Board 8 > Vinny, Brad, and Alex all just announced they're leaving Giantbomb

(+) Yeah! (+)

Jeff deliberately said hes not leaving, so its not just shutting down, but its not clear whats happening yet.

this is genuinely heartbreaking
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one step closer to my prediction of GB just being a Jeff only thing


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Is this the group that I saw discussing Balan Wonderworld? I kind of enjoyed watching that chat so I was thinking about watching some more. Is it the end of an era?

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I can't say I've followed as closely in the past year or so, but this is a huge bummer. It seemed inevitable, but still.

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Yeah Im watching the stream right now because I heard the news.

Im so fucking sad dude.

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:(

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Brad leaving jokes finally not a joke anymore

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Giant Bomb really hasn't been the same since they did the NY split. So this doesn't really hurt
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The pandemic drove me to watching even more of their stuff. Alexs drum streams were especially a bright spot for me this past year.

this hurts
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https://twitter.com/jeffgerstmann/status/1389650808401063939?s=21

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KingButz posted...

Giant Bomb really hasn't been the same since they did the NY split. So this doesn't really hurt

Lol what? The Giant Beastcast, formed in New York, has been legitimately their most popular thing!

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Maybe Giant Bomb just becomes a 24-hour live stream of Jeff's garage

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WHAAAAAAT?!?

Oh god...this is....shocking to say the least!

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

KingButz posted...

Giant Bomb really hasn't been the same since they did the NY split. So this doesn't really hurt

Lol what? The Giant Beastcast, formed in New York, has been legitimately their most popular thing!

I didn't say it's not popular. I said it's not the same. For me, I lost most of my interest years ago.
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Thats fucking insane. This has to be a red ventures thing right?

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Vinny was preparing for their new studio last I heard so maybe Red Ventures did a thing


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I'm not one to speculate

But if I was, yes this is absolutely tied to a buyout or something. You don't shed 3/4 of your most senior staff in one day otherwise.

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Oh dear. I was already having trouble keeping up with the podcasts. I have no idea how I'll find the motivation to continue now. I'm very eager to see what they have to say about this.

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13 years, man. Theyve been a part of my life for a full teenagers worth of it, and I was just barely 20 back then.

I know Im overreacting, but seeing Austin and Patrick on Twitter saying I cant wait to see whats next! rubbed me the wrong way tbh, likeit was just a stepping stone for you, but these guys literally started this thing.

Am I wrong for that?

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I assume only the Bombcast continues from here which means when I'm on the plane friday morning I'll be listening to the final beastcast


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Any ideas how to fill the GB filled hole in my life for podcasts and videos?

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anyway I dunno I feel like i was prepared for this I knew GB wasn't going to last forever so I'm not as broken up about it

I still think Jeff will just do this in some capacity forever until he no longer can.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

13 years, man. Theyve been a part of my life for a full teenagers worth of it, and I was just barely 20 back then.

I know Im overreacting, but seeing Austin and Patrick on Twitter saying I cant wait to see whats next! rubbed me the wrong way tbh, likeit was just a stepping stone for you, but these guys literally started this thing.

Am I wrong for that?

I think theyre just trying to be supportive and positive in the face of a rough situation. They clearly knew about what was happening before the public announcement (Basically all the old team were in the stream chat at the start) so maybe theyve had their more reverent discussion in private already.
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Any ideas how to fill the GB filled hole in my life for podcasts and videos?

yeah aside from my specific emotional investment in these people, Im not sure how Ill fill the game coverage hole in my life now
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Easy Allies is probably the closest thing to a GB style website at this point

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The Fire Escape Cast was a little rough at start, but its good.

Someone shared a list of the top gaming podcasts, and Kinda Funny is like three of them.

But I could never get into Kinda Funny, it just doesnt hit for me at all.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

The Fire Escape Cast was a little rough at start, but its good.

Someone shared a list of the top gaming podcasts, and Kinda Funny is like three of them.

But I could never get into Kinda Funny, it just doesnt hit for me at all.

They have some very smart talent and some really lacking talent but everyones too on at kindafunny.

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https://twitter.com/JeffGrubb/status/1389653427764948992?s=20

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Thats such a shame. Genuinely part of my weekly schedule.

KingButz posted...

I didn't say it's not popular. I said it's not the same. For me, I lost most of my interest years ago.

For you, maybe, but when I think of the best GB contrnt almost all of it is post-split. They have been flagging since Ben left a few months ago though, and its now easy to see why.

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The Austin era was a great one

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Yes, I literally said for me
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Oh wow, I only ever semi-regularly followed them and haven't for a while, it definitely seemed like it had been losing steam, but this is a surprise. Wish the best for them all but it'll sure be a shame if they're all just transferred to one of the seemingly endless dime-a-dozen game journalist sites these days that don't have any of the spark.

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Most people seem to feel this was a long time coming. Can someone please explain why to someone whos been out of the loop?

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Man, I'm kind of gutted, but at the same time not surprised. Their content was circling the drain since the pandemic started, and I thought Ben and Abby leaving was a sign of better things to come once they all got back in the office, given how garbage they were and how they did not at all fit with the tone of the site.

Best running theory I've seen is that it's been almost exactly 6 months since the acquisition was announced, and these 3 probably had a 6 month retainer/non-compete.

Best outcome I can see is they spin off and do another group collab, and Jeff joins back up with them once his contract with red ventures is up, and we get the original 4 back together again, but somehow I feel with another kid on the way, Jeff will want the stability of staying. I can't see how Giant Bomb continues as a separate entity though, and I could see them just getting folded into GameSpot with Jeff in a senior role.

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redrocket posted...

Most people seem to feel this was a long time coming. Can someone please explain why to someone whos been out of the loop?

The quality and quantity of their content has been way down since the start of the pandemic, and every new hire they've had since after Dan/Jason joined has been awful, and only using the site as a stepping stone to doing their own thing. WHen they split the team between SF/NY, there was a noticeable drop in quality as the best content was always with Jeff/Vinny/Alex/Brad together, with Dan and Drew sprinkled in. They managed to survive and even thrive after Ryan Davis died, but the brand split was the beginning of the end as far as I'm concerned.

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Lightning Strikes posted...

Thats such a shame. Genuinely part of my weekly schedule.

For you, maybe, but when I think of the best GB contrnt almost all of it is post-split. They have been flagging since Ben left a few months ago though, and its now easy to see why.

This isn't true at all. Ben and Abby were probably most singlehandedly responsible for the content sucking, especially once they both started absolutely phoning it in (reminder, for most of 2020, Abby had nothing to contribute to any conversation besides "Oh, i played some Fortnite and bought some stupid skin BECAUSE I'M SO FUN AND QUIRKY LULZ")

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We get it, you don't like Abby.


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Well that sucks, BUT, I feel like the value is in their personalities, not in the brand or the website itself, and they could get the band back together on a new platform and retain 90% of their popularity.


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BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

and we get the original 4 back together again

:-(
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I am profoundly sad hearing this. Feels like a death in the family.

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Ngamer64 posted...

Well that sucks, BUT, I feel like the value is in their personalities, not in the brand or the website itself, and they could get the band back together on a new platform and retain 90% of their popularity.

They could probably do a podcast or two a week and make a killing on patreon.

This hurts. GB will live but this is the end of an era. No matter what happens now, it won't ever be quite the same.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Can someone help me "get" why the internet is sad about this? Not trolling at all here.

I don't watch streamers or get into internet personalities, so I don't see why their show is supposed to be better than all the rest.

Jeff has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the industry, is one of the old guard of early internet gaming journalism, and has an incredible sense of humor. You may remember him from such reviews as Twilight Princess 8.8

He built this site after being fired from GameSpot for refusing to change a review at a sponsor request, and these are the guys who quit in solidarity and came with him*, and theyre great.

*Alex took a brief detour to work at Harmonix during the height of Rock Band but then later came back aboard
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Can someone help me "get" why the internet is sad about this? Not trolling at all here.

I don't watch streamers or get into internet personalities, so I don't see why their show is supposed to be better than all the rest.

These are guys who left GameSpot to build their own site 13 years ago, and they basically invented the "Quick Look" format of showing off a game by just playing it and talking over it.

Also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki_bECL259g

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As always just completely ignore anything BT says in a GB topic.

Yeah this does suck. Makes the recent Bakalar hire SUPER wierd. I can't pretend I enjoy their content the way I used to other than the casts, but this has just been a staple of gaming on the internet. There really is nothing else out there like it...which may be the actual issue. It's not that they don't have competition, it's that nobody wants to compete because the model is struggling.

Also I know it's not their fault but I'm pretty sure this is the time of year where a TON of yearly subscriptions have just finished auto-renewing.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Makes the recent Bakalar hire SUPER wierd.

He was technically hired to GameSpot right?
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He was hired to Red Ventures

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Jeff was hired to a general managerial role for the "games division" of Red Ventures, which leads me to believe they are going to consolidate their platforms and further reduce redundancies. That's why they let go of the dead weight in Abby/Ben, and Alex/Vinny were probably ask d to move back to San Fran to keep their jobs, to avoid having to pay for 2 different offices/studios.

This is all conjecture, but so far all of the facts are lining up. They likely had a 6 month non compete when they signed on to RV (maybe another reason why Abby left) with the decision to close GBEast coming after they signed on.

If I were a betting man I would say Jeff eventually leaves too once his contract is up. This is major deja vu to the founding of Giantbomb originally. What will be interesting is to see if they spin off and do their own independent thing, or move to another company that wants to get more into games coverage.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Can someone help me "get" why the internet is sad about this? Not trolling at all here.

I don't watch streamers or get into internet personalities, so I don't see why their show is supposed to be better than all the rest.

It's a site based upon personalities (i.e. people) that many have been following for a significant portion of our life. And now that's ending in the sense that we once knew it, so it creates a vacuum because something that was always there is now gone. For me they were also my view into the gaming industry after reading print mags and then 1up went away.

In a sense, imagine if GameFAQs suddenly went away at the end of the week. That would kind of suck, right?

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