Start out bombcast complaining about Doom: Eternals lame humour and cliche writing...

my country doesn't have any vidya podcast faggot

He's bummed about the "stuff around the edges" and thinks it's gone overboard. Main complaints
>Story isn't good and the comedy feels lame like Duke Nukem Forever
>There's at least one too many upgrade systems and besides the weapon mods and some of the suit stuff they don't really feel significant
>Tutorial popups are intrusive and bizarrely less good than the ones he saw on a build last year at an event
>Feels like even on pc there are too many hotkeys for abilities/equipment and it sorta ends up detracting from the gunplay when you're tracking tiny icons to see when your flamethrower or chainsaw are ready
Generally he prefers 2016 for being a more lean experience with less fluff and a better tone so far, but he's just a third through and still thinks it's good due to gameplay carrying it.

Eternal reminder that Dream Daddy made the 2017 GOTY Top 10 over Persona 5, Horizon, Nioh, Pyre, Hollow Knight, Sonic Mania, Prey, Resident Evil 7 and Yakuza 0 because Abby thought it revolutionized a genre she had no prior knowledge of

kill yourself
now

all those games are shit except for sonic and yakuza

Pretty much every year at least two games only make the list because one member really liked them and got given a low spot out of pity.

But Abby is the first time I felt like it wasn't deserved given how fucking awful her arguments were. Holy Christ it was almost as bad as Brad fighting for Destiny, she didn't drag it out as badly but at least he could articulate a coherent point.

>be a reviewer
>complain that there is too much to review
>constantly remind people that you like what you like and fuck the rest
>build your profession around personal tastes and bias
>ultimately give up and scoff at the very word "review"

Unbelievable that this is 100% of them. Shameful. Not ONE willing to put in effort.

Last year's GOTY podcasts were just depressing. Not just because of the shitty format but realizing how little they even bother to play video games even though it's ostensibly their job. There were insanely long stretches where some people had literally nothing to say

Their reviews generated fuck all views compared to literally everything else they made and writing or recording them took up time they could spend on other shit. The site is personality driven, the fans want discussion between multiple members over just one's thoughts mostly.

The real issue is they make fuck all premium content, streams, or series now. They podcast, do UPF, and do quick looks - and that's pretty much it outside E3 season or other big shows they stream or do interviews at and VERY infrequent series.

They should have stuck to the roundtable idea where they sat down for an hour to deep dive on a new game to all review it at once collaboratively via discussion.

I wonder if this quarantine stuff is going to affect GB, when CBSi realizes that they make just as much money when they stream from home. Might start looking like there's no need for them to have that big ol' nice studio...

Most of these home streams have been pretty fucking boring, but I gotta say, I'm glad something was shaken up. GBEast post-Dan has been fucking awful. Abby shitting it up with the fucking Sims everywhere because there was no one else who cares enough to do something else and stop her

And the GOTY videos were absolutely piss poor no-effort bullshit. I wonder what the state of them would be this year, given that Dan was the driving force behind the actually semi-fun videos they did, and he's gone. But now everything is uncertain with the virus

It's dead. Let go and enjoy the fond memories.

I really badly want to know what their work schedule looks like. I'd expect someone whose job is creating content about games to beat at a minimum somewhere in the mid 20s per year and to at least try a couple dozen more for quick looks.

They don't do reviews or articles. They don't do many streams or video series. The forums and wiki are community driven. Podcasts and QLs are their bread and butter and only three of them work on production for them.

What the fuck do they DO in the office? Is there just a weirdly high amount of paperwork they have to manage? I can understand real life limits their gaming time outside it but we know the fucks play games while in it too which should help.

Their office really isn't that big and the facilities like the production and recording rooms are shared with gamespot

What comedy is there even in it other than calling demons "mortally challenged"? Are they still upset about a single harmless fucking joke?

They're not offended, they think stuff like Doomguy having a three monitor setup with folders filled with glory kill compilations and a framed portrait with Daisy is just lame and not actually funny. Jeff kept comparing it to Duke Nukem humour the way Yas Forums complains about something having reddit humour - pretty much just saying it was cringe in another way.

They preferred 2016 doing stuff like having Doomguy casually punch the monitor trying to feed him mission objectives or breaking the machine while Samuel told him to be careful for being more subdued.

theres a bit of humour here and there.

doom guy scares people, would you like me to disable the security systems? and so on

Arc Complex has those audiologs of the scientist lady who's REALLY hungry for Doom Slayer's dick

>Doomguy's bedroom is filled with joke magazines and other stuff
>Numerous glory kills like pounding a demons head into its chest and it pulling a "well shit" face before dying
>Cacodemons belching on grenades
>Small demons making a popping noise on a scoped headshot
>The scientist audio logs ending up with her wanting your dick
>Priests pissing themselves or acting cocky till you blow their head off spontaneously
>Several in game achievements like punching a slayer door earning you "Ouch" with a pic of Doomguy in a cast popping up on the side of the screen
It's there for sure

I guess I don't remember Doom 2016 being tonally that much different, but I could be wrong. I haven't played it in 4 years.

I cancelled my premium a long time ago and I think their website is sinking. I can't see them lasting much longer.

2016 is definitely self-aware but there was much less overt humor than in Eternal.

I definitely think their revenue has peaked but they're nowhere near dying.

Worst case scenario they close the wiki, up the merch, and double down on premium streams to put revenue back up and costs down. There's no proof they're in trouble yet, only if they spontaneously start putting in more effort while seeming unenthusiastic and start cost cutting will I believe there's an issue.

>HOLY SHIT THESE FUCKING CASUALS HAVE FULL FLEDGED GAMING PCS
Not at home they don't, at least Brad he mentioned it in the Quicklook

Just put them out of their misery already. The old crew wants to be lazy pieces of shit and collect a paycheck while all the new hires do all the work. Except the new hires suck shit.

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I like the moments when "Old Vinnie" appears like in the Red Dead 2 Online stream where he shoots Jan

I stopped listening to them for over a year now and even though I listened to them for years I don't miss it at all

The thing about all of this stuff is that Jeff and Brad are really savvy. Their content isn't as good as it was a couple of years ago, they know it. They know about Abby, Jan, and Ben. They know that they have a distinct lack of energetic and distinct people. Somehow a small personality-based video games website has accidentally acquired a number of staffers who have nothing outside of niche interest and low-grade casual interest in anything else beyond that. I mean, look at Abby. I like Abby. She seems nice and funny. She also seems like she plays video games about as much as my mom does.

I get why a female perspective is important, but having a staffer who doesn't really play video games serves 0% of the audience for a video games website. Giant Bomb East was a mistake. Their splitting their budgets and GBEast does a bunch of concept videos in a fucking broom closet. It's depressing. Alex is about 1000x times better as a writer than he is a talking head, and Vinny is someone who said nigger until he was 20 years old--he's afraid of everything now. He is too scared to be funny anymore, because he doesn't fully grasp what can and can't get him in trouble.

Dan was the only thing going in the East and he's gone. Now you have three people and none of them have a forceful personality. And you let the CNET Jew on the podcast every week. Oi vey.

There are whales who will support them until the end of time. They don't need the paltry money of discerning viewers who demand even a moderate amount of quality content.

i don't think that they become really shit until last year. the GOTY deliberations were truly terrible. Dan leaving is the final nail in the coffin though, and you really notice Jeff and Vinny are becoming even more focused on their home life

I still hope that they will somehow hire Mary Kish

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Jeff will probably just retire soon anyway. I give it another few years

It's not their fault, OP. They're games journalists, they can't help it.

I don't think GB can really be saved at this point. It'd require way too much change for the oldguard who are all clearly okay just coasting along now.

In an ideal scenario Vinny would move on to greener pastures and let East close so the budget could be consolidated in West, with Alex staying on as a dedicated writer/reviewer from where he is now and Abby...well, leaving I guess. West then could dump Ben, hire in a crop of new faces that have drive and no family obligations interfering with their free time, and Brad plus Jeff could stick mostly to the stuff they're good at (streams, podcasts, management, interviews) while letting the new blood run the daily content production.

I don't think Jeff has the money to retire fully. He needs to pay off the mortgage and sell the house to move somewhere cheap before that I reckon.

>no proof they're in trouble yet
their YouTube quicklooks struggle to break 20k views and other vids don't even make it close to half that. while it might not be a good indication of their premium subscriber numbers, it's an indication of their general popularity

have you ever listened to him talking about pc building? he is legitimately retarded. he had to go into the office to get a back up pc during the shutdown.

The bombcast is one of the biggest gaming podcasts, fullstop. I realize their impact is down on videos but their podcasts do really well still and I fully buy they have a small legion of loyal paypiggies subscribed giving them steady cash flow even if they rarely actually consume most of their content.

Not to mention that in the past year, they've been pushing Premium HARD. Ads for it on the podcast, on every other stream, lots of free trials, etc. They've even started doing ads for their own content - last few Bombcasts have had "ads" for Mass Alex. I don't think they're in danger territory, but I do think they are starting to dip noticeably.

It's a shame that they couldn't get Mahardy. He and Dan were great together, but when Dan left, he was the perfect choice for a fill-in. But he left for fucking Polygon, lol

>SQUARESPACE

Forgot this relevant picture - the current-day GB audience, everyone

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Polygon's vid team is pretty good though in fairness.

It'd be a fucking miracle to see GB match it in output and effort. Almost every member over there has an ongoing, scripted series released regularly and they do plenty of one offs, group vids, and reviews too.

Like you'd never see the GB crowd get together for boardgame nights just to do vids from it. I'm pretty sure neither coast even hangs out together outside work these days, nevermind how the E3 dox drop revealed half the polygon crew live in the same apartment complex.

TOP TIER
Ryan
Jeff
Vinny
Rorie (drunk)

GOOD TIER
Alex
Brad
Dan

OK TIER
Drew
Austin
Jason
Alexis
Rorie (sober)

BOTTOM TIER
Jan
Ben
Patrick
Abby

UNBEARABLE TIER
Bakalar

E-beggar board when?

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Patrick, Alex, and Austin all go up a tier when writing instead of recording imo.

They would all work way better as columnists.

Doom eternal is the best casual filter we've had in a while.

GB has been discussed on Yas Forums literally since the day it was founded you newfag fuck.

Hell Jeff was discussed even before that.

it's ok when Yas Forums and Yas Forums talk about reviews and critics. why not Yas Forums?

This is fairly accurate. I'd switch Abby and Bakalar, though - Bakalar has a little bit of value in the form of it's funny when they gang up and all joke at his expense. Abby is always a unfunny screeching harpy who thinks she's hilarious

It's not about having a family, you childless dorks. Giant Bomb is their job. I have a job. I worked fifty hours last week. Do you guys think my wife and son somehow made me shittier at it?

It's about dynamics. Jeff was really funny when Ryan was alive because they were able to play off each other in a heightened, comedic way. There's nobody to do that with right now. The only real highlight of the Bombcast now is when Jeff and Brad talk way over the heads of everyone else. It's depressing really, because it illustrates--at least once per show--that they are so much more valuable than anyone else.

They need to rope in a big personality. That's hard to do when everyone who even thinks they might be funny is some Patreon schmuck or Youtuber. Worse yet, is that the best of those guys are successful. Patreon people specifically will get massacred during the pandemic though, so there might be some decent talent popping up in the job market soon.

BETTER-THAN-EVERYONE-SOLELY-BECAUSE-HE-ISN'T-THE-WORST TIER
Dan

DEAD TIER
Jeff
Vinny
Ryan

WHO? TIER
Jason
Drew

NAILS-ON-A-CHALKBOARD TIER
Abby
Ben
Alex
Brad

>Brad starts talking about Destiny

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I've never been able to fathom the Brad hate. Especially in the state GB is in right now, he is the only other person who knows anything at all about video games. Giant Bomb might even be better if it was just them doing a bunch of stuff and doing special shows with guests.

Doomguy fucking loved that rabbit.
Whats wrong with having a memento of a pet?

>It's not about having a family, you childless dorks.
It literally is though, Jeff/Jason/Vinny talk about it. Kids are a big committment and cut into freetime you could otherwise spend how you pleased.

Not complaining about it, not insulting them for it, simply stating a fact - they play less games since they started families, and as such discuss less of them.

Jeff does more GB stuff than any two people put together, and is the only person who is good at putting together content by himself. Jason is a video producer with some kind of energy-sapping eye disease and Vinny is in love with Abby. Three people with pretty different dispositions.

I don't quite hate him either, but I can understand why people might. He plays like 4 games a year himself, and otherwise learns about "public opinion" about games/gaming topics from his Twitter echo chamber and parrots it as fact. Dismisses any opinion or take that's not held by said echo chamber as an overreaction from crybaby gamers. He also is possibly the second biggest SJW on the crew, behind Alex. (Abby doesn't count by default.) Thankfully it doesn't happen often, but when he gets on his soapbox, it's insufferable

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I think it's a result of him liking games Yas Forums hates and wanting to discuss them a lot more than anything tbdesu. Started in 2011 with skyrim, then 2013 with dota, then destiny 1/2, etc. This board can't stand taste that disagrees with its own so when he praises stuff anons hate they start to hate him.

Well that and he's always been a pretty mild/dry sorta guy outside goty debate, and while that was a niche back in the day nowadays all west coast is sorta like that so he's lost that appeal.

Nah the end begun when they hired Patrick

>kind of energy-sapping eye disease
It's called diabetes

The promise of GB has always been that they are a personality-based site and they cover what they want to. The issue and problem of their website lies within the tastes of Ben and Abby more than it does anything else. Admittedly, I like them both, but they are content boat anchors.

>some kind of energy-sapping eye disease
it's diabetes, and it has hit him fucking hard the last couple of years. he looks like a completely different person.

When my renewal comes up i think ill cancle

Im so fucking tired of ben/alex/abby's politically correct rhetoric

>>build your profession around personal tastes and bias
This is how it's done, nigger. What use I have for Dean Takahashi's opinion? If I know X likes Quake2's MP and doesn't like [Upcoming game]s MP I'll have a point of reference. And yes, DoomE has feature creep, get over it.

He can't play games, is obnoxiously arrogant, loves contrarian games like Destiny and DOTA (and will make sure you know this fact), often gets basic information wrong, literally falls asleep on the job, lets politics creep into where they don't belong... need I go on?

I did not like Jason but it makes me sad. He doesn't look good.

Now you see these people have no taste, so why, oh, why do you think they're right about the humor and writing?

Come on dude. Get some perspective. You really think that nobody fucking plays DOTA or Destiny?

I stumble upon these guys vids sporadically and I'm just amazed they still make enough money to live off this. They put in zero effort and never even pretend to want to be there

>I'm pretty sure neither coast even hangs out together outside work these days,
This is the saddest thing to me. The crew used to all be close friends at the start, and nowadays you can tell they just...aren't. Brad and Jeff seem close and that's it.