| URL | GiantBomb.com |
|---|---|
| Slogan | Giant Bomb is the world’s largest editable video game database. We're into Brono, jars, and viewers like you. |
| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Gaming wiki and video game journalism |
| Registration | Optional (free and paid) |
| Created by | Jeff Gerstmann Ryan Davis |
| Launched | March 6, 2008 (blog) July 21, 2008 (full website) |
| Alexa rank | 4896 (October 2011[update])[1] |
| Current status | Active |
Giant Bomb is an American video game website and wiki that includes gaming news, reviews, commentary, and video, created by former GameSpot editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis in collaboration with Whiskey Media. The website was voted by Time Magazine as one of the Top 50 websites of 2011.[2]
After being fired from his position as Editorial Director of GameSpot, Gerstmann began working with a team of web engineers in Sausalito, California to create a new video game website. His intent was to create "a fun video game website"[3] that would not heavily cover the business side of the game industry. The site's core editorial staff includes former GameSpot Editors Gerstmann, Davis, Alex Navarro, Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella as well as Patrick Klepek, formerly of G4, and Drew Scanlon. Giant Bomb was unveiled on March 6, 2008 as a blog; the full site launched on July 20, 2008. The Giant Bomb office was originally located in Sausalito and is, as of June 26, 2011, located in San Francisco.
The Giant Bomb staff reports on video game news and reviews new releases. Their weekly podcast, the Giant Bombcast, is posted on Tuesdays and covers recent news and releases in the video game industry, as well as happenings around the office.[4] Giant Bomb produces a number of regular video series, most notably Quick Looks, 20-60 minute unedited previews,[5] the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 Endurance Run, which ran for 155 weekday episodes over eight months[6] and This Ain't No Game, a weekly series produced by Davis, in which he reviewed movies based on video games.[7]
The website features a video game wiki-database, open to editing by all registered users.[8]
Contents |
Jeff Gerstmann was terminated from his position as the Editorial Director of GameSpot on November 28, 2007.[9] Immediately after his termination, rumors began to circulate around the Internet that his dismissal was a result of external pressure from Eidos Interactive, the studio behind the video game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. A game Gerstmann had recently given a negative review[10] while Eidos had Kane & Lynch: Dead Men advertising on the website. Both GameSpot and their parent company CNET Networks stated that his dismissal was unrelated to the review.[10] Ryan Davis announced his departure from GameSpot in February 2008, citing Gerstmann's firing as one of his reasons for leaving.[11]
Gerstmann considered his options after his dismissal, eventually deciding he did not wish to work in game development or public relations. He began to work with Shelby Bonnie's Whiskey Media to begin developing a new site.[9] Talking with Tyler Wilde of GamesRadar, Gerstmann said that their intent was not to make a site that would compete with GameSpot, but rather create "a really great and fun video game website…that we like and that we would use, and that users will have a blast using as well."[9] In the process of deciding on the name for the website, over seventy different domain names were considered. Gerstmann wanted the website name to be catchy and original, saying there were too many video game websites with the word "game" in them.[9] In addition to Davis, who recorded early episodes of the site's podcast, the Giant Bombcast with Gerstmann, former GameSpot editors Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella joined the site in June 2008.[12] Giant Bomb started as a Wordpress blog, which opened on March 5, 2008.[13] The full site launched on July 20, 2008.[14]
Unlike most video game websites, Giant Bomb did not heavily cover industry news from a business perspective. During an interview on X-Play, Gerstmann said that he thought video game websites had become too focused on the business side of games, and that game news had become "stale" in the process. "We want to get out there and talk about games, because we like games…and it seems like there's an audience out there, and they like games…and their needs aren't being met by what's out there right now."[3]
This situation only got worse within gaming journalism and in 2011, Gerstmann commented that the industry was now "not getting as much news from the news sites as [it] used to, but the post count from these sites just seems to go higher and higher."[15] With this in mind, Giant Bomb hired "seasoned newsman" Patrick Klepek, in order to establish its own brand of "honest, original reporting" news. Klepek, known for breaking the story of the 2010 employee firings, departures and lawsuits between Infinity Ward and Activision[16] began working for Giant Bomb in April, 2011.[15]
Giant Bomb's news is written by News Editor Patrick Klepek and writer Alex Navarro. Articles produced aren't limited to general gaming news, they include investigative journalistic pieces about the industry, such as the controversy surrounding Team Bondi (developers of LA Noire) and its work practices.[17] Additional editorials and interviews by Klepek about gaming ethics, experiences and impact include the noteworthy story of one person who detailed the mental processes of Asperger syndrome and how his time playing video games differs from the average gamer.[18] An article in July 2011 about the 'Game Trekking' concept (world travel-influenced game creation), featured an interview with founder Jordan Magnuson and his "notgame", The Killer. The Killer was based on his travels in Cambodia and his observations of a nation still recovering from its time as the Democratic Kampuchea under the Khmer Rouge regime, led by Pol Pot over 30 years ago.[19] Following the 2011 Evo Championship Series in which Rising Star award winner, 8 year-old Noah Solis made the top 48 players in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, Klepek interview Solis and his father Moises Solis who praised video games alongside education in avoiding Los Angeles organized crime.[20]
Video games on Giant Bomb are rated on a scale of one to five stars, with five stars being the highest rating a game can receive and one star the lowest.[21] Video reviews were first introduced on Giant Bomb on June 20, 2008 with Shoemaker's review of the PlayStation 3 title Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Metacritic lists Giant Bomb as having over 500 reviews in its records, with more than 300 of them positive, more than 150 being mixed and over 70 of them being negative. Of those reviews, 30% are higher than the average critic, 2% the same and 68% are lower.[22]
The site regularly posts Quick Looks (also known as Quick Look EX or Quick Look Road Show in cases where developers participate or when filmed on-location), videos showing unedited gameplay footage of a single game, featuring commentary from staff members playing the game, or simply watching another play. The feature has been used to profile highly anticipated games,[23] give mention to lesser-known games,[24] or to intentionally showcase bad games for humorous purposes.[25] Quick Looks by Giant Bomb of lesser-known games are often more publicized by their respective developers[26] or communities, such as the fighting game community,[27] as a sign of mainstream recognition.
This Ain't No Game (or TANG) and its 2010 spin-off The Wonderful Universe of This Ain't No Game (WUTANG) was a weekly series in which editor Ryan Davis reviews movies based on video games and movies with video game elements respectively. Davis' intention to, "challenge [himself] to watch and assess every video-game movie ever made." [28] To assess each title, Davis considers both how it stands on its own as a film, and how well it "evoke[s] the spirit of the game it's based on".[28] The title of the series is derived from a slogan used to promote the game-based movie Super Mario Bros.: "This ain't no game, it's a live-action thrill ride!"[29] The first episode of TANG, which covered Double Dragon, was released on February 11, 2009.[30] Despite TANG criticizing the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation film, Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon still judged the episode in question to be kind to it, considering its critical response.[7]
The Endurance Run was a daily video feature in which Vinny Caravella and Jeff Gerstmann played the PlayStation 2 role-playing game Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 in real time, with their own commentary over the video. The idea for the Endurance Run stemmed from Gerstmann and Caravella's own interest in playing Persona 4, a game they were both curious about but didn't have time to play.[29][31] The series' fiftieth episode was commemorated with a behind-the-scenes video discussing the origins of the series.[32] Gerstmann and Caravella completed the game in over one hundred hours, although the last saved game time counter read 99:59 hours, not counting time lost due to deaths.[33]
Dual Endurance Runs began in April and ran through to end of May, 2010, when Gerstmann and Caravella (referred to as "Team VJ") and Davis and Shoemaker ("Team BR") played the Xbox 360 budget action-adventure game Deadly Premonition.[34][35] After the show ended, Deadly Premonition creator Hidetaka "SWERY" Suehiro visited Giant Bomb.[36]
Speaking at sister-site Tested's 24 hour charity podcast (for Child's Play), Davis and Patrick Klepek revealed themselves as the players of the 3rd Endurance Run and that they would be playing the Super Nintendo Entertainment System release of Chrono Trigger.[37]
In July 2009 and January 2010, Giant Bomb ran two MMORPG shows, Not Like This (a quote from the first Matrix movie, the final words of the character Switch before she is killed), which explored the final hours of the MMORPG The Matrix Online, and Set Phasers to Fun, a playthrough of the Star Trek Online beta.[38][39] The shows featured real-time comments of both game's qualities, humorous glitches and discussions of the Star Trek and The Matrix franchises. The final episodes, which featured the 'end of the world' when the MxO servers were shut down and the end of Star Trek Online testing before the game's release, were broadcasted in live streams on Justin.tv.[40][40] Their positive outlook of the Star Trek Online beta in particular led to Gerstmann purchasing a lifetime subscription of the game.[41]
In December 2011, prior to the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the website streamed Star Wars Galaxies during its final 5 hours before being shut down. Kotaku reported events as they happened on the Giant Bomb stream, including a Player versus player event between the Star Wars factions the Galactic Empire and The Rebels, as well as an appearance from the Force Ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi as depicted in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.[42][43]
Members of the team play a game for users to watch and interact via Justin.tv. Players are encouraged to add "GBTNT" to their PlayStation Network and Xbox Live accounts to play multi-player with them. In the case of recently released games, developers may appear on the show, such as Uber Entertainment during the Monday Night Combat episode, who participated after learning of it through Twitter.[44][45][46] Double Fine appeared at the Giant Bomb studio at the Whiskey Media offices for the North American release episode of Trenched, now known as Iron Brigade.[47]
| Hosting | Ryan Davis |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Length | Approx. 150 min. |
| Production | Ryan Davis |
| Debut | March 11, 2008 |
| Genre | Video gaming |
| Provider | Giant Bomb |
| Website | http://www.giantbomb.com |
The Giant Bombcast (or the Bombcast) is Giant Bomb's weekly podcast, released on Tuesdays and recorded on Mondays.[48] The show is hosted by Davis, with weekly guests Gerstmann, Caravella, and Shoemaker. The show's weekly format includes discussion of games played over the weekend, industry news, recently-released games, and e-mails sent in by listeners. The site's staff have also recorded shows in Tokyo, Japan for the Tokyo Game Show, as well as during the Electronic Entertainment Expo and the Penny Arcade Expo.[48]
The annual game of the year awards features multiple podcasts which are live-recordings of the staff's deliberations.[49] Additional comical awards created by Giant Bomb include "The Northies - Best Performance by Nolan North in a video game", of which the 2010 winner was Mafia II, following a scene in which North talks to himself, playing the role of two pedestrians at once.[50] During the awards week, top 10 games of the year videos are posted from each staff member.[51]
In 2011, the decision was made to abandon awards based on which console they where released on and to choose the game of the year from a Top 10, derived from the games picked in each staff members personal Top 10 video.
Users on Giant Bomb have the ability to create blogs, keep track of their game collections, and add information to game entries.[69] Additionally, the site has message boards, saying that "building a community of people...is a big part of what Giant Bomb is all about". There are also General, Bombcast and Off-Topic boards plus several related to site maintenance.[70]
The Giant Bomb wiki, which opened with the full site launched in July 2008, is editable by registered users of the site. Users with more than 1000 "wiki points" may submit changes to the wiki without moderator approval, and users with more than 5000 points are able to create new pages without moderator approval.[8] There are eight types of wiki pages: games, franchises, characters, locations, objects, concepts, people, and companies. "Concept" is considered a miscellaneous category, containing gameplay concepts, species, or character abilities.[71]
Users earn experience points and level up in a social gaming element that, "give users incentives to create more content,"[72] Quests allow users to gain experience and level-up by doing things as simple as posting a blog or making a list. The quests with a larger amount of points give hints towards wiki-database pages that users must find like "goofy scavenger hunt tasks."[73]
Giant Bomb allows all users to write and edit creative common licensed guides which include, but are not limited to, FAQS, walkthoughs and archives. Users have access to dynamic tables of contents, as well as image inserting, YouTube video embedding and other HTML code.[74]
Giant Bomb's subscription service launched in September 2010.[75] In June 2011, Whiskey Media's Mike Tatum reported that they were nearing 10,000 paid subscription members.[76]
The primary form of promoting the service is Whiskey Media's annual Big Live Live Show: Live, an 8 hour live-stream event featuring all of Whiskey Media's websites. Previous guests on the Giant Bomb segments have included Double Fine Productions who announced the global rebrand of their video game Trenched, to Iron Brigade.[77] Capcom's Seth Killian brought a version of the then unreleased Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for a live Quick Look and then commentated on matches in which Noah Solis consecutively defeated each of Giant Bomb's interns.[78] Harmonix have appeared two years in a row, demoing Dance Central and Dance Central 2.[79]
Initially included in the service was the ability to view videos in 720p HD and download them, a mobile version of the site in HTML-5, and an extra weekly live stream show, the 'Whiskey Media Happy Hour.' The show has since been replaced with additional members only videos.
Giant Bomb was designed by Whiskey Media, an online media company based in San Francisco, California. The technology that runs Giant Bomb, as well its sister sites Tested, Screened, Comic Vine and Anime Vice, includes the web framework Django, the database management system PostgreSQL, Solr, and MooTools, a Javascript framework.[80] Prior to the announcement of Giant Bomb, Davis and Gerstmann produced the Arrow Pointing Down Podcast, which ran for three episodes during February and March 2008.[81] The first episode of the Giant Bombcast was released on March 11, 2008, and starred Davis and Gerstmann. Shoemaker and Caravella joined the regular cast on June 3, 2008. In the months leading up to the launch of the full site, the How to Build a Bomb video series followed the staff during the pre-launch development phase of the website.[82]
In voting the website into its Top 50 websites of 2011, Harry McCracken of Time Magazine described Giant Bomb as having, "news, reviews and video — all looser, funnier and more opinionated than much of the stuff on game sites owned by larger media companies."[83] Buckner and Garcia of Pac-Man Fever fame wrote a song about Giant Bomb to release with their 2nd set of songs from the Pac-Man Fever album, to be released on the Rock Band Network.[84]
Sky News referenced Giant Bomb in 2009 when reporting about the Japanese "molestation simulation" video game, RapeLay after Amazon.com banned it from being sold on its website.[85] The Giant Bombcast podcast is regularly in the iTunes Store Top 10 Podcasts for Games & Hobbies.[86] The Battle.net website ran a Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty news story when Shoemaker and video producer Drew Scanlon visited South Korea during the GOMTV Global Starcraft II League Finals in November 2010.[87] Shoemaker and Scanlon recorded footage on the studio in which the broadcasted finals took place and interviewed the English "shoutcasters" and the tournament winner NesTea. An additional video featured a tour of the oGs and Team Liquid's living quarters and interviews with its players.[88] Review aggregate scores website Metacritic acknowledges Giant Bomb as a regarded website in video gaming, including it in it's group of publications used to make its aggregate scores.[22]
Initially plans were made to split the Giant Bombcast in half with non-paid subscription members only listening to the second half a week later after its release. This decision was reversed[89] after fans cited an article by Dave Snider which had said that no content that was currently free would become paid content.[90]