Farewell, Giant Bomb

Giant Bomb is no more. Sure, the website itself may still be around (for now) but the people who worked there, the people who made it what it was, are gone. The writing's been on the wall for a while now, but as of May 1st it appears that Giant Bomb as it's existed for, uh, seventeen years, is done with. I'm sure the brand will still exist for a little while and Fandom will leverage their wiki database for the sort of stuff Fandom (formerly Wikia) does, but this personality-driven website (about video games!) no longer has any of its personality left.  

The first thing I wrote about on this blog (outside of the backdated GotY posts and my introduction) was about Fandom's acquisition of Giant Bomb and other related sites, and a few months after that I wrote about the death of Waypoint, so in a way I feel like things have been building to this for a while. Because of that, I thought I'd kind of highlight my history with Giant Bomb and why it had such an impact on me.

Back in 2013 when I was looking for coverage of the new Sly Cooper game I decided to check out popular/trending podcasts looking for any sort of coverage of that game. While scrolling through what gaming podcasts were out there I saw the words "Giant Bombcast" and suddenly remembered that that was a name I'd seen a few times before. I remembered a fun fact I'd heard about Giant Bomb: they had a recurring GOTY award called "the Northies", which was for the best performance by Nolan North in a video game and, for whatever reason, that connection alone made me want to check out their podcast, and while I can't remember whether they even discussed Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time that week, I do recall a very lengthy discussion about, of all things, the Fast and Furious films. Even though it wasn't what I exactly signed up for, I was hooked on these people because they were just so dang entertaining.

Pretty soon after I started listening to the Bombcasts, I decided to check out their videos. Most notable were their Quick Looks, which were short(er) videos designed to give an overview of new releases.  I'd initially just watch their coverage of games I'd heard of or was interested in, but pretty quickly I watched a bit of everything they put out. While the "quick" in the title was a bit of a misnomer and the length of them made watching everything difficult, watching at least a few minutes of what they put out exposed me to all sorts of games I'd have otherwise ignored. It was, in a way, educational for me.

I could just list off my favorite injokes and videos from over the years, but I'm sure other people out there have done that more comprehensively than I ever could. I've included a few highlights throughout this post, and I could mention the Persona 4 Endurance Run, or the Motorbike Quick Look, or Big Jeffrey, or Sheikh Zanzibar, or so many other bits, but the truth of the matter is that this was a place I'd come to consistently whenever I needed a laugh and there's simply too much stuff out there for me to feel like I'm doing it justice.

In general, the site exposed me to games, movies, and even voices I might otherwise have been unaware of. Drew's visit to North Korea is obviously noteworthy, and Patrick and Austin were generally great at providing a more well-read take on things, but a specific podcast hosted by Dan Ryckert and Danny O'Dwyer is something that often comes to mind for me. An episode of their Premium show Danswers where Samantha Kalman guested had a pretty significant impact on me because it was one of the first times I connected the dots about myself being, uh, trans. Hearing people I'd already grown to trust candidly discussing something like this, well, it meant a lot.

The site changed a lot over the years. As I mentioned, I started following it in early 2013 so I was devastated when Ryan Davis passed away. It was a site that evolved a lot over time, with Dan and Jason coming in to mix things up, with Alex and Vinny starting everything with the Beastcast, with Austin coming (and going), even though it wasn't always the same people, it still felt like a community I wanted to follow.

But when Vinny, Alex, and Brad left, and then even Jeff Gerstmann, I realized the people I'd followed for so long were no longer here. I have a lot of respect for what Dan, Jan, Jeff Grubb, Jeff Bakalar, and whoever-else-was-still-there were able to do after I tapped out, but for a number of reasons I just wasn't as invested in keeping up with this place any more. 

If I'm being honest, I haven't followed the site closely for some time. The departures and layoffs in recent years complicated things but, to be honest, I simply haven't really been spending time listening to podcasts these last few years. I'd listen to an occasional Bombcast here-and-there but I just don't really consume all that much longform gaming content these days. I'll read articles when I come across them on Twitter (or Bluesky, now) and I'll check out occasional clips, but my days of listening to multiple 3-hour-long podcasts a week are behind me. Every so often I think about getting back into things, but with how spread out the people I follow are it's hard.

The joy and genius of Giant Bomb was that it was a collection of people I admired for different reasons working together under the same roof. Even after I stopped following the site I liked that the people there tried their best to keep it about the people there. Sure, it's always been a website about video games, but people came to it because it was a website staffed by people the audience grew to like and admire. With everyone branching off to do their own thing (with Waypoint-and-now-Remap, or Nextlander, or Jeff Gerstmann's thing, or Fire Escape, or Noclip, or whatever the rest of the former staff and friends-of-the-site decide to do now) it's just too much podcast for someone like me to follow, as much as I'd like to keep up with these people.

I don't know that I have any big takeaways here, outside of just joining with everyone else when I say this sucks. Corporations tearing beloved institutions apart (Polygon, too, was largely dismantled today as well) will always be tragic and shortsighted and the people responsible for these decisions will never face any consequences for their idiocy. It's infuriating. Still, I wanted to reflect on something that's been a near-constant in my life for over twelve years now because man is it sad to see it go. So long, duders.

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