The long video essay about Giant Bomb
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- Опубліковано 7 чер 2024
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(Nth Review #21) Nick surfs through 15 years of Giant Bomb, a website about video games, and feels both nostalgic while pondering deeply about the state of modern games journalism.
Thank you to Rhomega, James “Justabaldguy” Wyatt, Sirpalee for their stories!
Thanks to Viktoria, James “Justabaldguy” Wyatt and Rain 101 for their voiceover talents!
Thanks to @xpantherx and @LackingSaint for their Giant Bomb videos and QLCrew.com for sorting out a ton of Giant Bomb content.
Shout outs to @GiantBomb @JeffGerstmannShow @Nextlander @NoclipDocs @gamespot and then @Gggmanlives @NakeyJakey Jacob Geller and so many more!
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00:00:00 Preamble
00:06:01 1. A Taste of Whiskey
00:21:29 2. How to Build a Bomb
00:36:50 3. The Payload
00:53:46 4. Filling the Bottle
1:03:03 5. The Big Show
1:15:49 6. This Fall on CBS
1:27:52 7. Rollercoasters & Mario Bros.
1:46:52 8. The House the Bomb Built
2:14:38 9. Ship of Theseus
2:34:29 10. Conclusion
#Gerstmann #bombcast #giantbomb
Variety: Giant Bomb Still Changing Video Games Media 10 Years Later
variety.com/2018/gaming/featu...
The New York Times: Shelby Bonnie Takes Another Swig of Online Media
archive.nytimes.com/bits.blog...
VentureBeat: CNET co-founder’s Whiskey Media raises $2.5M
venturebeat.com/entrepreneur/...
Techcrunch: Whiskey Media Quietly Growing, Innovating With Former CNET Team
techcrunch.com/2009/03/24/whi...
Techcrunch: CNET Founder Shelby Bonnie Unveils His New Startup: PoliticalBase
techcrunch.com/2007/10/09/cne...
Hacker News: Dave Snider on CBS’s advertising practices
news.ycombinator.com/item?id=...
Techcrunch: Let’s Kill the CPM
techcrunch.com/2009/09/25/let...
Giant Bombcast: The Live One:
www.giantbomb.com/shows/giant...
All Things D: BermanBraun Buys Most of Shelby Bonnie’s Whiskey Media
allthingsd.com/20120315/exclu...
Giant Bomb Has a Rat Problem
www.giantbomb.com/articles/gi...
Letter from the Editor - 7-2-14
www.giantbomb.com/articles/le...
*Re: Letter from the Editor - 7-2-14
/ letter_from_the_editor...
Welcome to Giant Bomb (dot com)
www.giantbomb.com/articles/we...
Ryan Davis: GameSpot Blog: What to Say
www.gamespot.com/profile/Ryan...
Crunchbase: Vox Media
www.crunchbase.com/organizati...
FEZ Interviews: Screened.com’s Matt Rorie!
www.flesheatingzipper.com/ente...
Giant Bomb: Statement on Jeff Gerstmann Leaving
www.giantbomb.com/articles/gi...
The Bonnies and the Breakaway Brother
pre-prowhiskeymen.blogspot.com...
Why Doesn’t Giant Bomb Just Hire Matt Rorie Already?
www.giantbomb.com/forums/gene...
Overmental: Giant Bomb Hiring Ignites Gender Issues in Games Journalism Debate
overmental.com/content/giant-...
Reddit: u/Dragonpuncha’s “What's your favorite Giant Bomb era?”
/ whats_your_favorite_gi...
Reddit: Any word on Danny coming back?
/ any_word_on_danny_comi...
Noclip: Noclip Podcast #09 (Story) - Jeff Gerstmann's Giant Bomb
• Noclip Podcast #09 (St...
Giant Bomb: Giant News
www.giantbomb.com/articles/gi...
Adobe Flash Platform Achieves Record Adoption
news.adobe.com/news/news-deta...
The Verge: Fandom runs some of the biggest communities on the internet - can CEO Perkins Miller keep them happy?
www.theverge.com/23841327/fan... - Ігри
😳
I assure you that anything about me in this video that is flattering is true.
Oh, uh, yeah, definitely lol
Love you rorie
Keep petting them puppies Rorie
miss u
Making content in-person was the secret sauce. You can't replicate that chemistry with webcams.
It obviously became necessary during covid. But once it became clear they weren’t going back, it was clear giant bomb was never gonna come back
I started watching Giant Bomb in 2008, a little before high school. Ryan Davis passed away a month before I began college. High school for me was video games and videos games were Giant Bomb. I was a premium member, I listened to the Giant Bombcast religiously, I bought games based on their recommendations, their Game of the Year deliberations were the highlight of winter breaks. I cried when I heard Ryan died, not just because I had spent about as much time listening to him as I had my real life friends, but because it felt like the definitive death of that part of my life. I enjoyed Dan Ryckert's dynamic with a group (his antics were fun when paired when a straight man and not when his inexplicable successes were paired next to my personal failures, which is not his fault) and Austin Walker is still one of my favorite voices in media commentary, but going into adulthood, it felt like the site was finding its way as I was. I enjoyed the roller coaster video, but even at the time I recognized that it was designed to go viral and get hits, which is the first time I really reckoned with them as a serious business with quotas and financial demands instead of scrappy underdogs, and that belied a sense of desperation that I had never noticed before.
I laid in bed last night circling this video in my brain. The curious thing about generational nostalgia is a sense of closure. I, like many others, knew that the Giant Bomb crew were human beings with jobs, but I nevertheless saw them as characters. Its hard not to think of online media personalities as characters, because entertainment exists as their primary interaction with their userbase. But they keep going, past that point of emotional connection, because they are real. Older generations didn't have to watch a 31st season of The Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island where the characters just ran out of steam and did their own thing away from the interest of the viewer, but that is the way of online celebrity. The Giant Bomb crew go grey and lose that spark and move on with their lives in the shadow of the site that meant so much to me at one of the most pivotal times in my life. That's not bad, its just that no external force has pulled some plug on the characters I watched, ending the show. I wish the enitre GB crew the very best, its just kind of heartbreaking to realize certain things, certain people, certain events, can only continue to exist in a very select pocket of time and place, buried deep within the human heart.
Fantastic video, thank you for making it.
Beautifully said, and I agree. Giant Bomb was more than a gaming site and podcast. It was literally a time in my life, a series of milestones.
Amazing take. Very thoughtful. You are talented.
“She got a penitentiary body” - Ryan Davis
"Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh!" - Ryan Davis
Naw uh
Its hard not to get emotional or sentimental while watching this... Thank you so much for producing this nostalgic commentary. The GB crew were the best friends I've never met ❤
Of course!
"best friends i never met", kinda weird but same for me
Giant Bomb, a website about video games.
Love Ryan Davis.
Giant Bomb meant so much to me growing up lol. It's so weird thinking back how obsessed I was with the website in 2008-2011. The OG 4's chemistry on the podcast is seriously unmatched, I still relisten to those old episodes from time to time and the bits/jokes still hold up.
Jeff Gerstmann is still a threat.
Meh. East crew was always more fun to listen to.
@@JoeSkeenminority report
I wish I could agree truly but he is the hermit Ben watching 3 toddlers and no longer the obi-wan we once knew.
@@megasizeit hey we all gotta go out, we usually just don’t know when the golden years have ended and the twilight has begun. But it doesn’t undo the work that he did prior to GB, or the work GB did together. Jeff Gerstmann is still a threat.
You have been warned.
2013-2014 were the peak years for me, and Gerstmann leaving killed my interest in the podcast as, in retrospect, he was always the reason I was sticking around. Everyone involved was always great in their own respect, but Jeff and his sense of humor were (at least for me) the foundation it was all built upon from an entertainment perspective. The fact that I still listen to old episodes from years ago is a testament to the near timeless quality of the Bombcast.
Jeff without Ryan was always a bit meloncholic, they bounced off each other so well and whilst the pod did not get worse (others stepped up) it did lose something
After Ryan Died was the “Peak years”?? Dan was and is a goofball. The guys were usually laughing AT him. Not With him. Ben was just OK. Drew was Ok. The best years were from ‘08-‘12
@@kevinfinnerty8414 that’s why I said “for me”.
It’s almost like it was an opinion or something.
You are not alone in your feelings. This is a bit before that era but I still pull out this playlist and the australian beef saga when I need a pick me up because I just cant not laugh by the end of it or these nintendo eshop releases read by Jeff.
ua-cam.com/video/O4krJrG7oto/v-deo.html&ab_channel=JackChe
Without a doubt, it was obviously a blow when Ryan passed, but then the beast cast divide was strange not having Vinny on every week
I have been waiting for someone for YEARS to finally tell this piece of internet history. Love the idea, thank you for doing this! Giant Bomb has been a staple in the gaming world for so long, they deserve they due
My childhood was defined by giant bomb. Ryan's death was the first "celebrity" death that really affected me.
Sad
Ive never cared more about a group of people ive never met more than the San Fran Giant Bomb crew. Thanks for taking us back through the timeline. I still miss Ryan.
As the dude what was designing all the shirts for a long time from the first - the last thing I designed was the hockey jersey, I think? - I was obviously deeply into the whole Giant Bomb experience. I'd been there from its 2008 inception, which made its fall from stardom a pretty hard thing to get over for a while. While I've (mostly) made peace with it now, there were a good couple of years where I felt pangs of guilt and sadness (and even a little confusion) that GB just didn't seem to be my jam anymore. I still miss the time where Giant Bomb was a beautiful nonsense machine that was firing on all cylinders (that I was lucky enough to be on the creative fringe of) but where I'm at now in my life I'm pretty fine with letting go of what could have been in another timeline. Plus, as a relatively new dad, Jeff's output is very much my speed at the moment.
Anyway, thanks for the video, mate. A nice package of history and memories that was obviously made with care.
I’d love to see if your work is posted somewhere! I was actually searching for shirt art and that and struggled a bit outside of the BLLSLs. I think it would be a nostalgic trip for so many of those were in one place
Did you make the Lincoln force T-Shirt?!
I STILL HAVE IT AND WEAR IT TO THIS DAY!
I still love your designs, especially the Giant Bomb Flight Club and Vinny Project Beast ones!
For me personally, the splitting of giant bomb to the east and west coasts was its inevitable downfall. Dan injected his brand of weird bubbly energy but once he went to the east office, I drifted away from Giant Bomb. I think in retrospect, I liked Giant Bomb circa 2008-2013 because the crew were older than me and had experienced the gaming industry that was either gone or dying out. They also had a much more interesting life experience than the newer higher hires, who while my age, I didn’t find as compelling; their millennial humour also didn’t hit the mark for me either.
I still miss old giant bomb but life moves on. Great video man.
I don't know, I feel like it was still going strong. For me it was the pandemic that killed it. When I saw that even totally remote the content was dying off I knew something bad was on the horizon. The pandemic and even post-pandemic showed me that the thing that made Giant Bomb special was people being in the same room with each other riffing and having fun.
i really liked Giant Bomb East, but for me it was the fact that they were shedding people like Austin, Dan and Ben. if you can't even entice people who love cake to eat cake for money, there's something horrible going on on the corporate end
@@Fro9bone Dan wouldn't pass up WWE for anything. That was literally his dream job. I hated to see him go but I totally understood why he did. Now, him coming BACK is something I don't get but I suppose you take the opportunities you have. I never really grokked with Austin but he was immediately offered a pretty high up job and it sounded like there was just no way to match that kind of offer.
GB East was always better than West lol
while i love the early days, the split was the only thing that kept me coming back to gb after ryan passed. the east coast was the rejuvenation the site needed and after they ended it, i couldn’t seem to love gb the same anymore.
After stumbling across a Jeff gertsman video about his departure from Giant Bomb and it made me reminisce about the many hours I used to poured into giant bomb over the years and was thinking, man someone should really make a deep dive into this, pleasant surprise to see this. I loved OG giant bomb it felt so raw and different from other games coverage it felt like a group of friends getting into shenanigans and it was super fun to watch. Felt like a rebellion against he corporatized sterile games journalism, they can say what they want when they want and how they want to say it. Even seeing big bosses like Shawn layden or Phil Spencer on the e3 couch felt like a completely different side of them that felt human. I don’t think we will ever see anything like that again.
I don't think we will, either. It was such an ideal time for it to come together.
I'm 20 min in, and I cannot believe this story; what a slice of internet history; this is amazing!
Right?!?
I was one of the lucky few to have gotten involved on the ground floor and it’s wild to look back on the legacy Ryan and Jeff left behind them and how far ahead of the curve they were. I can’t imagine what the landscape would look like now without them.
Been watching the guys since the Gamespot days in 2003. It's been a wild ride! Thank you for putting this together.
And thank you for watching it!
i’ll never forget the phoenix down moment.
Your content is really incredible and I hope your channel grows and succeeds. One of the few content creators I've found that are just criminally underappreciated.
Thank you!
Really appreciate you making this video. Watching this really showed what made Giant bomb great and why I stuck around for so many years. Ever since the first podcast episode I listened to where they talked about the ending to the Conduit 2 till the 2022 game of the year discussions. I'll always have a fondness for Giant bomb and how they played a part in me growing as a person. I wish nothing but the best for everyone involved in Giant bomb, I just don't pay attention to it anymore. And that's ok I think. Nothing lasts forever but we can appreciate our time with it.
Oh man I'm about to get sad about the last few years of giant bomb again.
Its a little like reminiscing about the time you spent in an old relationship. You will forever have had these beautiful moments together, but the fact that the stars aligned for a moment in a world where things must necessarily end and change are what makes them so special. 💎
Rip the current zombie known as "giant bomb" kinda reminds me of the tragedy known as "Static x"
I saw the length of this video and thought “goddamnit I’m about to watch this whole thing aren’t I”. Left me feeling strange, kinda sad and old… but thanks. I definitely appreciated the history lesson towards the beginning and very relatable conclusion.
If anyone has any other videos like this on giant bomb and early gamestop years, please feel free to share. Finding this video is amazing as it was exactly what i was looking for.
this is such a comprehensive retrospective of the GB saga. thanks a bunch for putting it together. I really enjoyed all the deep cuts and footage that I've never seen before.
When the studio went, so did our Telecaster hopes and dreams.
Hats off for putting this all together. Thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.
I've been wanting a video like this for years. Seeing a lot of this happened in real time was a really important part of my internet life. Thank you so much for the incredible video
Thank you!
My relationship with these guys goes back to the late 90s and Gamespot. These guys were so ahead of their time. Thank you for putting this together and reminding us of the best times on the internet in the late 00's and early teens.
OG Giant Bomb was my safe place for a very difficult time in my life. Ryan, Jeff, Vinny, Brad and Alex felt like my best friends i had just never met in real life. It's hard not to get emotional when watching this as for so many years this "website about video games" was so important to me for so many reasons that genuinely had nothing to do about video games. The community, the crew everything felt like a family that just lived far away from each other but we always got online to make sure we were all doing okay. It seems crazy to be this attached to a group of people i'd never met in my life but they were my family when i had none, they were my friends when i needed someone to game with, and outside of that made great entertaining content. R.I.P. Ryan it's always tuesday in heaven..
What a ride of nostalgia. Warm feelings, joy and disappointment.
I was a Gamespot fan who followed over into Giant Bomb and watching this was like reliving it all over again.
Thanks for that 😊
Grew up reading reviews from Jeff, Vinny, Brad, Ryan, and Alex. Jeff leaving the Bombcast basically killed GB for me.
Brad, Vinny, and Alex leaving to form Nextlander killed Giantbomb for me.
Jeff leaving and starting his own Patreon let me to listen to him again without the BS that Giantbomb had become.
One of the most enjoyable long form videos Ive heard in a long time. A really well done documentary that Giant Bomb deserved. Looking forward to what's next from your channel.
Heard?
(Cries in visual tears)
lol, thanks!
I am so happy this video exists. Giant Bomb has been a very important site to me for so long, even though I don’t really follow it at all anymore. Those golden years up until Brad, Alex and Vinny left still give me so much joy and comfort during dark times.
Hey there! I am actually a co-host of Interactive Distractions along with Jason Oestreicher and came across this video while going down a rabbit hole of 1up content for nostalgia. Very well done!
Thanks, my dude! I hope you guys are doing well. I know it's a pretty mutual effort between you guys, but it's great to see Jason have a place on the internet.
@@NthReview yeah we’re good. We do it as a hobby in our spare time. Jason, Chris and myself were the founding members of the podcast back in 2008 and we stopped for a few years back in 2018 and then started up again last year. Appreciate it!
I misread the timestamp as 25 hours and still this was an instant click. Thanks for the work and passion, I'll update with my thoughts
Looking forward to it! I would make a 25 hour video if I could lol
Thankfully, Dan has publicly recanted his beliefs on the quality of Terminator films.
He was young and so were we
These guys and RLM are the pioneers of group of grown men talking about certain topics and kinda similar (these guys video games, RLM movies) with a ounces and ounces of alcohol
For me after Ryan Davis passed it just wasn't the same. It felt like someone was missing, his chemistry with Jeff was on another level. I search for skits where they both play off each other pure comedy gold.
Seeing Jeff try to hold down the fort on his own in the post Ryan livestreams, Ryan’s other old roles etc, honestly, difficult to watch but I hugely respect him for trying to find something to hold onto when that chemistry was gone. That would have been so difficult for Jeff to do but as usual, Jeff just sucked it up and ran at it.
He was the only one who could put Jeff in his place and importantly allowed Jeff to be the wacky one. Once Ryan was gone a lot of the energy went with him since Jeff had to now lead the podcasts and the others just weren't up to do the crazy. And then Vinny went out East and the Bombcast was a shell of itself. Though some of that is almost certainly getting older and starting families and stuff.
@@rubaiyat300 couldn’t agree more, to be honest, yes things were changing but it all seemed to slowly just fall apart after Ryan passed.
@at300Its true. Jeff was one of the boys before and then he become the authority whether he wanted to or not. Ryan was just objectively amazing at wrangling a podcast/goty/everything in a way that kept things moving and fun, but he was also willing to put his foot down. I'm looking at you Brad trying to get Minerva's den over Shadow Broker.
I actually think Jeff is way more tangent inclined again now that he is doing his own thing. Took me a minute to adjust to his solo podcast even though I used to love the Jar Times. But, he's got a lot more life than he did the last few years on the Bombcast.
RIP Ryan Davis
Thank you for making this. Giant Bomb has been such a huge part of my life for well over a decade, and although I've disconnected with it over the last year or so this is a great, albeit bittersweet, document of its history (so far).
I feel you brother. I can't believe the day came where I subscribed to the GB show. I never thought it would happen. Truly a legendary and important piece of gaming history.
Haven't finished the full doc yet but loving this!. Been watching GB since about 2014 when I was about 15. This has done a great job at filling in my gaps of knowledge about this site. This is a great watch!
Well I finally got to the end. Really well done. Must have been so much work. Amazing. 👏
It took a year, but I knew it would take a while to tackle such a big topic. Thank you!
I can't believe I watched the whole thing in one sitting. I guess it's just that good.
That was a lovely trip down memory lane. It's sad to see things we love change, but I am always thankful of the literal decade of entertainment I got from these guys. None of their new content is for me anymore (other than Waypoint/Remap), because a lot of them do feel a bit stuck in their ways, but it's hard to fault anyone sticking with what they know in this industry if it pays the bills. Appreciate the amount of work you put into this, that was a great video!
Thank you!
This is a great video. I had a very similar upbringing with games media as you and this was such a nostalgia trip. Thanks for making this.
Thank you!
Man, you throw dark. WHAT A TREAT THIS IS THANK YOU. 90% of my adult life has involved Giant Bomb.
I remember discovering GB due to a thread about the P4 ER on Gamefaqs back in like 2009 or so. I had no idea that they’d take me on such a wild ride, and I couldn’t be more grateful.
Only half an hour in, but I just wanted to let you know that this is so absolutely my thing so far, super excited to watch the rest
Thanks man, been a subscriber of yours for a while :)
My timeline with Giant Bomb is the same as yours, and it feels weird to have feelings about how a site has changed, I guess I'm just grateful for Giant Bomb ever being what it was even though that's long gone now. Great job on the video.
i wasn't ready for these feels
This was really well done man, really professional. Always felt like I was the only one that never missed GB content but I knew we were all out there. I feel like GB is really fun again this year with this crew. Im legit excited to watch every video again and hear every cast. The chemistry is great and fun again. But it definitely is a new era/new crew. Will always keep 2012-2020 as "my" years. Great work and great historical doc.
I think this was really good. I think "My History with Giant Bomb" would have been a better title, though.
There will definitely be more title changes, unfortunately
Sorry, I thought the title was "The History...". I appreciate all the work that went into this.@@NthReview
@@shosuroyuu2379 it was very briefly but that was incorrect
Great video! While definitely not a legacy fan as most, this was such a nostalgia trip from when I started listening in the 2014/15 era. The end of the Beastcast was probably the biggest blow for me personally as it was the one podcast I never missed, and ended at a time where a lot of change was happening in my personal life as well. Never would I have thought the end of a podcast would make me cry 🥲
Wow, after watching this video in full I feel like I missed out.
Excellent work putting this together, your passion for the site and crew shines through and helps elevate the emotional connection for someone like me who never followed GB.
Thank you!!
Thank you for documenting this
Thank you for this. I've been following them from the very start, even met Jeff and Ryan. These guys were (and are) the one place I always go back to, like brothers and sisters. Ryan, we miss you so fucking much, my duder.
This is an incredible piece of work. Hat's off to you!
Thank you!
Love that you brought up 1up. Always they were my main site i went too before they closed and i switched to gb. I always felt they complemented each other. Like the end of 1up set up what giant bomb would do.
1Up Yours was such a big deal to me in the late 00s. I actually got to chat with David Ellis a few times and meet him at E3 briefly, in 2009 and 2013. Interesting to see the arc of his career. I met Garnett and Shane there too. It was sooo weird. There was also a show they did at the G4 stage in 2009 and I don't know if it can be found now, but no one in-person could hear the show.
@NthReview do you have any plans to make a 1upocalypse retrospective? Great video by the way!
@@thevamp25 I don't. I'm not quite sure how broad the appeal would be, but I'm also not sure how much of their content still exists, if it's even enough to produce a video.
Such a great recap that brings back so many fond memories. Thank you for telling this story. ❤
You’re very welcome :)
Learned a lot. Thanks for making this.
thank you, it was such a nostalgic trip
I know the story already but you're an amazing speaker and excited to hear your take. Instant sub!!
Thank you!
Someone finally made it, you glorious madman! Thank-you!
Sadly, Giantbomb died with Ryan “Taswell” Davies in 2013. Not to take anything from the rest of the amazing cast of chuckleheads but he was the active ingredient that made it all work together and the one that brought it all together. Truely the North Star of a great period of time for the brand of performance & content we all loved from them.
I might have followed Jeff Gerstmann to Giantbomb but Ryan is why I stayed…even until over a half-decade after his untimely & unfair passing.
I say this truely; he was honestly too good, smart and well-humoured for this plane of existence. I honestly still think about him every few weeks, even if just to smirk at one of his bad jokes still and I’m not a parasocial basket case. He just impacted me that much.
Rest in peace Ryan & GB.
That's exactly what I do with Jeff's podcast. Put on my building game, put on his podcast, and ride the night away.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane man. It made me very nostalgic. Giantbomb was a large part of my life for a long time. :)
Damn this was an incredible video!
Thank you!
I can't believe this is three hours and that I'm going to watch it.
You better believe it!
I consume every bit of Nextlander and Jeff’s content and am incredibly grateful for all of it.
I appreciate this a lot. I started listening to the podcast when I was 12 and was a loyal listener/subscriber all the way up until Jeff’s departure. I’m 26 now. I wish he’d go over to Nextlander or at least do some content with those guys.
You nailed this video so much on how I feel about Giantbomb now. I know it’s not for me anymore but I have this hope it will go back to “the good old days” but that’s just not going to happen with nostalgia playing a big part of it & me sticking with Giantbomb since I was 19(currently 34)I need to just let it go & move on. I only hope the best for the current staff at Giantbomb & the future for them! 💣❤
I've never watched one of your videos but this was recommended to me. Amazing work and I agree with the ending. 👍
Thanks! Be sure to check out the other 20 lol
I adore the ship wordplay at the end! And that last line had a really simple but beautiful bittersweetness to it. That healing perspective can be used for so many things:)
Arrow Pointing Down came out at a really important time in my life and their energy drink reviews were the goofiest/best ways I could survive it. Every era of the site is so deeply tied to my memories of my life at the time and I was lucky enough to online-meet some people who ended up contributing a lot before they got there, which made me feel so proud for them. I truly don’t know what the future holds under Fandom but I’m so grateful for its legacy and its successors.
kudos for being an exemplar of us myriad GB super nerds! I made a few best of upf mixes in 2013 to process my grief over Ryan really and to this day I try to do my best to reflect his uplifting and hilarious ethos.
Oh man I've been waiting on this. I only know a little about Giant Bomb so I expect to learn a lot!
I was hoping someone would make a video like this of such a special community and time in games media. it's mind-boggling how much has changed over the years, from industry conditions to deaths to layoffs. There was a time I could not fathom the original members doing anything else. That time feels like a long forgotten dream now.
Thank you for doing this - always wondered why no one had created a video like for for a site like Giant Bomb. I was there from the very beginning and it's been a rollercoaster of emotions; I think knowing the GB crew as personalities through their content made it feel so much more affecting to me when I read the post by Matt Rorie regarding Ryan's death... I thought for a second it was a goof then it dawned on me it was very real and I got pretty emotional about it. I also remember the pancake stream with the CBS announcement and realising that things would be different down the line now large corporations were getting involved. These days the site is a different beast and I still enjoy the content, though the classic GB stuff - which still exists and can be watched - seems to be miles ahead; lightning in a bottle kind of stuff. Cheers for the nostalgic trip down memory lane!
Or course!
This was amazing, what a journey. Thank you so much for making this. I have followed this people since 2005. Giant Bomb forever.
Morning boss. Just got into the first 10 minutes before going to work. Nice little trip through internet history so far. I'll chip away at this over the weekend and get back to you with my thoughts after. Peace.
This video was great. Thanks for the watch!
The appropriate quotes coming out of this have to be "What a season, what a season." or "Nostalgia. It's a hell of a drug."
Bravo to an incredible video and holy hell the people hours of effort this had to take to put together! For myself, I think of this as the Giant Bomb Post-Diaspora era. With all the various post-GB groups, subgroups and tangentially-attached spin-offs alongside the main GB content, it's very much a pick-and-choose what content to consume.
And a quick shout-out to the 8-4 podcast, still one of my ongoing listens and top tier Klepek recommendations.
Lots of stuff I didn't know or realize in here despite being a fan of Giant Bomb for years. Great analysis and useful historical document. I got into Giant Bomb in 2011 or so but even now enjoy going back and watching and listening to stuff they did from way before I knew they existed. It really was lightning in a bottle and I know it got us all through all kinds of times in our lives.
The boi is back at it again 🎉
This isn’t the Giant Bomb documentary I wanted, but it’s the one I needed to see
Thank you for this. I felt my life flashing before my eyes as I watched. I was in from Gamespot on with Gerstmann and especially that Persona 4 endurance run solidified my fandom. Thanks for making this! …in a side note, the TalkRadar saga could also fill a significant amount of time, the people that went in and out of there is a great example of how to spin off success from corporate overlords, but it’s also a snapshot of what working in the Bay Area was like for years.
As someone who has been a fan of GB from the start, this is a fantastic video. And I agree with about 90% of your views and takes on GB and the industry as a whole.
Just fantastic!
Thank you!
this video just pop into my feed... and I have to watch it. Giant Bomb was one of the most formative things in my life. i was a premium member there from 2010 until 2019. They change the way I look at games, reviews, podcast and video content. I'm from Argentina and there was NOTHING like this... It fills me with equal parts of sadness, happiness and nostalgia to remember those times...
Amazing video, glad to see their history laid out and it's personal effects on you and all of games media.
I started watching in 2011 starting with the Persona 4 Endurance Run and the Skyrim-Saints Row 3 debate and I was hooked for a decade. I spent so many hours there and don't regret it, but Giant Bomb splintering led to me branching out and checking out so many new passionate creators. From experimental vtubers to thoughtful video essayists like yourself, it's crazy how much stuff is out there exploring the space Giant Bomb helped pioneer. WayneradioTV and Radio TV Solutions in particular feels like it has so much early Giant Bomb influence: their creative production and skits hearkening back to the old green screen bits and Tricaster shenanigans. Sometimes you gotta take a step out and move on to see just how much impact something had.
This was awesome, it bought back alot of memories.
Thanks!
Oh hell yeah, the bomb has dropped! 🤘
Long anticipated, thank you for this, Nth!
Thanks Blondie!
Man, what a beautiful website. I only got in around 2015, but those few years were fuckin outstanding. There was such a vitality and creative spirit surrounding everything going on there.
1000% the comment on having most videos with 2+ commentators in Quick Looks is so spot on. It's the reason I fell in love with the site. My first QL was Dragonball Evolution The Video Game for the PSP with Ryan and Vinny and it's emblazoned in my memory forever.
I'm so glad this popped up on my recommended. Giant Bomb was magical for most of its run - the death of Ryan Davis was shocking and so sad. Nothing will ever be like original GB 2008-2013, but it's also incredible that after a very rough 2013-2014, the site actually recovered and became great in a new way with Austin Walker, Rykert, and the GBeast crew. I began drifting away before the final breakup, especially once Waypoint started (before THAT fell away from its original vision), but will always have nostalgia for those incredible years.
This was a great watch. I only watched a bit of Giant Bomb but i knew a lot of it. Fascinating stuff
Thank you!
First podcast I ever heard and introduced me to so many other great podcast.
Thanks for the good video. I'm glad you came around on Jeff's show, its great.
This was a really good watch. And very funny that you almost had the same introduction to the podcast media. I started with the 1UP podcasts and the super great 1UP Show. And went to GB with the How to Build A Bomb videos.
Yeah, I was definitely late to the game in every one of those regards. It was actually interesting to learn afterward that Brad and I think a couple other Bombers would guest on 1UP Yours and I didn't notice lol.
That is pretty funny. So many good memories during that period. Luckily they easily overshadow the sad and depressing ones. And as you put it so well, they moved on and so did we.@@NthReview
I've shared this with my wife to show her exactly why giant bomb meant so much to me in my twenties & why I continue to hold out hope that they'll reconnect some day.
It was hard to watch this. But it was well done. I knew Ryan very well, and I miss him. Very much.
Should have known that this would just make me depressed 😅
It always surprised me that there wasn't more content about Giantbomb, even their own 10 year anniversary felt like the energy to celebrate themselves wasn't there.
As someone who's been following Gerstmann and crew since about 2004 from the On the Spot days, much of what you deliniate here lines up almost exactly with my own experiences. These things were lost to memory as my relationship with the site began to wane in the year or so leading up to the pandemic. The site going completely remote in 2020 was pretty much where it ended for me.
This video feels like a nice bit of closure on a thing I spent a large chunk of my life being absorbed by. Outstanding work.
Really enjoyed this video.