sites.

@Treadstone said:

@Jumanji said:

It's also possible that their shares got purchased too... so that flush of optimism may be the flush of "oh my god I just paid off my mortgage if I wanted to ditch this shit tomorrow I could"

Anyone who has been following Gerstmann and company since the Gamespot incident in 2007 should easily be able to tell that all the positive energy in this video is highly exaggerated in order to make us feel more comfortable with the transition. There is no possible way that Jeff Gerstmann is honestly stoked out of his mind to work down the hallway from Gamespot for the same parent company.

All the forced grinning and false optimism simply does not compute when you consider the circumstances surrounding the creation of Giant Bomb and the surprise development at Whiskey Media today.

I'd be a little more optimistic if at some point in the last twenty years of gaming and gaming-related media, there had been an acquisition that turned out well for the group being acquired. However, there hasn't been, and though I like Giant Bomb I don't think they'll be the first to pull off the equivalent of a miracle.

Jeff's departure was, by all accounts, a very poor decision made by the management that upset a lot of people, especially everyone part of the Gamespot family. Even during the crisis Jeff insisted that the Internet stop bashing the company, and his friends that worked there, for a decision made by a few people.

In short, neither he nor the other Bombers probably ever hated Gamespot, indeed almost all of them have described it as their "dream job". Also, they must have had significant power during negotiations to get some pretty solid contracts.

Whether the acquisition turns out all right remains to be seen, but I believe they are genuinely happy about it. Otherwise, why the fuck would they even do it?

They said 4PM, they're 8 minutes late! WHERE ARE THEY!!!!

HAIL LAMP!

And oh my God Dave has a framed LP of The Graduate soundtrack, that apartment just keeps getting more awesome!

Also I'm mildly hesitant about this business decision, still wary from the 1up aftermath.

@Vorbis said:

Giantbomb X Gamespot.

I just hope the online's fixed.

Well played, well played indeed.

the way people are whining about changes that are yet to happen is just embarrassing to this website. how are the haters so sure giantbomb will be worse off for this? people need to accept that change can make things better.

and hey, 2007? that was a long time ago. the situation is different now, times have changed.

Beware the Ides of March

As long as GiantBomb stays the same and puts out the same style of content this is great news. If not, well...

Why go through the trouble to create an independent company like Giant Bomb just to sell to an evil corporation? It must have been the business plan all along.

@artgarcrunkle said:

@Elazul: They won't. Lets hope the G&L of games websites fills the gap and does it better.

Hah, that's a great way of putting it! They totally are the G&L of gaming sites.

Anyway, at first I was kind of pessimistic about the whole thing at first but after really thinking about it, I'm actually kind of excited. There were (and still are) a load of great people at Gamespot who I've kind of missed over the last few years and that I'd love to see doing occasional guest spots on Quick Looks and Bombcasts (and maybe vice versa), and as for the GB crew it means that they'll likely not have to worry about marketing and funding stuff anymore and can focus more on dumb, awesome content. Plus, we get to finally hear exactly what the deal was with Jeff's termination!

Who knows, maybe this deal will finally put some of the GB/GS animosity to rest. Maybe.

April... Fools?

If the skeptics had actually bothered to read and listen to the ample information supplied by the GB staff, they would realize why these are fantastic news. Instead, they are a complete disgrace to their own site.

@UnbreakableVow said:

Beware the Ides of March

Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh.

I just canceled my subscription.

Gamespot is owned by CBS :(

At least they get to be rich now though...

This is the end. The end of dog racing.

Ugh.

To anyone who thinks that Giantbomb is going to "sell out", remember what lead to the creation of this site in the first place. The guys have shown themselves to keep their credibility and to stick to their guns in the past, and I am not doubting them one bit now.

@SpunkyJunky: Are you talking about Giantbomb or Bioware?

@UnbreakableVow said:

Beware the Ides of March

Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh.

I... Damn it! I have dinner with friends I haven't seen in years in literally 35 minutes. I don't even have time to process this.

For the first few seconds I was cautiously optimistic, but... man, I don't know. Going back to GameSpot? I just... I'll have to look into this Saturday when I have free time. I'm currently disappointed, kinda, but maybe when I read up on what is going on it will gel. I just... fuck! I don't know.

how much longer for the live stream? the one with gamespot

@doe3879:

It's already on.