Fandom has bought Giant Bomb

Meh, what I care about is the people at GB, Gamespot, etc. Who owns them and what they do with the business - I cannot worry about. If I speculated about what could change I would chatter away at my fingernail until the end of time. The acquisition happened, so I will keep my eyes on the prize --- if I still enjoy GB, Gamespot, etc.

Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que sera, sera)
by Jay Livingston / Ray Evans

♯♪♪♫
When I grew up and fell in love
I asked my sweetheart what lies ahead?
Will we have rainbows day after day?
Here's what my sweetheart said

Qué será, será
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Qué será, será
What will be, will be
♯♪♪♫

As long as GB gets to continue in the direction they're going in, we can't speculate too much on this. It's all behind the scenes stuff that we have no idea about. Ideally, Fandom could link stuff to GB to get more eyes on the site.

I just hope the staff gets treated well, really.

In retrospect, Giant Bomb's success has also been a curse. The guys said it themselves, back in the Whiskey days, GB was the one site that was keeping that place afloat with the money they were bringing in with the premium subs. If it was just GB and it was owned outright by the "founders" from the start, they would be on the Kinda Funny business model by now. But since Patreon as a platform wasn't a thing in '07-'08, they had to rely on old business models. Really makes me wonder where things would be now if GB was spun off on its own when Whiskey went under.

The fact they didn't go solo makes me think subscriptions weren't enough to make it viable. Or maybe it just made more sense because, with corporate benefactors comes workplace perks like travel expenses, healthcare, paid leave, etc.

Well its not really Giantbomb anymore...is it ?

@emospacemonkey: I mean if this is the point where someone says that it's not Giantbomb anymore I will be deeply confused.

Finally the Fandom takes control over the site! We'll get to make harsh demands in the comment section like 'PLAY FF8 ALL THE WAY THROUGH AND PERFORM THE SONGS WITH TEARS IN YOUR EYES FOR OUR ENJOYMENT!"

@onemanarmyy: They should play FF8 (the best final fantasy) all the way through

@splodge: i wouldn't say its the best but as someone who got to the last disk n stopped on a pc copy over 15 years ago i'm all for seeing that

Really excited for everyone to get weird again, let's gooooooooo.

@onemanarmyy: I feel like ZP and I do this for Extra Life every other year.

This is a great news!

I have been out of the loop for a while and decided to check in and this is the news? That’s just too funny. The story of Giant Bomb is cemented as the website that is constantly settling in to their new ’office’.

And each office gets smaller. It wouldn't shock me if they were running the Bombathon out of an AirBnB.

I completely left Giant Bomb after Jeff's departure and was most of the way out long before that, so I didn't hear about this news until way later (I also didn't know about the Bombathon until this morning). Anyway, have the staff talked about this news anywhere? On a bombcast or a livestream or anything?

@youeightit: GB's been revitalized a lot since Jeff left.

Grubb mentioned it briefly on the morning mess (this Monday or Tuesday). Said RV didn't know what to do with them, while Fandom has people in place that they could work with. Seemed positive on it. But this week was mostly Bombathon focused.

Edit: I wrote Jeff, then Jeff G., then just went with Grubb because of this site's JeXX fascination.

@youeightit: if it means anything, the entire crew was in amazing spirits and the atmosphere was very celebratory all through the bombathon. Not a hint of negativity really.

We'll see if this Fandom is finally the fit GB needed. I hope that it is. They seem to be in tune with the gaming culture and not just some empty corporate institution looking for the bottomline like RV was.

What it makes me think is = running a BUSINESS in California is not easy., You need to give employees health care, 403b retirement, you need to follow all the employment laws in your state. Once you have employee over a certain number you need someone to run the business full time. I well imagine Jeff & Rayan made GB at Whiskey because he would never have to actually run the day to day of the business side and that why he was okay with being sold off the CBSi. Jeff and the other guys wanted to be creators and the people who did run the business side of GB for them wanted Jeff to be a creator because Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis were the name/face/and brand.

Second, I think GB makes more money than most people think and nobody is going to disclose that number to anyone but possible buyers. If you wonder how Giant Bomb - something we all like - can exist without teh odl timers then just consider Necco Wafers sold as candy from 1847 to 2018! Fracking, it was one of the dullest candies ever made, but it sold for 170 years. People will buy or pay for tons of stuff....even mildly sweet pressed discs of sugar.

if you look at the number of YT views of the GB videos I would not share this sentiment. With all the hires the shareholder coud rightfully expect to increase the viewership of new people not watching on the website directly. For most videos YT views is in the single digit thousands, which is far less than during GB‘s prime when the NL crew and Gerstmann was still on board. the trend is not positive

@rakete: Why would you look at YT views if you're talking quality?

As for the views, the times are different and you should be comparing to either before the revamp or something like Nextlander. In these cases the views have gone up a little since the new era started, whereas compared to Nextlander the views are kinda similar.

@retris:

i agree that there is more energy / quality again. But looking at GB purely as a business which RV and Fandom both do the engagement metrics do matter. nextlander and Jeff G are both paid by their audiences directly with Patreon taking a cut but they don’t have to answer to a shareholder who wants a specific return on their capItal. That is why I am pretty sure Fandom will do much more to monetize the site and the wiki by ads and fandom even said in their own press release on the acquisition „the deal will fuel Fandom's affiliate and commerce efforts including accelerating revenue on Fanatical, its gaming commerce business.“ I also strongly believe the new shareholder will look at „optimizing“ costs.

Fandom is not a media or press outlet like CBS or even Whiskey Media was where the editorial part is the core business that is produced and monetized.

I’m mostly curious about how much of a bump this provides in Dan’s plans creatively for the site.

I enjoyed the Bombathon a lot. However Grubb and Dan did an impromptu livestream from the hotel the next day (I think it was like Arianna Grande - the last RV expense) and really THIS was the kind of content I think GB needs and what I’ve been missing for so long.

Just a couple of members firing up a stream impromptu and shooting the shit, having fun. I joined just after Dan joined first time and this kind of grass roots, surprise streams is what I personally consider GB’s strength to be so I’d like more or this and that short stream was very encouraging to me.

I mostly keep my premium subscription for access to the archive but low-fi, impromptu streams is really what I’m after. Friends shooting the shit and having fun with the odd “event” (Mario Party Party, Demo Derby etc) punctuating it is what I’m after.

I come by to check on giantbomb every so often, and almost every time now something completely new is happening lol.

I wonder if they are bringing everyone back into an office? I see they got together for the first time a couple days ago.

When Jeff Gerstmann's solo podcasts are doing higher numbers than ANYTHING GiantBomb is putting out nowadays, you know that the website is in dire straits. There is a still growing segment of GB-fans that are just leaving because the content just isn't there. People are cancelling their premium subs left and right, or just letting it lapse permanently. It has been 2 years of mediocre Zoom-content and people are just done. People want more stuff like the bombathon because it harkens back to the days of Whiskey Media madness. However I'm afraid this is just a one-off thing for years to come.

There were talks about getting back into a studio after being acquired by Red Ventures, but nothing real happened obviously. They will probably have to start at square one with Fandom and who knows when they'll even put the idea on the agenda, let alone prepare to move to a studio or office.

Be prepared for another year of Zoom-content untill they're acquired by FaceBook or something.

Have to disagree here. I mean, yeah, the year after the Nextlander guys left was rough, but since the "re-launch" or whatever you call it with Dan etc., I feel like the content is back where I want it to be. However...

@atheistpreacher: I get the feeling that premium is just a burden going forward, because of what it gave us in the past. Which is weird because they're just doing a bunch of stuff for free that might've been behind a paywall before.

Whereas I give Patreons some money each month to support them, not even too interested in getting additional stuff. So premium is a weird legacy baggage thing, in a sense, despite it being so forward-thinking when it initially launched.

I can't believe people still expect them to get everyone back into an office together. That ship sailed years ago. Even if it wasn't in SF, most of the team doesn't live even remotely close to each other. I get that having everyone together in the same space offers things remote videos can't, but come on. Do you really expect people who own homes, have families, have significant others that also have jobs, etc. to uproot everything just so they can play games together in the same office? If Fandom pushes towards forcing everyone to be in the same office, I fully expect most of the staff to leave and the site to end.

so Disney buys fandom will they make Dan love Mickey Mouse

@williamhenry: I mean what is the point of the site then? An umbrella banner? A loose association of remote people streaming together? Why exist under Fandom at all instead of just doing their own thing on Twitch/YT? I don't expect anyone to move if they don't want to but if you're not going to try and get together as a physical unit/office/collective I don't know what the point of the site is. Remote worked at first in the early pandemic because the team already knew each other and the rapport was there but it just feels super disjointed now.

Outside looking in it seems like Grubb gets this "new world" and his Game Mess brand is growing currently by being on GB but will still exist for him to continue with if the whole thing folds tomorrow.

Then what differentiates GiantBomb from the regular Twitch streamer that has their discord on? Are we going to ignore the great content produced from 2008-2018, most of which was inhouse and in-person? It's not about forcing people to move to an office, on the contrary, it's about being tired by Zoom-style content and the absolute failure to evolve in any way. It's being tired by audio or streaming issues.

Yet, the one major differentiator of Bombathon was that it was in-person and despite audio issues I've never seen the community this excited again.

And poor duders, they have to sit in an office all day playing videogames. The horror.

I hope that things go well for the crew under the new Fandom regime, but I have to imagine that things behind the scenes are probably a bit worrisome right now. Like a lot of other people have mentioned, the view counts on GB's videos probably aren't what a soulless zaibatsu like Fandom considers successful enough in order to not mess with things. I haven't been watching very much GB content since the big departures (I'm an old head and the new vibe just isn't my bag), but I was happy that the site continued and Jan, Jason, Rory, Dan, and company were still able to do their thing. Ideally, the corporate overlords leave things alone, but I also hope that everybody on the crew has some other options open to them.

@zombiepie

I do appreciate and echo the concern for the wiki and wiki API. I do have to echo as one of the primary moderators for the wiki that the current wiki is in need of additional UI/UX improvements and could use a strong team to work on it.

I can't figure out how to quote. It didn't appear. I 2nd this. The last time I remembered was seeing a group of wiki editors discussing of how to attract new blood in the wiki. Glitches and broken search engine were discouraging.

I hope they do invest because Giant Bomb and Comic Vine are the most unique wiki databases. The others are too similar in UI. This is from an Anime Vice wiki editor who is almost burnt out and retired and I am still not used to editing in those type of wiki that requires knowing what was it HTML or whatever wiki coding it was. Giant Bomb wiki was always more friendly towards casual people. Editing here on Giant Bomb wiki pages was so much easier.

Many people here with takes that I agree with, but you both summarized what I would want to say. "Positivity until proven otherwise" is the way I want to go about most things in my life and that goes for still my favorite gaming site on the interwebs.

And then Albummer gets the boot.

@deer: You have to admit that Albummer had a pretty long run.

Compare to Ranking of Evil which had like 3-4 episodes before just petering out with no explanation (scheduling issues with Evil Uno?), or compare to Reel Layers which had an extremely uneven release schedule, and was also…divisive within the viewing audience before also just petering out with no explanation.

Ultimately we don’t know the terms of the contracts that nu GB is making with these outside creators, and how these terms/expectations might’ve changed after the shift from Red Ventures to Fandom.

I’m mostly curious to know if Friday Night Forking (on a Thursday) is coming back to GB. The terms of that relationship between GB and diamond-in-the-rough Twitch entertainer are especially confusing to me.

@bisonhero: Windbag confirmed he’s pausing the streams on GB but there will be a season 2 on GB.

@davesavedtheday: Yeah, I’ve caught some of his streams this week, but I still don’t understand the GB situation based on either side’s statements. My only guess is the initial arrangement for “season 1” was very short term/preliminary, and they’re on a break until a longer term arrangement is sorted out?

From the audience viewpoint, it’s odd that Windbag is not simply continuing a once-a-week GB stream given that both GB and Windbag seem to say he will continue to appear on the site.

My guess: it’s albummer and FNF are not directly game related, and so Fandom thus doesn’t want to continue the costs after the Redventures contracts hit their end of year. It may even be something arranged in the sale itself and not a choice GB got any say in.

@tartyron: Then there's also them not being directly Giant Bomb related. Could be that they want to focus on content by the actual Giant Bomb crew. Hope this doesn't mean the end of Arcade Pit's Giant Bomb edition.

@retris: exactly. It's a shame, I liked Albummer a lot and was shocked/delighted to see the coolest of them, Emily Panic, be the one that showed up to the New York hang. Two Minutes 2 Late Night's crew are all awesome, and if y'all haven't seen their kickstarted show in it's ideal form, pre-covid, at their St Vitus venue (got to their older youtube videos for "season 1") the amount of DIY heart put into it is just tremendous and frankly inspirational. If nothing else, them being on GB showed me their other work, and that was worthwhile.

No matter what happens, never forget that life goes on.

@lab392: This is an alien concept. Please explain to the class.