Y2Ken

Said it before, I'll say it again: I'll follow Jeff as long as he wants to keep doing this. I'll miss Brad, Alex, and Vinny but I love everyone else who is left and I'm interested to see what they can come up with for the future!

@styx971: I think it makes a lot of natural sense when one long-timer decides to leave that others might consider whether it's time for them to follow suit. It's possible that all of them had been considering this for some time, and that one of them making the move sparked the others to rip the band-aid off in one go. I'll repost what I put in the FB group earlier, because it feels relevant - though I'll of course note that these are their personal decisions and we should respect them for that.

"Vinny specifically noted that it was their decision. That doesn't necessarily mean that a change in circumstance didn't cause them to rethink their role and want to move on, but it sounds from Jeff talking like this has been in discussion for a while now.

I also got the impression from both Vinny & Brad that they have contemplated this a lot in recent years. Vinny often talks about wanting to spend more time with his kids, and Brad has often mentioned how he finds it increasingly difficult to concentrate so solely on video games with everything else going on the past few years. I'm sure the pandemic only caused them to further reconsider.

Regardless, speculation of course only goes so far. We'll just have to wait and see what they do. But honestly above all else, I trust Jeff. I think if there had been anything truly nefarious, he'd be walking away too."

Anyway, to answer the OP, I agree with the comments above that this is a ridiculous and weird way to look at it. Three people who have given use decades of entertainment have likely all spent a long time coming to a difficult decision to move on with their careers. The least we can do is respect that instead of trying to bribe them to change their minds.

Giant Bomb has always been a site that brought in fantastic new faces to complement its long-standing members. Having three OGs leave at once is certainly a tough thing to overcome, but I have every faith in Jeff and whatever his vision is, I'm here to see where it goes. I love the staff who are remaining currently, and I've liked every member off staff who's worked on this site in the past, so I'm very hopeful for whatever comes next.

Been following these guy since the Gamespot days, so this news is certainly tough. I always expected that they would move on eventually, but to have so many leave at once certainly puts more of a sting on it. That said, I have nothing but love and thanks for the many, many hours of entertainment Brad, Vinny, and Alex have given us over the years.

I could write a very long and extended post about their time with the site, and maybe some time I still will, but for now I'll keep it short: this website has been one of my favourite things on the internet for the past decade plus, and those three guys were a hugely instrumental part of that. I wish them nothing but the best for the future - if it's anything public-facing, I'll absolutely follow it - and I wish Jeff and the remaining crew the very best in whatever their plans for the site are going forward. I'll certainly stick around as long as those guys are here to see what they come up with next.

Honestly, I'm happy to pay to support the site and would be even if they made all their content freely accessible to everyone. I specifically renew outside of the sale periods to help support them (it doesn't actually "cost more" if you use the store voucher, which I generally end up doing at some point). But also GB is cheaper than basically every other form of entertainment I subscribe to - including twitch streams run by individuals with minimal running cost that aren't maintaining salaried employees - and it gives me more hours of entertainment a month than basically anything else.

I can certainly appreciate that even at the sale price it's not something everyone has the luxury to spare. But if that's the case, there's still plenty of free content on offer (you could always just grab one month every so often and catch up on the premium videos), and I'd happily take a year of GB over a game one month if that was the decision I had to make. Obviously people are perfectly entitled to make their own judgement call, but I don't think lowering the const would encourage enough additional people to subscribe to increase their overall incoming revenue - there's no shortage of people subscribing to Twitch channels, so I don't think the cost is make-or-break for the majority of people in the target audience.

There's so many good fighting game characters, it's tough to nail just one down. Makoto & Chun-Li from SF rank super highly for me, as do Xiaoyu, Eliza, and Julia from Tekken; Tira & Taki from SC; Rachel & Noel from BB; Mileena & D'Vorah from MK; King & Mature from KoF; I-No & Baiken from GG... Does Double from Skullgirls count?

If I was forced to pick just one... it'd probably be Chun-Li, as much as that's probably the safest and most popular answer I just always find her so much fun to play across all the games she's been in, and I love the vast majority of her designs too.

First episode was a delight. The three of them play off one another super well - it's chaotic, but in a way that I think works well. They all have a very high energy to them but also have rather distinct tastes that range across the whole spectrum of games, so it's interesting to hear their combined thoughts on stuff. Also I'm now thoroughly invested in Mike's quest to get "jacked off."

@humanity: Yeah, agreed. I've been avoiding watching speedruns until I finish everything (though I'm basically at the point to do that now) but a friend of mine has been showing me some of the early sections where you use powers to skip chunks of the intended progression and it's very cool. I definitely want to see some of the pros at work once I wrap up. I really enjoyed the White Palace, which is testament to the game because precision platforming is actually the thing that I find toughest in general but I think just removing enemies and giving you this measured platforming sequence is a really interesting way to mix up the late-game pacing. Appreciate also that by the time you get there you likely have enough charms to give yourself functionally infinite attempts too, which makes it less frustrating than it'd otherwise be.

This is certainly a valid point to bring up, and you mention some examples where it's definitely been an issue. But also in many cases I've been able to buy games at their base price and simply not engage with their DLC and in-game MTX because I'm happy with the core content. In that scenario it offers a way for people who do have more money to spend to do so, while those on a tighter budget can still enjoy the core game at a lower price than if the cost of entry were simply increased for everyone.

Of course, it's not as cut-and-dry as that. There are all the other issues that come along with MTX such as their oft-exploitative nature and games which can feel badly balanced to encourage you to spend money. But I think there's certainly a case to be made for "cheaper base game with optional extras" - heck, it's why F2P has been so popular as a model. I spent SO many hours with Dauntless in 2019/20, and only ended up putting in ~£20 total after quite a few hours because I'd had enough fun with the game to justify spending a little on their season pass content when it had cosmetics I thought were fun.

I think about this a lot, and I think you summarised it really well. Ultimately I think it's an impossible problem to solve - I can't play the first Destiny in the way it existed during that first year (heck, I can't do that with Destiny 2, either). But in some ways that's the trade-off of having a live service game, and I wouldn't trade the experiences I had playing them in the moment for something inherently more "preserveable" - some things are very much of the moment, and as such can only truly exist in that moment.

It's a more difficult line to tread with less explicitly "live service" games, as you bring up with your Dirt 5 example. I like the idea of retaining games in their old formats but it certainly becomes a tough ask. Some games offer it in their Steam options, or in-game, which I always appreciate even if I barely use the feature. It's why I like to push for the likes of playthroughs and YouTube walkthroughs of games - it's maybe the best way to preserve experiences that change over time. I can go back and watch videos of Spelunky 2 from before they dramatically changed one of the mid-boss encounters, if I want to reminisce on how that changed over time after release.