EDIT (5/11/25): Announced at PAX recently, Giant Bomb is now owned by Giant Bomb themselves. This is a best-case scenario and it will be exciting to see what comes of this. I will leave this post here for posterity and because it still rings true, but here’s hoping this new generation of the site can evoke those same feelings we all got back in Giant Bomb’s heyday. Long live the bomb!
ORIGINAL POST:
Recently, those individuals who were contributing to Giant Bomb, “A Website About Video Games” announced they were out of a job and their parent company, Fandom, was working on a new, “brand-safe” version of the site. While the word “Eulogy” may be a little harsh, I can’t help but feel that Giant Bomb, as we have known it, is dead. So, allow me to pay respects to the site that was more than JUST a site for me.
To cut the history lesson down to the bullet points, Giant Bomb dot com was launched in the summer of 2008 and was spearheaded by former GameSpot personalities Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis. Gerstmann had been fired from GameSpot largely due to his negative review of Eidos’ Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, after Eidos had reportedly had a big advertisement deal in place with GameSpot to help “sweeten the review”. Due to this, Davis, as well as other GameSpot employees Vinny Caravella, Brad Shoemaker and Alex Navarro left the company. While Navarro would end up coming back into this group in 2010, the others, including video producer Drew Scanlon, would end up being the nucleus of the site at launch in 2008.
The focus of the new venture was evident immediately: focus on the games, not simply the “business side” of games. This focus, along with highlighting the personalities of all involved, help cultivate an engaging and welcoming community of fans, and a new home for many of us were sick of being fed corporate-led content and get down to what really mattered, the games.
This would take the form of a community-led Wiki-style site where users could input info on any game you could think of, making sure games would not get lost to time. Also the video content came out at a constant pace, whether it was the constant “Quick Looks” at newly released video games, to “Endurance Runs” (essentially “Let’s Plays”) of games such as Persona 4 and Deadly Premonition, full on series such as Vinny playing through every CastleVania game, or the group suffering 50 turns through every Mario Party game, or the weekly community game night known as “Thursday Night Throwdown”, there was always something new to see on the site and something to laugh at.
I can not mention Giant Bomb without mentioning the Giant Bombcast, the weekly video game podcast that became the tentpole product. This would branch out into the Beastcast when the studios split between the two coasts, and was regular listening, and later viewing, for anyone who frequented the site.
To put it in plain details and without sounding too hyperbolic: without Giant Bomb, Active Rewind does not exist. Without Giant Bomb, I don’t have that desire to get into the gaming journalism world, I don’t end up writing for any of the sites I contributed to, and I don’t end up at EVO in Las Vegas as a member of the press. Because of every single person that contributed to Giant Bomb, either on camera, behind the scenes, or the community who made this our home base, my love of video games endured and helped pick me up when I needed it the most.
One of those times when I needed that pick-me-up was when tragedy struck in July 2013, co-founder Ryan Davis passed away from natural causes at age 34. I broke down and cried. I had never met Ryan, hell, I don’t think him and I were ever in the same state at the same time, but I had felt like I lost a close personal friend. From all my time spent watching, listening and being entertained by him, that voice was suddenly gone. After some time away, the community rallied, Giant Bomb came back as well as could be expected, even if things could never be the same. Even now, on July 3rd, I will pour me some bourbon (ideally Eagle Rare) either neat or with a single ice cube, as that was Ryan’s style. He is still missed dearly.
Other contributors joined, the group split into west coast and east coast, the vibe stayed true to what Giant Bomb was founded on, the focus was on the games, and the humor was dumb, the community was strong, things were going well, until the COVID-19 pandemic. The crew was forced to stream and record from home, the collaborative effort seemed to fade away, business practices behind the scenes with parent companies were bringing about unwanted changes, all of which snowballed into the recent announcement and the need for this post. I had fallen off after the original crew had departed, that isn’t in any way a knock on the crew that attempted to keep Giant Bomb going, I just do not have a strong enough frame of reference for the post-pandemic version.
The remaining original crew have found their footing. Brad, Vinny and Alex are still going strong with their Nextlander project and Jeff is having his success with The Jeff Gerstmann Show, both of which I do check out on a regular basis. Drew Scanlon will be best known as the “Blinking White Guy” meme, but he also has done everything from traveling the world to video game production to F1 podcast cohost. However, peak Giant Bomb for me, that 2008 – 2019 timeframe, will always be special to me. Everyone who came through those doors had an impact on me that I will always be thankful for. It was a real “underground darling” vibe when it launched and that’s what drove a lot of us to become a part of the movement. Numerous friendships have been formed from a shared love of Giant Bomb, and the internet is worse off without it.
With all of my heart, I just want to say thank you to everyone who helped shape Giant Bomb into more than just “A Website About Video Games”, but a lifestyle, a community, a family. I owe so much so this website and its people, and will happily go back to watch the archives whenever I need a good laugh, or just to appreciate a simpler time in video games. If i had to write about all the ways the site has impacted me, I would never finish this post, so I will just say…thanks duders!
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GLHB.
