Giant Bomb Bomb-All

Aaron D. wrote:

After listening to all the E3 podcasts I think the Day Two intro segment with Cliff Bleszinski and Jonathan Blow was easily the best. What a fascinating take on the industry from two intelligent and articulate guys representing the top and bottom of game development. It was a brilliant juxtipose that that had a great chemestry of personalities.

That was indeed excellent. I just finished the final podcast today and I quite enjoyed that one too. Some antics but not too many and the conversations were well structured and a lot of fascinating points were discussed. I'm really impressed the guys were still able to put such great stuff together given what a nightmare this year has been for them.

TheCounselor wrote:
Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Could also have dealt with drunk Patrick's kind of obnoxious way of forcing into conversations with obvious points but acting like they're revelatory (also see his diary podcast where he drunkenly makes the eye-rolling point about how all Apple has to do is release a controller for the iPad and they win all of gaming.)

Actually, his point was that if Apple announced a new Apple TV with a controller and the ability to play games for $150, it would overshadow anything at E3. He was right.

Well, I don't know if I agree with that. Doing either thing would have a similar impact but I think overshadowing everything this year at E3 is overstating it to put it mildly. They announced controller support for iOS 7 and it didn't make many headlines, though admittedly it is in kind of a half-assed way that still requires everything to be built for touch first. My bigger thing with him is that he seems to be feeding into the AAA doom and gloom, tablet gaming is where everything will be in 5 years narrative that's getting tiresome for me. If he seems to interested in that happening and disinterested in more traditional games, I'm not sure why he's writing for a site aimed at AAA playing, core gamers. I very much like his writing but this drum beat is flawed in many ways but that's another debate altogether.

I just love when they have McElroy on there - he's one of my favorite guests on *any* podcast.

This week, Ryan responding to this smartglass/mobile/whatever thing that's going on with "Maybe those people just need something else in their lives" felt quite on the nose.

Patrick Klepek continues to prove his worth! He may have broken the site doing it, but breaking the Xbox One story was quite the event!

Parallax Abstraction wrote:
Aaron D. wrote:

After listening to all the E3 podcasts I think the Day Two intro segment with Cliff Bleszinski and Jonathan Blow was easily the best. What a fascinating take on the industry from two intelligent and articulate guys representing the top and bottom of game development. It was a brilliant juxtipose that that had a great chemestry of personalities.

That was indeed excellent. I just finished the final podcast today and I quite enjoyed that one too. Some antics but not too many and the conversations were well structured and a lot of fascinating points were discussed. I'm really impressed the guys were still able to put such great stuff together given what a nightmare this year has been for them.

I totally agree. It's hard enough to keep the listenability up with the number of hours they podcast every E3, not to mention the inherent disorganization that goes with such a big convention. I'd be happy to listen more to each one in a more structured format.

trueheart78 wrote:

I just love when they have McElroy on there - he's one of my favorite guests on *any* podcast.

Did I hear right that games journalism isn't his day job? And that he's an aerospace engineer? Where does he find the time? Anyway, he's always worth listening to, as well as really entertaining.

Speedhuntr wrote:

Patrick Klepek continues to prove his worth! He may have broken the site doing it, but breaking the Xbox One story was quite the event!

Yeah I'm quite surprised that he broke that story. Usually I don't expect breaking news from their site. Hopefully it doesn't go to their heads and they start blindly chasing unique visits like Kotaku does.

concentric wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

I just love when they have McElroy on there - he's one of my favorite guests on *any* podcast.

Did I hear right that games journalism isn't his day job? And that he's an aerospace engineer? Where does he find the time? Anyway, he's always worth listening to, as well as really entertaining.

He has been a fan of studying about time travel.

jamos5 wrote:

Yeah I'm quite surprised that he broke that story. Usually I don't expect breaking news from their site.

It's not that surprising, actually. He used to be known for doing that kind of thing which is why he got hired to Giant Bomb in the first place, and he has suggested that part of the reason for the move was so that he could focus on doing that again.

jamos5 wrote:
Speedhuntr wrote:

Patrick Klepek continues to prove his worth! He may have broken the site doing it, but breaking the Xbox One story was quite the event!

Yeah I'm quite surprised that he broke that story. Usually I don't expect breaking news from their site. Hopefully it doesn't go to their heads and they start blindly chasing unique visits like Kotaku does.

Yup. I remember he's the one that lead the journalistic charge during the big Activision-Infinity Ward drama over Modern Warfare.

jamos5 wrote:

Usually I don't expect breaking news from their site.

You know, this an interesting comment. What really constitutes as "breaking news" for any site? At a time when most news is delivered 24 hours a day on multiple sources, I'm just wondering what the qualifications for a piece of writing would be to be considered exclusive to the one person reporting on it.

I'm not trying to discount the importance of the story or how effective Klepick is as a journalist as this is more of a general statement of just how news stories are reported currently.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

This week, Ryan responding to this smartglass/mobile/whatever thing that's going on with "Maybe those people just need something else in their lives" felt quite on the nose.

Yep, I recorded a video that's not up yet discussing this point and then he made it on the podcast. I don't get this obsession with publishers always wanting you engaged with their games at all times, whether you're on your couch, on the bus, at work, on the can or whatever. Especially when it's all done with dumb gimmicks which is what most of the tablet integration stuff I saw looked like. I play a lot of games, it's my main hobby but I have my game time and I don't think I'd want to play everything all the time. But then again, if this stuff is optional, then I can just not do it. Though I wonder how many more hundreds of thousands of copies these titles will now require to break even to recover the cost of developing the tablet stuff.

I often disagree with Patrick but I think he's one of the few people in the games press that deserves the title of journalist. I'm really happy he was able to leave San Francisco in a blaze of glory with this Microsoft DRM story. Jeff tweeted this morning that the story broke one million views and is the biggest thing ever for Giant Bomb. What a way to end his tenure with the main crew. I hope he's still able to make a real go of things from Chicago.

CptDomano wrote:
jamos5 wrote:

Usually I don't expect breaking news from their site.

You know, this an interesting comment. What really constitutes as "breaking news" for any site? At a time when most news is delivered 24 hours a day on multiple sources, I'm just wondering what the qualifications for a piece of writing would be to be considered exclusive to the one person reporting on it.

I'm not trying to discount the importance of the story or how effective Klepick is as a journalist as this is more of a general statement of just how news stories are reported currently.

I admit my comment was a bit open-ended and controversial, which is always a good way to get some discussion going

I guess I was trying to say that when I jump to the front page of reddit to see whatever the big gaming controversy is for the day, I usually expect to see sites like Polygon or Kotaku, not Giant Bomb. The fact that this story brought down their site proves that they are not used to the rush traffic that comes from a breaking news story like this.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to downplay their journalistic strength or anything -- I'm just making an observation. Kuddles and Speedhuntr have already done a good job pointing out the holes in my argument, but I feel that my point still holds in a general sense, exceptions withstanding.

Oh for sure--I wasn't trying to call out your comment or shoot holes in an argument. It was just more a general statement that popped into my head when I read the words "breaking news".

I fully admit that bringing down Giant Bomb's site and giving them 1 million views definitely counts as breaking (even in a literal sense, I suppose).

Matt Rorie.

He's a really nice guy.

He shouldn't be on the shows.

I'm conflicted.

Speedhuntr wrote:

Matt Rorie.

He's a really nice guy.

He shouldn't be on the shows.

I'm conflicted.

You can be nice and have a terrible on-screen personality.

I really hope they either coach him to be better, or let someone else in to his spot on the shows.

Speedhuntr wrote:

Matt Rorie.

He's a really nice guy.

He shouldn't be on the shows.

I'm conflicted.

I'm a nice guy*. I probably shouldn't be on the show either.

*Unconfirmed.

"Oh, this game is from when the Playstation used X and Triangle buttons." - Matt Rorie.

In all fairness, I don't think he's some horrible person for not knowing that Playstation controllers use symbols, but he seems to live in a totally different world from the rest of them in terms of interests and humor. Drew and Patrick are good examples of people with different interests that work well with the group.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

This week, Ryan responding to this smartglass/mobile/whatever thing that's going on with "Maybe those people just need something else in their lives" felt quite on the nose.

Yep, I recorded a video that's not up yet discussing this point and then he made it on the podcast. I don't get this obsession with publishers always wanting you engaged with their games at all times, whether you're on your couch, on the bus, at work, on the can or whatever. Especially when it's all done with dumb gimmicks which is what most of the tablet integration stuff I saw looked like. I play a lot of games, it's my main hobby but I have my game time and I don't think I'd want to play everything all the time. But then again, if this stuff is optional, then I can just not do it. Though I wonder how many more hundreds of thousands of copies these titles will now require to break even to recover the cost of developing the tablet stuff.

Indeed. When I hear this integration talked about, I think "You know...this is why I carry a book around."

PandaEskimo wrote:

"Oh, this game is from when the Playstation used X and Triangle buttons." - Matt Rorie.

In all fairness, I don't think he's some horrible person for not knowing that Playstation controllers use symbols, but he seems to live in a totally different world from the rest of them in terms of interests and humor. Drew and Patrick are good examples of people with different interests that work well with the group.

In even more fairness, I think he was simply pointing out that the game used Triangle for "back" instead of Circle. He just phrased it in a way that allowed Ryan to immediately make fun of him.

He's not really breaking in. They were editors together at Gamespot and again at Whiskey Media (he and Navarro were the Screened duo).

FWIW, I really like him as a writer. His on camera work isn't the best, but after... a decade now?... I don't mind him at all.

Yeah, I know he's got a lot of history with the guys. (I liked his Boss of Bosses skit back when they were at Gamespot.)

He's an awesome community manager but it's really just his awkward on-screen presence that's hurting things for me. Thing is, I don't think I had this problem with him before during the Whiskey days.

He somehow says "Ridiculous" without any vowels.

I really like Unprofessional Fridays and all of the guys that make GiantBomb.

Thanks for everything, Patrick. Here's to more in Chicago!

Well done, Kerplunk!

I forgot about the Johann Sebastian Joust thing.

I'm surprised nobody's posted this yet, but... well.

Cards Against Humanity found a porn script on the GB E3 set and posted a $100 bounty to find the resultant smut. It was found. Link is SFW, the NSFW stuff is linked within.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa.

Whoa.

WHOA.

Porn has SCRIPTS?

Can you proofread mine?