Comment by rickreynoldssf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rickreynoldssf | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I'm an Ex-Engineering Manager at GameSpot & Giantbomb at CBS (2013-2016). All the stuff Dave mentioned was very much the same when I was there. The unit was always in trouble losing money quarter after quarter and focus was always on the ad sales. E3 was the biggest time for revenue and it was stressful in the lead up to it hoping we'd sign enough to keep things going. It got progressively worse each year. Towards the end of my tenure they were inflating video views given to ad buyers by including video views on other platforms like Facebook where we received no revenue at all and could place no ads. Also at the time Facebook considered a view when the video was visible on the feed for a second. The numbers were wildly inflated. And we were running ads from sketchy networks all the time, some of which were malicious.

A good part of the revenue eventually was generated by cheaply generated meme content while longer form, crafted content was suffering. I'm honestly surprised they're still going. I assumed Jeff would peel off with most of the Giant Bomb guys and start something new by now. All that's left there is the Giant Bomb personalities and even that's not enough to float GameSpot and the others. GameFaqs should probably go back to its original owner.

These days when I tell actual gamers I used to work on GameSpot, they always think I mean GameStop and then don't even know what GameSpot is. It is a pretty pointless thing now given you can watch any number of Twitch streams to see what any game is like and is worth playing.

...anyway I'm sure this was a fire sale of an asset CBS forced Red Ventures to take in order to get CNET. I'm also surprised it took this long for Red Ventures to dump it.

*Edit* Ok wow I did not realize the Giant Bomb as I knew it completely fell apart. So Jeff did leave as did Vinny and Brad and they are doing their own things now. I don't know anything about the new crew but I don't see how any can complete with even the most mediocre Twitch streamer.

> GameFaqs should probably go back to its original owner.

I remember when that sale first happened and the owner announced everything would stay the same. He would be running things, his stance on advertising wouldn't change, and so forth.

I'm not sure if anyone actually believed that, but from what I recall the original owner (forget his name) said he was making $80/year and the stress levels were way too high. No one was shocked when he left.

What I'll tell you is that I used to be a huge fan of gamefaqs and I still visit it from time to time, but after gamespot bought them I started using them less and less. I don't know that it was anything specific they did to the site, it may have simply been me changing through life. But I do know I used to frequent the GD&P (Game Design and Programming) boards over there and they're basically a ghost town now.

> What I'll tell you is that I used to be a huge fan of gamefaqs and I still visit it from time to time, but after gamespot bought them I started using them less and less

Same thing here. I wonder if it's just a change in my gameplay habits and getting older. Also modern games are for the most part very hand-holdy. And I usually have used Youtube to find clips to help me through difficult sections of games.

I think Gamefaqs is a relic of its time and today doesn't have a lot of relevance for a large portion of today's popular games.

There's exceptions of course (Elden Ring comes to mind) but these are few and far between.

I remember using gamefaqs to help me through the water section of Zelda: OOT. Today I'd probably watch a play through on Youtube and be constantly scrubbing the video to learn where to go next. Second best would be a community-moderated wiki walkthrough.

>I think Gamefaqs is a relic of its time and today doesn't have a lot of relevance for a large portion of today's popular games.

Part of this is because there's monetary incentives to produce walkthroughs (SEO farms, or even just random peoples' YouTube channels). The altruism of writing a .txt guide is gone.

Personally I stopped using GameFaqs after Gamespot bought them because I was not a fan of Gamespot's reviews at the time.

Not to distract from the major point but this is incorrect:

> Also at the time Facebook considered a view when the video was visible on the feed for a second

It was always 3s. That being said, if any of the video was in the viewport, it counted, which was nonsense.

> I assumed Jeff would peel off with most of the Giant Bomb guys and start something new by now.

Not sure if you saw, but Jeff did leave several months ago, and started a solo Patreon.

Oh... I did not know that. I don't follow the site any more. A week or two ago I saw what I thought was a recent clip with Jeff in it. Good for him!

I've been listening to his new podcast, and the move seems to have been really good for him. Giant Bomb seems like it had been really weighing him down for a long time.

this is part of what makes Giant Bomb being part of this sale kind of baffling—what value does the site even have anymore without the personalities that drove it to begin with? the site is fully theseus'd now, and sure there's still thousands and thousands of community-driven wiki pages, but has anyone cared about the wiki at all since at least the CBSi days of GB, if not earlier? "Giant Bomb" as a brand is utterly meaningless now, it's so strange to see it continue to change hands.

Also Vinny, Alex and Brad left last year to start their own thing (Nextlander)

I probably should clarify that GameSpot never intentionally ran malicious ads. We shut them down as soon as they were discovered and many people on staff were vigilant about finding them. It just goes to show the need to go to bottom barrel ad networks when we couldn't sign anything else.

> Towards the end of my tenure they were inflating video views given to ad buyers

Oh, so this is the likely reason for those autoplaying, sticky videos that are everywhere! The ad industry bubble should have collapsed by now, but somehow it keeps growing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com