Giant Bomb Thread 2: A thread on a popular internet message board

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Jeff saying that they're sticking to their current philosophy is good. While I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic about this, I definitely don't feel right about staying a premium member. Before, that money was going directly towards them. Now...I'm not so sure.
 
So:

-Giantbomb.com remains a separate site
-All GB staff and Drew/Dave are staying
-The retain full creative control and don't answer to Gamespot/CBS in terms of contents, reviews, etc.
-Reviews, Quick Looks, Bombcast, and stupid random shit continue as-is
-Move to Gamespot subscriptions are via a coupon code, Gamespot doesn't get your current subscription/CC info
-No changes to ads (paying subscribers still get zero ads)
-Today at 4pm PDT Jeff is doing a live thing with John Davidson to finally reveal what happened with Gerstmangate


On a surface level this all seems good; Alex Navarro said on Twitter that the regime at CBS/GS now is totally different from when Gerstmangate happened, and that would be my only main lingering concern which they seem to be addressing later today. For the time being I will give them the benefit of the doubt and see how it goes.

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If they're able to keep doing what they're doing I can accept this. I'm also a big fan of John Davison so that helps, I know that dude is on the level
 
Jeff saying that they're sticking to their current philosophy is good. While I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic about this, I definitely don't feel right about staying a premium member. Before, that money was going directly towards them. Now...I'm not so sure.

He is not going to say otherwise. That's for sure.


Things will maybe be fine at the start, but down the road, shit will probably happen. He said that they keep creative control, etc etc, but hey, when you are owned by a company such as CBS, they are the ones paying your salary in the end, so you do what they tell you to do.
 
Jeff saying that they're sticking to their current philosophy is good. While I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic about this, I definitely don't feel right about staying a premium member. Before, that money was going directly towards them. Now...I'm not so sure.

If you were supporting them just to support them and not for the content, then I can definitely see cancelling. If you were there for the content, I guess you'll have to judge based on that.
 
Neither do I, but I will suddenly pay a lot more attention to Tested (loved their guest-ins on the videos and stuff, but wasn't really interested in a lot of their content).

Yeah when tested talked about IOS/Android/Windows/Mac I would skip it most of the time for a multitude of reasons.

Lego/racoons/coffee? I'm in.
 
He is not going to say otherwise. That's for sure.


Things will maybe be fine at the start, but down the road, shit will probably happen. He said that they keep creative control, etc etc, but hey, when you are owned by a company such as CBS, they are the ones paying your salary in the end, so you do what they tell you to do.

They were owned by a company before... You realize this right?

You can be pessimistic, but I'm cautiously optimistic. The site seemed really stagnant over the last year. I love what they were doing, but they didn't change/evolve/advance in any way except adding Patrick. I'm excited.
 
Alex Navarro said on Twitter that the regime at CBS/GS now is totally different from when Gerstmangate happened

Sure, but for how long? I just can't shake the feeling that someday the corporate top dogs will screw GB over big-time.
 
Hmmm... The more this goes on, the better it actually sounds.

1) no "full on" merger, GB.com staying the same
2) separate reviews from Gamespot
3) Giant Bomb carrying on being Giant Bomb, but with more money.

... Hmmm...

I swear I heard the exact same type of things when investors sold the company I work for (minus the separate reviews, but separate sales/project management staff instead). 2 years later and our original name and product no longer exists, were were totally folded into them and overlap was let go/left willingly. The culture is completely different, management has been fully replaced and pretty much all our worst fears came true.

Giant Bomb+CBS/Gamespot appear to be a close fit, much closer than what I went through, even if there appears to be a ton of overlap. And the gaming industry seems pretty laid back and incestuous overall. If they were looking to bulk up on staff and credibility, they definitely did that and that's about as good a lump crew as you're going to get. But I can't help but feel this news being colored by my own experiences. Not trying to overreact or anything.

Again, I def wish them the best and I hope this all works out, whatever it ends up being.
 
He is not going to say otherwise. That's for sure.


Things will maybe be fine at the start, but down the road, shit will probably happen. He said that they keep creative control, etc etc, but hey, when you are owned by a company such as CBS, they are the ones paying your salary in the end, so you do what they tell you to do.

Seriously, what else was he supposed to say? "We couldn't afford to stay independent and our site will eventually turn to shit."?
 
If anything, today's Tested podcast will be pretty great. They are recording right now.
Really interested in hearing what their involvement with the Mythbusters will be. I always loved those guys.
 
Not saying everything's going downwards now but when has stuff like this ever meant that 'nothing changes'. They're always saying everything's going to be the same, they're always saying that everything will probably even better now and I've yet to see that actually happen.

I would love to be surprised though.
 
Guys, we may want to calm down. Most if not all the GB crew is staying the same. The website isn't going to be gamespot.com/giantbomb, it'll still be giantbomb.com. They're not becoming a part of Gamespot, they're just owned by the same company. They'll just have more money to do shit now. I'm honestly kind of excited.

Only downside is no GB/Tested/Screened crossover. I really wonder what Matthew Rorie is doing...

It's not like we haven't heard all of this before. 1UP getting bought out (twice), etc. This is an old song and dance and it always ends up the same way.

Just saw your other posts. Are you working PR here or what?
 
So is the Bombcast going to have ads during breaks now?

Probably not at first. Sounds like "members" (which now means Gamespot members) will get ad-free version of GB for now.

I say for now, because I'm not sure how long CBS will allow that to continue.
 
Feeling very ambivalent about this. On the one hand, it sounds like they're all really excited about the future of the site and it doesn't sound like much is going to change. On the other hand, no Will, Norm, or Rorie (or Gary?) is going to be a massive bummer.
 
How does it make it more comforting that John Davison is heading up Gamespot now? He'll probably bail from there for another job (again) in a year or two anyways, then what?
 
Things will maybe be fine at the start, but down the road, shit will probably happen. He said that they keep creative control, etc etc, but hey, when you are owned by a company such as CBS, they are the ones paying your salary in the end, so you do what they tell you to do.

Shit will definitely happen, but Giantbomb is a site with a strong editorial voice, and their strong editorial voice is their major selling point. Coming in and tampering heavily with giantbomb would be a pretty bad way of dealing with their investment, for CBS. I mean, we already have some of the worst posters in these threads cancelling subscriptions, imagine how it'd be if something actually happened.
 
It's not like we haven't heard all of this before. 1UP getting bought out (twice), etc. This is an old song and dance and it always ends up the same way.

Well when 1UP got bought, they fired everyone who was worth a damn on the site. That's not the case here. I'm still confident that Jeff Ryan Brad Vinny Dave Patrick and Drew can make excellent content.
 
There's no way it will stay Giant Bomb forever if they are moving into the same offices, there will ultimately come a point where it doesn't make sense to have these two things going, especially when both are so laser focused on one thing.

I still have hope though, with the fact that Davison seems like a good guy, and the quality of what Giant Bomb do, that whatever eventually comes out of this is more Giant Bomb and less gamespot.

I want this to end up being Pixar getting bought by Disney. I have hope.


Everyone has good reason to be sad though, this is the end of an era for sure. I'm glad I got to watch from beginning to end though.
 
How does it make it more comforting that John Davison is heading up Gamespot now? He'll probably bail from there for another job (again) in a year or two anyways, then what?

Yeah, it sounds like John Davison was instrumental in getting this to happen. What happens when he's gone?

Then again I have a feeling that all this means that if this hadn't happened, we wouldn't have had a GB in 2013. So maybe this will buy us an extra year of GB content that we wouldn't have had otherwise.
 
So:

-Giantbomb.com remains a separate site
-All GB staff and Drew/Dave are staying
-The retain full creative control and don't answer to Gamespot/CBS in terms of contents, reviews, etc.
-Reviews, Quick Looks, Bombcast, and stupid random shit continue as-is
-Move to Gamespot subscriptions are via a coupon code, Gamespot doesn't get your current subscription/CC info
-No changes to ads (paying subscribers still get zero ads)
-Today at 4pm PDT Jeff is doing a live thing with John Davidson to finally reveal what happened with Gerstmangate


On a surface level this all seems good; Alex Navarro said on Twitter that the regime at CBS/GS now is totally different from when Gerstmangate happened, and that would be my only main lingering concern which they seem to be addressing later today. For the time being I will give them the benefit of the doubt and see how it goes.

I'm fine with this. My only concern is that their future is now tied to their profitability in the eyes of CBS. It could be a simple case of traditional media ownership where a company wants multiple outlets. My concern is, if at some point down the road GB isn't perceived as being an asset or CBS comes to the conclusion that owning both Gamespot and GB is redundant, there is nothing to stop the new owners from simply shutting them down or firing people to save costs. Plus, who knows who will be the corporate head of CBS Interactive five years down the road. It's not like the Gersmangate guys are there anymore.
 
At first I was a little nervous, but you know what? Even if they get "folded into GS" or what have you, they're still Jeff, Ryan, Brad, Vinny, Patrick, Drew, and Dave. All still super rad guys that, at this point, have earned my trust. They say this is a good thing, and I believe that they believe it. Whether or not it ultimately will be has yet to be seen, but I'm excited to see what the future holds.

And damn, I could not have picked a worse day to not have access to a real computer.
 
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