Look, I am totally in favor of charging for NEW stuff. You guys said that you were NOT going to charge for existing things. This is messed up. You cannot tell the community that the site will remain the same for free users, and then do something totally different. You said the original site would be the same, all of the payed stuff would be brand new. I wouldn't be as upset (I'd still be pretty upset), if we hadn't been promised free users would not experience any change. This is not at all what we were told. The rest of the stuff is TOTALLY cool. I understand the need for money for big videos and stuff. But your fee is the same as Xbox Live's, and you don't have to do NEARLY as much. If you guys gave the Bombcast a bit early, maybe a couple of days, I wouldn't mind. But I think its a real cheap shot to the people who love you guys, who want to keep up with you guys, but by the time they hear all of the stuff they listen to the Bombcast for, its already in the past and something else is going on. I will HAPPILY give you guys money. But, this was a dishonest move. Its a podcast. You aren't charging for early access, your PUNISHING people who cannot afford your fee, setting them back a week. I love Giant Bomb, I am more than happy to pay the fee for you guys to ADD things to the site. But this is a big hit to my respect to you guys. At the very least, make it so that there is a cheaper fee you can pay purely for access to the Bombcast. I can't imagine 5-10 bucks a year would bother either side for that. But for people who don't want things like HD footage, who just want the Bombcast, $50 is fucking insane.  

Your podcast is very topical, talking about the last weeks events. If you make people listen to it a week later, a LOT of people are just going to say "Fuck that, I already know all of this."  

You have done just fine with this site as it is without a fee. That includes the Bombcast. I understand that you have to work really really hard to develop these new features. I WANT to pay you for those things, because you guys TOTALLY deserve it. But the Bombcast? That is pure content, and it seems really dishonest for you to not only do it, but wait till the last second to say anything about it. Seems to me like you knew people would hate this. You wanna charge for the Bombcast being live? FUCK yes. I would TOTALLY pay for that. But I would never pay for a podcast, certainly not for timely access to a TOPICAL weekly Bombcast. I understand it takes a lot of time. I do, really. I understand that gets in the way of your time. But making people miss half of it really sucks. 
 
Let me be clear. I LOVE you guys. I really do. And I would love to pay more for OTHER things just to keep the podcast free for all other users. But this seems really fucking unfair to the people who cannot pay the fee. I know it doesn't seem like a lot to a lot of the people out there, but considering the hardships of this time, and how much of your audience is pretty young, you are really screwing over a lot of people. 

 You guys said that the change would be additive. The fact that you didn't see that it was important to keep that word is really disappointing. I am totally going to subscribe. Totally. I love you guys, and you are worth it. But I know what it is like as the person who cannot pay for this kind of thing, and it sucks. I know a lot of people often lose the awareness of those people, but that doesn't make it fair. 
 
Please guys, at the very least, think of a way to help out the people who cannot or will not pay the $50 fee. Maybe you can accept donations, or you can just allow people to pay for ONLY the podcast. Not everyone can or gives a shit about 720p, most people do NOT browse the web frequently on smartphones, etc. So break things up. Even some poor 14 year old can afford 5-15 bucks a year. So not only will people be able to just get what they want, but you will see more people who will be willing to pay for your content. I want to see you guys live like kings, but I hate that you feel you have to punish the people who built you. If I was a rich ass mother, I would totally just pay people's fees, or just pay for all of the costs of the podcast myself, but unfortunately, I cannot do that. You guys deserve money, but I hate when things like this and Live, and other payed services have a black and white format, when so much of those things are totally useless to a lot of people. I am willing to bet that like, 30% of people on Live would rather just get a cheaper fee for nothing but voice chat and online play. 
 
I really hope this works out for you guys, and maybe some day you'll do so well that you can stop charging for timely podcasts or something. You guys do amazing things, really, and you deserve to make a load of cash. You guys have more integrity then every fucking journalist out there in the industry combined. You guys make life great for me, and I love ya all to death. Really, you guys do amazing things, and you keep the industry at least a little bit pure, cutting through the bullshit and working for us, the consumers of the content. I really don't want you guys to think, if you read this, that I think you guys aren't worth it, that you don't deserve something for your troubles, because you do. I just hope you guys can give people a better solution, like changing it to a live stream of the podcast, or giving a smaller fee for just the Bombcast.

I was the first motherfucker in line to subscribe when dave clearly said, and I quote: " The site as you see it right now will remain largely unchanged." because I wanna support them. But the bombcast is a large part of the site and this is definitely a change. 

They arent charging for the bombcast you can get the entire thing for free if you wait a bit. Its not as big of a deal as people think it is.

it was a big guilt trip. 
I've followed jeff and the crew for 10 years now I love them all 
but during this bombcast it sounded like
 "We put in 200000 hours on just the bombcast alone and what have you fuckers ever done for us? We break our backs making this podcast for you, and everyone else in the company hates us for it. "

who wants to watch half a bombcast a week later? its just inconvenient and turns what is an enjoyable experience into a frustration

Hell if the first Bombcast is just 'Whatcha Been Playin' and 'News of the World' and the second is 'E-MAILS', that's A-OK. 
 
It's not like listening to week old e-mail responses will leave you one week out of the vidyagame-loop.

" it was a big guilt trip.  I've followed jeff and the crew for 10 years now I love them all  but during this bombcast it sounded like  "We put in 200000 hours on just the bombcast alone and what have you fuckers ever done for us? We break our backs making this podcast for you, and everyone else in the company hates us for it. " "

That's a bigass wall of text for having to wait an extra week. :|

" They arent charging for the bombcast you can get the entire thing for free if you wait a bit. Its not as big of a deal as people think it is. "

Not to mention the change of structure of the bombcast this will bring. It really sounds like a worse product now and I do not want it and also feel pissed off about the comments that GB made earlier about not cutting stuff which has now happened.

" @MordeaniisChaos: They said they are rearranging the bombcast so that all of the timely stuff is up front like news and new releases. stuff like what you have been playing and emails I can see that stuff getting bumped to hour 2 so that the non-subscribers get a better bombcast. Everyone should wait to see what the new format is and then complain if its not satisfactory.  "

they said that if they get 5000 subscribers, they'll leave the bombcast alone; I'm doing it for you guys D:

And it was my favourite Podcast : / ah well
 
How about a 50 cent a month subscription for an unmolested bombcast?

 I also got a bit supprised by this move and I thought about the exact thing. First I thought they said that the would push out the second half "later that week" so I thought that they meant that we had to wait to thursday/friday to get the second part. You know what? I'm kind of cool with that. Sometimes I don't manage to listen to the whole podcast on day 1 anyways so having a 2-3 delay works. But then I realized that they talked about a whole week and this was when I started to think about timing and how big a week long gap is and can affect the content of the podcast. They have to put all the current event topics in the first part and then change around the second part so we don't hear that this was taped one week earlier. 
 
I also have a problem with it being one week late in this way too. So I get the second half one week later and on the very same day the first part of the new podcast goes online. That will feel really really wierd when it comes to content and timing. They have to do some drastic changes to the formula for this to work. Can be good since they haven't changed it a lot the last 2-3 years. Change is allways nice. 
  
One last thing. What does this mean to us that use iTunes as podcast subscription service? If I pay I want to get my bombcast through iTunes in the same quick nimble way I allways got it before. I don't want to download it and put it in iTunes manually so I can get the podcast on my iPhone. Is there a way to do this? 

As soon as I get my student loan I will probably support these guys with a membership but I still think that they did NOT come up with a good solution to this podcast thing. I would pay to make them record live, that would feel kind of cool and as I said earlier, a small delay is OK but a whole week messes things up and really much so when the new podcast goes online the same day.  
 
That's my two cents. Thanks to   MordeaniisChaos for writing a pleasant and constructive post without angry comments and lashing out at the crew.    

" @trophyhunter said:

" it was a big guilt trip.  I've followed jeff and the crew for 10 years now I love them all  but during this bombcast it sounded like  "We put in 200000 hours on just the bombcast alone and what have you fuckers ever done for us? We break our backs making this podcast for you, and everyone else in the company hates us for it. " "

My Mom used to pull that shit with me all the time. I apparently had a larger than average head, and wide shoulders. "

yup

Well, I thought their way of doing this seemed rather reasonable. For the last couple of weeks when the Big Live Live Show Live 'ads' have been appearing in front of videos I first automatically ignored them as I thought they were ads, then I noticed they were not,  realized there actually were no ads on the site at all as I have set up the adblocker not to block ads on sites I like to support, and started thinking about how they could possibly fund a big, database and bandwidth heavy site like this without any ads - of course,  turns out they couldn't.

The biggest problem I see is that I'm not sure how many they could get to purchase the premium stuff, as I assume many just like me are going to be totally fine with the free content and don't see much point in the premium stuff. I have no problem waiting a few days or a week more to get the final part of the bombcast, I don't own a cell phone, which means the mobile stuff they offer for subscribers is useless to me too (well, when it comes to not owning a cellphone I thought it would be pretty much alone, but there is a thread here on the giantbomb forums where the replies seem  to imply that there actually is a rather big chunk of people who either don't own or just don't use their cellphones).

What I think could get more people to subscribe would be if they would do something like Escapist Magazine does, who apart from offering HD content also give you some outtakes, unedited interviews and such stuff. Maybe more of the "behind the scenes" type videos, like the StarCraft II unboxing and the discussion about BioShock Infinity could be something to give to premium subscribers.

" @Mrnitropb said:

" @trophyhunter said:

" it was a big guilt trip.  I've followed jeff and the crew for 10 years now I love them all  but during this bombcast it sounded like  "We put in 200000 hours on just the bombcast alone and what have you fuckers ever done for us? We break our backs making this podcast for you, and everyone else in the company hates us for it. " "

My Mom used to pull that shit with me all the time. I apparently had a larger than average head, and wide shoulders. "

What? you had to get bigger shirts or something? "

I don't really see how they thought this would be a good idea. Especially after they said nothing that you were already getting for free would change. Did they really think that a majority of people would go "Hey this is pretty good"?

I will buy a subscription at some point, but I am still so disappointed. Who the hell thought this was a good idea?

" @MordeaniisChaos said: You have done just fine with this site as it is without a fee.   Right and you know their money situation how? It's typical to take loses when you start a business to build a client base. "

I was planning on buying a sub. But this news makes me not want to buy one anymore. What happened to my Giant Bomb? I would like to support the site I know and love, but this is low. Even at gamespot the hotspot was free...

Hey Do we still get to download the full thing on itunes if we have subscribed to a premium account?

 http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/bombcast/32/would-you-pay-for-the-bombcast/437213/

I like the way Jeff put it: you're still gonna get two hours of bombcast a week except for the first week.
 
Are WiiWare releases and emails really that time-sensitive to you guys?

Deadline is on September 15th, around 4500+ subscribers right now. 
 
It's obviously a lock, don't sweat it. I just subscribed right now to do my part.

" I like the way Jeff put it: you're still gonna get two hours of bombcast a week except for the first week.  Are WiiWare releases and emails really that time-sensitive to you guys? "

" Hell if the first Bombcast is just 'Whatcha Been Playin' and 'News of the World' and the second is 'E-MAILS', that's A-OK.   It's not like listening to week old e-mail responses will leave you one week out of the vidyagame-loop. "

" @JakJ said:

" I like the way Jeff put it: you're still gonna get two hours of bombcast a week except for the first week.  Are WiiWare releases and emails really that time-sensitive to you guys? "

Thats not the real important stuff, that isn't usually really actual NEWS. Imagine waiting a WEEK before you knew about Duke Forever. It would suck, especially for a guy like me, for whom Duke 3D was his first game ever. "

" @MordeaniisChaos: They said they are going to restructure the bombcast so all time sensitive topics are in the first hour "

Everyone needs to slam on the brakes and see what really comes out of all this. If you don't like it then, by all means voice your opinion. 

The other option was to just cut the Bombcast shorter... 
 
I'd rather have the full Bombcast a week later than to have a shorter one all together.

 
One last thing. What does this mean to us that use iTunes as podcast subscription service? If I pay I want to get my bombcast through iTunes in the same quick nimble way I allways got it before. I don't want to download it and put it in iTunes manually so I can get the podcast on my iPhone. Is there a way to do this?  "