That video was weird

@tonechu: You plan to launch a Patreon and it was ready to go for today.

Man the comments on people's legitimate concerns and feelings on everything going down with, Jeff and the website as a whole just makes me happy I've never engaged in the forums even though I've been a premium member since the creation of the premium tier. I have my own opinions on the matter as well, but I'll continue to keep them quiet as I don't feel like being called out as someone who isn't a fan of GB, inspite of how long I've been on this website, because apparently fans can't have any opinion other then blind obedience to a brand, which is what GB has become at this point. I'm not one to flip-flop on my subscription like I've seen many people post about but I will continue to see what they do content wise and make my decision based on that, I don't have any I'll will towards the remaining/returning hosts as I actually like a lot of them, but Jeff leaving is definitely going to leave an impact just like anyone who left, but Jeff being here since the beginning I think it makes sense for people to react how they are. A website the was focused on pushing those personalities to the front losing the co-creator is kind of a big deal, and shouldn't be a huge surprise when his exit gets the reactions it does. GB wouldn't be here without Jeff, so for a lot of people Jeff was the last bit of familiarity people had with the site when it launched, it's a huge loss and it's crazy to see that the comments are nothing but negative towards people just wanting to come on here and talk to people who should be more understanding.

When it comes down to it the only thing that's bothering me is that the video took time to put together. Dan knew he was coming back for a while. Jeff today said he hasn't been able to talk about this for weeks.

Why didn't Jeff, the literal creator of Giant Bomb get a proper farewell like everyone else? I don't blame the new GB crew. But this seems like some harsh shit from RV that makes me warry to trust anything Gb does. Like i'm getting Vince McMahon firing people during the pandemic vibes.

I dunno, its just weird but I am hopeful for the future.

@efesell: I don’t have the slightest idea how long it takes to create a Patreon.

Too Human motherfucker. Someone hand these guys a Choco Taco so they can cool off. Remember what this site is.

It's really not though, it's a personality driven brand so when the personalities leave for many it will feel like a completely different brand. It was one of the concerns I had about giant bomb as the original crew was getting older, how they would transition into new hosts to take over when they retire(honestly shocked they all "left" before that happened though). A lot of folks left when Ryan passed as it wasn't the same without him for them for example.

I think how they are formatting it now will be easier for hosts to leave and exit though as it will be more focused as a entertainment brand rather than simply a personality brand, with the shows etc. It's more like a TV network now than a personal VlOG type of site it was before.

I think the main issue now is that there was no build up for the departure of the co-founder, so people who (some literally) grew up with the site are going to have some strong feelings. But I think Jeff did a pretty good job making sure the brand would out live him (even if it may not have ended how he imagined).

@oursin_360: If it's a matter of the moving on because the personalities you liked are gone then that's different.

What I'm calling weird, and standing by calling it that, is this mythical position that people are placing Jeff at as the Lodestone of the website. That Jeff is gone so now Giant Bomb should just turn to dust and blow away.

Pretty wild to me that I’ve all heard for YEARS was that Gerstmann was too negative and hated everything even before he played it (heck, I agreed sometimes), and now that he’s leaving he was a saint who held it all together, even though he barely appeared on any content but the podcasts and UPF for the last two years. And I say this as someone who loves watching the man dig through his garage.

@efesell: It's not weird though, it's how they feel about it. Obviously it's not true, it's just subjective feelings. There are probably people who think the tonight show died when carson left, or when leno left etc. And to them it's not "the tonight show" and the real show died etc. And in a way, their Giantbomb is gone forever. You gotta learn that emotions are not rational and just let people vent and move on.

@beggary: I've been thinking a lot about this as well. The sheer volume of people who would complain that he's ruining all of the coverage because he's so cynical all the time.

The New Era of Transparency started after Jeff left, meaning we don't get to know all the details. They're going to start being transparent........ now.

@lab392: I smiled at your first post in this thread :)

@eccentrix: Haha that was my thought exactly. Let’s start the transparancy by announcing the founder of the site is out via a bad press release and not give him any oppotunity to personally say as much as goodbye to his fans on the site.

And he can’t talk about his departure on his personal stream either, probably because of some form of contract or NDA, but other than that totally transparent.

I don't understand the people that feel the burning desire to stand up for a dying website owned (and apparantly micromanaged) by a soulless corporation. The writing is on the wall, and there are many reasons to assume foul play.

1. They had time to produce and film that video meaning there was plans in place at least as early as last week

2. Jeff wasn't on anything over the last week, and didn't even get an "out on assignment" mention on the last Bombcast (which actually had me sitting there wondering what was up with that)

3. Jeff clearly set everything up on his end extremely last minute meaning this all fell apart with no notice

4. Jeff got literally ZERO mention or sendoff, despite being the FOUNDING MEMBER of the website, even more glaring when you note that literally every other staff member who has left has had nice and tasteful sendoffs.

I can't say specifically what happened, and there is an outside chance that all of these GIANT RED FLAGS are misleading, but to sit there and say that this situation is normal, and there's "no reason to assume foul play" is just straight up silly. I came here curious to see what other likeminded longtime fans of the site were saying about this ludicrous situation, yet a good chunk of the posts are just blathering on about "how excited" they are about Red Vultures deciding that all the non-gaming content was trash.

What are you talking about? He literally created his new Youtube channel on the stream, and was talking about how slapdash the patreon page and podcast art were. The timeline is pretty clear, he had at most 1 week notice, given he was not on any content last week. I don't understand this strange cult of "toxic positivity" that has taken over this community, but it's becoming clear that pro-corporate stanning and shutting down of any dissenting opinion are what Giant Bomb and Red Vultures stand for. I've been feeling for the last year or so that the tone of the site and community have changed, to the point where I wonder how many current community members are Red Vulture bot accounts.

@black_turtle: 100% this. It's weird as fuck and hearing people say otherwise is making me feel like I'm being gaslit. The dude was the last remaining staff member from a website HE started 14 years ago. That's not something you close out with a stilted blog post and two clipped sentences at the start of a podcast. I get I'm owed nothing but as someone who has been a member and fan of this website since the beginning it'd be nice to have even a little bit of fucking closure.

It is quite obvious that Jeff. G is burned out on corporate beauracracy (?) if you listen to his podcast.

It is also quite obvious that GB Crew scrambled to get that video going - and who knows stuff may aswell been cooking behind the scenes for quite some time since their programming has hit problems this whole year. The new hires may not be that clearly connected to Jeff.Gs leave at all.

Also - From where i'm standing at least- making a big sendoff celebration kerfuffle could actually hurt the Giant Bomb brand way more than making things seem as on track as possible and just let Jeff G use his name and brand as he see fit. I mean he is a giant in this field.

All in all - i feel way more invigorated by this compared to the depression i fell into when GBE was shut down.

@black_turtle: Jeff has been saying many times, most recently on his Twitch yesterday, that he has been thinking about "doing something else" for YEARS. And whether he has an NDA or not you gotta keep in mind that all this rampant speculation is working in his favor as folks have this idea that he has been done dirty and he needs your financial support on Patreon. From his last day at work (presumably Monday), it took him less that 24 hours to set up a competing video game podcast that also airs on Tuesdays. Giant Bomb has no responsibility to give free advertising to a competing product. Even the Nextlander dudes waited at least a week before announcing it.

Everyone toeing the staff line of "we must move forward" and taking a more logical thought process of "this is the way to interact about a matter like this", "we shouldn't speculate" and focusing on the whole process are to be mostly credited for trying to keep things civil and minimizing miscommunication.

However, in following that process, some of you sound quite robotic and taking that "full-on logical" approach has the side effect that your messages lack empathy. Jeff's farewell IS muted and whether that is his choice or not, the way this topic is being approached by the community makes it feel like you're more concerned with process than just remembering and celebrating him, even if that isn't your intention.

This is all very, very strange. I'm not really one to spectulate, but I've not been a fan of Tam and Lucy on content so, sadly, Giant Bomb won't be for me anymore. This is very upsetting because I have been watching for years. I hope everyone is okay and has a good time.

This reminded me a lot of the old goty skits they used to do. I was really bummed when they got replaced by basically a Christmas themed UPF, so I'm very pleased by this.

Sorry, but the way this went down wasn't the right way, plain and simple. People can try to act like it's no big deal, or tell other people to " quit speculating and shut up" but that's not going to make much of a difference. All you're doing is causing what is known as the "Streisand Effect", where your attempts to silence people or make them look the other way only causes the opposite to happen. Jeff Gertsmann was not just some popular member of the site, or someone who was a part of the "Giant Bomb Staff" for a long time. He was the co-founder of the site and had been running it for nearly two decades. To sum up his leaving in a corporate memo where his is only mentioned in a paragraph is not cool duders. It's not about whether you liked the guy or not, or don't care that he left. There are ways to do things, and this isn't one of them. Certainly not for a site that originally claim to be about the personalities and a more human approach to video game coverage.

But I'm glad Jeff is bouncing back with a podcast show on Twitch.

Jeff was practically in tears explaining how relieved he was to leave the site yesterday. This isn't like a "Jeff is going to a big corporate game developer job now" or even "striking out to start his own Nextlander". He's clearly depressed/confused and trying to get things back together to save his own mental health. He's figuring it out as he goes along. So with that all in mind, I don't think it was really setup to be like "this is Jeff's farewell tour" -- he just needed out fast and probably all the policies RV enforces around departures only made things more restrictive.

If you're a fan of the site then what you should be focused on is that Jeff seems happier now and the crew is stronger than start of pandemic and saying things we've been wanting to hear for a while (focus on games, live events, and in-person streams soon).

Some folks really struggling to pick up on subtext...Jan basically laid it out for you, read between the lines then move on. It is thankfully that simple.

@av_gamer: Nobody in the community is acting like this isn't a big deal, there's a million comments sharing memories and thanking Jeff. There's just no point in blaming the crew when we have no idea who's "fault" this situation is and we probably never will. It could be Jeff's decision to keep his exit small and private, it could be that because of corporate decisions at RV the crew did as much as they were legally allowed to, it could be that the crew decided on their own to make it this unceremonious (unlikely imo). The point is, without a given reason all this hate is just complete speculation that blames the crew in full for things that could be completely out of their control. Its a negative energy that's unneeded and uncalled for.

@davidfox1983 said:

HE'S NOT DEAD. Anybody that wants to go celebrate Jeff can go and do so on his Twitch account and his new Patreon for god's sake, I'm sure he'd be very happy to celebrate with you. His Patreon is doing very well, he has full capabilities to express his own thoughts, he does not need us to pity him.

If it matters so much to you, with a a little bit of editing skills you can create your own sentimental "remembering Jeff" video from the material available on this site.

@genericbrotagonist: But then they should EXPLAIN what is going on. This is not rocket science.

Put some pressure on RV to give fans answers and maybe some closure.

OR you could just tow the corporate line and go "There is nothing do be done!", i guess.

@oxe: Can they explain what's going on? Would it be within the realm of Jeff's wishes even if they could? Is this the "corporate line" that we're towing? Once again, you're speculating wildly and assuming that the crew is working in the worst faith possible. Let me make something perfectly clear: This is a business. These people are not your friends. You don't know them. Every time you've ever seen them, they've been performing for you. Anything behind the camera is not your business unless they wish it, and no one should be vilified for not doing so.

@genericbrotagonist: I am not assuming anything about the crew, all my assumptions are towards the RV management.

This is a personality based website. That is their business.

The longest active personality, the personality that was one of the founders is out and he is sent off in such an unceremonius way if you did not follow the site you could think he was a summer intern.

Heck, they HAVE given ACTUAL interns better send-offs in the past.

This has nothing to do with behind or in front of camera, this has to do with respecting Jeff and respecting the audience.

Trying not to speculate and just ask questions. But man wtf happened over this last year-ish where everything crashed and burned? The big three left, Jeff B and crew announced new content/shows after a blackout period, a portion of the shows flamed out for whatever reasons, Jeff G starts to appear less and less and then Jeff is finally out of here. This all happened after the acquisition of RV, but we were told this was going to be a good thing for the site. Is the common denominator RV? Was there some sort of metric that the now big four duders didn't want to put up with? Because they seem to be just doing the same stuff they were doing here at GB, just now on Patreon and YT. Why did they all leave then?

@oxe: You have a strange conception of the word "respect", when both Jeff G and the Giant Bomb have requested to give the man some privacy.

Jeff doesn't owe you shit.

@retris: Like every time someone leaves, or new hires are being considered, the staff and crew practically BEG the community to please not speculate wildly and get all armchair lawyer and consipracy theorist about things, as it ultimately makes things harder for them. But, EVERY TIME the ones who claim to care the most go directly against the expressed personal wishes of the staff.

And this joker above is saying "..put pressure on RV.." . What form would this pressure take? If the staff arent privvy to what happened, they arent privvy and thats it. They may even know, but as Jan said, there are privacy concerns that have to be respected. What should they be doing? Going after management with a mob of angry internet users?

Jeff has his patreon up, and I am sure in time he will be comfortable talking about it, or maybe, he never will. Sometimes shit happens and you NEVER GET TO KNOW WHY. Especially when it happens to someone you dont know, are not friends with, and have no association with.

@retris: I don't remember Jeff saying anything about "privacy", that is all from the Giant Bombers.

What Jeff said was something like "People are going to wonder what the real story is but we are going to move onward and upward" which to me is exactly the sort of thing someone under an NDA would say to avoid getting into legal trouble.

If anyone from Giant Bomb or Red Ventures can confirm that neither Jeff and the Giant Bomb crew are under NDAs i think it would bring a lot of peace of mind to the community.

People who spend their time speculating for behind the scenes stuff have a lot of the same energy as the Star Wars anti fans who spend hours talking like everybody involved in SW is about to be fired at any minute. Jeff said his peace on his podcast and the staff said theirs, If ya don't like what was said then tough, cause as many have pointed out we are owed nothing when it comes to what happens to any member of the staff when the stream ends. I hope everybody including Jeff are happy and make great stuff.

@oxe: No one owes you anything. Everyone has said their piece, and Jeff may say more in future. If you are worried about Jeff, support his patreon.

@splodge: I am not worried about Jeff, i am worried about Red Ventures sucking the soul out of Giant Bomb.

@black_turtle: I could have worded my post better, as it was more a reaction to the more dramatically ridiculous notions that people have been coming up with. There's definitely more than a non-zero chance that corporate wankery was involved. But even that could mean a lot of things, ranging from malicious to utterly benign. The point is we don't know, and we don't know what we don't know. I think a lot of people are rightly cautioning against jumping to conclusions. Of course it sucks that we don't know the real story, but spinning our best conspiracy theories doesn't exactly help clear the air either.

I don't really take issue with anything you said, except: being optimistic about about the New Crew is not the same thing as defending their corporate bosses. There's absolutely room to suspiciously side-eye RV while appreciating that the rest of the staff are probably just making the best of a bad situation.

In the end it's the people that matter, and there's still a lot of incredible talent here at GB who seem resolved to keep going. They're on the inside and understand the situation better than I do, and I don't feel like I need to mistrust their motivations or judgement. They seem excited to rebuild, so I don't think it's wrong to be excited along with them.

Meanwhile, Jeff himself is Still A Threat. I'm excited for him to finally be in business for himself after being stuck under corporate weirdos for his entire career. Since his outlook is so immediately optimistic, it softens the blow to GB in my mind, and I'm probably not alone in that.

@oxe: The soul of Giant Bomb is whatever they make of it. If you think that's jeff, who you arent worried about, then whats your issue? The remaining crew sure seem to be making a good run at it, and I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

If your problem is that you just simply have to know the ins and outs of how everything went down to satisfy your own curiosity / whatever, then be patient. Jeff may talk about it eventually. He was VERY clear on his own show yesterday that he DOES NOT want to talk about it right now.

So the staff here dont want to talk about it and respect Jeff's privacy, and Jeff himself doesnt want to talk about it, so whats the problem? Leave them alone and let them breathe and maybe eventually you will get the gossip you are craving. All this NDA talk is silly nonsense.

-- Just as an addition, on yesterdays NXL ramblecast, when the topic of specific timed contracts before you could leave and payouts etc (which was conspiracy made up nonsense from the get go) was brought up, Brad was clearly annoyed by it and said something along the lines of that people who are speculating and being armchair lawyers should just shut the fuck up. I think he even raised his voice briefly in annoyance, which for Brad is like screaming in your face. That shit is ALWAYS wrong and does nothing but make things harder in an already difficult situation.

Have we moved on to being parasocial to the Brand now?

@splodge: Was he clear that he DOES not want to talk about it or CAN he not talk about it?

I don't think NDA talk is silly, heck, Jeff was under one from Gamespot for a long time.

And if there is no NDA it would be easy for someone from Giant Bomb or Red Ventures to say so.

The irony of Dan leaving his job at one soulless corporation, to instantly join another... (Disclaimer: This may not actually be ironic).

Ok, my tongue is in my cheek with that statement, but man this whole past year has left a bad taste in my mouth. As a fan of the people still working here, I am rooting for the site. But man, the handling of this Jeff thing is all kinda weird.

@oxe: Get a grip.

Edit - @efesell Clearly not lol

@black_turtle: I don't see any pro-RV posts here. All I'm trying to do is adhere to the wishes of the staff and specifically Gerstmann. Not conjuring up conspiracy theories because the staff asks us not to is not saying anything about RV. It's just not weighing in or guessing about a situation/people/company we don't know anything about.

People keying in on Jeff doing a lot of stuff last minute and acting like it's some smoking gun feel like they, just like the people "disgusted" by this video or the lack of fanfare for the recently decceased him, need to get a grip on the whole situation and go for a walk outside or something. Just to keep reiterating: you don't know any of these people, they don't know you, you don't know what their lives are/were like, you literally no NOTHING about the reasons they do things until they tell you, so just stop guessing. I can't continue to overstate how unhealthy it is for both those doing it, and how much the staff dislike it and are put off by it.

Yup. Nextlander discussed this type of thing on their Ramblecast podcast yesterday. They talked about how harmful the constant speculation can be to the person being talked about and how it's all completely wrong anyway. They referenced the conspiracies about there being almost exactly a year between them leaving and Jeff leaving and said there's nothing to it, GB employees weren't on contracts, and that the three of them left because they wanted to leave (which, Jeff said basically the exact same thing for why he quit at the end of his podcast yesterday. He wanted to move on and get away from all the corporate BS).

They've all been asking people to stop with the constant speculation and claims of supposed legal complications that they've confirmed don't happen, yet people keep making these dumb claims and speculations. To me, the people doing this type of thing are being incredibly disrespectful. The GB folks were working a job and decided to quit. If they want to talk about why they quit it they are more than welcome to but they don't owe anyone an explanation.

Perhaps the next step on this thought journey would be "is it my place to ask any of these questions?" or "Is it my responsibility to try and read Jeff's situation from afar and determine the ins and outs of it?" or finally: "is it my place to comment on Jeff's personal or professional life AT ALL?"

I'd like to reference Jan yesterday on the Bombcast:

"Exits from companies are incredibly complicated. Respecting everyone’s privacy is paramount in this.”

@sethmode: After the ramblecast yesterday and those guys talking about some of the stresses and shit they had to deal with at CBS, I couldn't agree more. The few hours a day you see them on air is really not related in any way to their lives or the rest of the job, there is so much else going on. It made me feel even more annoyed by the "..omg what do they do all day..." posts over the years. the par-asocial weirdness just get weirder and weirder the more I think about it.

I don't subscribe to Nextlander anymore so I don't get the Ramblecast, but that all checks out. This is, after all, almost EXACTLY the same situation we were in last year, just ratcheted up to 11 it feels like. I bet I could find old posts of mine after Vinny, Alex and Brad left that are almost verbatim to my posts about this...although at least in that case people weren't calling the remaining staff "disgusting" and things like that.

@splodge: @sethmode: "Neither Jeff or anyone at Giant Bomb is under any kind of NDA" Would be all it takes. It's something so simple they could even have easily included it in the front page post about Jeff leaving and it would make it clear that they are not discussing what happened for privacy reasons and not legal reasons.