New World Order. Hi.
Oh, hey. Oh, you've got to press the button until it turns green.
He specifically told us this.
Yeah, I know. I remembered it just now and then I said it.
Hi, everyone. So you might have seen on the schedule that this was listed as a blight club panel, which is great.
Blight club is great.
But some plans changed.
And for those, there might be people here who just saw, like, oh, they're going to play a bad game and showed up and don't know all the internal goings -on of the last couple weeks.
What do you mean? What happened?
Yeah, what's up? There's, like, five podcasts about it.
Yeah, yeah, there's a few there, yeah.
Minati went nuts on a stream.
So if you came here to see a bad game, you're not going to see that.
We've got some stuff to talk about.
out, and I will toss to Mr. Jeff Grubb for that.
Yeah. As most of you know, I no longer work at Fandom.
What you probably don't know is neither does this guy.
He just heard the news for the first time.
Yeah. I fired him. We're doing the catch up now?
Yeah. Oh, okay. This is not what we discussed.
You're scaring my son.
Boo this child. Here's the thing though When it happened Me and Bakalar got into a room With the people from Fandom And what happened is they had a really What we think is a pretty good idea So for the last week About 8 days God it feels like a million Me and Bakalar have been working on some stuff and really it came from a place of fandom saying they wanted to do what's here's what really happened you all came out and when things happened you all got loud and you said how you feel and they're like this is we say that we're about these people and they realize they're about you and so they had
some good ideas about how to capture that and what to do with that I think fandom actually they had the motto of fans first and when they were in this situation I think their instinct was to look to that to figure out what they should do to solve this and what that created was an opportunity for me and Backlot to get in the room with them and we talked about and agreed about the future of what we're doing right like what was going to be next for this thing what is fundamentally the right thing to do and it's because like corporate games games media?
We all know at this point it is a complicated thing and no one's been able to figure it out.
We have not been able to figure it out.
At a certain point, why are we expecting anyone on the other side to be able to figure it out either?
When we looked at the history of this site, Giant Bomb, and the many owners it's had, whether it's Whisky media I need two hands CBS red ventures we could do a Mount Rushmore of owners actually um oh boy and then and then fandom there's there's been a lot there and here's the thing Giant Bomb now has new owners and you're looking at them I believe that's, uh.
We should say real quick, they sold to me and Bacalar, but we're going to share.
Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Oh, cool, cool, cool.
That's a chute. That was a chute?
That was a pop right there.
Oh, that was a pop.
That was. Real quick, Dan was planning that pop all week.
even before we knew this was going to happen.
So the fact that you popped that heart, it's going to go to its head.
Thanks a lot, guys.
Good job. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
Good job. Thanks, y 'all.
Thank you to you guys.
Yes. Thank you. So yes, as Grubb said, we have four owners, co -owners of Giant Bomb right now.
But if you've been watching Giant Bomb stuff for the last couple of years, you may be asking yourself, what about Mike Minotti?
I'm not doing that no I'm not doing that at all what are you talking about no one said this many people were saying it Mike Minotti has been at Disney the last 40 days every day we're getting pictures of him smiling in front of a fountain or something we know it's a monorail so he was completely in the dark about all of this because we dropped him from the group chat.
He wanted this because he wanted to be in Disney mode.
He wanted to enjoy Disney, and we obliged.
Of course. A lot of stuff goes into something like this, and a lot of talks and everything.
Mike Minotti was just on a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride eating a corn dog or whatever he does.
The cool stuff. This morning, we gave him a call to inform him of something.
And ask him a question And let me just go ahead and throw it at the clip Let's go to Disney Can we get the video, there it is Yep Make sure it's unmuted Oh, oops It's my first podcast Grubb, do you want to Explain?
Yeah, Mike We bought Giant Bomb Who's we?
uh us four and hey do you want to own giant bomb with us yeah i would like that i would like that a lot you want to be the fifth owner of giant bomb .com but really i don't know what's going on really yeah yeah this is a shoot yeah um okay we're gonna have to go into business together that's five owners this is a shoot, right?
am I still allowed to say that?
I don't know yeah they sold it to you?
we can tell you we'll talk about the full story off discord but yes, we own Giant Bomb good job good job on that yeah pulled off something crazy i mean i did most of the work part of it but um yeah yeah um guys that's amazing that's so good oh my god you realize i i skeeted that i was never gonna contribute to giant bomb again i made a whole showing protest of it and everything i'm a liar said i would never appear on giant bomb again but uh things have changed yeah okay a card subject I still have to play my next Black Club game this weekend.
Maybe Wednesday is the plan, so yes.
I'm going to maybe do some contract negotiations on that.
Guys, that's amazing.
What the heck? Well, here.
We'll stop the recording here, and we'll be able to talk just us here.
All right. Well, then.
That's it. That's what his cameo is It's just reacting to good news What sucks is He said a bunch of slurs So we couldn't show when the monorail came by Yeah Man That's your fifth owner of Giant Bomb, right?
Yeah Yes. And we're going to get into the details about what all this means as much as we can.
This really did come together like yesterday.
It was when it really came together.
So we're going to get into all the details here in a little bit.
But yeah, I think...
I think, so what, it was episode 888 was technically last week because it's Friday, right?
And let's not miss a week.
We don't miss a week, so we'll just do 889 right now?
Yeah, let's do 889 right now.
Hit the music, hit the music.
Okay. I'm free. Are you guys recording?
Okay, I'm not here.
Hey everybody, it's Tuesday, May 10, 2025.
Welcome to the Giant Bombcast, live from PAX East. I am your host, Jan Ochoa.
Joining me, as always, co -captain of the ship and co -owner of the ship, Jeff Grubb.
I'm doing good, co -owner.
How you doing? I'm doing pretty good I'm doing pretty good because you know we have we what was your title again um I just I got it I just told triple h's we got the triple h of the team chief content officer we've got the chief content officer of the team Dan Reichert you didn't say co -owner wait he didn't say co -owner wait wait wait wait wait wait wait he didn't say co -owner can you Are you just saying?
Co -owner Dan Rickard. Okay, now!
Now! There we go. Yeah!
Yeah! Michael Minotti is away on assignment, but we all know that he is the bad boy of games media.
But joining us, we have the evilest presence because there is a void inside of him, an eternal darkness of sorts.
Co -owner of Giant Bomb, Jeff Bacalar!
All right, yeah! It's really nice to be here.
This is my first Bombcast in a really long time.
It is. Well, you've been very busy in meetings.
Yeah, yeah. That is true.
Uh, I've wanted to say this for quite a while, and I apologize for the wrestling right off the bat.
So, uh... What do you guys want to talk about?
Mm... Oh, all right.
I don't think people got the reference.
It's okay. Thank you.
Twelve podcast points.
So, we're going to put this out on the feed.
We should explain what's going on.
We should tell people what's happening.
But it's also, it's coming so hot that there's definitely going to be a period of just like kind of feeling it out.
Yeah, let's just explain like where we're at.
Like what we do know, what we can talk about.
Let's not play the music again.
First podcast, first podcast. Feeling it out, feeling it out.
First podcast. guest um okay so it really has been a busy week it's been a lot it has been um me and beck are we're actually dead i don't know i died a couple days ago um it was a lot but it's here now and now like really we're gonna have to figure it out with all of you what it looks like we have some ideas but there's a lot of stuff that like we're still getting the keys back to things like that um to make it clear fandom has been very helpful they wanted they wanted this to happen because, again, it was important to the people that are there because they believe in this, and now it's up to
us to make it happen.
So what does it look like?
So there are some things we can say for sure now.
The bomb cast, continuing Tuesdays.
That train keeps rolling.
The news show, you're going to keep doing that?
I might do it. I might do it Monday.
Yeah, let's go. Sure, all right.
Jeff Grubb, it's see you Monday for Gay Mess Mornings.
Gay Mess Mornings, yes.
The timing worked out really beautifully on this because it's about time for Mike Minotti to suit up for his Blight Club game.
He's going to look so cool.
You folks don't know what he's going to wear.
Wait, the picture you showed me?
That one. He's going to be so cool.
He has all of the gear ready to go.
He's got the game. Wednesday, new Blight Club season starts.
I think something we're really excited about too is just removed from meetings and stricter scheduling and things like that, I think we're just going to be able to easily just be like, hey, this new game came out.
Do you want to hop in?
We'll stream it for an hour, or six hours, or just the flexibility we're going to have to just be able to hop in and stream stuff.
Yeah, in the limited time we've had to talk about this, it really has come back to, like, things have changed since Giant Bomb introduced the idea of a premium subscription.
And I think what a lot, like, we talked to a lot of our friends when we could, like, when things were changing before we knew you this was possible and a lot of the ideas we got back were people want to see you do your bullshit they want to see you just go into the stuff you care about because the reason they're watching is they care about that too so that's going to be the idea behind all of this we're going to do what we want to make and then you let us know if you're into it and when we want to like if we come up with a bad idea we're going to do it like and see how bad it is yeah like yeah well
because in the past you know if you're serving a corporation or you're serving an algorithm that kind of limits what you can do creatively.
And now we literally are going to be serving the audience.
Like that's right. You are all our boss now.
Like that's all we have to worry about is making the audience happy.
Exactly. So, um, we, we are going to lean into subscriptions.
That's the, that's the model here.
We're going to go back to, Hey, join the giant bomb membership.
And that is, we're, we're going to go right now.
It's $5. We're going up to $10.
Cause that money's going to go to us now and i think it makes sense and you go to giant bomb .com join right now you can get into that and everything that happens from this moment forward is supporting this team and doing what it wants to do and the more support we get the more we can do and and also it's important to us that the vast majority of the content now is going to be free you know when we leaned into premium before it was tricky because like you know we would do series that we were really proud of where it's like you know i would do like a steal my sunshine or a metal gear scanlon and it's
like like, I would want to tweet out like, check out this great episode.
But if it's behind a paywall, you can't really just kind of put it out there and expect people to see it.
So we do want people to be able to access this whether they support us monetarily or not.
So yeah, it is going to be largely supporting us and keeping this thing going.
Yeah. We talked about doing voicemail dump truck.
Yeah, of course. You're so backed up.
What's that? You're so backed up, buddy.
I can't wait. Let's catch up Jeff back on what's happened recently.
except I know exactly what happened and you know last night we had a Jeff Jeff's Bizarre Adventure panel and I think we had a blast with Sue Breitbach, Tamar Hussain and Lucy James it was such good idea and you know we didn't know how this plane was going to land and things didn't really materialize until the 11th hour and you know that podcast is absolutely Going to continue Probably as an independent project And I just I, just personally How much I loved doing that show With that crew Who was at the panel yesterday for Jeff Jeff's Bazaar Adventure Yeah, right?
How good was that? I learned a lot about anime Yeah, unfortunately Also, I got to talk to Super Eyepatch Wolf Last night at the bar about Hajime No Ippo And I'm really really into that show Wow Did not expect so much bit to be about how big his dick is but it's still really good.
What? It plays an elephant sound effect every time his dick shows up?
I'm watching the wrong show.
It's like Rocky, but he's got a huge cock.
While he talks about dicks, I want to do something more sincere.
Tam, Lucy, thank you so much. I mean it when I say you mean the world to us.
Envy's not the right word. i aspire to the to the to the people that you are and so just thank you for being like so cool when we worked with you i i can't wait to find a way to work with you guys again i'm yeah absolutely i it can't be understated how much a part of the dna uh you both are to this brand yes that's never going to change um we love you guys yeah we love you wow on that note um bacalar yeah thank you man i on this last week i have realized so much what you've done to protect us so much what you've done to make this make sense the arg you did with help like stuff you didn't even
tell us about i i didn't realize it man i and i'm sorry and thank thank you.
I mean it. Like, let's do this together.
Let's get to work, man.
Kiss. Thank you. Yeah, man.
Absolutely. Alright, so what are we gonna...
What are we gonna do next?
I mean, we're starting right away.
Yeah. News show Monday.
Podcast returns turns on tuesday yep dump truck yeah i don't see why we don't do all this stuff like we're gonna have to have a lot of meetings too about just like there's a lot of things to iron out yes yeah like i want to do summer game fest i want to do gb at night but it's a lot of work guys we're gonna try to we're gonna do our best we're gonna try to figure it out it's in like 30 minutes i think yeah and doing it ourselves too where it's like we did get a lot of support for summer games but yes a lot of other hands and people helping us and things like that we do have a lot of friends that have reached
out and said they're going to help us, but we've got to put this together.
We're going to be scrappy.
It's going to be scrappy.
We're going to do our best to make it look cool.
It's not going to look good, but it's going to look cool.
We're going to do our best. Cool is good.
Yeah, that's how I'm at.
I have a couch that used to live in a basement.
Can you get a U -Haul?
I can drive a truck down to Los Angeles if we want that.
Yeah, I like couch. I like couches There's a lot of games to talk about We've had a little break It's weird taking a break I was traveling a lot And the stuff going on the last couple weeks It's getting backed up And the Switch 2, we are a few weeks away from that It just feels like there's so much happening And it's like we gotta set up a business Do all this stuff We're gonna get to work right away But it's gonna be a lot to figure out I just think And I think like, you know, there's some time that has to pass before it all starts to materialize.
Yeah, or even feel real, yeah.
Yeah, I just don't want to understate just how up to the last moment all of this really...
Like, I'm not even...
Yeah, it was... Exaggerating.
Yep. I mean, yeah. I have the photo from when I signed, and it's of you.
Like, you just kind of doing something else.
And I'm like, this moment, I'm not going to forget this.
It was pretty wild.
Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't it like a day or two ago that didn't Stacy ask you like, oh, are you going to die?
Yeah, she was like, you know, I just need to know, you know, if that's going to happen.
I mean, eventually.
I'm your wife. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So no, for sure.
Like obviously a lot of stuff is coming together last minute.
So I think just a little bit of patience for some stuff will go a long way.
Yeah. And then I think like it all kind of comes back to this is like co -owners, employee owned.
we are in this together.
We're gonna have to figure things out.
So, I don't know. How does that change things for you guys?
How are you feeling about that?
Oh, I've been feeling like I want to throw up for the past two years.
You know what, though?
All kidding aside, like, yeah, same, right?
But you never do hurl.
You just sort of, like...
When was the last time you threw up?
Yeah. Ooh. I think maybe, like, two months ago?
Okay. Like, on purpose, or what?
Is it ever on purpose?
Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah.
Oh, okay, okay, okay.
No, but, like, was it because you had fun, or because...
Maybe I had too much fun.
Yeah. The last time I both threw up and had diarrhea was at Kojima Productions two weeks ago.
Oh, yeah, the last time I threw up was in your house.
Oh, yeah, my house, yes.
Mine was just food poisoning.
It wasn't even, like, a fun thing.
All right. So, listen.
We're going to, like I said, we're going to get to work.
We're going to figure this stuff out.
But in the meantime, man, what do we talk about?
What do we tell people?
Maybe, hey, a couple new shirts heading to store .giantbomb .com.
Yeah, that's the thing.
We got everything. All the stuff, like the store, everything is ours.
So, yeah, if you want to go to the store right now.
The backlog, all the accounts, everything.
It's not just the name.
It's everything. The archives, yes.
Yeah. That's one thing where it's like, man, we could do stuff with that.
I think one of the things we're planning to do is take some time, but maybe like you have been doing, Dan, taking select old shows from the archive, putting them up on YouTube.
There's a Donkey Kong game coming out soon.
I want to have all the Burgl My Bananas for you on YouTube.
Let me ask, so Mike Bonatti, I feel like since the day I met him, has been pushing for, and I think it's just because he likes the alliteration.
And I want to get an honest gauge.
Don't just pop because you feel like you're supposed to here.
level of enthusiasm.
He wants to do something called Monday Mornings Missed with Mitch. Is that good?
Most people are dead silent.
Yeah, it's just Chuck Towsky and ABC over there.
Yeah, the chat's being weird right now.
I don't know what's going on.
Would I like Missed?
Here's the thing. I'm afraid we would both like Missed a lot.
Is it like Blueprints?
I think it might be, yeah.
I have no idea. Wait, hang on, hang on.
No. Should we do a missed feature and not invite him.
That's what we should do and not invite him.
Yeah, that's it. No one tell Mike.
He's on a plane right now.
He's a co -owner, he has no idea.
We're going to have meetings.
We have to tell him.
So, yeah. Just freedom to do whatever the hell we want.
Yeah. I'm looking forward to it.
It's like we did get a lot of benefits from working within a bigger business that provided a lot of safety nets.
Nets. Now we are operating without a net now and that's scary but it does enable us a lot more freedom to try a lot more stuff.
There's more flexibility in terms of we could act quicker with things where it's like when you are dealing with a larger corporate structure, it's not just a matter of we'd like to do this, let's do it.
It has to go through different channels and different groups and stuff like that.
Now it's just kind of like we talk to the five of us.
It's like, should we do this?
And now we'll do it.
Yeah, Dan, that's the point.
We're in agreement.
Okay, cool. For sure, yeah.
Okay, cool. Hey! Oh, look at that.
That's business right there.
That's business. Wow.
Excellent. So, yeah, probably first week, go a little standard just as we, you know, kind of get our feet wet with the new thing.
But then we'll start branching out and hopefully being able to add things, tweak things, improve things over time.
But the audience will have a direct line to us.
Yeah, exactly. And we'll be, like, setting up exactly what all that looks like.
But if you are, like, joining right now, like, there's the Discord. There might be some issues with that.
Give the URL out again.
Yeah, giantbomb .com slash join.
You'll be supporting what we're doing, and we're really looking forward to getting this started right now, getting to work right away.
And you say right now, and literally from this moment, anything that comes into Giant Bomb is directly to us.
Store, anything, premium.
Yeah, and with the patient stuff I talked about earlier, that also is related to how people can get in touch with us if they just want to ask us a question.
We don't have a direct mechanism for that just yet.
Yeah. We're waiting on a couple emails to open up again.
But yeah, just, you know, whether it's on the Discord or hitting us up on social, we can answer and speak to anything.
So when do you guys think this is going to start to feel real to you?
Like where are you at right now in terms of like mentally?
Well, I can't imagine how you two feel because the last two weeks of constantly just, you know, waiting for like the next update and stuff like that has just felt like an absolute blur to me.
Me and I'm sure Jan. And, like, we aren't the ones that were, like, in these calls for God knows how many hours a day.
So, yeah, it does feel like the last couple of weeks.
What? No, no, no. I was going to say we'll know soon.
Yeah. We'll know how many hours.
Yeah. But, yeah, it's going to be a bit, I think.
Yeah. How about you, Jan?
Like, has it even begun to feel real?
No. Yeah. Not at all.
You're all right, Jan, though, right?
What? You're okay. Barely.
Yeah, all right. Yeah, it's fine.
Barely. We hanging and clanging, baby.
All gas, no brakes with it.
Ya -da -da -mean. No. No?
Yeah. Ya -da -da -mean?
Ya -da -da -mean is what they say.
He likes it when we say it.
Yeah, yeah. He likes how white it is when we say it.
Don't worry, Jayden.
It'll be smooth. You just have to handle all of the production for all of giantbomb .com.
What? I could use OBS.
And? That's about it, yeah.
Audacity? I got that.
Okay. Yeah, yeah. You have to edit, but I'll send you the file.
Okay. It's okay. I'm just playing.
But yeah, I don't know.
I've been holding back a lot of feelings in the last couple week, two weeks.
And I mean it where there's been multiple opportunities to jump ship.
But the one thing, two things that have kept me here this whole time are the people that I work with.
And these three chuckleheads, uh, some of the best, some of the best I've ever worked with.
There's a bunch of chuckleheads in the audience that I've also worked with that I love from the bottom of my heart that I cherish every single moment I got to spend with them, uh, hunting for pants in downtown LA.
Um, and yeah, the second aspect of that is all y 'all sitting here, sitting at home, uh, it has been y 'all and this fantastic community that we've built that have kept me here and everything and wanting to stay here because I'll flux with y 'all.
Yep. I mean, who can follow that?
No one. Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah. It's just it's been a very strange trip for me personally to see, you know, where this has all gone in the last five years.
And it's just very surreal right now.
uh was not on my bingo card no and uh yeah i'm just uh you know thrilled to just be a part of it and see it evolve and where it's gone and i can't wait to share that with everyone so yeah hell yeah um like since giant bomb started like so many people have gone independent like one of the things i'm looking forward to is finding ways to work with everybody again uh i'm looking forward to like just kind of realizing we're in the same space and just trying to like work together one One of the things I've learned is we're not competing in any way.
Right. The community wants to support everybody and make this all happen.
They want as much of this crazy bullshit as possible.
And I think that finding ways to make that happen more frequently, because the incentive has changed for us.
Previously, it's like we do a lot of work, and all those efforts pay off to someone else.
And now it's completely flipped.
And it's like, wait, yeah, there's nothing holding us back now to doing a ton of that and work with people that we love.
So looking forward to a lot of that as well.
Please, for the love of God, like and comment on every single video.
Subscribe to the podcast. What else do they say?
Tell friends, give us money, all these things.
Ring the bell? What's the bell?
What is that on? YouTube.
Oh, man. I know. Oh, man.
Yeah, we've got to do YouTube, too.
That's big, yeah. Oh, really?
Yeah, we should do that.
Oh, shoot. uh but yeah i mean any like any wild ideas y 'all have at the top of your head well i i i was thinking about this earlier today and i was thinking huh i kind of want to just send dan somewhere again yeah i'm i'm game yes absolutely honestly like made his flight home from sgf shouldn't go home wait i don't go home from sgf No, it sends you to, like, another city without you knowing.
What if we hide your Switch 2 in a different city?
It is getting mailed to Minnesota, and you are not touching it.
Okay. Although, Grubber, are you getting yours sent to LA?
Yeah, it's gonna be at Nicky's house, yeah.
We can at least, like, play some, right?
We'll do some multiplayer.
Oh, yeah, we'll play some Mario Kart, for sure.
Honestly, we'll probably just stream Mario Kart from LA.
Sounds great. From wherever we are.
Exactly, yeah. Again, it's thrifty, so we're going to be all on bunk beds in an Airbnb.
That has been the most amazing transformation.
So Dan Reichert, notoriously thrifty, not so much with other companies' money.
And then the second some certain things got turned off, where he would normally pay in other ways, and now it was his money, just immediately turning into coupon Paul Reichert mode.
It was astounding. Tell the cocktail story.
Yeah, literally in my DNA.
I think it was last night because technically my last day was yesterday, and they canceled my corporate card, and we went to a bar or something, and I looked, and I normally would have been like, Oh, that cocktail sounds great.
It's $20. My God. Okay, the beers are $9.
That's still quite a bit, but I'll go with the $9 beers.
I've got to start thinking about that stuff now.
And now we're like, Hey, friend, with the corporate card, do you want to go to dinner?
You're like, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, my partner didn't know anything until yesterday.
oh nice nothing and then i just dropped everything on her yeah how'd it go well you know uh i'm looking up how to get your dog to be instagram famous now sure yeah yeah yeah uh she took it well incredibly supportive hello yeah yeah she's not here she's watching at home yeah i will say also to bonk bonk was amazingly supportive and she's watching as well bonk razor gizmo boss hello yeah that that was the one of the most helpful things is like uh I'm like oh I don't have a job anymore this is super scary and it's like like oh I messed up I like what's next and Steph was very helpful and reminded
me of like like I was there when you were getting two hundred dollars a month from combo .com with the K and it's like you've come so far like I believe in you and it's like I don't even believe in myself that's incredible to hear so yeah that was really nice that was was really helpful.
Yeah. What's crazy is, uh, I had always planned this trip with, uh, Stacy and Dib to come.
And I don't think Dib knew any of this until this moment.
He's shaking his head.
Dib, are you understanding it now?
Sort of. Sort of. Okay.
It's good. Yeah. It's good.
It's a good thing. It's good.
Yes. It's good. And, uh, you know, uh, Stacy just being so supportive and just, That was a real Interesting day Let's just say And you know You just saying like That you know That you were just so happy for However this shakes out and just having that support Means so much so It's working out Yeah for sure Happy Mother's Day tomorrow y 'all Yeah Shouts out to all the single mothers Also Also.
For no particular reason.
Beckler, I feel like if you still had hair just over the last three days of dealing with me, I would have watched it in real time, either gray or fall out.
Yeah, that's true, Dan.
Thanks for pointing that out.
There are several times where Dan's loud voice is just saying stuff that we've all agreed not to say as he walks into the - But not into a microphone.
It's fine. Yeah, but into a crowd.
Just random people.
At PAX. No, no, no, no. Dan and I were at a bar the other night and we're talking about stuff and just like really panicking and confiding in each other and next to us was like a very nondescript gentleman and then he turns around, you guys into podcasts?
Morgan Freeman? Morgan Freeman has a great gaming podcast. And then he proceeded to add us on LinkedIn.
Oh, cool. He couldn't find So I think this is you and him now.
We're like this. We're DMing every day.
And then we just shut up because we're in the middle of like, all right, we need to go.
We're just going to put our heads together at the bar.
And as soon as that guy started talking, it's like, well, it's not happening now.
Not that loud. No, it's loud.
I think some people have that voice that just sort of carries.
You know when someone will leave a room and you're like, why can I still hear them?
No. My hearing's bad, too.
This is not about you hearing.
No, no, no. We need to relate.
Sure. We need to talk about Dan.
and I'm sorry but Dan is it okay if I share your discovery oh from this trip yeah well which which yeah I feel like there have been several but yeah um show of hands I'm gonna pull the chat real quick uh show of hands in the chat if you were aware that on your cellular phone you can link two separate calls to make a three -way call yeah okay obviously now hang on okay hands Hands down, hands down, I'm doing another one.
How many of you have used this feature?
What? That was most of the room.
More people use the feature than know it exists.
Multiple people on a phone call?
Yeah. Seven calls. I thought this was three.
Well, we only had so many people there.
But that's what Discord's for.
Not when you're talking to lawyers.
No, not on Discord. No, that was not.
Wait, so all those calls you were doing was like multiple people?
The number of times I heard Backlore this week be like, hang on, let me get him.
It was like 50 times, yeah.
Wow. I just don't understand the context that you would do.
I don't like talking to one person on the phone.
Sure, yeah, but like you said, on Discord you have many people at once.
Well, what if you just did that on your phone with a phone call?
And that's been around for a while.
Many, many years. I get it the first time in like the 90s.
Quite a while. Many years, dude.
I just can't think of a single scenario in which I would do that.
And not even cell phones, man.
Like, landline. Wait, how do you do that on a landline?
I don't know. There was like a star number, like star 79.
This has just been a thing forever.
Like, haven't you ever seen any boardroom in any movie ever?
Yeah, but you get a little thing on the table, and everyone talks into that.
Oh, stop. Am I wrong?
Yes. Dan was at breakfast, and he wanted to test this.
So he calls back R, who's right across from us, and then his eyes just widen.
And then he's like, oh, the add feature.
And it's like there's only six buttons and one of them is just add.
And I've never seen that.
That's it. It's simple.
I'm proud of you though, Dan.
Thank you. I don't know if I'll ever use it, but I'm glad I know it, I guess.
It's growth. Tremendous.
So how's your PAX? I guess at some point I'll see it.
You know, maybe tomorrow.
I don't know. We have not played games.
No. No, no, no. It's been the game of capitalism, maybe.
That's about it, yeah.
Have you played games at home during all this?
No. Dude, no, I want you to understand, I have not enjoyed anything.
No, yes. I turned off that part of myself.
I'm not joking. What about hockey?
Buddy, it's the best time for hockey, and I have not been able to enjoy it right now.
I was telling. Well, the devil's lost, so.
Okay. At least we're in the playoffs Oh god I know I can't help myself Right in the gut I'm sorry I get it I told Tam, Lucy and John that last night during the panel was the first time I could relax On stage?
Yeah So we signed and up I signed during the J GBA panel last night oh yeah and then I can feel my body begin to scream as the adrenaline that I had been holding in my stomach all week began to like feel like oh it's okay to release now I'm like whoa no it's not no definitely not and then me and Dan are like let's go to the twitch party which I don't know if you ever into the twitch party it's not for for 42 -year -old men.
No. You guys aren't the demographic?
No. It's like, there are multiple rooms with DJs.
It's not just one. There's multiple rooms with DJs.
There's no room where there's not a DJ.
With, like, dubstep Sonic the Hedgehog tracks?
Yes, yeah. Yeah. And just blasts in her face and, like, I'm, like, it took all, I didn't want to be creepy so I held everything within myself not to turn to Dan and say, Dan, I need you to hug me before I explode.
Well, that's cute. I'm, like, I'm going to die here.
That's what's happened to me where my body is ready to just blow apart in every direction.
I didn't enjoy it. You guys should play Expedition 33.
It's really good. Mary's flipping us off.
Thank you for inviting us.
I had a great time, Mary.
Mary, remember, you're my shero?
There we go. Got a little pop.
I have a question for Dib.
What did you think was happening with all of this.
Should we get him on a mic here?
Yeah, come here. Come on up.
Can we unmute that one?
Good, good, good. So you have to talk into the mic.
Hey. Hi. Hi, Dylan Bacalar, everybody.
So what did you think was going on this whole week when Daddy was very busy?
A lot of stuff and busyness.
And busyness. I mean, that's that's another way to say business.
I think it must rule to be 10.
What the heck? Yo, this kid knows how to dap me up.
I know. Yeah, yeah.
And yes, I want you to see.
Almost there. And and what do you really think of Dan Reichert?
Sucks. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, okay, it's a child, he's a child.
Dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, dip.
All right I love you buddy.
Thanks for coming. All right ask him for his autograph.
Yeah, ask for his autograph.
All right. Oh, we either gave him the best weekend of his life for guaranteed therapy.
Wait, wait. I'm not the one who was farting on his bed.
That was me, actually.
All week. It's been great.
That's been like the business couch which is this pulled out bed and you're just ripping ass all over it.
He's like, that's my bed and I'm like, well, I've been farting on it.
Yeah, deal with it.
I don't know. Oh, man.
All right, so New Era, Giant Bomb.
What the hell do we do next?
Yeah, just get back and get to work.
I mean, PAX has been weird here because normally I'd be walking the floor a lot more, playing more games, things like that.
I didn't get a great sense of...
I did a couple laps on the floor, but I mean, I like it here.
I've seen a lot of dice.
Yeah, a concerning amount of dice.
Yeah, almost too much dice.
That's it. This is a dice show.
It does feel like you look at the show floor and you get the vibes of like, oh, gaming's in a weird place right now.
It'll figure itself out.
It will. Because people care about it.
But it does feel like it's representative of something going on underneath, challenging.
Like, I don't, a big part of it is a lot of developers from around the world aren't necessarily feeling great about traveling to the United States right now.
And I'm like, I get that.
And then, you know, it's like gaming just in general.
It's like, is spending money on coming to a place like this something that makes sense right now?
And I don't blame them for saying in this moment, no. So, yeah, it's a little strange.
change? I think it's been weird both for, you know, publishing and development and also Games Media for many, many years now.
And it's something that keeps coming up because it keeps getting worse.
Yeah. And like the timing was crazy last week because like we had all of our stuff going on and then the Polygon news and everything.
So it was just like, boy, I've really spent the last like week or two being like Games Media is this thing I have grown up with and really attached myself to as a fan and as a worker.
And boy, is it in a weird spot right now.
And it really feels like a transition you know we saw the transition from magazines to websites and for websites to podcasts and then podcasts and streams together and everything and then you know the big websites to patreons and things like that and like we're doing like a kind of different version of that by you know kind of doing our own it's not paid but it's definitely crowdfunded yeah it's much closer to that than it is traditional you know big corporate games media so it's just like i've spent so much time thinking about it and it's it's really bad in a way that like if you were trying
trying to break in now and get a full -time job doing this, it was always really hard. Yeah, and I never wanted to discourage anyone, but at this moment, it's like, yeah, if you're looking around and you think it's grim, you're probably right.
It's weird. There was a time when I worked at Game Informer and people would, you know, how did you get your job?
I would always write back and I would always give advice.
I would read articles and stuff.
I would give very earnest well -meaning, like, try this, try this, submit the portfolio like this.
And then it got to a certain point where I couldn't honestly be like, yeah, give it a shot, just keep writing, keep writing and get experience.
It's just like, it's not a viable thing.
And then it's like, what's the alternative now, where it's like, do you just go on Twitch and try to be a solo creator?
And then it's just like, how do you stand out?
How do you possibly get that traction?
Right, and in that situation, how does the rest of this stuff make sense, where it's like Summer Game Fest, like a Twitch creator doesn't need to go to Summer Game Fest. So it's like, you kind of look in the situation like that, it's like, wait, okay, do these big events even make sense anymore.
I don't know. I really like them.
Like I said, I think they will figure things out, but it's just in a weird place right now.
Yeah, and a lot of the Patreons and stuff that you see being very successful and that I really admire the work they do, Kind of Funny, MinMax, NextLander, they do great work, but also there was the privilege of you came from traditional games media, you got your following there, and we also, I guess, now can fit into that category.
It's like, yeah, you can't just be 21 years old, 22, out of college college and start a patreon no so it's like what does that look like if you're breaking in like sure we have that privilege yes what is someone coming out of college right one of the things that i've always but like the the morning show has been about this for a very long time like this idea of just like putting the ladder down like just hey i'm up here on this ship let me put the ladder down a little bit try to climb up it that's the best i can do i can't do much more than that i would love to give money to everybody but it's like even
that it's like i mean i don't i don't know where we're climbing to anymore i i mean not to glaze you grub but i I feel like you've done a pretty fantastic job about having a multitude of different guests on Game Mess Mornings, Game Breaking News, and really shining a light, like, finding really dope people.
Yeah. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.
I can't tell you, Greb, how many times I've, like, reached out to you afterwards, like, I did not know this person before I saw them.
I'm like, wow, I've got to follow them, like, you know, what a great mind, you know?
And a lot of them are very young in breaking in and everything.
Right. And I think that is, you know, you're going to keep doing the news show.
yes we'll keep doing that and like that the it's helpful because there are so many cool people it makes it very easy on my side to just be like yeah come on the show but yeah I wish there was more ground for them to go to but I don't know like I said I think things will sort itself out we're just in a bad place right now I think it rebounds in some way it's not gonna look the same but maybe it changes we figure some things out yeah should we make a Christmas album yeah so that like that's the fun stuff now cuz like we've talked talked about stuff like that for so long, and it's like, well, we
start talking for an hour about that, and it's like, well, you know, other people are just going to get that money, and so then we give up.
And now it's like, wait, we should totally do the dumbest ideas we have for all of the merch. Yes.
Yeah. No approval. Are we going to have, like, a majority rule system?
Is that the plan? We have five.
We have an odd number.
Let's just let Bacalar say yes and no. No, we have, like, a contingency.
It's like, me, you, and Menotti will be a contingency, and you can overrule anything, yeah.
Cool. Badanza. Paganza!
There's no puns you can do with Mike Minotti's name.
Minotti. No. No, nothing works with that.
What do you think he's thinking right now?
He's not watching. I think, is it fireworks time at Disney?
No, he's on the plane home.
No, he's on the plane back.
He's on the plane home.
Then he's thinking about Disney fireworks.
No, I think he's thinking, I wonder when the next time I'm going back to Disney.
Yeah, it is. That has been so funny to me the last week.
Before we even started any conversation on the phone call, he goes, hey, guys, there's going to be a monorail that pops up.
And it was pretty impressive.
Yeah, it went by right away.
It passed by twice during our call, and both times he raised his eyebrows and went.
But what none of us, like, he obviously had that in the shot.
That was intentional.
He didn't accidentally frame the Disney monorail that he loves.
You know he must have gone through it three times.
I'm so glad you guys said that because it's so true.
It was like perfect amount of head room above his head.
Here's a great thing about Minotti too because we've got five of us we're all going to be on stuff and everything but we'll also have kind of more specialized things.
Minotti. What? Does that mean Pinball's back on?
Pinball's back. We'll see.
We'll have breaks in programming that you can do whatever.
Thank you to the 11 people Super Jazz.
About pinball. Hell yeah.
Completely forgot my train of thought.
That's the point. Yeah, Mike Madani, he's different from us or something like that.
I don't know. Could we get the laptop on the screen real quick?
I made a little Photoshop at dinner.
If you can do it. Well, I mean, it's our...
It's our official press photo.
We send this to AP News.
Yeah. Yeah, they were like, are you sure this is This is what you want the press release to look like.
What do you mean? We're sure.
Photographer credit to Mary Kish two and a half hours ago.
Mary Kish was our photographer, yeah.
Also, great job, man.
There was so much shit in the grass that we were standing on.
We were like all just trying to avoid it.
It was crazy. Yo, bunnies are just in the wild?
Yeah. Wait, yes. Wait, wait.
Wait, hang on, hang on.
Oh, you're going to teach him something?
Okay, we'll go back to the bunnies.
but he's been doing some real Dan questions here where we were walking to dinner tonight and he's just looking at a building, a brick building and he's like, Hey guys, do they like, do they have to like switch the bricks out?
Does that not make sense?
Do bricks last forever?
Why did we stop using them?
I don't think we stopped.
They're popular. Just like diamonds.
Bricks are forever.
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
And it's the OG Brick?
The OG Brick. Yeah.
Yeah. Yo. They probably, like, power washed it or something.
Yeah, maybe they clean them up every now and then.
Dang. I know. Oh, and I get shit for not knowing about three -way calls.
Yeah. Oh, buddy. Oh, buddy.
The one time. And then you found out that, like, there's little bunny rabbits in the wild.
Yeah. Yes. I, like, lost my shit because I saw a little bunny rabbit.
And I'm like, yo, can I take this grub?
Hey, you know what?
If you can grab it, sure.
You're going to get ticks, but yeah, you can have it, dude.
That's how that works.
What wildlife do you have in SF?
Like foxes? Sea lions?
Feces? Hell yeah. Shouts out to the A area.
Can you three give me another Yadadameen?
Yadadameen! Yadadameen?
Jeff. Yadadameen? That was alright.
That sounded authentic.
Proud of you guys for that.
Thanks, Jan. Look at the growth.
Should we just go through the deets one more time?
Yeah, probably. All right, so Giant Bomb is independent.
It's employee -owned.
In case you forgot.
In case, yeah. Wait, wait, wait.
I want to spring this now.
Sorry for coming in hot.
should we vote for an employee of the month?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, because you motherfuckers are going to make it a joke where I never win it.
I know how this goes.
They can do the first vote.
If you think Dan should be employee of the month, cheer.
There were some cheers.
No, the boos actually take the cheer away.
Counteracting. Those are the minuses.
It's like a Cena thing.
I would say it was like 50 -50.
Sure. I'm the John Cena is what I'm saying.
Mike Minotti. He can't co -own a company and win Employee of the Month on the same day.
He hasn't had anything to do with the last week of conversation.
Not being the same.
Jana Choa. Jana Choa.
30 podcast points for all of you.
30. That's Jeff Grubb.
Boo. Jeff Bacalar yeah there we go yeah congratulations Jeff Bacalar you're our first employee of the month I get a plaque on the wall?
no you don't get shit that was just applause because they wanted their kid to feel good laughter so yeah we're back giantbomb .com slash join memberships are going to support us we're going to get to work on a bunch of stuff we're going to try to do SGF We're going to be back with content this week.
We're going to do a bunch of new stuff as well.
It's going to be awesome.
If you make a game and want to advertise with us, absolutely.
Yeah, we're open for business.
Raid Shadow, what is it?
Oh, yeah, we're big on Raid Shadow Legends all of a sudden.
I love VPNs. It's just the best, yeah.
Dick Bills, whatever.
I'll chew whatever is blue.
He's got to troll lunch. I also just want to, I think we should all take a second to obviously recognize all the fine people at PAX and people who are on the show and they this is this is only my second time at a Pax and it just you know for all the accommodations and everything and everyone's been so you know helpful and we just really thank you so much Pax for having us and obviously Pierce and all of our people there who represent the show thank you so much yeah absolutely Keep doing these Yeah, that'd be fun Yeah, let's do it Yeah, that is something like in the last week It's like, oh, I'm
too old to do anything else We got to figure this out right away None of these skills are transferable No And if any of our friends can expense meals And want to have dinners while we're on trips That's great Or at our homes, that's fine They have mortgage If anyone knows the safest way to walk to the airport port let me know a train uh but yeah once again like we are able to be here because of y 'all so any amount of support whatever it is uh ringing a bell i guess i've heard today uh or whatever we we we would love it and we love you uh i've heard the acronym before fubu uh for us by us us.
Yeah. Yeah, that's what it is?
Yeah. Okay, cool. God, I'm not the oldest one here now.
He's aging in front of our eyes.
I think that is part of why we're confident enough to try to do this, is because we've worked at a lot of different game sites, we've seen a lot of comment sections and things like that, and that has always been...
There are a lot of things that make Giant Bomb special and have historically, but I would say the most important thing, and I'm not just blowing smoke up anyone's ass, is that the community has been so passionate.
I remember being on the outside side when i was a game informer and i would see the stuff that's happening like garrisman and davis and those guys and it's just like man there's like fan art of these games podcast personalities like that's wild like that never happened at other places i saw and then like i came in and just like oh boy they have opinions about the site and they have their favorites and they have their fan art and it's it's just an incredible community and i think if it was not that strong i would not have jumped into this as readily so uh honestly a huge thanks to the the Giant
Bomb audience, we would not be doing this without you.
Yeah, I think and like kind of seeing them out there representing this week and doing the, hey, remember when this happened and being like, I am so sad.
It feels like it's going away.
It made it feel like it's worth figuring this out.
It's worth saving. Giant Bombs should go on.
And so we're going to do it.
It's going to keep going.
Here we are. We're not going anywhere.
Yeah. And if it dies, and if it dies, the blood is on all of your hands.
They heard me! All right.
Jin, what did we learn?
Well, what did we learn today?
We learned that the four of us plus Mike Minotti, who is in an airplane somewhere, is the now co -owners of Giant Bomb.
Giant Bomb is now independent Giantbomb .com slash join please you know think about it and also let's go yeah I'm sorry I don't know what came over me and also it is far too late to get a Mother's Day gift tomorrow so you messed up yeah buy your mom a subscription to Giant Bomb Yeah, probably.
Yeah. It's what every mom wants.
Yeah. Yeah. Four, three, four middle -aged men, and then, like, the hot one.
Cool. Mike Minotti.
Right. Ladies love Mike Minotti, baby.
A lot of people like Mike Minotti.
Yeah. So anything else, y 'all?
Or should I hit the music?
Just one last thing.
I still love GameSpot.
Everyone should still go to GameSpot.
They're doing great work over there.
I'm going to keep going there.
I'm going to keep referencing them on the new show.
I can't wait to see what they do.
So let's all just work together and make cool stuff for everybody.
Yeah. Oh, we'd be remiss if we missed this, but we're going to try our hardest to get Nikki and Sean back in the door with us.
All right. Thanks to them for everything.
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
I would not have felt comfortable taking any kind of day off if it wasn't for Sean.
Yeah, totally. And Nikki has been absolutely essential to the last couple years.
Absolutely, yes. Should we hit the music now?
Let's hit it. That's it.
Thanks, everybody. Thanks for coming out, everyone.
Throw them up. Thank you for watching, everybody.
buddy. I've been Jan. He's been Jeff.
He's been Jeff. He's been Dan.
You've been wonderful.
We'll see you next week for another episode of the John Bobcast. Goodbye.
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