Speaker 1: Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host ed zitron.
Speaker 2: As a reminder, you can now by shirts, hoodies, and
Speaker 2: even mugs in our merchandise store. There's a link in
Speaker 2: the notes. God damn it, give me money. I need
Speaker 2: you to wear the shirt.
Speaker 3: For me today.
Speaker 2: I'm joined by the new owners of gaming site Giant Bomb,
Speaker 2: Jeff Backlar, Jeff grub and Dan Reikert Fellas. Welcome to
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 4: It's pronounce fair trying, okay, all right, yeah, okay, I'll speak.
Speaker 2: I definitely on an interview a few days ago, miss
Speaker 2: said my own name and miss said better I was
Speaker 2: like a better off ship. And Matt Sawski, my producer,
Speaker 2: regularly hears these things, so that's always fun. But congratulations,
Speaker 2: by the way, So walk me through, Dan, perhaps walk
Speaker 2: me through what happened. So there was some filing in
Speaker 2: and out from Giant Bomb, and then you guys kind
Speaker 2: of took it over.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so's I started the longest ago in like twenty fourteen.
Speaker 5: So in terms of how the recent stuff went down,
Speaker 5: I think the jeffs here Fellaws tell me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 5: I feel like you maybe have had some more time
Speaker 5: on the phone lawyer.
Speaker 6: I like watching this guy sweat.
Speaker 1: Let's exactly.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to make sure I didn't I'm not like,
Speaker 5: oh yeah, this work. You know, It's like I just
Speaker 5: kind of fell into this. No, Jeff and Jeff left Fandom,
Speaker 5: our previous parent company, and as part of the deal,
Speaker 5: were able to buy Giant Bomb and are bringing in
Speaker 5: you know, me Jana Choa or longtime producer and our
Speaker 5: good friend Mike Manatti who has been trying to be
Speaker 5: full time at Giant Bomb for a long time and
Speaker 5: he completely skipped full time and went straight from contractor
Speaker 5: to co owner.
Speaker 2: Of the websites.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, so yeah, long history of corporate ownership and
Speaker 5: you know, digging back to two thousand and eight and
Speaker 5: you know, four different owners basically, and now I guess
Speaker 5: we are the fifth group.
Speaker 2: Nice, So what is the new structure? So you guys
Speaker 2: are all the owners, You're going to be doing the
Speaker 2: same kind of games journalism you're already doing. I know
Speaker 2: that the YouTube channel went offline. Is it coming back?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we were streaming of YouTube just right before we
Speaker 4: came here. Yeah, we were doing our black club shows.
Speaker 4: So right now the structure looks like are we getting
Speaker 4: all the stuff from fandom that we need and they've
Speaker 4: been very helpful and that stuff. But it's like just
Speaker 4: kind of getting the keys to everything. And then there
Speaker 4: is a whole other process of us getting a business
Speaker 4: started because this wasn't like us necessarily buying the business.
Speaker 4: We bought a lot of assets, so we have to
Speaker 4: start our own business to sort of take these things
Speaker 4: on and make it make sense. So in parallel, while
Speaker 4: we were goofing off, well, Mike was playing Rascal for
Speaker 4: the PlayStation one for our game for our show where
Speaker 4: we played bad Games Backlar was still working in the
Speaker 4: background making sure that we'll have a bank account and
Speaker 4: stuff like that. But as far as like the overall
Speaker 4: idea of what this company looks like, yeah, it's gonna
Speaker 4: be us kind of taking it on all on ourselves,
Speaker 4: kind of splitting it up evenly amongst us and just
Speaker 4: getting to work and investing in our time and seeing
Speaker 4: a payoff because now it's all on us.
Speaker 2: It's weird as well, because it's like both one of
Speaker 2: the most depressing times in games journalism history, I'm one
Speaker 2: of the most encouraging because the amount of layoffs are horrifying,
Speaker 2: but you and Atamath have really come out of well,
Speaker 2: I don't want to say nowhere, because it's been quite
Speaker 2: public and chaotic. You kind of seem to be building
Speaker 2: a new model for journalism writ large.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, yeah, I think like the thing that the
Speaker 7: lesson everyone learned they learned like ten years ago, where
Speaker 7: the sort of like contemporary understanding of games media or
Speaker 7: really any media you know that covers some sort of
Speaker 7: entertainment is probably not compatible with what a corporation would
Speaker 7: need out of that in terms of like revenue expectations
Speaker 7: and just you know, filing in in a way that
Speaker 7: makes sense.
Speaker 6: And that's fine.
Speaker 7: And I think you know what this with the with
Speaker 7: the Aftermath Experiment and all these other sort of independent
Speaker 7: journalistic entities have sort of shown is that this can
Speaker 7: work with a private sort of consideration of ownership as
Speaker 7: opposed to you know, just having it be another asset
Speaker 7: in the corporate media portfolio. Right that, And I think
Speaker 7: the value that these types of entities present make a
Speaker 7: lot more sense right under the guise of private ownership
Speaker 7: than they do, you know, under the umbrella.
Speaker 2: So kind of yeah, it kind of feels as well
Speaker 2: like games journalism gets pulled in very hard by these
Speaker 2: big private equity. I'm not specifically referring to any of them,
Speaker 2: just to be clear, these large entities by them because
Speaker 2: I imagine they're traffic drivers, and there's always news and
Speaker 2: there's always kind of such traffic coming in games and.
Speaker 4: Guides and stuff like that. These things have been honed
Speaker 4: to be SEO, you know, sort of machines for a
Speaker 4: long time. The people who've been in charge of them
Speaker 4: have once understood that to be very important. Now, of course,
Speaker 4: like Google has made things very complicated for a lot
Speaker 4: of sites that built their sites in one way and
Speaker 4: now they have to shift and no one really understands
Speaker 4: the way the winds are blowing. But yeah, that traffic
Speaker 4: means something to someone for sure, and that's why you
Speaker 4: see something like a polygon becoming the target of a vow.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: I guess the public understanding is bound Net approached Vox
Speaker 4: Media about polygon, and I asked them about it like
Speaker 4: some time ago, and have been trying to make this
Speaker 4: happen since then. Vox wasn't necessarily shopping around, but it
Speaker 4: became the target of that because it does have this traffic.
Speaker 4: It has this built in if you search for something,
Speaker 4: there's a good chance Polygon is going to serve it
Speaker 4: to you in the video game space. And yeah, so
Speaker 4: these kind of equity firms they spot this and they
Speaker 4: want to extract that value. It means bad things for
Speaker 4: the actual people working at these sites almost universally every time.
Speaker 1: And that's why this.
Speaker 4: Other model of us coming and being like we're gonna
Speaker 4: own it ourselves and we're gonna have a direct relationship
Speaker 4: with the with the audience.
Speaker 1: That kind of is the only ground to retreat to
Speaker 1: at this point.
Speaker 4: We are either going to keep having this stuff because
Speaker 4: we're all in it together, as hopy as that sounds,
Speaker 4: or we're just not gonna have it at all.
Speaker 1: Those are the options now.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's also I think it's important to call out that, like,
Speaker 7: there does exist a type of person that I think
Speaker 7: we all sort of slot into in this goldilock zone
Speaker 7: that has sat on both sides of the sort of
Speaker 7: influential divide, where you know, we all began our careers
Speaker 7: in a very kind of like I don't maybe not
Speaker 7: antiquated is not the right word, but certainly a traditional
Speaker 7: sort of like media and and and publisher relationship into
Speaker 7: the relationship.
Speaker 2: I worked I work CVG.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, and let's be honest, we're not that old, right,
Speaker 8: Like we're you know, we're as young exactly. We see,
Speaker 8: maybe we we sit in this very weird sort of
Speaker 8: like like I said, this Goldilocks zone where we're like,
Speaker 8: we understand what came before, what happened during, and now
Speaker 8: what's after. And I think that very uniquely positions a
Speaker 8: small slice of sort of institutional knowledge right where where
Speaker 8: you can kind of like leverage that in a way
Speaker 8: that not a lot of people have that sort of
Speaker 8: insight from both sides of the fence.
Speaker 5: And that goes back to you know, the founding of
Speaker 5: Giant Bomb in two thousand and eight, because it was
Speaker 5: four guys that broke off from game Spot, you know,
Speaker 5: more traditional web based gaming media and formed this very
Speaker 5: personality focused thing, you know, like kind of in the
Speaker 5: early days of YouTube gaming personalities and things like that.
Speaker 5: But it did come from that, yeah, institutional knowledge, people
Speaker 5: that had worked you know, et threes dating back to
Speaker 5: the nineties and things like that. It wasn't just you know,
Speaker 5: some kids that started youtubing and getting big. It kind
Speaker 5: of straddled the line from the beginning.
Speaker 2: I met one of the saddest things to me was
Speaker 2: watching PC zone collapse. It was the magazine I worked to,
Speaker 2: the Games and Magazina worked to in England, and in
Speaker 2: a different, different time, I think they would have come together,
Speaker 2: we would have come together and done something. But two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight was when that happened. I was moving
Speaker 2: to America as well, but that was Future publishing Bolton
Speaker 2: fuck Future, yeah shit, yeah, well they're gonna do to me, And.
Speaker 4: They repeatedly kind of do that stuff to people say yeah,
Speaker 4: fuck for real real quick on that. Like I remember thinking,
Speaker 4: like back when that was happening in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 4: when e GM and one Up was collapsing, It's like
Speaker 4: it had the one Up Yours podcast kind of lasted
Speaker 4: a few more years. They all could have easily just
Speaker 4: transitioned that into a podcast with ads for one thing,
Speaker 4: and then a direct to customer supported a way of
Speaker 4: doing things on the other hand, and that really would
Speaker 4: have taken off for them. Instead, they this guy's had
Speaker 4: to go kind of filter into working in the corporate
Speaker 4: side for making games.
Speaker 2: The problem is with podcasts is, as you well know,
Speaker 2: like monetizing them is very difficult. I mean, people complain
Speaker 2: about the ads here being on the iHeart Radio. I
Speaker 2: mean it works great because cool Zone Media and I
Speaker 2: Heart leaves us alone fairly, but people complain about the ads.
Speaker 2: It's like, have you tried starting a fucking podcast? Isn't cheap,
Speaker 2: So it's it's just a frustrating but great time because
Speaker 2: after Mask's doing really interesting stuff that I feel is
Speaker 2: going to be I feel like Giant Bumb's gonna be
Speaker 2: very like classic gamer stuff, like creative but still very
Speaker 2: much about the games, and Aftermath is doing that plus
Speaker 2: what would have been called derisively new games journalism. Mm hmm,
Speaker 2: way back when do you remember that fellas? Yeah, new
Speaker 2: games I remember that. I remember when people were talking
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that loudu narrative dissonance.
Speaker 5: Yeah, fuck, like the start of Polygon press reset type stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, explain that for the listeners because it sucks,
Speaker 2: but they should know.
Speaker 1: You talk about that, the Polygon thing or.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, dan Oh, it's just like games media going
Speaker 5: back to like you know, EGM and Game in Former,
Speaker 5: like the magazines of the nineties, to like the early
Speaker 5: you know, web based ign games by stuff. It was
Speaker 5: just you know, we we were repairing press releases, and
Speaker 5: it's like news stories were basically like there's a new
Speaker 5: box art for Assassin screen.
Speaker 1: Game have, Yeah, yeah, exactly, You're getting.
Speaker 5: More levels this time, like that type of stuff. So
Speaker 5: it's like that's why I even back when I started
Speaker 5: never considering myself a journalist, because I realized it's just like, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm just kind of reporting on silly things here and
Speaker 5: giving a score to a game and things like that.
Speaker 2: I think that there's something marvelous about that with games journalism.
Speaker 2: It's the way there's because I don't they'll write and
Speaker 2: geta especially over there is written like very long form,
Speaker 2: thoughtful emotional pieces. I think that that's what's I want
Speaker 2: to say missing because it's happening. But that's what makes
Speaker 2: game journalism great. You can have stuff. It was just
Speaker 2: like I played something. It's stunked to shit. It made
Speaker 2: me angry, I want to kill someone, but I love
Speaker 2: it because it's got this one tiny like there was.
Speaker 2: I remember reviewing a game zone the sky Fall movie,
Speaker 2: tying game activision remarkably tight Gears of Wark Loan and
Speaker 2: remember being like, this sucks, but I love it. That's
Speaker 2: great for gaming as well. But then the very deep
Speaker 2: emotional stuff, and I think that it's what lends itself
Speaker 2: to exactly what you're doing, which is this kind of
Speaker 2: let's get together, let's make something about all Halpy and
Speaker 2: our job and whatever, and the in between pot can
Speaker 2: be Giant bomb.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think there's very much room for both because I remember,
Speaker 5: like when Polygon was starting in like you know, probably
Speaker 5: like the twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen whenever that was, and
Speaker 5: they were very much, you know, banging the drum of
Speaker 5: like we are doing serious games journalism and telling human
Speaker 5: stories and it's gonna be this emotional, deep stuff. And
Speaker 5: I remember looking at that and be like, I don't
Speaker 5: know how the fuck to do that. If I can
Speaker 5: tell you if never did, is any good? You know?
Speaker 5: Like so, but I think there's a room for both
Speaker 5: because like someone like me broke in because I wanted
Speaker 5: to work with a bunch of dorks and talk about
Speaker 5: video games and now make videos about video games. But
Speaker 5: then there are there are important stories to tell. And
Speaker 5: I think, you know, to give Grub some credit here,
Speaker 5: I think Grub might be the best I've ever seen
Speaker 5: at balancing both, Like he does the daily news show
Speaker 5: on Giant bomb dot com and we'll cover the serious
Speaker 5: stuff in layoffs and just kind of issues facing the industry.
Speaker 5: But then he'll also you know, dress up like Bubbsy
Speaker 5: and play Bubzy three D for Blake Club, you know.
Speaker 5: So I do think Grubb is uniquely qualified to do
Speaker 5: both ends of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I enjoy in both.
Speaker 4: I definitely remember growing up in like reading EGM or
Speaker 4: Game Players and being like, man, the people who are
Speaker 4: in this magazine, they have a lot of personality and
Speaker 4: they clearly fill every page with that, and I like
Speaker 4: know these people by name. Now I kind of know
Speaker 4: what they're into, and I built a real connection with them,
Speaker 4: and then you know that then that would actually lead
Speaker 4: me into some of their real reporting on stuff that
Speaker 4: mattered to them, especially in EGM and then like Next
Speaker 4: Gen Magazine later, And I just remember like really enjoying
Speaker 4: both sides of that.
Speaker 1: A lot of games are.
Speaker 4: Silly and stupid and wouldn't be fun if we took
Speaker 4: that seriously, and I really enjoyed that aspect.
Speaker 1: Of my job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And CVG used to have this kind of yellow
Speaker 2: it was. I don't know if you ever physically read
Speaker 2: an issue of Computer Video Against magazine it's original, but
Speaker 2: they had this middle section that was in like almost
Speaker 2: like yellow Pages style and it was just rambling shit.
Speaker 2: It was beautiful. It's like games. Genuinely, I was blues
Speaker 2: off like two years ago, and like games were the
Speaker 2: one thing that I could bond with people over because
Speaker 2: it didn't require you to be anyone, Like I played
Speaker 2: a shit ton of EverQuest I was. I think it
Speaker 2: was one of the first momo like real Remmo reports
Speaker 2: in England, Ollie Welsh as well Legend Sure yeah, Shah Sally.
Speaker 2: But it's like and one of the leftover Polygon people.
Speaker 2: It's just what pisses me off about all of this
Speaker 2: as well, is it doesn't seem that hard to run
Speaker 2: a games journalism out let. Well, you just don't hire
Speaker 2: so many people and make them do eleven stories a day.
Speaker 4: I mean, the real sad thing with Polygon is they
Speaker 4: didn't make any of those mistakes when people saw the
Speaker 4: layoffs snow like, oh that's a lot of people. It's
Speaker 4: like they were successful and profitable and could have kept growing,
Speaker 4: but they had a very sort of like moderate take
Speaker 4: on Okay, yeah we could, but let's just keep all
Speaker 4: this sustainable and a lot of that goes down to
Speaker 4: the leadership of Chris Plant, who I just admire so much.
Speaker 4: Is he's got such a good head on his shoulders,
Speaker 4: and it just filtered all the way down through Polygon.
Speaker 4: So it's like they were doing it right, and even
Speaker 4: voxers are letting them do it right. It's just like,
Speaker 4: even when that happens, you there's that buds and buzz
Speaker 4: saw that's going to show up and be like, we're
Speaker 4: gonna rip this thing apart and find a way to
Speaker 4: make more money.
Speaker 1: Fronament, So here's some money.
Speaker 9: It's fucking books. I didn't know they were profitable. Yeah,
Speaker 9: it's so infuriated. It was a successful business, I think.
Speaker 9: Is not how I would phrase it.
Speaker 2: It's so fucking stupid because I feel like these outlets
Speaker 2: could on some level, maybe not a ton print money,
Speaker 2: but they there are tons of gamers who love reading stuff.
Speaker 2: Sure like it sounds like Publican had a sustainable operation.
Speaker 2: IGN is insane. I don't know, I do. I don't
Speaker 2: know how many people work. Ign Igen breaks on my phone.
Speaker 2: I don't know. If you've tried to look at nign guide.
Speaker 2: Sometimes if you scroll too fast, it just goes not
Speaker 2: sorry mate.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I know that so many sites now
Speaker 5: could be.
Speaker 2: Your own.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, it just goes to the top or pops
Speaker 5: up the thing and the accident and clicked the wrong thing. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I hate that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Internet sucks.
Speaker 5: Now really this is as much.
Speaker 3: As is show about that.
Speaker 7: But a lot of those a lot of those sites
Speaker 7: are are not there's there's it's tough to really say
Speaker 7: that they all have agency in a way that you want, right,
Speaker 7: And I think everything becomes this Frankensteinian creation of like
Speaker 7: uh uh, you know, sort of meshing it with other
Speaker 7: properties that sit alongside as sister companies, and you're just
Speaker 7: never going to have that organic uh feeling.
Speaker 6: I do think you're right.
Speaker 7: I think the Polygon example is good because it was
Speaker 7: sort of like the semblance of like, oh this does
Speaker 7: feel sort of vacuum sealed off in a way that
Speaker 7: that works, and everyone there, you know, really doing a
Speaker 7: tremendous job. But for the most part, whenever you see
Speaker 7: a lot of these massive, behemoth legacy media sites, they
Speaker 7: are just the is you know, a vultron creation that
Speaker 7: doesn't really allow for that amount of agency that you know,
Speaker 7: I think the spirit of all those sites wants to.
Speaker 2: Be Yeah, and I think the like I've said earlier,
Speaker 2: that kind of the obvious victim of any kind of
Speaker 2: acquisition partner, because it's just you can turn them into
Speaker 2: a slop shop and the immediately killed them, immediately killed them.
Speaker 7: Right, And that's what the Internet's allowed for, right, And
Speaker 7: I know that's like, that's what I read what you say,
Speaker 7: like you you always have it spot on at is
Speaker 7: like that is like we are just sort of like
Speaker 7: willfully watching the death of everything and calling it out
Speaker 7: and just being like, yeah, that's the that's the next
Speaker 7: ship that came into the harbor filled with ghosts, and
Speaker 7: we're just gonna watch it continue on its way down
Speaker 7: to its next port of call.
Speaker 6: And that's it. It's just this parade of dead websites
Speaker 6: and dead Internet.
Speaker 4: And you're familiar, familiar with the Tony Oaks pro skater games, right,
Speaker 4: So I was watching I was trying to read story
Speaker 4: on Kataka the other day.
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was about, but it did.
Speaker 4: It took me to a video instead, and there was
Speaker 4: a man talking over the video and he kept calling
Speaker 4: it thhps, thhps, and I'm like, I don't think i've
Speaker 4: ever heard anyone say that before, and then it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: I I'm listening to an AI voice. Of course I am,
Speaker 4: of course interesting, yes, because he did it every time
Speaker 4: in the same thhps thhps.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no one says that.
Speaker 4: No one said that, So I'm just like, that's of course,
Speaker 4: that's they all think they're going to be able to
Speaker 4: do that. That's the story we're gonna have to keep
Speaker 4: telling over and over about what's happening with all these
Speaker 4: websites and these equity firms coming in here.
Speaker 1: And I mean, of course I get turned off.
Speaker 4: I think most of the audience probably does get turned
Speaker 4: off when they experienced that, right, because the one thing
Speaker 4: about games and Stephen Spahn, who is an accessibility expert
Speaker 4: in the space, he used to tell me like, why
Speaker 4: why do I want to play video games?
Speaker 1: He's like, it's a currency.
Speaker 4: It's a social currency where I play something that I
Speaker 4: get to talk to someone else about it and we
Speaker 4: get to share something.
Speaker 1: We have a connection.
Speaker 4: I mean, you said the one thing you could bond
Speaker 4: over with people these video games. I think we all
Speaker 4: get that at the very fundamental level. And so these
Speaker 4: corporations trying to find a way to take that out
Speaker 4: of there so they could save some money is obviously
Speaker 4: just going to blow up in their faces.
Speaker 1: They just don't know why. Am Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I actually think it could go the other way though,
Speaker 2: which is as we get more independent gaming outlets. I
Speaker 2: think that there could be real success there because I
Speaker 2: think that that's what people want to like. There is
Speaker 2: definitely a degree of hunger for when is a game
Speaker 2: coming out, in the same way that people google when
Speaker 2: the super Bowls come in. Of course, when the super
Speaker 2: Bowls coming out. When the super Bowl's happening, there we go.
Speaker 2: I do watch sports that did the super Bowl episode,
Speaker 2: but it I think the no one actually reads these
Speaker 2: outlets just to learn that they want a gamer who
Speaker 2: has played a shit ton of games, who has a
Speaker 2: good voice to say I like this or I'm worried
Speaker 2: about this. And I think the worst of games journalism
Speaker 2: has been when that's been dragged out of it. And
Speaker 2: even when like we were doing these very early days
Speaker 2: of the website for CVG, when we'd have to write
Speaker 2: shit and just be like, this game's coming out, it's
Speaker 2: going to be like this, And I say, we weren't
Speaker 2: allowed to have character, but it definitely wasn't encouraged, which
Speaker 2: is strange because the CBG mag was always so rude.
Speaker 6: It was it was it was utility.
Speaker 7: You were doing utility work, right as opposed to personality work.
Speaker 5: That's kind of how it works with like the old
Speaker 5: preview system with magazines is because like you weren't supposed
Speaker 5: to since the game wasn't out yet, you know. But
Speaker 5: I remember I went to like an Xbox One pre
Speaker 5: launch event thing and I played Rise Son of Rome.
Speaker 5: Oh remember, was just thinking it was like I think
Speaker 5: the headline I used was like, oh, it's as fun
Speaker 5: as dialing a phone number because it's just like waiting
Speaker 5: for something to turn red. Then he pressed the red button.
Speaker 2: Then it just sucks, calling it Microsoft snack.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I wrote that, and it was like it
Speaker 5: had a negative tone, and the game was about to
Speaker 5: come out in like three weeks, and it's like and
Speaker 5: I kind of said, like, this seems like it might
Speaker 5: suck in the preview, and I remember like both like
Speaker 5: comments and stuff and people at work being like, well,
Speaker 5: WHOA can't have this much like opinion in a preview.
Speaker 1: It's like I think I can.
Speaker 5: This is gonna kind of suck, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no no rules there.
Speaker 4: I remember when Mark McDonald over at EGM said he
Speaker 4: played two Human and said it's gonna be terrible, and
Speaker 4: Dennis Diak like insisted on coming on their podcast and
Speaker 4: talking to him about it, and like scolded him and said,
Speaker 4: you're gonna regret everything you said when you played the
Speaker 4: final version.
Speaker 2: Were rude of the day that you insulted to humans.
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 4: I don't think he ruled anything Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: But this is even this conversation is what is fun
Speaker 2: about games journalism because even a shit game, you have
Speaker 2: the kind of horse trading like shit.
Speaker 3: Do you remember that terrible preview?
Speaker 2: I I do genuinely miss this about games journalism, like
Speaker 2: it's the one. It's probably I miss it more than
Speaker 2: the writing about the games, because backupece he's done. We
Speaker 2: had like logs, Steve Hogerty Will Porter, we had all
Speaker 2: sorts of like fun other people like Ryan, all the
Speaker 2: people from the mag who just yell at you. And
Speaker 2: I think that and actually I'm curious your thoughts about this.
Speaker 2: I think what this industry also needs to do is
Speaker 2: rebuild the solidarity because it was quite There was quite
Speaker 2: a lot of it in two thousand and eight. It
Speaker 2: feels like it's kind of drifted, and I feel like
Speaker 2: that it's something in tech media I want to do too.
Speaker 2: I want people to come back together and realize it
Speaker 2: really is us versus them.
Speaker 7: Then yes, well, I'm curious to hear where you think
Speaker 7: like the friction primarily lies.
Speaker 2: I think what it is is that so many people
Speaker 2: have been hired, fired, hired fired, so many people have
Speaker 2: left games journalism, gone into pr and then the people
Speaker 2: that own these companies have stopped even being the classic
Speaker 2: like Fortune as Fortune Future or Dennis Publishing. It's the people.
Speaker 2: So you've always had ign as this kind of thing
Speaker 2: over here, this juggernaut, and then remote work to an
Speaker 2: extent as well, has done it too. It's just there's
Speaker 2: less events when people are meeting. I don't even know
Speaker 2: how we fix this, but it's something that I'm very
Speaker 2: big in tech media at least, trying to bring people
Speaker 2: together and be like, hey, look, it is really us
Speaker 2: versus the largest corporations in the world.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's absolutely been my primary thought that pops
Speaker 4: in my head throughout this entire experience, is we really
Speaker 4: are in this together, and that I mean, when I
Speaker 4: say us that we're in this together, I am thinking
Speaker 4: about the other people who are in this creator driven space.
Speaker 4: So kind of Funny's been super supportive and helping us
Speaker 4: out and giving us pointers and stuff like that. The
Speaker 4: guys over at next Lander have been pointing out Dan
Speaker 4: was on Jeff Gersman's show yesterday. It's like we did
Speaker 4: realize pretty quickly when Greg Miller did take that team
Speaker 4: kind of Funny to go independent that there isn't that
Speaker 4: real competition, like there the more people that care about
Speaker 4: the kinds of the ways that we talk about video games,
Speaker 4: the better for everybody. And people can bounce around between
Speaker 4: these various sites that have a slightly slightly different take
Speaker 4: on it, so we keep growing that space. It's good
Speaker 4: for everyone. So how do we turn that into something?
Speaker 4: And it's like, definitely, I'm coming into it with I'm
Speaker 4: gonna like reference a book that I haven't read yet,
Speaker 4: but I saw the interview.
Speaker 1: On Gailey Do the Daily Show. I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 4: I'm probably gonna I'm probably gonna misrepresent it. But it
Speaker 4: was like moral ambition was the name of the book,
Speaker 4: and it was this idea of you should in the
Speaker 4: system that we have have ambition to try to do
Speaker 4: big things, cool things, try to go make money. That's fine,
Speaker 4: But when confronted with a fork in the road about hey,
Speaker 4: I could do this or I could do that in
Speaker 4: that moment, go with the one that feels the most
Speaker 4: morally correct with you. And like, now we're in this
Speaker 4: moment where it's like we could hunker down and try
Speaker 4: to make as much money for ourselves as possible, but
Speaker 4: clearly the right choice is let's work with everyone, get
Speaker 4: everyone sort of moving in the same direction, get people
Speaker 4: feeling good about this space again, and then maybe we
Speaker 4: can kind of heal some of that.
Speaker 1: Riff that you're talking about a little bit. I don't know.
Speaker 4: We're not going to be able to get back to
Speaker 4: people who are reactionaries that have turned to right wingers
Speaker 4: on YouTube.
Speaker 1: And they were never part of it exactly. So we
Speaker 1: just got to focus on the words that are there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly, And there's a lot of people who
Speaker 4: are right there ready to listen again.
Speaker 1: We just got to like let them know it's cool
Speaker 1: in here again. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think we need to get back to the lots
Speaker 2: of smaller teams. I think because absolutely, I'm actually really
Speaker 2: glad you corrected me. I thought Polygon was that they
Speaker 2: grew too big. That was just the assumption I made,
Speaker 2: which was incorrect, clearly not. Yeah, not what I've heard
Speaker 2: from anyone that I've talked to. Yeah, it sucks because
Speaker 2: I was originally they talked to me at the beginning
Speaker 2: of Polygon. I was in PR at the time, and
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, do you want to come over here?
Speaker 2: I was like, no, I must stay at a job.
Speaker 2: I'm unhappy at it.
Speaker 4: Like probably in the beginning for sure, but they definitely
Speaker 4: kind of figured out out over time.
Speaker 2: Oh no, No, they no, they genuinely they wanted to
Speaker 2: need to do PR. I think it's just McElroy and
Speaker 2: it's I think that the future is going to be
Speaker 2: lots of smaller ones. I think the games as well.
Speaker 2: There is less competition because it's not like scoop heavy.
Speaker 2: I guess you could play a game first, but at
Speaker 2: that point you're just you played the game. Like.
Speaker 6: I still think there's a semblance of that, and there is, but.
Speaker 2: It's not like compared to getting a massive funding announcement
Speaker 2: in tech or like a breakdown technology.
Speaker 6: You're sure sure, like a partnered embargo thing I.
Speaker 7: Mean, yeah, still competition certainly, but you're right, like there's
Speaker 7: like everyone is small. That's what the landscape is. And
Speaker 7: it's the reckoning of corporate media. Having this realization of like,
Speaker 7: our competition is thirty thousand small independent creators and how
Speaker 7: do we how do we like come to terms with
Speaker 7: that in a way that will satisfy what we need
Speaker 7: this thing to do?
Speaker 2: Answers.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and the answer is no, one knows how to
Speaker 7: do it because probably there is no answer. So that realization,
Speaker 7: that epiphany, which I think everyone has to have, like
Speaker 7: for themselves at one point in their life, you know,
Speaker 7: kind of lends you to why you know, things like
Speaker 7: this wind up happening.
Speaker 2: And I think that there's also the problem of all
Speaker 2: of these big entities buying things and draining all the
Speaker 2: personality out is it's replaced all the personality with people
Speaker 2: on YouTube that post pictures of themselves frowning and saying
Speaker 2: the dragon age just got woke in it or whatever.
Speaker 5: Oh that we got to take those pictures of us
Speaker 5: frowning guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, based organization.
Speaker 6: H I got to work on my pointing.
Speaker 2: Like the the and this is this is a reference
Speaker 2: as well, just to any listeners is like Uber Driver
Speaker 2: sucked me off, and it was like the Rob Whisman picture.
Speaker 2: Anyone who doesn't know what that is. I swear it's
Speaker 2: not just me talking about that.
Speaker 5: But if my favorite is the Undertaker got a podcast
Speaker 5: not too long ago and seeing the Undertaker do YouTube
Speaker 5: faces is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so special.
Speaker 6: It comes for everyone.
Speaker 2: But we need the opinion, like we do actually need
Speaker 2: the opinion back. It's just the gaming online. I feel
Speaker 2: like a loss dropper out of nonm sometimes because it's
Speaker 2: like gaming online is like, oh you don't like fucking
Speaker 2: Sonica Mario, I will kill you, Yeah, yep, you insult
Speaker 2: Bubbsey the Bob can't?
Speaker 1: I will?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I can, and I have.
Speaker 7: You know, fanboyism is a currency for sure. And I
Speaker 7: think like that argument of position, as much as it sucks, right,
Speaker 7: is a thing that probably too many people are finding
Speaker 7: the worst things about themselves and placing it into the
Speaker 7: energy of that discourse online. And you know, I think
Speaker 7: that's what probably you know, separates for my personal taste
Speaker 7: what I want to watch and what is out there.
Speaker 7: And I think, uh, you know the fact that you
Speaker 7: you know, I think like personality is another former currency.
Speaker 7: That is a thing that is all but lost in
Speaker 7: a lot of larger, you know, media outlets. That's that
Speaker 7: is a thing you can't replace. That is the thing
Speaker 7: that AI is not going to replace. That is a
Speaker 7: thing that you know has to be genuine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we were in that question, like where's the Lester
Speaker 4: bangs and video games journalism? That was part of that
Speaker 4: new gamesjournalism thing, and it's like it did happen.
Speaker 1: It was probably Donkey Like it's probably.
Speaker 4: Big YouTuber like just kind of does funny talking over
Speaker 4: gameplay and he's got a pretty good eye and.
Speaker 1: He probably thought he was Yeah, but yeah, and I mean.
Speaker 4: Yazi is definitely part of that lineage for sure.
Speaker 5: Video game nerd, video game YouTube guy.
Speaker 2: I saw yeah, yep, yeah, I And I like Yatse's
Speaker 2: original stuff. I really don't want to look what's happened
Speaker 2: since it's one of those things where I hope nothing
Speaker 2: bad happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, a Yachtzi is still kind of doing
Speaker 4: his thing. I think he's over as second win now,
Speaker 4: which is a Patreon back thing.
Speaker 2: It's h yeah, it's and I think that every time
Speaker 2: the ground is seated away from personality, it is kind
Speaker 2: of fitting into the right wing type people though, because
Speaker 2: the right way it isn't like you get a bunch
Speaker 2: of clicks just for being nice or loving stuff, right,
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very easy.
Speaker 7: I think it's very easy for people who are able
Speaker 7: to make that pivot into hate currency and hate juicing
Speaker 7: where they're just like, oh my, like I can easily
Speaker 7: hate on things and use that as ammunition and weaponize this,
Speaker 7: and that becomes my primary mode of revenue generation. I
Speaker 7: can pick a target, juice it for all it's worth,
Speaker 7: like a cancer, and then move on to my next victim.
Speaker 7: And as long as I'm able to like just you know,
Speaker 7: jump onto the next melting iceberg, I'm gonna be okay.
Speaker 7: So whether whoever it is is the target online, you know,
Speaker 7: that's how that strategy goes, and geologically it works for
Speaker 7: people they're super naked about it this like this.
Speaker 4: In this past week, there was one of these creators
Speaker 4: who was and someone like screenshot I didn't posted the
Speaker 4: Blue Sky or whatever, him complaining that his video she
Speaker 4: does about one individual woman video games journalist no longer
Speaker 4: get very many hits for months and months and months,
Speaker 4: He's like, this was my whole business now I'm not
Speaker 4: making any money.
Speaker 1: It's my whole business.
Speaker 4: He's like explicitly saying, woe is me, I'm not making
Speaker 4: money from harassing this person anymore.
Speaker 1: It was one of the most insane things I've ever.
Speaker 5: Seen to turn it into a conspiracy, and you say, oh,
Speaker 5: I've been shadow band over an algorithm against me because
Speaker 5: of course, of course, Yeah, I know what. All these
Speaker 5: creators seem very very happy too.
Speaker 1: That's the one thing about it. Yeah, they all seem very.
Speaker 5: Okay, take a good line of work, very normal and
Speaker 5: happy with the lie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't seem to health get for that. They
Speaker 2: they only genuinely don't seem to like playing video games
Speaker 2: on the computure.
Speaker 1: So nope. I mean they could just do it, and
Speaker 1: they always choose not to.
Speaker 5: No, we get to look at everything through the lens
Speaker 5: of like, okay, what's the angle on getting people pissed
Speaker 5: off about this? And that sounds exhausting and miserable.
Speaker 1: That stuff is a little bit of low tide right now.
Speaker 4: I mean that stuff did pop off again in the
Speaker 4: last few years, but it didn't last as long. Everyone
Speaker 4: kind of saw through it, and now you are seeing
Speaker 4: people who were probably pretty young and impressionable in like
Speaker 4: twenty fourteen, when the original gamer Gate stuff was happening,
Speaker 4: talking about man, I wish I just didn't click on
Speaker 4: that one video is telling me all the things that
Speaker 4: all the ways that feminism was ruined video games, Like
Speaker 4: I could see now that that was a bad choice
Speaker 4: in the path of my life.
Speaker 1: I wish I wouldn't have done that. I wasted years.
Speaker 4: And it's like these kids are growing up and seeing
Speaker 4: stuff in like the next generation will be a little
Speaker 4: bit more cynical about that going forward, I think, But
Speaker 4: it's always going to be there and they're always going
Speaker 4: to be trying to it. Reality is, if they do
Speaker 4: it and they get rewarded, the algorithm is built to
Speaker 4: reward them. It's going to keep happening no matter what,
Speaker 4: as long as.
Speaker 1: That's the case.
Speaker 2: See what always pissed me off about that, Other than
Speaker 2: all the hate and the getting people angry in the
Speaker 2: attacks on journalism. On top of all of that, they
Speaker 2: don't seem angry at the fucking games companies were actually
Speaker 2: making the realness. Put aside the made up sexism or
Speaker 2: made up misandry. It's all bullshit, not even going to
Speaker 2: humor it. I don't know. Look at the fact that
Speaker 2: NFL has given one company, Electronic Arts, this one game, Madden,
Speaker 2: and it has been bad for fifteen years. It has
Speaker 2: been the same game for the last three right.
Speaker 5: When there was good competition, and they're like, oh, crap,
Speaker 5: we better lock this down.
Speaker 2: And they did. Yeah, yep, they did, they did. And
Speaker 2: that feels like something. I'm not saying they should be
Speaker 2: a hate campaign against anything, but maybe if you're going
Speaker 2: to do one, choose an actual giant company doing horrible ship.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they because they don't care that. That's not what
Speaker 7: they're interested in, right, Like, that is not the story
Speaker 7: for them. The story has to be deeply personal and accessible.
Speaker 7: I don't I think you know. An expose about that
Speaker 7: is is uh is like sort.
Speaker 6: Of boring in a way to you know where it leads.
Speaker 4: It leads you to the thing. As always it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: the whole capitalist system. Rightly, these are all symptoms and
Speaker 4: that is not going to help them with them trying
Speaker 4: to sell this idea that you're isolated because the feminists
Speaker 4: want you isolated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, Yeah, because you're isolated because the system,
Speaker 2: the system you're within, has kept you separate from people.
Speaker 1: They're all walkable.
Speaker 2: Cities, right, there's content to entaglea. It's woman.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's it. It all comes to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in our space, it's women in uh, you know,
Speaker 4: common politics, it's immigrants, it's it's yeah, always the scapegoat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's the son of a woman and an immigrant.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: No, I guess the father of daughters was.
Speaker 2: The line from Spider Verse as well as like as
Speaker 2: the son of a mother and the father of a daughter.
Speaker 2: But it's I do have hope seeing Giant Bomb do
Speaker 2: what you do. When the bad stuff happened, I was
Speaker 2: definitely like games journalism's fucked, Like this is just like
Speaker 2: polygon everything, just like look at it. Just was very
Speaker 2: dark about it. But like, actually, I feel like there
Speaker 2: is an independent wave happening and there are so many
Speaker 2: like amazing creators like Lucy James of course former Giant Bomb.
Speaker 2: She's amazing. I only found her work fairly recently. It's
Speaker 2: like you've got all these amazing creators out there. Gaming
Speaker 2: is becoming more mainstream, and I think that there is
Speaker 2: genuine hope here. There's genuine mainstream interest. It's just a
Speaker 2: question of cracking it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I think everyone likes that. It's because
Speaker 7: it's a good story. It's a it's a good story
Speaker 7: with you know, I don't want to call in a
Speaker 7: happy ending, right, but a very like, you know, a
Speaker 7: positive way, a positive outcome of a thing that seemed
Speaker 7: to not have any realistically happy you know, turnout.
Speaker 4: And then and it came from like the fact that
Speaker 4: the audience was so excited. It's like, oh, you know,
Speaker 4: they wanted to do that thing to keep going. We're
Speaker 4: able to keep it going. It's so yeah, you can
Speaker 4: match that up and make that makes sense, and it
Speaker 4: feels like that should be a business.
Speaker 1: And we all agreed, yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And the tone of our conversations internally, you know,
Speaker 5: you go to a month ago versus how we're talking now,
Speaker 5: which is like, oh my god, it is a world different.
Speaker 5: We've got optimism and you know, we're always passionate and everything,
Speaker 5: but now it just really feels like we're free to
Speaker 5: to directly make this stuff the audience wants.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but I think you're right.
Speaker 7: I think that I think you're right about an independent
Speaker 7: sort of wave happening because I think, you know, I
Speaker 7: don't I'm not a big like fate or or you
Speaker 7: know destiny person But what I am is that Yeah,
Speaker 7: well obviously, but but I think like on a long
Speaker 7: enough timeline, you have you know, doors that open that
Speaker 7: allow the sort of like spread up a thing that
Speaker 7: people kind of want to put their energy into and
Speaker 7: have that you know, proliferate in a positive way. And
Speaker 7: I think, you know, on a lot, like I said,
Speaker 7: on a long enough timeline, like odds are, I do
Speaker 7: think that's going to break through the surface and come
Speaker 7: out in a way that makes everyone happy. And I
Speaker 7: think that is a bit of what happened with our story.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 7: And I can be you know, super jazzed about that,
Speaker 7: especially in the manner did I would like it of
Speaker 7: not to have had to happen so quickly.
Speaker 6: I wish maybe I had.
Speaker 7: Another week or two where Grub and I could have
Speaker 7: handed this plane. But yeah, it it is definitely a
Speaker 7: bright future in that regard for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's I also think that I don't know,
Speaker 2: personality is profitable. I think that there's real It requires patience,
Speaker 2: which private equity does not like. But like cool zide media,
Speaker 2: we've done pretty well giving people a runway to not
Speaker 2: fuck up but love them. What you're doing. I feel
Speaker 2: like you guys haven't. I's a question though, so it's
Speaker 2: just you. How many people are you right now? So
Speaker 2: it's usually and a few other five people? Are you
Speaker 2: going to be bringing on others? Are you going to
Speaker 2: be bringing back any of the original GP people who
Speaker 2: haven't been there? Like, what's the plan to expand if
Speaker 2: there is one? Because isn't a problem if you haven't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the reality is like Backler's right, this
Speaker 4: stuff came together so fast that we don't really have
Speaker 4: insight into what like our own personal financial futures look like.
Speaker 1: With this thing.
Speaker 4: We have an idea, we feel pretty okay about it,
Speaker 4: but it's like, you know, we're going to keep pushing
Speaker 4: to try to grow because as fast as we can grow,
Speaker 4: or as many as many people as we can get
Speaker 4: to support it, we can then begin to look at
Speaker 4: doing other things of bringing other people on. But it's
Speaker 4: it is scary, and so we want to try to
Speaker 4: figure out as much as we can on our own
Speaker 4: so we could be solid and then all of the
Speaker 4: growth can just make sense naturally after that. It wouldn't
Speaker 4: be like, I mean, guys, I couldn't imagine ever having
Speaker 4: more than ten people like.
Speaker 5: Right, it's like like you said, like, we haven't even
Speaker 5: seen the first dollar yet. You know, we we have
Speaker 5: no idea what to expect in terms of this, and
Speaker 5: like even though we were a small outlet under the
Speaker 5: corporate umbrella, you know, there was a freelancer fund and
Speaker 5: budget and things like that, so we were able to
Speaker 5: bring people on and pay them regularly and things like that,
Speaker 5: and just the business realities of it. Uh, you know,
Speaker 5: the Jeff's here definitely looked into it a lot, and
Speaker 5: we we don't know yet.
Speaker 7: But yeah, I mean, I'm you know, I'm very I
Speaker 7: feel like there was a there was a time where
Speaker 7: people were sort of like, oh, another one of these,
Speaker 7: like how how can the market handle another you know,
Speaker 7: Patreon or or independent thing that needs you know, direct
Speaker 7: support to sustain itself. And you know, I kind of
Speaker 7: I kind of throw that argument away. I think it
Speaker 7: is truly a rising tide situation because, you you know,
Speaker 7: the the the independence allows for collaboration in a in
Speaker 7: a really positive and organic way. And I think I
Speaker 7: think a lot of people who tell them themselves that story,
Speaker 7: whether they're you know, involved in the business or they
Speaker 7: are on the audience side of that are really not
Speaker 7: seeing the force for the trees and understanding like no,
Speaker 7: you like, look at how YouTube creators and twitch streamers
Speaker 7: and all these people help each other grow. It is
Speaker 7: all about genuine collaboration and audience sharing and like exposing
Speaker 7: yourself to the people who even if it's someone who
Speaker 7: just very slimly overlaps in that Venn diagram, you know,
Speaker 7: that is the best endorsement you can get. And I
Speaker 7: think there's you know, to your question at of like
Speaker 7: bringing on new people, Like, I don't think there's really
Speaker 7: ever a situation where we wouldn't want to collaborate with anyone.
Speaker 7: Obviously having someone on in the full time capacity is
Speaker 7: a limitation of just what you know, the business is
Speaker 7: able to bring in. But you know, I don't think
Speaker 7: that means that in no way we wouldn't be open
Speaker 7: to really exploring all kinds of stuff with people. I mean,
Speaker 7: that's the point, right like. That is what we talk
Speaker 7: about when we say we're in this together. As you said,
Speaker 7: right like, that is the spirit of that, and if
Speaker 7: we don't do that, well then we're not holding up
Speaker 7: our part of the bargain.
Speaker 2: Are you going to do any event stuff live stuff.
Speaker 2: I realize, all if this is very new, but what
Speaker 2: are you thinking? And it always do not neat to
Speaker 2: be specific, we announced at Packs East.
Speaker 5: The timing worked out crazy, like you know, signatures were
Speaker 5: a signed like the day before pack season. We're able
Speaker 5: to do this big announcement and in the future. We've
Speaker 5: always loved doing packs, Giant Bombs, always had a big
Speaker 5: presence of packs and would love to keep doing that,
Speaker 5: you know, whether it makes sense to like, you know,
Speaker 5: unless we're getting like flown out for something like are
Speaker 5: we going to pay to send the whole crew out
Speaker 5: to games Com or something like that, Like probably no,
Speaker 5: probably not, especially not this early on, but like you know,
Speaker 5: a lot of times places will offer to you know,
Speaker 5: fly you out for preview events or these bigger conferences,
Speaker 5: and yeah, we would when it makes sense, we will
Speaker 5: definitely do that stuff.
Speaker 6: Well, you're going to bring us out for CES right
Speaker 6: in January.
Speaker 2: I don't know how the hell I'm going to get
Speaker 2: you there or whay you're going to sleep, but if
Speaker 2: you have to be in town, I'd love to have
Speaker 2: you on because that CES has become like the fucking
Speaker 2: solidarity Fest. If anyone like we're gonna we're extending see
Speaker 2: yes to two hours per episodes to two a day,
Speaker 2: Like we're gonna have tons of people on, and I
Speaker 2: just think that that's what the indis can do for
Speaker 2: each other. I'm not even saying like put me on.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying the acknowledging and working together on this
Speaker 2: ship is actually how better stuff will be done. Back
Speaker 2: in the course days with Dennis and Future all those
Speaker 2: fuck nuts used to hang out. And I say that
Speaker 2: with deep adoration of said fuck nuts, me being one
Speaker 2: of them. But it's just I think that any independent
Speaker 2: listening to this needs to know that this is like
Speaker 2: the Allies are the people doing this independently too, Not
Speaker 2: to say people at big outlets aren't, but it's like
Speaker 2: we only have each other.
Speaker 1: Mm hm yes, I mean without a doubt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll do the the you know, we're gonna try
Speaker 4: to do GB at Night at Summer game Fest and
Speaker 4: things like that. That's a lot of work right now
Speaker 4: because it's less than a month away and this all
Speaker 4: kind of happened real hot.
Speaker 1: We're doing our best, but you.
Speaker 4: Know, for that, you know, GB at Night is this
Speaker 4: thing where we just have our friends come sit on
Speaker 4: a couch and I interview them and we do like
Speaker 4: six segments a night, and the whole idea is just
Speaker 4: about like getting cool people from the industry into the
Speaker 4: same room together so we could just talk this stuff
Speaker 4: out and it's it's very cathartic. It's oh yeah, we
Speaker 4: you do come out of that feeling more connected and
Speaker 4: like they're oh, there there is one of the ladders up,
Speaker 4: or there's one of the ladders someone else is sending
Speaker 4: down so other people can maybe just have a chance
Speaker 4: to grab a foothold on something. And yeah, that's been
Speaker 4: important to me for a long time, so I'd love
Speaker 4: to keep doing something like that. And you're right that,
Speaker 4: to me, that's the only path forward for getting new
Speaker 4: people into these spaces.
Speaker 2: Well, guys, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2: Where can people find you other than johnbomb dot com.
Speaker 4: Let's let's hit giinbomb dot com slash join if you
Speaker 4: want to become a member and support what we're doing.
Speaker 1: Jo yeah, Jeded, that's We'll give you all the information there.
Speaker 4: But other than that, I'm grub dot WTF on Blue
Speaker 4: Sky and that's where I'm mostly posting these days.
Speaker 5: Yep, I'm a Dan Reicherd dot com on Blue Sky,
Speaker 5: Dan Record on Instagram.
Speaker 7: Yes, I am Jeff Bachelar pretty much everywhere, and yeah,
Speaker 7: you know, like that's another good thing, right, Like we're
Speaker 7: you know, we can kind of serve people wherever they are,
Speaker 7: right so, like it doesn't matter where you're looking for us.
Speaker 7: We don't have this kind of like shackle around us
Speaker 7: where we can only do a thing here or there.
Speaker 7: And you know, it's a lot more accessible now, which
Speaker 7: is awesome.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining me, guys, and thank
Speaker 2: you everyone for listening. You can find me at Google
Speaker 2: dot com. That's where I live, and you will now
Speaker 2: hear a message that I will never re record. It's
Speaker 2: going to be the same one from when I was
Speaker 2: a weird band that was unconfident in my podcasting ability.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you for listening to Better Offline.
Speaker 2: The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
Speaker 2: is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
Speaker 2: and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T
Speaker 2: T O S O W s ki dot com. You
Speaker 2: can email me at easy at betrofline dot com or
Speaker 2: visit Better Offline dot com to find more podcast links.
Speaker 3: And of course my newsletter.
Speaker 2: I also really recommend you go to chat dot where's
Speaker 2: youoead dot at to visit the discord, and go to
Speaker 2: our slash Better Offline to check out our reddit.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
Speaker 2: zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.