That Red Ventures NY Times Article

I remember a couple years back there was a big thread because CBSI was running tracking cookies without consent, so I don't think much has changed on that front(use privacy badger and adblock). And this site isn't good with handling conflicting opinions about anything outside of actual video games so it's no wonder the thread probably got closed.

Mike Rougeau is leaving Gamespot and shares some departing thoughts on Red Ventures, contractors and Giant Bomb.

https://twitter.com/RogueCheddar/status/1433883867383885824

Today is my last day at GameSpot and in this field (and industry) in general. Therefore I will tweet some thoughts.

I enjoyed most of my time at GameSpot. But working in media for over a decade has overall been exhausting and soul-crushing and thankless.

Yes there are fun perks. But no amount of press trips, early access, and cool interviews can offset the toxicity of fandoms, the long hours, the marathon conventions, the house of cards that is various seo and social algorithms, and the endless acquisitions, re-orgs, and layoffs

The entire journalism industry is now totally dependent on a series of ever-shifting algorithms re-written weekly behind closed doors by a handful of giant tech companies that do not have anyone's best interest at heart. My entire job for years has been a game of whack-a-mole

What do we have to do to surface at the top of Google results? How do we need to format features so that Facebook serves them in more feeds? The answers change constantly and no one ever actually knows. Everything annoying about the "clickbait" you hate stems directly from this

Freelancing is harder than ever these days thanks to idiotic laws like California's AB5, which was meant to stop Uber and Lyft from exploiting workers, but from which those companies won exemptions because they spent a lot of money and voters are dumb

Meanwhile, every stable job I've ever had in this industry ended or became needlessly miserable because of short-sighted leadership, needless corporate shuffling, or entire teams of humans being traded from one company to another like Pokemon cards

GameSpot under CBS was good--we had issues like any website owned by a giant corporation but it usually felt like we were on a positive trajectory overall. GameSpot under Red Ventures has been not good. We have utterly stagnated since the acquisition last year.

Most of Giant Bomb's founders leaving a while back was big news, but GS losing 15-20 team members in the past eight months was too gradual for anyone to really notice. And that's not counting the initial layoffs. By the way, none of those positions were ever backfilled.

My biggest point of contention over the past year+ hasn't been the all-consuming shift to monetization via commerce (since ads no longer make money), or even the toxic fandoms whose entitlement ballooned during the pandemic. It's the way contractors are treated in this industry

I was once shouted down by an exec in a town hall meeting for suggesting that the practice of "testing" individuals by forcing them to work as full-time contractors for up to two years before considering them for a staff position was maybe not great. And this was PRE Red Ventures

When people are treated like boxes in a spreadsheet instead of, you know, people, watching their co-workers drop like flies, the team shrinking and shrinking while still being expected to remain competitive in a fast-moving industry and continuously grow, well

I write all this because I leave behind many people who I genuinely love at GameSpot, including my direct boss, who hired me four years ago and who remains great, and the team I had under me, who are passionate and smart and work harder than is healthy and deserve much better

GameSpot was easily the best and most stable job in my whole career--until it wasn't. But I have hope that things can improve. Please support journalists and websites that do good work, pay for things when you can, call out bullshit when you see it, and don't be an asshole.

Posting this here since I feel it lines up with the NY Times article. Curious what others think about this.

He is saying nothing at all about Giant Bomb except mentioning the name in passing. I don't follow Gamespot like I don't follow any other traditional games review sites so I don't see why I should care about this. It sounds like it sucked over there but Internet media has been on this trajectory for a long time already.

I'd point to the section where he says no positions of the people who left were ever filled again, that could transition over to GB if it's a RV management style that precludes hiring. Who knows? His opinion is only one data point and as many posters have already said everyone can decide to unsub or leave if the site isn't what they like anymore. To those who have posted that they are staying on as a sub great but by the same token I believe others like myself who have decided to stop subbing can have a voice as well without being told to be quiet and leave via the backdoor.

Yeah so I have worked in digital marketing and content marketing for a long time. This is exactly how all commercial websites work ( I would suspect it was no different during CBS days).

From a professional standpoint, I am actually really impressed with RV content. My current company is an SEO competitor for one of their sites (healthline) and just a really solid health content website.

I cant tell you how to spend your money, but I think that RV seems to be giving GB some more love and attention than CBS.

This thread is the utter personification of the 'This is fine" dog.

@apewins: I mean it should be a little worrying that a sister site owned by the same company and as far as We know, also managed by Jeff Bakalar, has people getting laid off, leaving in droves and generally being left out to dry. If your next door neighbors house is on fire you probably wouldn’t just roll over and say “well not my house!”

While I’m not saying this will spill over to GB right away, it is a tad worrying in the long run.

@humanity: This is like the third time GS has laid of entire swaths of their staff since they were owned by CBS. From what we've seen of history GS and GB have always been separate aside from the fact that GS sometimes came over to chill. This "new development" sucks for GS but I still have yet to see what this has to do with GB.

@fugoy: I didn't realize GameSpot has had three massive layoffs up to this point. The only real buffer between GameSpot and Giant Bomb is the subscription model. I'm certain GS has a lot more traffic on the site itself but since ad revenue isn't a real thing anymore that probably doesn't count for much these days. Although I do wonder about their traffic. When GB streams there is at least a thousand people watching on Twitch - which is pretty interesting by itself since most people watch through the website because they never monitor Twitch chat. When GameSpot streams even some big events you will typically find maybe 100 people watching their Twitch channel.

To answer the question of what GS situation has to do with GB? In the short term not much, but it would be very optimitic to look at how a big company is handling one of their two recently acquired gaming sites and think they will continue to exist as completely disparate entities in perpetuity. They both belong to the same "division" and in big companies budgets are established by entire sectors, and then later broken down. The performance of one will definitely influence the other.

Even IGN has trouble keeping their employees from leaving so it's not surprising that GameSpot has it even worse.

Whether it's 3 days from now or 3 years from now, GB will have no problem gaining financial support from fans if they happen to leave RV, so I say take as much money for as long as possible from the corporation. RV subsidizing their operation results in a relatively cheap $3 or $5 a month for fans. Nextlander's Patreon tiers (where the good stuff starts at $10 a month) is a preview of what GB could charge in the future if they go down that same path (although I personally believe Jeff could also just go with only a single $5 a month option because he doesn't want to deal with the friendship simulator stuff associated with paying more money).

Not really surprised here. If anything it sounds like RV are willing to help finance a site well enough for the beneficiaries to take a real shot at their aspirations, kind of like what’s going on here at GB and also probably CNET where they are increasing hiring. The other side of all this though is that at the end of the day RV wants to make money so they may come down hard on these subsidiaries if they don’t end up delivering.

Jeff G and Jeff B have a lot on their plate to make this happen and I wish them the best. Personally though, in the long term I’ll probably hop off the GB train because if it wasn’t for GrubbSnax I would think that there’s nothing the new GB has for me anymore apart from the usual Bombcasts

I don't really care about my data being sold, that's just public information. Like walking down the street and someone pays someone else to find out what kind of clothes I was wearing. The part that bothers me is when my experience is different from other users. But most of that's ad-based and I try to block all the ads I can anyway. I'm generally okay with algorithms for sites like Youtube and TikTok and Netflix.

The fact that since the RV acquisition GB has lost every editorial position other than Jeff G (and that includes Abby and Ben leaving soon after the news) with no replacements anywhere on the horizon and you don't see this as a "new development" for GB? Spare me the standard "give them time, things are in flux atm" argument as I feel they have had plenty of time to rearm the staff if that was their intent. Months and months have passed with no additions to the permanent staff (other than non-gamer focused Jeff B). contractors of course have been hired (again mostly non-gaming content) but that wasn't what I at least envisioned when there was talk of the "new direction of GB" YMMV.

My last comment was before I read that excerpt from Mike's tweet. A lot of that lines up with where I saw Gamespot going. They've been going down the algorithm rabbit hole for a while now chasing FB and YT eyeballs. It would be hard to scale up GB in a similar fashion and it truly looks like it's really the subscription model that is keeping the dream alive on this side of the fence which is why they are going to try to pump out new "shows" to keep justifying the subscription.

Long term though I'm extra worried about what will happen and the more info about the overlords that comes out the more smarter the Nextlander folks continue to look, at least to me they do. I really hope GB starts adding more content that grabs my attention.

Also didn't they all talk about putting together some sort of office situation again, or did I just make that up from a hopeless fever dream?

I don't see how that can happen when Jeff B is in NJ, Jeff G is in Canada, Jason in GA, and Jan in CA.

And I'm getting less optimistic with each passing month on the crew being frank about what's going on here maybe because the corp probably would intervene.

:(

I don't have quite the same hostility about it, but yes, I find it concerning that there is just no update on new permanent (editorial) staff at all.

The Jeff B branch of GB seems pretty clear; we're seen the first round of "hey freelancers, pitch me a premium series idea" and how that looks. Some hit, some miss, up to your preference.

The Jeff G branch of GB that covers current video games with permanent staff is still operating at like 20%, just limping across the finish line each week with the bare minimum of Bombcast and UPF and 1 other video. Prepping the Bombcast is hours of work, between looking up news stories, sifting through hundreds of dumb emails, etc., not trying to downplay it, I get that it's just Jeff/Jan/Jason stretched thin. But like, what's the update since May? Recruiting people takes time, but there aren't even indirect implications from Jeff that they're really starting to consider candidates or they have someone in mind or anything, or RV web devs are working around the clock to rebuild the website.

I get that GBeast are probably not positions they're replacing, but at least picking up some editorial to make up for Ben and Brad would return the staff to non-skeleton levels. Are editorial additions happening as DMs to other industry veterans, is it going to be an open job posting like that one time, etc.? Are there any plans to have a studio post-Covid, or is that right out the window with Jason and Jeff G not in the SF area? Is the content going to be somewhat the same just with new staff, or are they wildly rebuilding the format/website to shake things up? Are they even going to hire anyone by the end of this year, are we just sailing into 2022 with still only Jeff/Jan/Jason as permanent on-camera staff?

I just think the complete lack of any communication or hint of an update to the audience about the Jeff G/editorial half of the website is absolutely wild. Vinny/Brad/Alex left the site in May, and at the time (or maybe it was in early June when they announced the freelancer shows) Jeff had his analogy about how hard it is to change the tires while the car is moving. So he acknowledged that for once they'd take more of a pause to really work on rethinking covering video games instead of just grind grind grind the same video content since like 2012 every week. My outside guess for that pause was really more in the range of 2-4 months, but apparently not, so what are we looking at? 6 months? 9 months? 12?

I know Giant Bomb premium isn't some kind of Patreon where direct interaction/involvement is expected if you pay enough money, but for the price of GB premium I would at least expect the tiniest bit of transparency every few months about where things are at. I'm not mad, I'm more stunned that like "Wow, on the retention side, can you actually retain premium subscribers with this little communication?"

@otterchaos: It's been a couple months at this point with the new direction, please just leave already. If you can't see the actual layout of the situation at GB as opposed to GS instead of trying to justify why the GB you used to like isn't the same anymore cause of RV then I don't really want to discuss this.

@bisonhero: In the last garage stream Jeff was pretty clear that he was going to make a new team of permanent hires. So it’s on the plate, but I don expect it to happen before the end of the year.

And while it sucks, I think it’s important to remember that GB/Jeff has never really been in a hurry to replace people. We’ve seen with Ryan, Drew, Patrick, etc. that this often takes like a year.

Adding onto this. As someone from Florida I can see why there isn't exactly a rush to get into the studio that is in a densely populated area. Especially when Jeff has a newborn and oh yeah the rest of his family. I know there are other places that are coming back in person but there's always that risk and I can't blame someone for not wanting to take that.

@dragon_puncher: Also it might've been the same stream where he talked about how acquisitions are a slow process and while the news had been out there for a while some CBS stuff was just being migrated to RV.

Hiring isn't a quick process at the best of times, and we all, as far as I know, don't have insight into when they found out if they had budget to hire new people, what that budget was, and when they'd get access to it.

So, while I am empathetic towards people who are wishing there was more/clear communication on the matter, the fact that Jeff seems confident at some point they'll be able to hire is good enough for me.

Giantbomb is just another one of those late stage post capitalist sites. It's like going to the shopping mall you used to love but is now mostly empty and half full of short term popup stalls selling seasonal goods and scented candles.

There are plenty of other you tube sites who either do it as a side gig or through patreon and if you jump between them there is plenty of good material. Red Vulture killed the site and by watching it still you are supporting the kind of employment processes they support. I am against that , it sucks in my experience, the guys at the top staying in the steady employment club and as for the rest , they just have to take it. The Bomb is for those that don't care now.

@emospacemonkey: All of this and yet you keep coming back lol.

Sure, telling the subbie to clear it just because he's voicing his own concerns about a site he's contributing to is a great way to foster long term growth. No wonder these forums are so anemic.

@emospacemonkey: only replying to point out that the phrase, "late stage post-capitalist" whatever sounds silly when capitalism isn't going anywhere. The internet is just fast approaching a subscribe to everything environment because ad dollars are all being sucked up into FB, YouTube/Google, and Amazon while ad-blockers are being used nearly everywhere.

Look man these guys have been saying for months they're unsubbing and not wanting to watch GB anymore. This isn't a new thing. These forums have been anemic ever since covid btw. The only threads that gained traction were the 20th thread of "DAE feel like GB is dead???". At least we have content now.

@fugoy:

I've already pointed out that I have cancelled my subscription from renewal but since I supported the site with an annual sub I remain a paying customer until April so regardless of your desire for me to leave because I view the situation different to you I'll ignore your demand.

My opinion of the GS/GB parallels is pulled from his statement that no hires were made to replace departed personal and while GB has a different business model to GS there have been no hires to replace lost people there eitther.

And I think the overall rebuttal since this thread started, is still the same. This is an industry-wide trend across all of media and not just the big tentpole video game press websites. I give credit to the people who worked at GS over the years, and I respect them enjoying their time working there during the CBS era, but large swaths of video game media consumers have been switching to personality-driven Twitch and YouTube accounts for years. RV's response to this is to adapt to a model that has already been replicated by its competitors, especially ZiffDavis.

@fugoy: These forums have been anemic for a lot longer than the beginning of COVID and I wouldn't even say that was a big contributing factor to it. There was a large exodus of users a long time ago from which the site never recovered, then there was the site redesign which went poorly from which the site is still recovering years later. Now the whole RV buyout, Vinny, Brad and Alex leaving and change in direction has been the biggest nail in the coffin. It doesn't help that you make a thread about a newly released game and get maybe 20 replies if you're lucky when other more active forums will have 10+ pages of discussion on any new release. The community side of GB has been dying a slow death by a thousand papercuts stemming all the way back to the removal of quests and all that. Features have been slowly disappearing without anything new being put in their place. Embiggen is still broken. The forums are wonky and definitely not up to modern standards.

I used to post a ton on these forums because I like the format more than Discord or something like Reddit. These days I still post somewhat regularly but more and more it seems like you're just shouting into a void.

If there's one thing that tells me about a site's health, it's absolutely their forums.

@fugoy: so, poor?

@nickm: I thought it was dead for you? Is it dead or poor pick one Mr. Class action.

I think it says a lot that people would rather stamp their feet about being paying customers or hand-wring about GB content than express concern over the treatment of workers and how busted it is to make a living in media.

@fugoy: dead health?

This thread only got jumpstarted because of a twitter thread that was sorta related but really just used to justify again why people are unsubbing or why GB is dying. Jeff had a great garage stream talking about what video game media even looks like now and honestly it's just trying to make the best out of an evolving industry. It sucks what happened with GS but it's becoming less and less of a site that's necessary for coverage and the name is absolutely not what it once was in 90s and 2000s.

lol