I think that makes sense for Dan.
The wrestling gig for him was a producer role, and doing podcasts/content. I don’t think the WWE really ever cared much about that stuff anyway. I would suspect there was likely nowhere for him to move up there.
If you wanted to announce something to secure the future of Giant Bomb, it is getting Dan Ryckert in. His gaming streams have been a blast. Ambitious, odd, and definitely will bring a lot of fun to NeoBomb.
I’ve rewritten this post a few times because when I read it back it sounds pretty darn rude, so let’s try this: my impression of Dan Ryckert from the admittedly limited exposure I’ve had to him from the Bombcast is that he’s basically Karl Pilkington. Am I off base?
Dan coming in to take over from Jeff does seem a bit like a wrestling plot line.
Sort of, only much zannier!
EDIT: Gerstmann has launched a independent podcast and Patreon:
Not really. Kind of?
But I think that is selling him short a bit. Pilkington was meant to be a punchline, more of a bystander to bounce things off of. Dan is not a clueless person, he is just clueless about a lot of very specific things, and doesn’t have the shame to not admit it.
He also REALLY puts his entire heart and soul into creating features and content. From weird game-shows to grueling marathons, he knows how to make unique content for sure.
Excited to see him back in a place where he will have a budget to push some insane B.S. onto other people.
The Jeff G. patreon is a bit disappointing. I guess we will see where that goes, but of all of the Jeff content, the solo stuff is what I watched the least. I was hoping for something more, but maybe that will be down the line.
Edit: Watching the Jeff G. stream, it doesn’t seem like there was much of a plan for this. I would suspect there were some late stage talks that fell through. He has not much prepared in terms of artwork, music, logos, using an old email address for questions. It feels like this happened suddenly for Jeff as it did for us.
Well, Gerstmann has almost 4,000 pledgers so far. Even if they’re all at the minimum pledge of $5 each, that’s not too bad of a hustle.
First post-Jeff Bombcast is up.
Oh wow, all existing premium shows to be free.
Not even one podcast in and Ryckert has already done something stupid and complained that his chest hurts
Over 5,600 now.
It really feels like some sort of deal fell through.
Especially with the Giant Bomb statement alluding to corporate decision making and respecting privacy. It was just so sudden, even more so than the 2021 departures, and definitely not in-line with the previous departures of members like Abby and Ben, where they basically announced a week in advance and had good-bye streams etc.
Jeff also mentioned being burned out working for a corporation, which makes sense. GB started as an independent venture, and eventually folded into a larger media company. I am sure he lost a lot of the freedom and control he once had. This is pretty similar to the very sudden exit of the now Nextlander crew (the other remaining founders).
I wonder if we will ever know what happened or if it is all NDA’d to hell, or if Jeff G doesn’t want to say anything bad about red ventures because he still has friends/colleagues working for them.
I’d forgotten that was the purchaser.
I had an opportunity to interact professionally with some mid tier staff there and learn a lot about what they do a couple of years back. After the interactions, I came away much more dubious of and negative towards them than I was during the initial minor furor over their website buying spree.
Gotta love it.
The testers also coped with the pressures of being surveilled. A couple of sources told Kotaku that QA workers would have their breaks timed or sometimes even be followed into the restrooms by non-management employees described by one source as “chronic snitches.” According to them, these otherwise normal testers, designated as “coordinators,” did not have a real title or pay bump, but felt that micromanaging their peers would help their career standing at ZeniMax. Another did not recall if people were specifically followed, but knew testers whose bathroom breaks had been timed.
I think this part of Gerstmann’s stream about his mental state is enough explanation for me (timecode in URL, from 2:51:05 to about 2:55:40)
Yeah, that makes sense.
It sounds like he was dealing with a lot of stress. I would assume redventures had certain ideas of traffic, coverage, features etc. Jeff as head of the site probably had to deal with all of that stuff. I can imagine that not being very fun, not being able to do a lot of the fun stuff he wanted to do anymore, having to spend a lot more time of your day dealing with scheduling, meetings, b.s., and not just having fun making content.
Seems like his patreon is doing well, looking forward to seeing the stuff he comes up with!
Given ZeniMax’s history of corporate scumminess, that actually makes sense.
Aside from that stretch where he got pretty choked up about the amount of stress he’d been under, I was surprised and relieved by just how happy and relaxed he sounded. Seems like this will ultimately be great for him and his family.
I have the impression Giantbomb’s audience has fallen for the last three years, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Jeff has tons of pressure on him.
I completely bailed with the Nextlander split, but even before that I had largely fallen off their West Coast content because the talks seemed increasingly focused on fighting games, multiplayer, and anime. Three things I have zero interest in. And I don’t fault them for it… it’s just my tastes fell increasingly out of line with the aggregate tastes of that staff.