Giant Bombcast 769: TRAILERD

I missed the live version of this and I’ve been in this line for days

This is just a gif with sound, please go back to writing out the podcast

@holyumbrella: This was pre-recorded before the holiday break.

COD has to have the most games in top 10s of any franchise?

Finally, justice for Saints Row 3.

@knaws: thank you kind human, I know. Hip hip hurray hip hip hurray for folks like you though.

Happy holidays.

Hip-hip-hooray! Here's to next year!

HIP HIP HOORAY!

It kinda bothers me that they spend so much time making content that's second-guessing (or less generously "shitting on") the picks of the former staff. Also kind of a bummer to hear them saying how the thing that brought so many people to this site - the classic GB GOTY format - is better now that they are doing a completely different GOTY format.

Hahaha I totally get videos on my Youtube all the time for Kotaro and Hana(the otters).

@hibbitybibbard: Look man, previous GotY lists are not sacrosanct. The community shits on some of those top 10s to this day, so if anything, I think actual site staff are more than qualified to also disagree.

Also without naming names, there are some top 10s from previous years that are wildly biased towards certain more stubborn staff members getting their way. Or obviously very good games get omitted entirely because a staff member knows they’ll have to fight tooth and nail to even get their #1 anywhere on the list, so they barely find the energy to advocate for their #2 or #3. It just got messy as the staff got larger and larger.

Also “the classic GB GotY format” was already being retired while Gerstmann and Nextlander folks were still at GB. They were clearly getting tired of the arguments and negativity and were trying to rework GotY even in 2020 and 2021. So again, fine by me if current staff want to acknowledge the problems of the old format. Not saying Eurovision voting machine is the answer, but they’re welcome to keep experimenting with the format as far as I’m concerned.

GB GotY isn’t the Ten Commandments. It can change, and I have no problem with staff saying the final list of previous years took a few wrong turns.

@bisonhero: The site currently exists because the work that was done by the past staff. If they wanted to be a different site and distance themselves from the previous crew and what subscribers have come to expect, they should rename the site. Past "biases" as you call them are part of games history and the history of this site. While some people may shit on their choices, the reason people care about what GB says is because of the same staff that is being shit on. Back then, when GB put out content the industry was listening. You are totally able to speak about how you enjoy these changes, but forgetting what built this brand and to dismiss the hard work and quality content that those who came before made is ignoring what made Giant Bomb stand out in the industry.

So, the self-deprecation exception is in effect here when there was a Pandemic Times The Hotspot episode when that panel looked back at the past lists and had some light jabs at them? Or that 2-3 of the people in this episode were a part of at least half of the years discussed?

Anyway, fun show. I don't go to the sub-Reddit, so it was interesting to hear the Eurovision scoring applied to past years. There were similar calculated results based on staff lists done after the fact in past years, and those were fun to look at.

I love the Eurovision style voting for Game of the Year. But you guys need to do it properly. Go all in on it! Revealing the votes one by one going from your 1 point and finishing each juror's vote with their 12 points.

As a Winnipeg resident, "Winterpeg" is a common, not-particularly-clever, but apt name for it considering how cold and shitty our winters get.

Thanks to the GB crew - former, old, and new - for an incredible year. Site's been through a lot of late but I've really enjoyed what y'all put together over the course of 2022 and I'm excited to see what you can do in 2023. Hoping you're able to push towards even bigger and better things together!

I back this idea entirely.

Honestly I really enjoyed GotY this year. I've loved it in the past - even many of the arguments (with the exceptions of where they delved more into semantics than actual game quality). But this year gave us a good amount of discussion about all the games, we got some round-robin cutting action (which I always particularly enjoy), and ended up with a list that people could feel content about and allows real passion picks to punch through the lower levels.

As for talking about past years - heck, the previous crew have basically all said they got sick of the arguing, so it was always going to change over time. Nextlander have gone so far as to just each have their own individual picks for categories, which isn't as enthrallingly cutthroat when you don't have to really argue for why your game matters, but I've still loved hearing them talk about their favourites nonetheless. Ultimately it's a celebration of the year, and this year's was a delight.

@hibbitybibbard: ignoring that they've changed how goty worked before this, eh?

@chinesebatman: nope. Just talking about how I don't like the way they are dismissive and reductive when talking about decisions the old crew made. Change is fine.

@hibbitybibbard: The GOTY discussions were always awful. Filled with bad faith tactics and bitterness. It's unbelievable that anyone would enjoy them.

The Euroviosion system has always been the answer and people who had prevented it from adoption for so long should rightfully be shat on.

@hibbitybibbard: The OG guys also did that, saying what they picked for GotY certain years was a mistake and all.

I pirated MS Word for years, I don’t know why Bakalar was so incredulous about it.

The new GOTY format is so much better than the previous style. I listened to those discussions but dreaded every moment Brad opened his mouth. And like Grubb said, they got what was almost certainly the list this year with none of the unnecessary fighting and stress.

I do think the reflection shows some of the benefits "reviewer's tilt" can have. Saints 3 is a goofy, fun game that well-earned high spots on people's lists, but Skyrim was something really special (we'll ignore the overlooking of Dark Souls in 2011). Kinda the same for Mario/PUBG - Odyssey is a super fun, well-made Mario game, but it's basically just that. PUBG was the defining breakout game for a genre that is still the biggest thing going a full five years later, and made for some of the most exciting GB moments in that year as well.

Conversely, MGSV is the kind of game that can top personal lists because the gameplay is just so fun, but its a game with so many caveats that I understand why the staff pulled back on giving it the top spot. Animal Crossing was huge for a lot of people during the pandemic, but it was more a "right place, right time" thing than doing anything tremendously exciting, so it really sits nicely on that 10 spot that recognises its value in the year.

I also think there's good value in the recognition of the "one-person" games. Brad's single-handed rising of Dota 2 and StarCraft II both come to mind, along with something like Kerbal - games that the whole crew can recognise the value and importance of, even if they're not the sort of thing that most of them will go for.

Ultimately, it's all good fun and as long as we get good discussions about what made the games of each year special, exciting, shocking, disappointing, and so on I'm very happy, whatever the result.