Giant Bomb Presents: Introducing Rowan Kaiser

These are coming in hot. Thanks Austin!

Excited to check this one out! Also, loving the influx of interviews alongside the guest contributors!

Good stuff

Rowan Kaiser from the A.V. Club! I know that guy!

Oh man I remember this guy from The AV Club. Good stuff.

Cool to see Rowan and also @robzacny on here as well.

Also I love Austin liking ME1 so much. I think it's the best one in the series for sure.

Hell yeah Rowan, remember his early days back in the nascence of the AV Club games section. Glad to see him getting some airtime on Giant Bomb!

I'm right with you Austin on Mass Effect 1 and the Mako. Well, I didn't do all of the optional planets every time I played that game, but I'll just assume that was hyperbole on your part.

Oh man, the "started with the Escapist back when that was a positive thing to do" comment really hit home. I quit writing about games commercially because they didn't pay me for my articles until 6-9 months after they were published.

Austin releases Giant Bomb's Infernal Machine of content meant to blow your mind....

THIS! It's so great to get some background and context for the authors separate from their articles - it lets their pieces stand alone.

Get it goin' with Rowan

QFT

Rowan! Glad to see this guy on the site.

Mass Effect 1 best Mass Effect. Period.

So glad Rowan Kaiser can write here. I've been following his work for a while.

Nice to see him working for this site.

2:05 Is it no longer a "positive thing" to write for the Escapist? Anyone have any idea what this is referring to?

Thanks!

I've not listened to this yet, but I just disappointed @austin_walker didn't call these podchats "Who is Guest?"

Three Moves Ahead is my favourite non-GB podcast and is where I've heard Rowan Kaiser most. Glad to see some overlap here, especially given Austin was on their podcast a while back.

I love that you're also doing these chats with the guest contributors, @austin_walker. One of my favourite things about Giant Bomb is knowing the personalities behind the content - so, as well as having these articles to hopefully introduce me to some new writers that I might love, it's good to have these as a way to "get to know" the person behind each article a little bit more.

@austin_walker I am so with you on the Mako in Mass Effect! You're not alone! That game was long enough ago that I was still a bit sheltered from most games criticism that this many years later, I was actually surprised at how it was universally hated. The first game is still my favorite for a million reasons, and the Mako was fun to me.

Rowan, you sound like Jason Wilson and this walks many of the same topics he's fond of.

I need to see both of you in the same room at the same time.

This is the guy that got super angry at Total Biscuit... I think ill pass on this

So angry. Much bitter. No thanks.

This intro music is so dope

Given Rowan's childish attitude and juvenile attacking of John Bain in the past (a guy I have no particular love for, but doesn't deserve to be attacked), this is a very disappointing reveal.

I always appreciated how GiantBomb really tended to aim for the good-nature of gaming and this goes directly counter to that. :/

@branthog: Just heard out about this. Very unprofessional stuff. I wonder if the selection process includes considerations of a writer's past behaviour on social media, or more broadly speaking a writer's political leanings, before embracing them in a freelance capacity. Are these factors at play when you're choosing writers, @austin_walker?

I couldn't agree more. I'm glad others have brought this up. Kaiser's vicious leading of an online harassment mob against TotalBiscuit (who was undergoing treatment for cancer at the time, which has since become terminal) was unprofessional at best, just downright deplorable at worst, made worse still be how he tried to play the victim afterward. Austin's free to post content from whomever he wants but I definitely won't be giving it any clicks.

These little chats are a ton of fun.

This dude really bothers me. So self righteous.

I hope we get more articles from Ms. Alexandra rather than Rowan.

Today I learned the word elucidate.

Oh, I hope Anthem is good.