Giant Bomb Fan Club

[makkuwata]

15 hours ago, Gambit said:

Giantbomb put out a premium video on boxing day.

 

From what Reddit tells me it's 17 minutes of watching old cartoons on YouTube? Err....thanks guys!

 

The Oxtra folks put out an hour long video titled garfield.wmv at 4am this morning which has been a treat to wake up to, but then I’ll watch anything from them.
 

I accidentally let my GB sub renew around the time everything was happening and I haven’t done a thing with it. Hopefully Lucy gets back to the Metal Gear lets plays in the new year, that’ll be fun. But then it’ll be on her YouTube channel for free.

[Mr. Gerbik]

13 hours ago, ryodi said:

Dan and Jeff did a Dragon Ball podcast,  All Systems Goku. I know the thread is done with the new crew buts not like the originals were above that kind of content. 

Major difference is that Jeff and Dan were genuinely funny to listen to because they were actually having fun with it. With some of the new crew they constantly come across as very forced, trying to be random or memey in an attempt to be funny. With guys like Jeff, Vinny,and Ryan that just came naturally.

[feltmonkey]

I've never been a big Giant Bomb fan. I'm not invested in the ever changing cast, whether person A was a "good hire" or whatever. I don't watch any of their content or listen to their podcasts generally. I have however always listened to their Game Of The Year podcasts or YouTube videos. I'm an hour into the first of the three for this year, and my question is this.

 

Does it get any better? So far it seems to be aimed at teenagers. There's a long discussion about what's the best game to stream where they're all talking about their "audience" and Twitch integration features, and it just seems pretty irrelevant to anyone who isn't themselves a streamer. As someone who doesn't stream or watch Twitch, it's stultifyingly boring. Before that was an embarrassing discussion about the best games to play while drunk or high. I'm guessing they maybe thought that mentioning drinking and drugs was somehow so outre that it would be wild and entertaining by default but they quickly ran into the problem that discussing these things is not cool or edgy, it's just dull. It's been 25 years since Noel Gallagher, in one of his few moments of insight, pointed out that taking drugs is about as exciting as having a cup of tea these days. Listening to people dryly describing what they like to do when they get home drunk or high is not anyone's idea of an exciting video or podcast.

 

In-between there was some stuff where they all larked around with their VR avatars. They probably thought it would be funny, but they just sat on various game characters or lay on the floor, the sort of thing people who are not naturally funny might do. The only part of the whole thing I've enjoyed so far was when they revealed all their previous games of the year and seemed genuinely surprised by how bad some of the picks were.

 

Is this what Giant Bomb is now? Like I say, I'm not a GB head. I don't know the names of any of the people discussing things, and I'm not sure whether or not any of them were here before, but I do know I've enjoyed their GOTY deliberations in the past. It seems really different now. I can't really tell if anything seismic has happened from this thread because it has always consisted of people complaining about the new people and saying it's gone downhill (I guess I'm contributing to that now!) Does the GOTY deliberations stuff improve enough to commit 6 more hours of my remaining time on Earth to watching it? I've got audiobooks I could listen to instead.

[Benny]

As an antidote to that I suggest the NoClip games of the year podcast. They actually discuss the games they've picked in detail and delve into some fairly deep concepts as far as evaluating their "text" goes.

[feltmonkey]

I'll give it a look, thanks.

[Benny]

7 minutes ago, feltmonkey said:

I'll give it a look, thanks.

 

Mind you, one of them did describe Pentiment as "Medieval", which made me need to reach for a pillow to scream into.

[Gambit]

25 minutes ago, feltmonkey said:

I've never been a big Giant Bomb fan. I'm not invested in the ever changing cast, whether person A was a "good hire" or whatever. I don't watch any of their content or listen to their podcasts generally. I have however always listened to their Game Of The Year podcasts or YouTube videos. I'm an hour into the first of the three for this year, and my question is this.

 

Does it get any better? So far it seems to be aimed at teenagers. There's a long discussion about what's the best game to stream where they're all talking about their "audience" and Twitch integration features, and it just seems pretty irrelevant to anyone who isn't themselves a streamer. As someone who doesn't stream or watch Twitch, it's stultifyingly boring. Before that was an embarrassing discussion about the best games to play while drunk or high. I'm guessing they maybe thought that mentioning drinking and drugs was somehow so outre that it would be wild and entertaining by default but they quickly ran into the problem that discussing these things is not cool or edgy, it's just dull. It's been 25 years since Noel Gallagher, in one of his few moments of insight, pointed out that taking drugs is about as exciting as having a cup of tea these days. Listening to people dryly describing what they like to do when they get home drunk or high is not anyone's idea of an exciting video or podcast.

 

In-between there was some stuff where they all larked around with their VR avatars. They probably thought it would be funny, but they just sat on various game characters or lay on the floor, the sort of thing people who are not naturally funny might do. The only part of the whole thing I've enjoyed so far was when they revealed all their previous games of the year and seemed genuinely surprised by how bad some of the picks were.

 

Is this what Giant Bomb is now? Like I say, I'm not a GB head. I don't know the names of any of the people discussing things, and I'm not sure whether or not any of them were here before, but I do know I've enjoyed their GOTY deliberations in the past. It seems really different now. I can't really tell if anything seismic has happened from this thread because it has always consisted of people complaining about the new people and saying it's gone downhill (I guess I'm contributing to that now!) Does the GOTY deliberations stuff improve enough to commit 6 more hours of my remaining time on Earth to watching it? I've got audiobooks I could listen to instead.

 

Giantbomb is trying desperately now to appeal to "the kids", with stuff like their Fortnite streams and aren't drink and drugs cool schtick. Grubb got into a lot of shit when he proudly said how he played Marvel Snap while driving. The fucking clown.

 

The main problem is there is nobody left on the staff who can dissect a game and talk about it beneath the surface level. That was lost when the Nextlander crew and Jeff left.

[James Lyon]

I used to like listening to the Game of the Year podcasts. Massively long, even counting all the times I'd skip ahead to avoid a spoiler. I'd call it an ordeal but in a good way. Never quite got all the talk of various members aggressively campaigning for certain choices. I think I just let it wash all over me until a winner emerged that I'd instantly forget. A pity it's not the same.

 

[Simmy]

Lol hadn't seen this before

 

 

[Gambit]

I remember seeing that live.

 

Absolutely killed me.

[ryodi]

Lots of layoffs today at various tech companies. think now the majority of their staff are job sharing with Gamespot.

[Gambit]

Jason. Will forever love his fighting game videos with Jeff. Hopefully with all the experience he has he'll find other employment fast.

[deerokus]

With Jason gone any vestige of the soul of giant bomb is gone for good.

 

Time to bring back ranking of fighters, Jeff.

[Chindie]

Bring back Ranking of Fighters but leave Ben behind.

[Faded]

https://www.twitch.tv/jeffgerstmann/clip/EagerPolitePterodactylKappaPride-SM5kCLofoMlkzsnQ
 

if you only listen to Jeff’s podcast I’d recommend checking out this stream. Some very real talk. 

[Isaac]

On 19/01/2023 at 19:31, ryodi said:

Lots of layoffs today at various tech companies. think now the majority of their staff are job sharing with Gamespot.

 

And there it is, the post I expect every time I see this thread bumped.

 

Hard to see how they continue as a going concern.

[Naysonymous]

Sunk cost fallacy. 

[Scribblor]

When they shut down next month, they'd better fucking release Vinnyvania for free.

[Gambit]

It wouldn't surprise me if there's a group of people out there already archiving the premium stuff for when the inevitable happens.

 

As I'm currently playing Persona 4 Golden I've been rewatching the endurance run alongside it. Such classic content.

[Trumpets]

16 hours ago, Gambit said:

It wouldn't surprise me if there's a group of people out there already archiving the premium stuff for when the inevitable happens.

 

As I'm currently playing Persona 4 Golden I've been rewatching the endurance run alongside it. Such classic content.

 

I've been listening to old Bombcasts from 2010 onwards and they were so good, consistantly funny, just brilliant chemistry between the four core members.

 

But that's the problem with a personality driven site; once the personalities leave, unless you're exceptionally lucky, the whole thing falls to shit.

[Gambit]

I actually listened to the first part of the Bombcast today to see what they said about the situation. It seemed to very much tow the company line as opposed to on Grubbs show where he basically confirmed there would now be less content. It's getting a little old now having them say "we're going to need to sort out our next steps". That's been said multiple times a year now for ages.

 

Also, the Bombcast is now Bakalar, Jan and Grubb. What exactly does Dan do? It seems like he cares more about Fire Escape and his Twitch revenue rather than the job he's employed to do. And I guess them saying that Tam and Lucy are part of the core crew was a lie?

[Isaac]

Bakalar on Next Lander would be a great line up. He bounces off Vinny so well.

 

Doubt that would ever happen now.

[stir fry]

Next Lander is the guys' retirement plan, no way they take on additional people and split the earnings even more.

 

If they did do that tho I wish we could get Bakalar and Abby on there, but yea not going to happen

 

Possibly we will see another 'NL-like' pop up if GB does down tho, or there are more layoffs from Gamespot

[dave7g]

14 hours ago, Gambit said:

I actually listened to the first part of the Bombcast today to see what they said about the situation. It seemed to very much tow the company line as opposed to on Grubbs show where he basically confirmed there would now be less content. It's getting a little old now having them say "we're going to need to sort out our next steps". That's been said multiple times a year now for ages.

 

Also, the Bombcast is now Bakalar, Jan and Grubb. What exactly does Dan do? It seems like he cares more about Fire Escape and his Twitch revenue rather than the job he's employed to do. And I guess them saying that Tam and Lucy are part of the core crew was a lie?

I listened too. I used to like Jan, but he's unbearable now. Just too much to take.

[Mr. Gerbik]

1 hour ago, stir fry said:

Possibly we will see another 'NL-like' pop up if GB does down tho, or there are more layoffs from Gamespot

Imagine Jess, Grubb, and Ben forming their own version of NextLander... :shudder:

 

[stir fry]

That latest podcast is rough listening, the opening 30 minutes anyway. Feels like there's a lot being held back that they want to say but the very real prospect of unemployment in a miserable looking recession keeps them doing these scared jokes and bits to avoid corpo backlash, and then they move on.

 

I feel like the best outcome for Giantbomb would ironically be that they get absorbed into Gamespot entirely and Grubb, Jan and Bakalar find roles within that org instead. GB can't even be compared to ship of theseus at this point, it's changed so much and so much of what made it work has been lost

[PK]

I know we've got a thread for him but it felt more apt here - Gerstmann has managed to do a four hour GOTY 2022 podcast with no-one to argue with but himself 

 

 

[dave7g]

Did you know the bombcast is the only podcast I've come accross that's unskippable on Alexa/ Can't skip through the unfunny "UGH What's the best hot dog sauce" bullshit at the start, or the overlong ads.

 

Gerstmann has the best show of all the allumni now. And by a huge margin. I could listen to him forever, no breaks.

[rafaqat]

14 minutes ago, dave7g said:

Did you know the bombcast is the only podcast I've come accross that's unskippable on Alexa/ Can't skip through the unfunny "UGH What's the best hot dog sauce" bullshit at the start, or the overlong ads.

 

Gerstmann has the best show of all the allumni now. And by a huge margin. I could listen to him forever, no breaks.

 

I listen to him eveyr week but everytime I'm thinking "fucjker, just make the point and fucking move on to the next one"  He just circles around saying the same thing for 10 minutes.  And yet the fucker is STILL interesting.   Sometimes I abandon the podcast but I tend ot always come back as he's got interesting shit to say.

[Mr. Gerbik]

3 minutes ago, rafaqat said:

He just circles around saying the same thing for 10 minutes.

Ymmv, but for me it's that he's entertaining to listen to. Even in those 10 mins he has a funny and charismatic way of telling it.