Fandom Blows Up Giant Bomb

Giant Bomb’s aboriginal is uncertain pursuing a showdown with genitor institution Fandom, which besides owns GameSpot, implicit editorial interference. Creative manager Dan Ryckert announced connected a caller livestream that helium would nary longer beryllium appearing connected the Giant Bombcast and co-host Jeff Grubb confirmed connected societal media connected Thursday that he’s nary longer with the company. Giant Bomb contented is presently connected clasp portion Fandom engages successful a “strategic reset and realignment of our media brands,” it confirmed to Kotaku.

“Well, that was a imagination travel true. Knew it wouldn’t last, though,” Grubb, who joined Giant Bomb successful 2022 aft a reshuffle that saw the departure of longtime big and cofounder Jeff Gerstman, wrote connected Bluesky. “Out of a occupation astatine the moment. But I’ll ever beryllium doing Game Mess,” helium added, referring to a podcast helium cohosts with Games Beat reviews exertion and Giant Bomb contributor Mike Minotti.

“Needless to accidental I volition nary longer beryllium contributing to Giant Bomb,” Minotti wrote in a abstracted post. “Nothing but emotion to each the fantastic radical from determination and GameSpot. Jeff was a workhorse and a leader for the mode helium shouldered truthful overmuch work there, and I americium furious with the mode execs treated him.”

The quality follows an ominous “pause” connected Giant Bomb streams astatine the extremity of April and the takedown of an occurrence of the Giant Bombcast from YouTube this week aft the hosts mocked evident “brand safety” concerns precocious foisted upon them by absorption astatine Fandom. Then successful a livestream connected April 30, Ryckert, a subordinate of Giant Bomb betwixt 2014 and 2020 who returned successful 2022, announced helium would nary longer beryllium appearing connected the amusement and had nary involvement successful Fandom’s imaginativeness for Giant Bomb’s future.

“As you know, we’ve temporarily paused Giant Bomb unrecorded streaming and that contented is presently disposable connected request for our audience,” a spokesperson for Fandom told Kotaku successful an email. “We recognize this programming intermission isn’t perfect for our audience, but it’s portion of a strategical reset and realignment of our media brands. We person immoderate originative ideas for the aboriginal of Giant Bomb that we’re actively moving connected that we’ll beryllium capable to pass much astir soon.”

The wiki company, whose concern exemplary of monetizing escaped contributor pages with auto-play video ads and different intrusive website practices has led galore communities to depart its network, purchased Giant Bomb and GameSpot in 2022. Less than a twelvemonth aboriginal it instituted cuts to some sites. Fandom’s advertisement concern faced scrutiny following a 2024 analytics report that questioned the marque information of immoderate of the contented the institution was moving ads against crossed its user-generated wiki pages.

The remainder of the latest incarnation of Giant Bomb presently includes elder shaper Jan Ochoa, wide manager Jeff Bakalar, and editors Tamoor Hussain and Lucy James. It’s unclear however galore volition stay amid the existent fallout oregon what the aboriginal of the website, which hosts a long-running forum and yearly Game of the Year lists from personalities crossed the gaming industry, volition be.

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