Saving Games Journalism With Giant Bomb

This is an iHeart podcast.

Be honest, how many tabs do you have open right now?

Too many?

Sounds like you need Close All Tabs from KQED, where I, Morgan Sung, Doom Scroll so you don't have to.

Every week, we scour the internet to bring you deep dives that explain how the digital world connects and divides us all.

Everyone's cooped up in their house.

I will talk to this robot.

If you're a truly engaged activist, the government already has data on you.

Driverless cars are going to mess up in ways that humans wouldn't.

Listen to Close All Tods, wherever you get your podcasts.

There's more to San Francisco with the Chronicle.

More to experience and to explore.

Knowing San Francisco is our passion.

Discover more at sfchronicle.com.

Starting your Saturday morning with farmers markets and youth sports ahead, it could feel like you'll drive halfway across California.

For fuel rewards members at Shell, that running around translates into savings at the pump.

Earn rewards on fuel, snacks, dining out, and more.

Earn 10 cents per gallon off when you reach platinum status, with opportunities to stack rewards for even more savings.

Visit fuelrewards.com/slash join 25 and sign up today.

At participating merchants and shell locations, limit 20 gallons, restrictions apply.

Visit fuelrewards.com for more information.

Siusas la frace persona precavida vale pordos.

The Colgate Total Active Prevention System is for you.

Con pasta rental reformulada.

Unse pión dentes innovador yun enjuade bucal antibacterial

In just six weeks, starting from week one.

Compared to a non-antibacterial fluoride toothpaste and flat trim toothbrush, helping you prevent oral health problems like cavities and gingivitis before they start.

Comparo en shop punto callgate punto com yagunal todo and be tentist ready.

Callzone media.

Hello, and welcome to Better Offline.

I'm your host, Ed Zitron.

As a reminder, you can now buy shirts, hoodies, and even mugs in our merchandise store.

There's a link in the notes.

God damn it.

Give me money.

I need you to wear the shirt for me.

Today I'm joined by the new owners of gaming site Giant Bomb, Jeff Bacalar, Jeff Grubb, and Dan Reichert.

Fellas, welcome to the show.

It's pronounced Zitron.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah.

Okay.

I definitely, on an interview a few days ago, missed my own name and missed better.

I was like,

better off shit.

And Matt Osowski, my producer, regularly hears these things.

So that's always fun.

But congratulations, by the way.

So walk me through, Dan, perhaps, walk me through what happened.

So there was some filing in and out from Giant Bomb.

And then you guys kind of took it over.

Yeah.

So

it's Andrew.

I started the longest ago in like 2014.

So, in terms of how the recent stuff went down, I think the Jeff's here.

Fellas, tell me if I'm wrong.

I feel like you maybe have had some more time on the phone with lawyers.

I like watching this guy sweat.

Let's

go.

I just wanted to make sure I didn't.

I'm not like, oh, yeah, I did all this work.

You know, it's like, no, I just kind of fell into this.

No, Jeff and Jeff

left Fandom, our previous parent company, and as part of the deal, we're able to buy Giant Bomb and are bringing in, you know, me, Jana Choa, our long-time producer, and our good friend Mike Benatti, who has been trying to be full-time at Giant Bomb for a long time.

And he completely skipped full-time and went straight from contractor to co-owner of the website.

That's

yes, yes.

So, yeah, long history of corporate ownership and dating back to 2008 and four different owners basically.

And now, I guess we are the fifth group.

Nice.

So, what is the new structure?

So, you guys are all the owners.

You're going to be doing the same kind of games, journalism you're already doing.

I know that the YouTube channel went offline.

Is it coming back?

Yeah, we were streaming to YouTube just right before we came here.

Yeah, we were doing our Barbay Club show.

So,

right now, the structure looks like.

Are we getting all the stuff from fandom that we need?

And they've been very helpful in that stuff, but it's like just kind of getting the keys to everything.

And then there is a whole other process of us getting a business started because this wasn't like us necessarily buying the business.

We bought a lot of assets.

So we have to start our own business to sort of take these things on and make it make sense.

So in parallel, while we were goofing off, while Mike was playing rascal for the PlayStation 1 for our game where we show where we play bad games, Backlar was still working in the background, making sure that we'll have a bank account and stuff like that.

But as far as like the overall idea of what this company looks like, yeah, it's going to be us kind of taking it on all on ourselves, kind of splitting it up evenly amongst us and just getting to work and investing our time and seeing a payoff because now it's all on us.

It's weird as well, because it's like both one of the most depressing times in games journalism history and one of the most encouraging because the amount of layoffs are horrifying, but you and Aftermath have really come out of, well, I don't want to say nowhere because it's been quite public and chaotic.

You, you kind of seem to be building a new model for journalism writ large.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I think like the thing that the lesson everyone learned, they learned like 10 years ago, where

the

sort of like contemporary understanding of

games media, or really any media, you know, that covers some sort of entertainment

is probably not compatible with what a corporation would need out of that in terms of like revenue expectations and just, you know, filing in in a way that makes sense.

And that's fine.

And I think,

you know, what this, with the, with the Aftermath Experiment and all these other sort of independent journalistic entities have sort of shown is that this can work

with a private sort of consideration of ownership as opposed to, you know, just having it be another asset in the corporate media portfolio.

Right.

And I think the value that these types of entities present make a lot more sense under the guise of private ownership than than they do, you know, under the umbrella.

So it kind of, yeah, it kind of feels as well like games journalism gets pulled in very hard by these big private equity.

I'm not specifically referring to any of them, just to be clear.

These large entities buy them because I imagine they're traffic drivers and there's always news and there's always kind of search traffic coming in from games and

guides and stuff like that.

Yeah, these things have been honed to be SEO

sort of machines for a long time.

The people who have been in charge have once understood that to be very important.

Now, of course, like Google has made things very complicated for a lot of sites that built their sites in one way, and now they have to shift and no one really understands the way the winds are blowing.

But yeah, that traffic means something to someone for sure.

And that's why you see something like a Polygon becoming the target of a Valnet.

I guess the public understanding is Valnet approached Vox Media about Polygon and asked them about it like some time ago and have been trying to make this happen since then.

Vox wasn't wasn't necessarily shopping around, but it became the target of that because it does have this traffic.

It has this built-in.

If you search for something, there's a good chance Polygon is going to serve it to you in the video game space.

And yeah, so

these kind of equity firms, they spot this and they want to extract that value.

It means bad things for the actual people working at these sites almost universally every time.

And that's why this other model of us coming and being like, we're going to own it ourselves and we're going to have a direct relationship with the

audience.

That kind of is is the only ground to retreat to at this point.

We are either going to keep having this stuff because we're all in it together, as hokey as that sounds, or we're just not going to have it at all.

Those are the options.

It's also, I think it's important to call out that, like, there does exist a type of person that I think we all sort of slot into in this Goldilocks zone that has sat on both sides of the sort of influential divide, where, you know, we all began our careers in a very kind of like,

I don't know, maybe antiquated is not the right word, but a certainly a traditional sort of like media and publisher relationship and power relationship.

I worked for a newspaper.

I worked for

BC Zone and CVG.

Yeah.

And let's be honest, we're not that old, right?

Like we're, you know, we're 39 years young.

Exactly.

We sit.

We sit, we sit in this very weird sort of like,

like I said, this Goldilocks zone where we're like, we understand what came before, what happened during, and now what's after.

And I think that very uniquely positions

a small slice of sort of institutional knowledge, right?

Where you can kind of like leverage that in a way that not a lot of people have that sort of insight from both sides of the fence.

And that goes back to, you know, the founding of Giant Bomb in 2008, because it was four guys that broke off from GameSpot, you know, more traditional web-based gaming media and formed this very personality-focused thing, you know, like kind of in the early days of YouTube, gaming personalities and things like that.

But it did come from that, yeah, institutional knowledge, people that had worked, you know, E3s dating back to the 90s and things like that.

It wasn't just, you know, some kids that started YouTubing and getting big.

It kind of straddled the line from the beginning.

I admit, one of the saddest things to me was watching PC Zone collapse.

It was the magazine I worked at, the games magazine I worked at in England.

And in a different time, I think they would have come together.

We would have come together and done something.

But 2008 was when that happened.

I was moving to America as well.

But that was Future Publishing Bought and fuck Future.

I don't give shit.

Yeah,

what are they going to do to me?

And they repeatedly kind of do that stuff to people.

So yeah, fuck them.

For real.

Real quick on that.

Like, I remember thinking back when that was happening in 2008, when EGM and 1UP was collapsing, it's like, had the One Up Yours podcast kind of lasted a few more years, they all could have easily just transitioned that into a podcast with ads for one thing, and then a direct to

customer supported way of doing things on the other hand.

And that really would have taken off for them.

Instead, they a lot of the scouts had to go kind of filter into working in the corporate side for making games.

The problem is with podcasts is, as you well know, like monetizing them is very difficult.

I mean, people complain about the ads here.

Being under iHeartRadio, I mean, it works great because CoolZone Media and iHeart leaves us alone fairly, but people complain about the ads.

It's like, have you tried starting a fucking podcast?

It isn't cheap.

So it's...

It's just a frustrating but great time because Aftermath's doing really interesting stuff that I feel is going to be, I feel like Giant Bomb's going to be very classic gamer stuff, like creative, but still very much about the games.

And Aftermath is doing that plus what would have been called derisively new games journalism

way back when.

God, do you remember that, fellas?

New games.

I remember that.

I remember when people were talking about that.

Let's talk about that ludoo narrative dissonance.

There you go.

Yeah.

Oh, fuck.

Like the start of Polygon, press reset type stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Explain that for the listeners because it sucks, but they should know.

You talk about the polygon thing or specifically.

Go ahead, Dan.

Oh, it's just like games media going back to like, you know, EGM and Game Informer, like the magazines of the 90s, to like the early, you know, web-based IGN GameSpot stuff.

It was just, you know, we were parroting press releases and it's like news stories are basically like, there's a new box art for Assassin's Creed.

How many does your game have?

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

You're going to have more levels this time?

Like that type of stuff.

So it's like, that's why I, even back when I started, never considered myself a journalist because I realized it's just like, okay, I'm just kind of reporting on silly things here and giving a score to a game and things like that.

But I think that there's something marvelous about that with games journalism.

It's why there's, because I don't like Aftermath, they'll write, and Guita, especially over there, has written like very long-form, thoughtful, emotional pieces.

I think that that's what's...

I don't want to say missing because it's happening, but that's what makes game journalism great.

You can have stuff where it was just like, I played something, it stunk to shit.

It made me angry.

I want to kill someone, but I love it because it's got this one tiny, like there was, I remember reviewing a game, Zona, the Skyfall movie tie-in game.

Activision and Bond game, yeah.

Remarkably tight Gears of War clone.

And I remember being like, this sucks, but I love it.

That's great for gaming as well.

But then the very deep emotional stuff.

And I think that it's what lends itself to exactly what you're doing, which is this kind of, let's get together, let's make something about our hobby and our job and whatever.

And the in-between part can be giant bomb.

Yeah, I think there's very much room for both.

Cause I remember like when Polygon was starting in like, you know, probably like the 2013, 2014, whenever that was, and they were very much, you know, banging the drum of like, we are doing serious games journalism and telling human stories and it's going to be this emotional, deep stuff.

And I remember looking at that and being like, I don't know how the fuck to do that.

But I can tell you if Never Dead is any good.

So,

but I think there's room for both because like someone like me broke in because I wanted to work with a bunch of dorks and talk about video games and now make videos about video video games.

But then there are

important stories to tell.

And I think, you know, to give Grubb some credit here, I think Grubb might be the best I've ever seen at balancing both.

Like he does the daily news show on giantbomb.com and will cover the serious stuff and layoffs and just kind of issues facing the industry.

But then he'll also, you know, dress up like Bubsy and play Bubsy 3D for Blight Club.

You know, so I do think Grubb is uniquely qualified to do both ends of that.

Yeah, and I enjoy in both.

I definitely remember growing up being like reading EGM or

game players and being like, man, the people who are in this magazine, they have a lot of personality and they clearly fill every page with that.

And

I know these people by name now.

I kind of know what they're into.

And I built a real connection with them.

And then, you know,

that would actually lead me into some of their real reporting on stuff that mattered to them, especially in EGM and then like Next Gen Magazine later.

And I just remember really enjoying both sides of that a lot.

Games are silly and stupid.

And wouldn't it be fun if we took that seriously?

And I really enjoy that aspect of my job.

Yeah, and uh, CVG used to have this kind of yellow,

it was-I don't know if you ever physically read an issue of Computer Video Games magazine, it's British and all, but they had this middle section that was in like almost like yellow pages style, and it was just rambling shit.

It was beautiful, it's like games genuinely like I was a loser up until like two years ago, and like games were the one thing that I could bond with people over because it didn't require you to be anyone.

Like, I played a shit ton of EverQuest, I was, I think it was one of the first MMO reports, like, real MMO reporters in England, Ollie Welsh as well, legend.

Oh, sure, yeah, shots Ollie.

But it's like, and one of the leftover Polygon people.

It's just what pisses me off about all of this as well is it doesn't seem that hard to run a games journalism outlet well.

You just don't hire so many people and make them do 11 stories a day.

I mean, the real sad thing with Polygon is they didn't make any of those mistakes.

When people saw the layoffs, and they're like, oh, that's a lot of people.

It's It's like they were successful and profitable and could have kept growing, but they had a very sort of like moderate take on, okay, yeah, we could, but let's just keep all this sustainable.

And a lot of that goes down to the leadership of Chris Plant, who I just admire so much.

He is just, he's got such a good head on his shoulders and it just filtered all the way down through Polygon.

So it's like they were doing it right.

And even Vox was letting them do it right.

It's just like, even when that happens, there's that buzz saw that's going to show up and and be like we're gonna rip this thing apart and find a way to make more money from it So here's some money.

It's fucking books.

I didn't know they were profitable.

Yeah, it's so impurious.

It was a successful business I think is how I would phrase it

Be honest how many tabs do you have open right now too many sounds like you need close all tabs from KQED where I Morgan Sung doom scroll so you don't have to every week, we scour the internet to bring you deep dives that explain how the digital world connects and divides us all.

Everyone's cooped up in their house.

I will talk to this robot.

If you're a truly engaged activist, the government already has data on you.

Driverless cars are going to mess up in ways that humans wouldn't.

Listen to Close All Tabs, wherever you get your podcasts.

So I've shopped with Quince before they were an advertiser and after they became one.

And then again, before I had to record this ad, I really like them.

My green overshirt in particular looks great.

I use it like a jacket.

It's breathable and comfortable and hangs in my body nicely.

I get a lot of compliments.

And I liked it so much I got it in all the different colours, along with one of their corduroy ones, which I think I pull off.

And really, that's the only person that matters.

I also really love their linen shirts too.

They're comfortable, they're breathable, and they look nice.

Get a lot of compliments there too.

I have a few of them.

Love their rust-coloured ones as well.

And in general, I really like quints.

The shirts fit nicely, and the rest of their clothes do too.

They ship quickly, they look good, they're high quality, and they partner directly with ethical factories and skip the middleman.

So you get top-tier fabrics and craftsmanship at half the price of similar brands and i'm probably going to buy more from them very very soon keep it classic and cool this fall with long-lasting staples from quince go to quince.com slash better for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns that's q u i n c e dot com slash better

free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash better

in business they say you can have better cheaper or faster but you only get to pick two.

What if you could have all three at the same time?

That's exactly what Cohere, Thomson Reuters, and Specialized Bikes have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

OCI is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs, where you can run any workload in a high-availability, consistently high-performance environment and spend less than you would with other clouds.

How is it faster?

OCI's OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second.

Cheaper?

OCI costs up to 50% less for computing, 70% less for storage, and 80% less for networking.

Better?

In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and higher bandwidth versus other clouds.

This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads.

Right now, with zero commitment, try OCI for free.

Head to oracle.com/slash strategic.

That's oracle.com/slash strategic.

Every business has an ambition.

PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide.

And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, Pay Later, and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up.

When it's time to get growing, there's one platform for all business: PayPal Open.

Grow today at paypalopen.com.

Loan subject to approval in available locations.

It's so fucking stupid because I feel like these outlets could on some level, maybe not a ton, print money.

Like they,

there are tons of gamers who love reading stuff.

Sure, like it sounds like Polygon hadn't a sustainable operation.

IGN is insane.

I don't know.

I don't know how many people work at IGN.

IGN breaks on my phone.

I don't know if you've tried to look at an IGN guide.

Sometimes

if you scroll too fast, fast, it just goes, sorry, mate.

Yeah, they've got so many sites now.

It could be a recipe for Recnerok on your own.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It just goes to the top or pops up a thing and you accidentally click the wrong thing.

Yeah, I hate that.

Yeah, the internet sucks now.

It really does.

This is not an IGN problem as much as it is doing.

I should have a show about that.

But

a lot of those sites are not.

It's tough to really say that they all have agency in a way that

you want.

And I think everything becomes this Frankensteinian creation of like,

you know, sort of meshing it with other properties that sit alongside as sister companies.

And you're just never going to have that organic

feeling.

I do think you're right.

I think the Polygon example is good because it was sort of like this semblance of like, oh, this does feel sort of vacuum sealed off in a way that

works.

And everyone there, you know, really doing a tremendous job.

But for the most part, whenever you see a a lot of these massive behemoth legacy media sites, they are just this, you know, a Voltron creation that

doesn't really allow for that amount of agency that, you know, I think the spirit of all those sites wants to be.

Yeah.

And I think that, like I've said earlier, they're kind of the obvious victim of any kind of acquisition partner because it's just you can turn them into a slop shop and immediately kill them.

Immediately kill them.

Right.

And that's what the internet's allowed for, right?

And I know that's like, that's what I read, what you say.

Like, you always have it spot on, Ed, is like that is like we are just sort of like willfully watching the death of everything and calling it out and just being like, yeah,

that's the next ship that came into the harbor filled with ghosts.

And we're just going to watch it continue on its way down to its next port of call.

And that's it.

It's just this parade of dead websites and dead internet.

And you're familiar with the Tony Ox Pro Skater uh games right so i was watching uh i was trying to read a story on kotaku the other day i can't remember what it was about uh but it did it took me to a video instead and there was a man talking over the video and he kept calling it thps thps and i'm like i don't think i've ever heard anyone say that before and then it's like oh i am i'm listening to an ai voice of course i am of course i am oh interesting okay yes because you did it every time in the same tone thps thps yeah no one says that no one says that uh so i'm just like that's of course, that's, they all think they're going to be able to do that.

That's the story we're going to have to keep telling over and over about what's happening with all these websites and these equity firms coming in here.

And I mean, of course, I get turned off.

I think most of the audience probably does get turned off when they experience that, right?

Because the one thing about games, and Steven Spahn, who is an accessibility expert in the space, he used to tell me, like, why do I want to play video games?

He's like, it's a currency.

It's a social currency where I play something and I get to talk to someone else about it.

And we get to share something.

We have a connection.

I mean, you said the one thing you could bond over with people is video games.

I think we all get that at the very fundamental level.

And so, these corporations trying to find a way to take that out of there so they could save some money is obviously just going to blow up in their faces.

They just don't know it yet.

Yeah.

And I actually think it could go the other way, though, which is as we get more independent gaming outlets, I think that there could be real success there because I think that that's what people want to like.

There is definitely a degree of hunger for when is a game coming out in the same way that people Google when the Super Bowl's coming.

Of course.

When the Super Bowl's coming out.

When the Super Bowl's happening.

There we go.

I do watch sports.

I did the Super Bowl episode.

But I think

no one actually reads these outlets just to learn that.

They want a gamer who has played a shit ton of games, who has a good voice to say, I like this or I'm worried about this.

And I think the worst of games journalism has been when that's been dragged out of it.

And even when, like, we were doing these very early days of the website for CVG, when we'd have to write shit and just be like, this game's coming out.

It's going to be like this.

And I wouldn't say we weren't allowed to have character, but it definitely wasn't encouraged, which is strange because the CVG mag was always so rude.

It was utility.

You were doing utility work, right?

As opposed to personality work.

That's kind of how it worked with the old preview system with magazines is because you weren't supposed to, since the game wasn't out yet, you know,

but I remember I went to like an Xbox One pre-launch event thing and I played Rise Son of Rome.

And I remember just thinking, it was like, I think the headline I used was like, oh, it's as fun as dialing a phone number because it's just like waiting for something to turn red, then you press the red button, then it just sucks.

Like calling it Microsoft Snack.

Yeah, yeah.

So I wrote that, and it was like, it had a negative tone, and the game was about to come out in like three weeks.

And it's like, and I kind of said, like, this seems like it might suck in the preview.

And I remember like both like comments and stuff and people at work being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we can't have this much like opinion in a preview.

It's like, I think I can.

This seems like it's going to kind of suck, you know?

Yeah, there's no, no rules there.

I remember when

Mark McDonald over at EGM said he played Too Human and said, it's going to be terrible.

And Dennis Dyack

insisted on coming on their podcast and talking to him about it and scolded him for doing that for a preview.

And said, you're going to regret everything you said when you played the final version.

We're ruined the day that you insulted too human.

I don't think he ruined anything.

There was no ruin.

Jesus Christ.

But this is even this conversation is what is fun about games journalism.

Because even a shit game, you have the kind of horse trading, like, shit, do you remember that terrible preview?

I do genuinely miss this about games journalism.

Like, it's the one, it's probably I miss it more than the writing about the games.

Because back at PC Zone, we had like Log, Steve Hogarty, Will Porter.

We had all sorts of like fun, fun other people like Ryan, oh, God, all the people from the MAG who just yell at you.

And I think the, and actually I'm curious your thoughts about this.

I think what this industry also needs to do do is rebuild the solidarity because it was quite, there was quite a lot of it in 2008.

It feels like it's kind of drifted.

And I feel like that's, it's something in tech media I want to do, too.

I want people to come back together and realize it really is us versus them, them being us.

Well, I'm curious to hear where you think like the friction primarily lies.

I think what it is, is that so many people have been hired, fired, hired, fired.

So many people have left games, journalism, gone into PR.

And then the people that own own these companies have stopped even being the classic like Fortune, it's Fortune, Future or Dennis Publishing.

It's the people.

So you've always had IGN as this kind of thing over here, this juggernaut.

And then remote work, to an extent, as well as done it too.

It's just there's less events when people are meeting.

I don't even know how we fix this, but it's something that I'm very big in tech media, at least, trying to bring people together and be like, hey, look, it is really us versus the largest corporations in the world.

Sure.

I mean, that's absolutely been

my primary thought that pops in my head throughout this entire experience is we really are in this together.

And I mean, when I say us, that we're in this together, I am thinking about the other people who are in this creator-driven space.

So kind of funny, he's been super supportive and helping us out and giving us pointers and stuff like that.

The guys over at Nextlander have been pointing out, like Dan was on Jeff Gersman's show yesterday.

It's like we did realize pretty quickly

when Greg Miller did take that team, kind of funny to go independent, that there isn't that real competition like there is the more people that care about the kinds of the ways that we talk about video games the better for everybody and people can bounce around between these various sites that have a slightly slightly different take on it so we keep growing that space it's good for everyone so how do we turn that into something and it's like definitely i i'm coming into it with uh i'm gonna like reference a book that i haven't read yet but i saw the interview on daily daily show i'm gonna do it i'm probably gonna i'm probably gonna misrepresent it but it was like moral ambition was the name of the book and it was this idea of you should in the system that we have have ambition to try to do big things cool things try to go make money that's fine but when confronted with a fork in the road about hey i could do this or i could do that in that moment go with the one that feels the most morally correct with you and and like now we're in this moment where it's like we could hunker down and try to make as much money for ourselves as possible but clearly the right choice is let's work with everyone get everyone sort of moving in the same

get people feeling good about this space again, and then maybe we can kind of heal some of that riff that you're talking about a little bit.

I don't know, we're not going to be able to get back to people who are reactionaries that have turned to right-wingers on YouTube.

Maybe they were never part of it, and they were never part of it.

Exactly.

So, we just got to focus on the ones that are there.

Yeah,

exactly.

And there's a lot of people who are right there, ready to listen again.

We just got to let them know it's cool in here again.

Yeah, I think we need to get back to

a lot of smaller teams.

I think that because

I'm actually really glad you corrected me.

I thought Polygon was that they grew too big.

That was just the assumption I'd made, which was incorrect, clearly.

Yeah, not what I've heard from anyone that I've talked to.

They talked to me at the beginning of Polygon.

I was in PR at the time.

They're like, yeah, do you want to come over here?

I was like, no, I must stay at a job I'm unhappy at.

They were too big probably in the beginning, for sure, but they definitely kind of figured out over time.

Oh, no.

No, no, they genuinely, they wanted me to do PR.

I think it was Justin McElroy, and it's I think that the future is going to be lots of smaller ones.

I think the games as well, there is less competition because it's not like scoop-heavy.

I guess you could play a game first, but at that point,

you're just you played the game.

Like, I still think there's a semblance of that, and there is, but it's not like compared to getting a massive funding announcement in tech or like a breakdown technology, sure, sure, sure, like a partnered sort of embargo thing.

I mean, there's still competition.

Certainly, but you're right.

Everyone is small.

That's what the landscape is.

And it's the reckoning of corporate media having this realization of like our competition is 30,000 small independent creators.

And

how do we like come to terms with that in a way that will satisfy what we need this thing to do?

No one knows the answer to that.

Yeah.

And the answer is no one knows how to do it because probably there is no answer.

So that realization, that epiphany, which I think everyone has to have like for themselves at one point in their life, you know, kind of lends you to why, you know, things like this wind up happening.

And I think that there's also the problem of all of these big entities buying things and draining all the personality out is it's replaced all the personality with people on YouTube that post pictures of themselves frowning and saying the Dragon Age has got woke in it or whatever.

Oh, that we're into, we got to take those pictures of us frowning, guys.

Yeah, I'm going to be a big frowning-based organization.

I got to work on my point.

And this is a reference as well, just to any listeners.

It's like Uber Driver sucked me off.

And it was like the Rob Wisman picture.

Anyone who doesn't know what that is, I swear it's not just me talking about that.

My favorite is The Undertaker got a podcast not too long ago, and seeing The Undertaker do YouTube faces is very, very funny.

Hell yeah.

That's so special.

It comes for everyone.

But we need the opinion.

Like, we do actually need the opinion back.

It's just the gaming online.

I feel like I got the last dropper out of NAM sometimes because it's like gaming online was like, oh, you don't like fucking Sonic and Mario?

I will kill you.

Yeah.

Yep.

You, you insult Bubsy, the bobcat?

I will.

Yeah, I can and I won't.

I have.

I mean, you know, fanboyism is a currency for sure.

And I think like that argument of position, as much as it sucks, right, is a thing that

probably too many people are finding the worst things about themselves and placing it into the energy of that discourse online.

And, you know, I think that's what probably, you know, separates, for my personal taste, what I want to watch and what is out there.

And I think,

you know,

the fact that you, you know, I think like personality is another form of currency that is a thing that is all but lost in a lot of larger, you know, media outlets.

That's, that is a thing you can't replace.

That is a thing that AI is not going to replace.

That is a thing that, you know, has to be genuine.

Be honest, how many tabs do you have open right now?

Too many?

Sounds like you need close all tabs from KQED, where I, Morgan Sung, Doom Scroll so you don't have to.

Every week, we scour the internet to bring you deep dives that explain how the digital world connects and divides us all.

Everyone's cooped up in their house.

I will talk to this robot.

If you're a truly engaged activist, the government already has data on you.

Driverless cars are going to mess up in ways that humans wouldn't.

Listen to Close All Tabs, wherever you get your podcasts.

Every business has an ambition.

PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide.

And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, Pay Later, and all major cards so you can focus on on scaling up.

When it's time to get growing, there's one platform for all business: PayPal Open.

Grow today at paypalopen.com.

Loan subject to approval in available locations.

There's a lot going on in Hollywood.

How are you supposed to stay on top of it all?

Variety has the solution.

Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new Daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.

Where do you see the business actually heading?

Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton.

The only constant in Hollywood is change.

Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Daily Variety, and listen now.

Top reasons your career wants you to move to Ohio.

So many amazing growth opportunities, high-paying jobs in technology, advanced manufacturing, engineering, life sciences, and more.

You'll soar to new heights, just like the Wright brothers, John Glenn, even Neil Armstrong.

Their careers all took off in Ohio, and yours can too.

A job that can take you further and a place you can't wait to come home to.

Have it all in the heart of it all.

Launch your search at callohiohome.com.

Yeah, we were asking that question, like, where's the Lester bangs of video games journalism?

That was part of that new games journalism thing.

And it's like, it did happen.

It was probably Dunkie.

Like, it's probably

one.

Oh, he's like, big YouTuber.

He's like, just kind of does funny talking over gameplay.

And he's got a pretty good eye.

And Yahtzee probably thought he was.

Yeah.

And I mean, Yahtzee's definitely part of that lineage for sure.

100%.

Angry video game nerd.

Yep.

Yeah.

And I liked Yahtzee's original stuff.

I really don't want to look what's happened since.

It's one of those things where I hope nothing bad happened.

Yeah.

You know, Yahtzee's still kind of doing his thing.

I think he's over at second win now, which is a Patreon-backed thing.

It's, yeah.

It's, and I think that every time the ground is seeded away from personality it is kind of feeding into the right wing type people though because the right way it isn't like you get a bunch of clicks just for being nice or loving stuff right that's why i mean yeah it's very easy i think it's very easy for people who are able to make that pivot into

uh hate currency and hate juicing where they are just like oh

my like

I can easily hate on things and use that as ammunition and weaponize this, and that becomes my primary mode of revenue generation.

I can pick a target, juice it for all it's worth like a cancer, and then move on to my next victim.

And as long as I'm able to like just, you know, jump onto the next melting iceberg, I'm going to be okay.

So whether whoever it is is the target online, you know, that's how that strategy goes.

And logically, it works for people.

They're super naked about it.

This, uh, like listen, this past week, there was one of these creators who was, and someone like screenshotted and posted the blue sky or whatever, uh, him complaining that his videos he does about one individual woman video games journalist no longer get very many hits.

For months and months and months, he's like, this was my whole business.

Now I'm not making any money.

This was my whole business.

Yes, he's like,

I was harassing someone.

Explicitly saying, woe is me.

I'm not making money from harassing this person anymore.

It was one of the most insane things I've ever seen.

You turn it into a conspiracy and you say, oh, I've been shadow banned.

Oh, yeah.

The algorithm's against me because people love that.

Of course, of course.

Yeah.

You know what?

All these creators seem very, very happy too.

That's the one thing about it.

Yeah, they all seem very okay.

It seems like a good line of work.

Very normal and happy with their lives.

Yeah, they don't seem to like.

They don't like

it.

They genuinely don't seem to like playing video games on the computer or console.

Nope.

I mean, they could just do it and they always choose not to.

We have to look at everything through the lens of like, okay, what's the angle on getting people pissed off about this?

And that sounds exhausting and miserable.

That stuff is a little bit low tide right now.

I mean, that stuff did pop off again in the last few years, but it didn't last as long.

Everyone kind of saw through it.

And now you are seeing

people who were probably pretty young and impressionable in like 2014 when the original Gamergate stuff was happening talking about, man, I wish I just didn't click on that one video telling me all the things that all the ways that feminism was ruined video games.

Like I could see now that that was a bad choice in the path of my life.

I wish I wouldn't have done that.

I wasted years.

And it's like, these kids are growing up and seeing stuff.

And like the next generation will be a little bit more cynical about that going forward, I think.

But it's always going to be there.

And they're always going to be trying to.

The reality is, if they do it and they get rewarded, the algorithms built to reward them.

It's going to keep happening no matter what, as long as that's the case.

See, what always pissed me off about that, other than all the hate and the getting people angry and the attacks on journalism, on top of all of that,

they don't seem angry at the fucking games companies who are actually making the real message.

Put aside the made-up sexism or made-up missanderry.

It's all bullshit.

Not even going to humor it.

I don't know.

Look at the fact that NFL has given one company, Electronic Arts,

one game, Madden, and it has been bad for 15 years.

It has been the same game for the last three.

And they did that right when there was good competition and they're like, oh crap, we better lock this down.

And they did.

Yeah.

Yep.

They did.

They did.

And that feels like something.

I'm not saying there should be a hate campaign against anything, but maybe if you're going to do one, choose an actual giant company doing horrible shit.

Yeah.

It's because they don't care.

That's not what they're interested in, right?

Like, that is not the story for them.

The story has to be deeply personal and accessible.

I don't, I think,

you know, an expose about that is

like

sort of boring in a way to, you know, where it leads, it leads you to the thing, as always, it's like, oh, the whole capitalist system, right?

These are all symptoms, and that is not going to help them with them trying to sell this idea that you're isolated because the feminists want you isolated.

Yeah,

you're right.

Yeah, because you're isolated because

the system you're within has kept you separate from people.

There aren't walkable cities.

Right.

There's content to antagonize places.

It's woman.

Yeah, that's it.

It all comes back to that.

In our space, it's women.

In common politics, it's immigrants.

It's, it's, yeah, always the scapegoat.

Yeah.

Well, as the son of a woman and an immigrant, I think.

No.

As the father of daughters.

Always the line from Spider-Verse as well as

the son of a mother and the father of a daughter.

But it's I do have hope.

Seeing Giant Bomb do what you do,

when the bad stuff happened, I was definitely like...

Games journalism's fucked.

Like, this is just like polygon.

Everything just like, look at it.

Just was dark, very dark about it.

But, like, actually, I feel like there is an independent wave happening, and there are so many like amazing creators, like Lucy James, of course, former giant bomb.

She's amazing.

I only found her work fairly recently.

It's like, you've got all these amazing creators out there.

Gaming is becoming more mainstream.

And I think that there is genuine hope here.

There's genuine mainstream interest.

It's just a question of cracking it.

Yeah, I mean, I think everyone likes that story.

It's because it's a good story.

It's a good story with, you know, I don't want to call it a happy ending, right?

But a very like, you know,

a positive way, a positive outcome of a thing that seemed to not have any realistically happy, you know, turnout.

And I think that, and it came from like the fact that the audience was so excited.

It's like, oh, you know, or they wanted that thing to keep going.

We're able to keep it going.

It's like, yeah, you can match that up and make that make sense.

And it feels like that should be a business.

And we all agreed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the tone of our conversations internally, you know, you go to a month ago versus how we're talking now, which is like, oh my God, it is a world different.

We've got optimism and, you know, we were always passionate and everything, but now it just really feels like we're free to directly make the stuff the audience wants.

Yep.

Yeah, but I think you're right.

I think you're right about an independent sort of wave happening because I think, you know, I don't, I'm not a big like fate or or, you know, destiny person, but what I am is that he does believe in ghosts, though.

Yeah, well, obviously.

But

I think like on a long enough timeline, you have,

you know, uh, doors that open that allow the, the, the sort of like spread of a thing that people kind of want to put their energy into and have that, you know, proliferate in a positive way.

And I think, you know, on a long, like I said, on a long enough timeline, like odds are, I do think that's going to break through the surface and come out in a way that makes everyone happy.

And I think that is a bit of what happened with our story.

And I can be, you know, super jazzed about that, especially in the manner it did.

I would like it not to have had to happen so quickly.

I wish maybe I had another week or two where Grubb and I could have landed this plane.

But

yeah,

it is definitely

a bright future in that regard, for sure.

Yeah, and it's, I also think that, I don't know, personality is profitable.

I think that there's real, it requires patience, which private equity does not like.

But like Coolzone Media, we've done pretty well giving people a runway to not fuck up, but learn what you're doing.

I feel like you guys have an advantage.

Here's a question, though.

So, it's just you, how many people are you right now?

So, it's you, three, and a few other five people.

Are you going to be bringing on others?

Are you going to be bringing back any of the original GB people who haven't been there?

Like, what's the plan to expand if there is one?

Because it isn't a problem if you haven't.

I mean, the reality is, like, Backlar is right.

This stuff came together so fast that we don't really have insight into what our own personal financial futures look like with this thing.

We have an idea.

We feel pretty okay about it, but it's like, you know, we're going to keep pushing to try to grow because as fast as we can grow or as many people as we can get to support it, we can then begin to look at doing other things of bringing other people on.

But

it is scary.

We want to try to figure out as much as we can on our own so we could be solid.

And then all of the growth can just make sense naturally after that.

It wouldn't be like, I mean, guys, I couldn't imagine ever having more than 10 people.

Oh, my God.

Right.

Like, it's like, like you said, like, we haven't even seen the first dollar yet.

You know, we have no idea what to expect in terms of this.

And, like, even though we were a small outlet under the corporate umbrella, you know, there was a freelancer fund and budget and things like that.

So we were able to bring people on and pay them regularly and things like that.

And just the business realities of it, you know, the Jeffs here definitely looked into it a lot and we don't know yet.

But

yeah, I mean,

I'm very,

I feel like there was a time where people were sort of like, oh, another one of these?

Like, oh, how, how can the market handle another

Patreon or independent thing that needs

direct support to sustain itself?

And, you know,

I kind of throw that argument away.

I think it is truly a rising tide situation because

the independence allows for collaboration in a really positive and organic way.

And I think, I think a lot of people who tell

themselves that story, whether they're, you know, involved in the business or they are on the audience side of that, are really not seeing the force for the trees and understanding, like,

no, you like, look at how YouTube creators and Twitch streamers and all these people help each other grow.

It is all about genuine collaboration and audience sharing and like exposing yourself to the people who, even if it's someone who just very slimly overlaps in that Venn diagram,

you know, that is the best endorsement you can get.

And I think there's, you know, to your question, Ed, of like bringing on new people, like, I don't think there's really ever a situation where we wouldn't want to collaborate with anyone.

Obviously, having someone on in the full-time capacity is a limitation of just what, you know, the business is able to bring in.

But I, you know, I don't think that means that in no way we wouldn't be open to really exploring all kinds of stuff with people.

I mean, that's the point, right?

Like that is what we talk about when we say we're in this together, as you said, right?

Like that is the spirit of that.

And if we don't do that, well, then we're not holding up our part of the bargain.

Are you going to do any event stuff, live stuff?

I realize all of this is very new, but what are you thinking?

And it does not need to be specific.

We announced at PAX East, the timing worked out crazy.

Like, you know, signatures were signed like the day before PAX East and we were able to do this big announcement.

And in the future, we've always loved doing PAX.

Giant Bombs always had a big presence at PAX and would love to keep doing that.

You know, whether it makes sense to like, you know, unless we're getting like flown out for something, like, are we going to pay to send the whole crew out to Gamescom or something like that?

Like, probably not.

Probably not, especially not this early on.

But like, you know, a lot of times places will offer to, you know, fly you out for preview events or these bigger, you know, conferences.

And yeah, we would, when it makes sense, we will definitely do that stuff.

Well, Ed, you're going to bring us out for CES, right?

In January?

I don't know how the hell I'm going to get you there or where you're going to sleep, but if you have to be in town, I'd love to have you on.

Because CES has become like the fucking Solidarity Fest.

If anyone, like, we're going to, we're extending CES to two hours per episode to two a day.

Like, we're going to have tons of people on.

And I just think that that's what the indies can do for each other.

I'm not even saying, like, put me on.

I'm just saying that acknowledging and working together on this shit is actually how.

Better stuff will be done.

Back in the old days with Dennis and Future, all those fucknuts used to hang out.

And I say that with deep adoration of said fucknuts, me being one of them.

But it's just, I think that

any independent listening to this needs to know that this is like the allies are the people doing this independently too.

Not to say people at big outlets aren't, but it's like we only have each other.

Yes.

Without a doubt.

Yeah, I'll do the,

you know, we're going to try to do GB at night at Summer Game Fests and things like that.

That's a lot of work right now because it's less than a month away and this all kind of happened real hot.

We're doing our best.

But, you know, for that, you know, GB at night is this thing where we just have our friends come sit on a couch, and I interview them, and we do like six segments a night.

And the whole idea is just about like getting cool people from the industry into the same room together so we could just talk this stuff out.

And it's, it's very cathartic.

It's like, oh, yeah, we you do come out of that feeling more connected and like, oh, there, there is one of the ladders up, or there's one of the ladders someone else is sending down.

So other people can maybe just have a chance to grab a foothold on something.

And yeah, that's been important to me for a long time.

So I'd love to keep doing something like that and you're right that to me that's the only path forward for for getting new people into these spaces well guys thank you so much for coming on the show uh where can people find you other than giantbomb.com you know let's uh let's hit giantbomb.com slash join if you want to become a member and support what we're doing join uh yeah that's uh we'll give you all the information there uh but other than that uh i'm grub.wtf on blue sky and that's where i'm mostly posting these days yep i'm uh dan riker.com on blue sky dan rikert on instagram Yes, I am Jeff Backelar pretty much everywhere.

And yeah, you know, like

that's another good thing, right?

Like we're, you know, we can kind of serve people wherever they are, right?

So like it doesn't matter where you're looking for us.

We don't have this kind of like shackle around us where we can only do a thing here or there.

And, you know,

it's a lot more accessible now, which is awesome.

Thank you so much for joining me, guys.

And thank you, everyone, for listening.

You can find me at google.com.

That's where I live.

And you will now hear a message that I will never re-record.

It's going to be the same one from when I was a weird bear and was unconfident in my podcasting ability.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osowski.

You can check out more of his music and audio projects at matosowski.com.

M-A-T-T-O-S-O-W-S-K-I

You can email me at easy at betteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter.

I also really recommend you go to chat.where's your ed.at to visit the Discord and go to r slash betteroffline to check out our Reddit.

Thank you so much for listening.

Better Offline is a production of CoolZone Media.

For more from CoolZone Media, visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Be honest, how many tabs do you have open right now?

Too many?

Sounds like you need close all tabs from KQED, where I, Morgan Sung, Doom Scroll so you don't have to.

Every week, we scour the internet to bring you deep dives that explain how the digital world connects and divides us all.

Everyone's cooped up in their house.

I will talk to this robot.

If you're a truly engaged activist, the government already has data on you.

Driverless cars are going to mess up in ways that humans wouldn't.

Listen to Close All Tabs, wherever you get your podcasts.

There's a lot going on in Hollywood.

How are you supposed to stay on top of it all?

Variety has the solution.

Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new new Daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.

Where do you see the business actually heading?

Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton.

The only constant in Hollywood is change.

Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Daily Variety, and listen now.

Top Reasons Advanced Manufacturing Pros Want to Move to Ohio.

So many advancement opportunities for technicians, machinists, managers, operators, and more.

How about a powered up paycheck and an amped-up career?

Plus the energy of big-time sports.

And after work, plenty of ways to unplug.

The career you want and a life you'll love.

Have it all in the heart of it all.

Build your future at callohiohome.com.

Ah, Smart Water Alkaline with Antioxidant.

Pure, crisp taste, perfectly refreshing.

Whoa, that is refreshing.

And a 9.5 plus pH.

For those who move, those who push further, those with a taste for taste.

Exactly.

I did take a spin class today after work.

Look at you.

Restoring like a pro.

I mean, I also sat down halfway through.

Eh, close enough.

Smartwater alkaline with antioxidant.

For those with a taste for taste, grab yours today.

This is an iHeart podcast.