Jeff talks a little bit about the whole situation here and his feelings about the whole thing
I haven't really paid attention to GiantBomb for a good year plus beyond the random QuickLook that appears in my YT feed. I had no idea that GB reported up through Jeff Bakalar. Jeff G. sounds committed to running as far down the road as he can with whatever the next iteration of GiantBomb is. I'm really curious what he means by brining in more voices to the site, but I'd be lying if my initial reaction is that is missing the point of what made the site special in the first place. It was just a bunch of dudes, who were friends, doing more gonzo styled video coverage who happened to really good access to the industry and who you trusted to have integrity because of their years of experiences at larger publications.
Then again, maybe making it more "freelance" (assuming that's what Jeff means by more voices) isn't the worst idea. I think they've always kind of stumbled with new hires starting with Patrick. I was never a fan of Klepick's on air personality from his 1Up days, but he was a good news person and that's where his passion is and that's not exactly why you went to GiantBomb. Austin was a bit of a sore thumb too and he like Patrick, felt more like GiantBomb was more of a rest stop for them, rather than wanting to be there in the long run. Though in Austin's case, it felt more like a stepping stone for bigger and better things. Both of those guys were smart enough and charismatic enough to make it work even if the fit wasn't perfect. Dan was probably the best hire and probably would have been even better if he was involved in the basement days. Everyone one else was varying degrees of a swing and a miss and there never seemed to be a good way to course correct. I guess that's all a long winded way of saying that with freelance, if you miss, it's a lot easier to move on and if they hit, they can re-contract them or move them to a fulltime position should something be available. That's probably how they should have done hiring in the first place.
I know it's hard to walk away from something you created and maybe it's Jeff's plan b, but I really think he should have cashed in on the wave of Youtube/Twitch personalities. He and Vinny would probably have the easiest time of garnering an audience that could eclipse what they are making today. I'm actually confident Brad and Alex could as well to a lesser extent, just based on the GB audience. Jeff's E3 couch talks were great. Lining up guest would be no problem for him. I'm sure Phil Spencer would be happy to do a monthly or quarterly interviews.
It's a weird place as a lapsed GB fan. My biggest gripes in the last few years is all the new personalities were varying degrees of nails on chalkboard. When most of those folks left, I kind of hoped that getting back to the core would bring them back their roots. Their content product values continued to dip which is in stark contrast to independent YT'ers/Twitch Streamers. Hell, just look at what Dan has done. It also felt like their idea of new content was to lay that burden on the new hires and most of that content, personalities aside, was lame. The more you step away from it, the more you see that Ryan and Dan were probably the largest driving factors to new content ideas. You should have your new hires producing some tried and true content while the experienced folks workshop and test out new ideas.
Sorry for the brain dump. I like Jeff and I wish him all the best. I've been in is situation before with a flailing company and not wanting to let go. I can't imagine having the three other principle members all exit at the same time. I hope he turns it around.
jeff.zone
