How about that time Dan fucked his eyesight up by wearing glasses even though he got perfectly good eyesight?
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Giant Bomb #9 | More Dan Meets The Eye
- Thread starter Hot Coldman
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How about that time Dan fucked his eyesight up by wearing glasses even though he got perfectly good eyesight?
The problem was for the most part their lives shows weren't very good, and usually devolved into watch people fiddle around in a game you've already been exposed to for an hour. The only Giant Bomb like personality they have is Danny, and even he can't carry a show solo. I know he had been doing that for a long while, but GB wised up early on that a quick look needed at least two people, and at least one of them needed to a Jeff, Dan, or Vinny type. Their prerecorded content has been fine.
I almost did the same thing as Dan as a kid, except for hearing. For some reason I thought hearing aids were cool.
Hearing aids are basically cyberware.
Fattony12000
Member
I'm pretty sure that was what I thought at the time. There was a version where they drilled into your skull or something. I can still vividly remember going into the hearing test, and debating whether to throw it. Man, kids are so stupid.
Yeah, I totally agree. Random Encounters without Danny are more or less always cringeworthy.
I think how Giant Bomb handled the last E3 was pretty much perfect for what Giant Bomb is. I don't know if I'd want them to do anything on a show floor stage. I'm sure it'd be entertaining, but the late night panels give me more of what I want from E3 than a stage where they listen to the normal sort of interviews from devs that sound like PR talking points. I definitely wouldn't care to hear anyone from GS except Danny or maybe one other person there talk over the conferences. The way Giant Bomb does E3 is the only real special thing about the event to me anymore.
I know during E3 there is an influx of people watching GB wanting more direct gaming talk during the panels and I can totally understand that because it's E3 for God's sake but I personally find that when they do talk games during their panels I get more of the type of candid insight and info that I want than I do anywhere else plus their brand of entertainment.
I also don't see how what is happening at Gamespot messes with Giant Bomb that much. Maybe a more focused effort on GS being the written side of gaming for CBSi while Giant Bomb will be their more video-driven side? Hell. I don't know. Maybe I'll wake up in the morning and Game Bomb US will exist and I will feel at a loss and uneasy for years to come. I'll grow a beard and dye it white in front of the local courthouse singing songs of pain. Preaching people not to fall in love with a website. The digital age was for lovers but mostly, in the end, losers. Eat your vitamins, kids. Don't do web. Do books. Do healthy food. Do you. Don't do memes. Do life. Be your own personal #brand and make your own #content. What?
I know during E3 there is an influx of people watching GB wanting more direct gaming talk during the panels and I can totally understand that because it's E3 for God's sake but I personally find that when they do talk games during their panels I get more of the type of candid insight and info that I want than I do anywhere else plus their brand of entertainment.
I also don't see how what is happening at Gamespot messes with Giant Bomb that much. Maybe a more focused effort on GS being the written side of gaming for CBSi while Giant Bomb will be their more video-driven side? Hell. I don't know. Maybe I'll wake up in the morning and Game Bomb US will exist and I will feel at a loss and uneasy for years to come. I'll grow a beard and dye it white in front of the local courthouse singing songs of pain. Preaching people not to fall in love with a website. The digital age was for lovers but mostly, in the end, losers. Eat your vitamins, kids. Don't do web. Do books. Do healthy food. Do you. Don't do memes. Do life. Be your own personal #brand and make your own #content. What?
Plus, Jeff said E3 was huge for them in terms of traffic. Their commentary for Sony(?) had 18k+ people chatting, and you can normally almost double that to get the actual view count (that's what their Twitch streams normally showed at least - the actual view count was always about double the amount of people chatting). I'm sure they'd get a lot of views if they did a more traditional floor stage, but how many are doing that stuff now? They fill a niche by doing commentary + live late night shows, and from what Jeff has said he would never go back to doing a floor stage because what they do now is more interesting AND less stressful for them.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
They still haven't found a way to actually monetize their viewers though, unless they are making huge bank on site skins. At least the youtubers have the Google ad dollars to rely on. At least Gamespot got Samsung or whoever it was to pay for a stage at the last E3.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
More viewers attracted = higher profile to attract new viewers = new viewers might become subscribers.
Jimmyfenix
Member
Subscribers = £$
They'd probably see a pretty big bump from non-US members if they introduced more payment options. I know only one person with a credit card and he only got it because some American company had that as its only payment option, as well. It's just not really a thing here anymore (Germany). They're a part of a giant corporation now that could handle at least PayPal for them. Their excuse of having to deal with every PayPal payment personally and individually no longer holds.
Well, I have no idea how their ad model works. But yeah, more viewers should mean more eyes on the site and possibly more subscribers.
I can pay fine with a Norwegian Visa debit card (I've never owned a credit card in my life). But yeah, PayPal automation would be a good thing.
Yep, they gotta get that PayPal automation stuff set up now.
How? Your debit card has a credit card number and a CVV?
I'm pretty sure we're all stuck here with Maestro. I guess it's a Visa thing.
Dan tweeted this image, yes that's a beer bong.
Edit: Beaten by a minute.
Almost looks like "can't beat 100%" Jeff doing the recording.
funkystudent
Member
A Gamescom stream would be good just to see Dan watch weird European shit.
I'm not sure if it has a credit card number, but the front of the card has a card number (the back has the bank account number), and the back has a CVV. I've never seen a debit card that doesn't look like that tbh, but then again I've never really seen a debit card that isn't Visa. I can pay for pretty much everything online with my card, and the only time I've needed PayPal was when I was donating for Rorie's fridge.
Honestly, I had no idea that some people couldn't pay for a lot of stuff online with their debit card.
Jimmyfenix
Member
Europe is my favorite country.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Both GB and GS use Twitch because they don't want to spend money on bandwidth... remember how they got "screwed" when GB was forced to use CBSi servers for video when Twitch removed password protected streams?
I don't know if raw subscriber dollars is supposed to be the main revenue source for the site.
I'm just gonna get a credit card now...
GB doesn't use Twitch for any of their streams anymore though. And as I said, it seems like GS was working on getting viewers from Twitch to their own player, without much luck.
And subscriber dollars is a big part of their revenue for sure. Other than that they're on that old ad model where more viewers=more ad money.
I'm not sure if they've said that directly, but Jeff has said that subscriber money is extremely important.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
I mean, they've pretty much said that the subscriber money was worth more to them than the ad revenue.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Have they done any free streams recently? Everything I've watched has been premium IIRC, so I can't really remember if they would have used Twitch for anything lately.
They used it for their live Divinity QL a few weeks ago.
It indicates a more engaged audience, and I guess recent events have might have proven that the GB model is better than the GS model, but when their main product is video but they don't sell ads on them, it seems like they're depending very hard on people willing to spend 35 bucks a year on them. Ultimately, it's the Patreon model that a lot of podcasts are using now, except that GB is conveniently backed by a corporate overlord.
They haven't done any non-premium streams lately that I can remember. But they've moved most non-premium streams from the SF office to the CBSi player, non-Premium or Premium. The stream of the Alpha for Destiny was on the CBSi player, to give you an example. I think most of Vinny and Alex' streams have been using the CBSi player too. Patrick seems to be struggling to make it work, and has been using Twitch.
Oh, and same with all the E3 live stuff used the CBSi player.
It seems like they're trying to use the CBSi player for as much as they can, but they still mirror some non-premium stuff to Twitch and use that player when they can't get the CBSi player to work. But the CBSi player is their main way of streaming now for sure.
I thought they did run pre-roll ads on video for non-subscribers. I remember my membership lapsed a while back and I started getting ads on videos. (unless I'm completely misremembering)
That's right, I saw some shitty ad when I watched one of their streams from work and couldn't log on.
Jimmyfenix
Member
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Hah, maybe they finally worked out all that weird internal bandwidth cost nonsense.
Oh weird, I didn't know that they got infested with that stuff. I guess that's one way to generate revenue... but really, I would assume the only way to make it stick is to have them do live ad reads during a stream or QL or something.
Youtube is probably the most aggressive with ads, where they'll just stop the video in the middle of playback to toss in a minute commercial.
It seems like they worked that out pretty fast. They moved most of their stuff to the CBSi player when Twitch ditched the ability to put a password on your streams.
And yeah, they've got ads on their streams and videos for non-subs. But it's just a 20-ish second ad when you start up your stream and video, nothing in the middle of the video or any nonsense like that. Live reading of ads on a QL or similar probably wouldn't fly on GB because of the "no ads" promise to Premium users. At least on streams, they could edit it out on recorded videos for Premium users like they do with sponsored Bombcasts.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
One twenty second ad per 1+ hour video is probably some manager's nightmare. lol
D
Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
we need indefinite weekly WOW videos featuring Dan, Matt and Brad.
I don't know the context so he would very well be 100% wrong, but the highest end stuff in the game has typically always been very hard. Nothing you would run into just levelling to max level in any version of the game, obviously.
He's talking about common leveling shit.
Yeah. They could do a couple of "we'll be right back after this..." for their streams if they wanted to.
Well, compared to now that shit was hard at least. But relative to other MMOs at the time? Not very.
Not for Warriors. They were everyone's bitch, even mobs in groups. This was way before we got self-preservation abilities like Victory Rush and Spell Reflect.
It is (or was, I haven't played since Cataclysm) a lot easier, especially with things like cross-server Group Finder, mounts at level 10 as opposed to 40, introduction of the Spell Power stat to give casters scaling.
It could take forever to level, but it was never hard. I guess those concepts are easy to mix up.
D
Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
this happens once every fortnight or so, but if anyone has any obscure quick look or other GB video recommendations: yo
Broder Salsa
Banned
Even if farming levels was never "hard" in that you didn't die a lot, I think you could justify saying it was "hard" because it took a lot of time compared to now. But yeah, I see your point.
SteveWinwood
Member
how does it feel knowing youre getting the same quality education as dan "ww2 was in africa?" ryckert
It wasn't hard in terms of killing stuff. It was more of an information problem: You always had that gap between levels where you did everything you've seen and didn't know where the hell to go. Huge quests were hidden, zones were not labeled with level ranges and you had to check everything yourself, and of course sometimes you really didn't know where the hell you need to do that quest because the description were so baffling.
Now there's breadcrumb quests everywhere, quests are delivered to you in bulk and map shows where you need to do them, questing and storylines flow a lot better.
Now there's breadcrumb quests everywhere, quests are delivered to you in bulk and map shows where you need to do them, questing and storylines flow a lot better.
Yeah, that's what I'm wondering too. I had never heard of it being a problem before now. I've always paid for everything online with my debit card without any problems. Most American sites say that you have to pay with a credit card ("credit card number" and "CVV"), but my debit card always works fine.
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