Jeff Gerstmann finally explains all regarding the fall of Giantbomb

I fell of giant bomb after OG Jeff left. I listened for a long as time and I always loved it, but the new crew post Gerstmann just wasn't up my alley, which is funny because I loved Grubb before Giant Bomb. I always thought Grubb was genuine before Giant Bomb; but once he was with GB his persona seemed more forced and it made me just slowly lose interest.

Giant Bomb thrived because its personality and it died by it.
 
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Sgt. Pinback said:
I liked Giant Bomb. Then, Abby Russell spent their end of year awards show telling me that 'Dream Daddy' was a better game than 'Nier Automata', and nobody told her to shut the fuck up. Then, Gerstmann said that they wouldn't be covering Kingdom Come: Deliverance, because there was 'no interest'.

Then, I decided - correctly - that they were making stuff that I had no interest in, as I thought that it was fundamentally stupid. So I stopped listening, cancelled my premium subscription, and that was that. And, everything they've done afterwards has been awful. I can't dedicate three hours a week of my rapidly dwindling life to listening to Jeff ramble on endlessly about energy drinks. It's like listening to someone talking to themselves in an asylum cell.
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I remain uninterested in anything Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It's entirely plausible. That game is the dying light/dead island of RPGs. I'm not sure why I would play it, what anyone sees in it, and am willing to let it pass me by at any price.

Certain unwatchable hires tanked the site. The subdued content interspersed with industry insight good goofs was better than hype Giant Bomb of the last few years.
 
MagusMajul said:
when I was a teenager I used to look up to him and the gamespot crew, now I realize they are just big fat pathetic man children. Why dose a man need paternity leave anyway? thats for women, pathetic soyboy. Especcialy Alex navaro. The only one form Gamespot who ever made something out of themselves was Greg Kasavin
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Paternity leave is for men to spend time with their partner and children.
 
TexMex said:
Welp

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I haven't watched, listened to or read anything from Giant Bomb in quite a while now. I realise it's not been the case for years but it feels weird for Giant Bomb to not involve anyone from that initial lineup. It's like a band announcing a new album/tour but none of the original members are involved.
 
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Current Giant Bomb isn't for me, but I'm glad it's not in the hands of Fandom. At the very least, the older content will be preserved.
 
adamsapple said:
Those guys would have all gone their separate independent Patreon ways like Gerstmann anyway.
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Depending on what they paid for the brand and the cost of running the site, this is probably what they should have done. Creatives don't always make the best decisions though, look at Yahtzee with the Escapist and now Second Wind. He'd be way better off on his own with a an editor than having to carry a full blown staff that underperforms and survives on his coattails.
 
GiantBomb was always weird, their podcast were long and tedious, and Jeff Gertsman would sit there with his grumpy childish attitude and roll his eyes when people said something he didn't like. He always was a prick and a terrible leader who has no idea how to steer the site. And he barely plays games.

When I think of GiantBomb, I think of a atrocious website that is ugly to look at and navigate and paywalled shit content.
 
Sgt. Pinback said:
I liked Giant Bomb. Then, Abby Russell spent their end of year awards show telling me that 'Dream Daddy' was a better game than 'Nier Automata', and nobody told her to shut the fuck up. Then, Gerstmann said that they wouldn't be covering Kingdom Come: Deliverance, because there was 'no interest'.

Then, I decided - correctly - that they were making stuff that I had no interest in, as I thought that it was fundamentally stupid. So I stopped listening, cancelled my premium subscription, and that was that. And, everything they've done afterwards has been awful. I can't dedicate three hours a week of my rapidly dwindling life to listening to Jeff ramble on endlessly about energy drinks. It's like listening to someone talking to themselves in an asylum cell.
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I was never a subscriber, but I stopped around that time too. I think in some podcast they specifically talked about Daniel Vavra and said because of his tweets, they won't cover KCD. At that point I thought the wokeness was enough and I stopped listening.
 
GoldenEye98 said:
I use to enjoy Gamespot/Giantbomb back in the day and even still listen Gerstmann occasionally but the harsh reality is that there was just way less competition 15 years ago for personality-based gaming content compared to now. You are not just competing against 10 other websites now....it's a shit ton of youtube and twitch based personalities/channels.

I don't believe this was due to parent companies bad decisions so much as it was the changing nature of the internet and increased competition.
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And most of them are atrocious. Truly insufferable, annoying, low iq people.

If I had to waste my time listening to someone talk about games, I'd rather listen the the "boring old men" like Gerstmann or Vinny Caravella any day of the week. But that's just me.
 
BennyBlanco said:
Which begs the question, why buy them in the first place? Only thing GB had going for it was premium subs, which was entirely because of the personalities. The wiki aspect of GB was always kind of half assed and felt superfluous.
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Jeff partly explains it in the video. When they were bought, GB was more future-minded in terms of how they looked at video content and online engagement. At the time Gamespot was still treating themselves like a print magazine that was simply online. They barely had any video presence and barely had an online social media footprint.

The video is worth watching for more info and for further questions you might have. It is about thirty five minutes long and it's the very first topic he discusses.
 
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Sebastian1295 said:
This is going to sound really really harsh but i'm blunt so here it goes. Giant bomb failed because the people that grew up with giant bomb did so when they were kids/teens and thought it was cool and they used giant bomb for there source of gaming news etc. Now that the kids/teens have grown up into adults and more platforms have opened up to discuss gaming news etc they realized that they out grew giant bomb and didn't care about it or need it anymore.


Jeff grubb can hype himself up all he wants but his giant bomb videos got like 7k views most of the time and he was doing like 1hr videos which is awful and isn't going to keep the lights on. His personality isn't entertaining at all in a video format and him and his co-host bring 0 to the table in terms of entertaining content to justify sitting there and wasting 1 plus hrs of your life weekly on bad and boring content. Alot of giant bombs stuff was bad/boring and i didn't find any of the personalities of giant bomb entertaining in the least. Giant bomb failed because the long ass podcasts they made weren't entertaining and they don't have entertaining hosts to keep people engaged on there content.


youre-boring
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I have this new fangled device that can scan any post for bullshit, and my device scanned your post. It detected zero bullshit throughout. And I wholeheartedly agree with my bullshit detector. You speak the truth my friend.
 
Bigfroth said:
Giant bomb E3 @ Nite live shows were the best.
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They really were. Giantbomb made E3 more fun. I met the guys at one E3. It was the E3 right before the PS4 and Xbox One launched. So I was able to play both consoles before they officially released.
 
Used to think Jeff was pretty cool.
Over the years you just get sick of his laziness and his taste in games.

How many features did he muse about doing and then didn't actually do anything about them?

The Raid

GB world tour

Game of the generation

The list is just about endless. Bro hasn't even cleaned the room he podcasts out of or cleaned his garage.

As for his taste in games. If he doesn't find the fun quick, he's out.

Also, he has some kinda crappy opinions that he states as fact - eg Rez is the best game soundtrack of all time etc.

Oh, and everything that's ever gone wrong is always someone else's fault - he takes no ownership for the company that he supposedly started
 
Majima Everywhere System said:
I remain uninterested in anything Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It's entirely plausible. That game is the dying light/dead island of RPGs. I'm not sure why I would play it, what anyone sees in it, and am willing to let it pass me by at any price.

Certain unwatchable hires tanked the site. The subdued content interspersed with industry insight good goofs was better than hype Giant Bomb of the last few years.
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You don't have to be interested in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. But, Gerstmann was pretending that it was a game that the audience had zero interest in - to the point that Giant Bomb had no business covering it, due to how insignificant it was, while very important games like 'Dream Daddy' were given prominence in their game of year deliberations.

It was stupid then, and it's stupid now. Gersmann didn't want to cover it because he didn't want his gaming journo cronies to cancel him, so he sold out and took the easy option. He's a bullshit artist who has been riding on his Kane & Lynch notoriety for a very long time, and Giant Bomb has been a piece of shit for so long that I can barely remember when it was tolerable. At the very least he should have had the balls to say 'we're not covering KC, it's too controversial, no matter what we say we'll get crucified, and we don't need the stress'. But, no. He had to make up some bullshit, cockamamie excuse and act like a retard.

Plus, they hired an absolute moron like Abby Russell - who very clearly knows nothing about video games - to create content for them. Ludicrous.
 
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An easy way to spot if someone in this thread has not watched the video, is if they say "Jeff has not taken any responsibility and has blamed everyone else/someone else is always at fault".

At no point did I ever state that he took zero responsibility, nor did I ever state that he felt zero guilt on what went down over the years.

We obviously need more context from Nextlander's point of view, but if people want to try and take this entire situation and neatly wrap it up in a bow to attempt to make a complicated matter much more simple, to justify their feelings on Giantbomb as a whole, that's on them.
 
I was a huge fan since the beginning and even paid the membership.
But they banned me when woke crap started around 2019.
The site and chat became insufferably woke. You couldn't talk about anything in live chat and live show were everything for that site.

But that was long overdue. The real gb died with Ryan or shortly after
 
SamFo said:
Used to think Jeff was pretty cool.
Over the years you just get sick of his laziness and his taste in games.

How many features did he muse about doing and then didn't actually do anything about them?

The Raid

GB world tour

Game of the generation

The list is just about endless. Bro hasn't even cleaned the room he podcasts out of or cleaned his garage.

As for his taste in games. If he doesn't find the fun quick, he's out.

Also, he has some kinda crappy opinions that he states as fact - eg Rez is the best game soundtrack of all time etc.

Oh, and everything that's ever gone wrong is always someone else's fault - he takes no ownership for the company that he supposedly started
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The CBS ownership was a great excuse for them not being able to do all the grea5 things they wanted to. Then sure enough when they go their own ways they end up doing the same boring shit they did at GB.
 
SamFo said:
If he doesn't find the fun quick, he's out.
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I think this is understandable since he "grew up" in the arcades, as far as I understand. And there's nothing wrong with this, imho.

I, too don't want to spend 10+ hours on a game until "it gets fun". I think that's bad design.
 
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The appeal of Giant Bomb was the specific group of guys, they had a dynamic from working with each other and being genuine friends with one another for years. Current GB is like if Mike, Jay, and Rich left Red Letter Media. Whoever takes over in their stead might be decent but it's RLM in name only at that point, and current GB is GB in name only.
 
Yes, I see Jeff's view, and not that I don't believe him, but I want to see other views. I wish someone from Gamespot could give his or her view on the situation.
 
Sebastian1295 said:
This is going to sound really really harsh but i'm blunt so here it goes. Giant bomb failed because the people that grew up with giant bomb did so when they were kids/teens and thought it was cool and they used giant bomb for there source of gaming news etc. Now that the kids/teens have grown up into adults and more platforms have opened up to discuss gaming news etc they realized that they out grew giant bomb and didn't care about it or need it anymore.


Jeff grubb can hype himself up all he wants but his giant bomb videos got like 7k views most of the time and he was doing like 1hr videos which is awful and isn't going to keep the lights on. His personality isn't entertaining at all in a video format and him and his co-host bring 0 to the table in terms of entertaining content to justify sitting there and wasting 1 plus hrs of your life weekly on bad and boring content. Alot of giant bombs stuff was bad/boring and i didn't find any of the personalities of giant bomb entertaining in the least. Giant bomb failed because the long ass podcasts they made weren't entertaining and they don't have entertaining hosts to keep people engaged on there content.


youre-boring
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First post really knocking it out of the park. The old guard simply never adapted, despite the winds clearly shifting about 10-15 years ago.

Sgt. Pinback said:
I liked Giant Bomb. Then, Abby Russell spent their end of year awards show telling me that 'Dream Daddy' was a better game than 'Nier Automata', and nobody told her to shut the fuck up. Then, Gerstmann said that they wouldn't be covering Kingdom Come: Deliverance, because there was 'no interest'.

Then, I decided - correctly - that they were making stuff that I had no interest in, as I thought that it was fundamentally stupid. So I stopped listening, cancelled my premium subscription, and that was that. And, everything they've done afterwards has been awful. I can't dedicate three hours a week of my rapidly dwindling life to listening to Jeff ramble on endlessly about energy drinks. It's like listening to someone talking to themselves in an asylum cell.
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You mean telling your audience to fuck off and ignoring the biggest releases of the year is not a good way to grow your audience? SHOCKED.

These leeches are so disconnected from normal, well-adjusted people that they can't possibly comprehend anyone thinking differently than they do.
 
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My favourite memories of Giantbomb revolve around E3.

Gerstmann livestreaming his drive to Los Angeles, the daily livestreams in an impromptu studio (or even the sidewalk). The vibes were great.

Then they hired the wrong people who poisoned the well and it all went to shit.

Gerstmann leaving was the right call. He's doing really great on his own and his podcast is still going strong. The dude has an insane amount of videogame knowledge and it's amazing how he can easily talk on his own for 3 hours every week and keep things fresh and interesting.

Giantbomb on the other hand never recovered.
 
I loved these guys back in 2010ish. Part of my weekly podcast rotation for my long drive to work.
It seems like I stopped listening around the time many others did.
I definitely miss those days. The industry felt like it was on such a roll. WTF happened.

I have absolutely zero interest in watching streams or twitch or anything like that. I've never understood the appeal of watching someone else play a videogame all day.
 
you gotta love the irony of the guy getting fired from Gamespot for doing just his job as a reviewer, decided to make his own site to avoid a similar thing happening again and have free speech only to end up years later back in the hands of same said company and replace the ad revenue scandal that conflicted with free speech with woke bullshit censorship.
 
bobone said:
I have absolutely zero interest in watching streams or twitch or anything like that. I've never understood the appeal of watching someone else play a videogame all day.
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I don't care about watching streams either but I'm no longer interested in the wider gaming landscape anymore so I can't listen to anyone talk about games I won't play.

I want to hear about 5 - 10 games a year and it seems to be more effective to find streamers comment on those games rather that shuffle through all the bloat of a podcast like Giant Bomb.
 
Sebastian1295 said:
This is going to sound really really harsh but i'm blunt so here it goes. Giant bomb failed because the people that grew up with giant bomb did so when they were kids/teens and thought it was cool and they used giant bomb for there source of gaming news etc. Now that the kids/teens have grown up into adults and more platforms have opened up to discuss gaming news etc they realized that they out grew giant bomb and didn't care about it or need it anymore.


Jeff grubb can hype himself up all he wants but his giant bomb videos got like 7k views most of the time and he was doing like 1hr videos which is awful and isn't going to keep the lights on. His personality isn't entertaining at all in a video format and him and his co-host bring 0 to the table in terms of entertaining content to justify sitting there and wasting 1 plus hrs of your life weekly on bad and boring content. Alot of giant bombs stuff was bad/boring and i didn't find any of the personalities of giant bomb entertaining in the least. Giant bomb failed because the long ass podcasts they made weren't entertaining and they don't have entertaining hosts to keep people engaged on there content.


youre-boring
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I disagree with some parts

Watch Giant Bomb since the start and for a lot of years, then people started to leave for their personal reasons. Changes happens, so I guess it's ok.

The biggest problem is that eventually the sauce was lost. People didn't have the chemistry that the OGs had. The industry changed a lot in the last five years and they couldn't find a way to keep track with it

It's a shame, thou. Their E3 coverage are by far the best of everyone. Their occasional game meme or whatever, like the Mario Party Party, their endurance runs... It was great, and now is dead for lots of direction rules. It sucks

 
Within all my time gaming I have never even entertained Giant Bomb, I know they was big with most GAF members here at the time but I was more of 1up guy myself.
So I can say is good luck guys.
 
TGO said:
Within all my time gaming I have never even entertained Giant Bomb, I know they was big with most GAF members here at the time but I was more of 1up guy myself.
So I can say is good luck guys.
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R8pBZFu.png



Miss U GIF



We had it all, we lived through the golden age of gaming podcasts and features.
 
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Sebastian1295 said:
This is going to sound really really harsh but i'm blunt so here it goes. Giant bomb failed because the people that grew up with giant bomb did so when they were kids/teens and thought it was cool and they used giant bomb for there source of gaming news etc. Now that the kids/teens have grown up into adults and more platforms have opened up to discuss gaming news etc they realized that they out grew giant bomb and didn't care about it or need it anymore.


Jeff grubb can hype himself up all he wants but his giant bomb videos got like 7k views most of the time and he was doing like 1hr videos which is awful and isn't going to keep the lights on. His personality isn't entertaining at all in a video format and him and his co-host bring 0 to the table in terms of entertaining content to justify sitting there and wasting 1 plus hrs of your life weekly on bad and boring content. Alot of giant bombs stuff was bad/boring and i didn't find any of the personalities of giant bomb entertaining in the least. Giant bomb failed because the long ass podcasts they made weren't entertaining and they don't have entertaining hosts to keep people engaged on there content.


youre-boring
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I've been using the same gaming news site since I was a wee lad. The main people on it have grown up so it's like I've been maturing with it in some ways. So there are sites one can use basically most of one's life, but then there are others that lose the plot.
 
Glad they're independent. The new crew can't replace the OG crew but honestly it's a lot better now than it was in the years leading up to the exodus, at least the people there now actually want to be there. And Dan is always a good time.

I'm not gonna subscribe but I'm happy for them. I hope it works out. More than anything I'm curious about that Jeff thinks about this and is he brings it up on his podcast. Him and Dan are apparently still very close so I'm sure he knew about this beforehand in some capacity.
 
The most recent Nextlander Tylenol PM podcast talks about this whole thing too

Gonna listen to both sometime today. Though judging by the responses here, nothing really juicy spills out 😑
 
"Why does my business keep failing?" his says in his poorly fitting graphic t-shirt with unkept hair and beard.

It's a mystery we may never solve.
 
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