Saving Games Journalism With Giant Bomb

Media.

Hello, and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host ed zitron. As a reminder, you can now by shirts, hoodies, and even mugs in our merchandise store. There's a link in the notes. God damn it, give me money. I need you to wear the shirt.

For me today.

I'm joined by the new owners of gaming site Giant Bomb, Jeff Backlar, Jeff grub and Dan Reikert Fellas. Welcome to the show.

It's pronounce fair trying, okay, all right, yeah, okay, I'll speak.

I definitely on an interview a few days ago, miss said my own name and miss said better I was like a better off ship. And Matt Sawski, my producer, regularly hears these things, so that's always fun. But congratulations, by the way, So walk me through, Dan, perhaps walk me through what happened. So there was some filing in and out from Giant Bomb, and then you guys kind of took it over.

Yeah, so's I started the longest ago in like twenty fourteen. So in terms of how the recent stuff went down, I think the jeffs here Fellaws tell me if I'm wrong. I feel like you maybe have had some more time on the phone lawyer.

I like watching this guy sweat.

Let's exactly.

I just wanted to make sure I didn't I'm not like, oh yeah, this work. You know, It's like I just kind of fell into this. No, Jeff and Jeff left Fandom, our previous parent company, and as part of the deal, were able to buy Giant Bomb and are bringing in you know, me Jana Choa or longtime producer and our good friend Mike Manatti who has been trying to be full time at Giant Bomb for a long time and he completely skipped full time and went straight from contractor to co owner.

Of the websites.

Yes, yes, so yeah, long history of corporate ownership and you know, digging back to two thousand and eight and you know, four different owners basically, and now I guess we are the fifth group.

Nice, So what is the new structure? So you guys are all the owners, You're going to be doing the same kind of games journalism you're already doing. I know that the YouTube channel went offline. Is it coming back?

Yeah?

Yeah, we were streaming of YouTube just right before we came here. Yeah, we were doing our black club shows. So right now the structure looks like are we getting all the stuff from fandom that we need and they've been very helpful and that stuff. But it's like just kind of getting the keys to everything. And then there is a whole other process of us getting a business started because this wasn't like us necessarily buying the business.

It's weird as well, because it's like both one of the most depressing times in games journalism history, I'm one of the most encouraging because the amount of layoffs are horrifying, but you and Atamath have really come out of well, I don't want to say nowhere, because it's been quite public and chaotic. You kind of seem to be building a new model for journalism writ large.

Yeah, well, yeah, I think like the thing that the lesson everyone learned they learned like ten years ago, where the sort of like contemporary understanding of games media or really any media you know that covers some sort of entertainment is probably not compatible with what a corporation would need out of that in terms of like revenue expectations and just you know, filing in in a way that makes sense.

And that's fine.

And I think you know what this with the with the Aftermath Experiment and all these other sort of independent journalistic entities have sort of shown is that this can work with a private sort of consideration of ownership as opposed to you know, just having it be another asset in the corporate media portfolio. Right that, And I think the value that these types of entities present make a lot more sense right under the guise of private ownership than they do, you know, under the umbrella.

So kind of yeah, it kind of feels as well like games journalism gets pulled in very hard by these big private equity. I'm not specifically referring to any of them, just to be clear, these large entities by them because I imagine they're traffic drivers, and there's always news and there's always kind of such traffic coming in games and.

Guides and stuff like that. These things have been honed to be SEO, you know, sort of machines for a long time. The people who've been in charge of them have once understood that to be very important. Now, of course, like Google has made things very complicated for a lot of sites that built their sites in one way and now they have to shift and no one really understands

Now.

I guess the public understanding is bound Net approached Vox Media about polygon, and I asked them about it like some time ago, and have been trying to make this happen since then. Vox wasn't necessarily shopping around, but it became the target of that because it does have this traffic. It has this built in if you search for something, there's a good chance Polygon is going to serve it to you in the video game space. And yeah, so these kind of equity firms they spot this and they

And that's why this.

Other model of us coming and being like we're gonna own it ourselves and we're gonna have a direct relationship with the with the audience.

That kind of is the only ground to retreat to at this point.

We are either going to keep having this stuff because we're all in it together, as hopy as that sounds, or we're just not gonna have it at all.

Those are the options now.

Yeah, it's also I think it's important to call out that, like, there does exist a type of person that I think we all sort of slot into in this goldilock zone that has sat on both sides of the sort of influential divide, where you know, we all began our careers in a very kind of like I don't maybe not antiquated is not the right word, but certainly a traditional sort of like media and and and publisher relationship into the relationship.

I worked I work CVG.

Yeah, yeah, and let's be honest, we're not that old, right, Like we're you know, we're as young exactly. We see, maybe we we sit in this very weird sort of like like I said, this Goldilocks zone where we're like, we understand what came before, what happened during, and now

And that goes back to you know, the founding of Giant Bomb in two thousand and eight, because it was four guys that broke off from game Spot, you know, more traditional web based gaming media and formed this very personality focused thing, you know, like kind of in the early days of YouTube gaming personalities and things like that. But it did come from that, yeah, institutional knowledge, people that had worked you know, et threes dating back to

I met one of the saddest things to me was watching PC zone collapse. It was the magazine I worked to, the Games and Magazina worked to in England, and in a different, different time, I think they would have come together, we would have come together and done something. But two thousand and eight was when that happened. I was moving to America as well, but that was Future publishing Bolton fuck Future, yeah shit, yeah, well they're gonna do to me, And.

They repeatedly kind of do that stuff to people say yeah, fuck for real real quick on that. Like I remember thinking, like back when that was happening in two thousand and eight, when e GM and one Up was collapsing, It's like it had the one Up Yours podcast kind of lasted a few more years. They all could have easily just transitioned that into a podcast with ads for one thing, and then a direct to customer supported a way of doing things on the other hand, and that really would

The problem is with podcasts is, as you well know, like monetizing them is very difficult. I mean, people complain about the ads here being on the iHeart Radio. I mean it works great because cool Zone Media and I Heart leaves us alone fairly, but people complain about the ads.

Let's talk about that loudu narrative dissonance.

Yeah, fuck, like the start of Polygon press reset type stuff.

Yeah, well, explain that for the listeners because it sucks, but they should know.

You talk about that, the Polygon thing or.

Go ahead, dan Oh, it's just like games media going back to like you know, EGM and Game in Former, like the magazines of the nineties, to like the early you know, web based ign games by stuff. It was just you know, we we were repairing press releases, and it's like news stories were basically like there's a new box art for Assassin screen.

Game have, Yeah, yeah, exactly, You're getting.

More levels this time, like that type of stuff. So it's like that's why I even back when I started never considering myself a journalist, because I realized it's just like, Okay, I'm just kind of reporting on silly things here and giving a score to a game and things like that.

I think that there's something marvelous about that with games journalism. It's the way there's because I don't they'll write and geta especially over there is written like very long form, thoughtful emotional pieces. I think that that's what's I want to say missing because it's happening. But that's what makes game journalism great. You can have stuff. It was just

Yeah.

I think there's very much room for both because I remember, like when Polygon was starting in like you know, probably like the twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen whenever that was, and they were very much, you know, banging the drum of like we are doing serious games journalism and telling human stories and it's gonna be this emotional, deep stuff. And I remember looking at that and be like, I don't know how the fuck to do that. If I can tell you if never did, is any good? You know?

Yeah, and I enjoy in both.

I definitely remember growing up in like reading EGM or Game Players and being like, man, the people who are in this magazine, they have a lot of personality and they clearly fill every page with that, and I like

A lot of games are.

Silly and stupid and wouldn't be fun if we took that seriously, and I really enjoyed that aspect.

Of my job.

Yeah, And CVG used to have this kind of yellow it was. I don't know if you ever physically read an issue of Computer Video Against magazine it's original, but they had this middle section that was in like almost like yellow Pages style and it was just rambling shit. It was beautiful. It's like games. Genuinely, I was blues off like two years ago, and like games were the one thing that I could bond with people over because it didn't require you to be anyone, Like I played

I mean, the real sad thing with Polygon is they didn't make any of those mistakes when people saw the layoffs snow like, oh that's a lot of people. It's like they were successful and profitable and could have kept growing, but they had a very sort of like moderate take on Okay, yeah we could, but let's just keep all this sustainable and a lot of that goes down to the leadership of Chris Plant, who I just admire so much.

Fronament, So here's some money.

It's fucking books. I didn't know they were profitable. Yeah, it's so infuriated. It was a successful business, I think. Is not how I would phrase it.

It's so fucking stupid because I feel like these outlets could on some level, maybe not a ton print money, but they there are tons of gamers who love reading stuff. Sure like it sounds like Publican had a sustainable operation. IGN is insane. I don't know, I do. I don't know how many people work. Ign Igen breaks on my phone. I don't know. If you've tried to look at nign guide. Sometimes if you scroll too fast, it just goes not sorry mate.

Yeah, I mean, I know that so many sites now could be.

Your own.

Yeah. Yeah, it just goes to the top or pops up the thing and the accident and clicked the wrong thing. Yeah, I hate that.

Yeah, the Internet sucks.

Now really this is as much.

As is show about that.

But a lot of those a lot of those sites are are not there's there's it's tough to really say that they all have agency in a way that you want, right, And I think everything becomes this Frankensteinian creation of like uh uh, you know, sort of meshing it with other properties that sit alongside as sister companies, and you're just never going to have that organic uh feeling.

I do think you're right.

I think the Polygon example is good because it was sort of like the semblance of like, oh this does feel sort of vacuum sealed off in a way that that works, and everyone there, you know, really doing a tremendous job. But for the most part, whenever you see a lot of these massive, behemoth legacy media sites, they are just the is you know, a vultron creation that doesn't really allow for that amount of agency that you know, I think the spirit of all those sites wants to.

Be Yeah, and I think the like I've said earlier, that kind of the obvious victim of any kind of acquisition partner, because it's just you can turn them into a slop shop and the immediately killed them, immediately killed them.

Right, And that's what the Internet's allowed for, right, And I know that's like, that's what I read what you say, like you you always have it spot on at is like that is like we are just sort of like willfully watching the death of everything and calling it out and just being like, yeah, that's the that's the next ship that came into the harbor filled with ghosts, and we're just gonna watch it continue on its way down to its next port of call.

And that's it. It's just this parade of dead websites and dead Internet.

And you're familiar, familiar with the Tony Oaks pro skater games, right, So I was watching I was trying to read story on Kataka the other day.

I can't remember what it was about, but it did.

It took me to a video instead, and there was a man talking over the video and he kept calling it thhps, thhps, and I'm like, I don't think i've ever heard anyone say that before, and then it's like, oh, I I'm listening to an AI voice. Of course I am, of course interesting, yes, because he did it every time in the same thhps thhps.

Yeah, no one says that.

No one said that, So I'm just like, that's of course, that's they all think they're going to be able to do that. That's the story we're gonna have to keep telling over and over about what's happening with all these websites and these equity firms coming in here.

And I mean, of course I get turned off.

I think most of the audience probably does get turned off when they experienced that, right, because the one thing about games and Stephen Spahn, who is an accessibility expert in the space, he used to tell me like, why why do I want to play video games?

He's like, it's a currency.

It's a social currency where I play something that I get to talk to someone else about it and we get to share something.

We have a connection.

I mean, you said the one thing you could bond over with people these video games. I think we all get that at the very fundamental level. And so these corporations trying to find a way to take that out of there so they could save some money is obviously just going to blow up in their faces.

They just don't know why. Am Yeah.

And I actually think it could go the other way though, which is as we get more independent gaming outlets. I think that there could be real success there because I think that that's what people want to like. There is definitely a degree of hunger for when is a game coming out, in the same way that people google when the super Bowls come in. Of course, when the super Bowls coming out. When the super Bowl's happening, there we go.

It was it was it was utility.

You were doing utility work, right as opposed to personality work.

That's kind of how it works with like the old preview system with magazines is because like you weren't supposed to since the game wasn't out yet, you know. But I remember I went to like an Xbox One pre launch event thing and I played Rise Son of Rome. Oh remember, was just thinking it was like I think the headline I used was like, oh, it's as fun as dialing a phone number because it's just like waiting for something to turn red. Then he pressed the red button.

Then it just sucks, calling it Microsoft snack.

Yeah.

Yeah, So I wrote that, and it was like it had a negative tone, and the game was about to come out in like three weeks, and it's like and I kind of said, like, this seems like it might suck in the preview, and I remember like both like comments and stuff and people at work being like, well, WHOA can't have this much like opinion in a preview.

It's like I think I can.

This is gonna kind of suck, you know.

Yeah, there's no no rules there.

I remember when Mark McDonald over at EGM said he played two Human and said it's gonna be terrible, and Dennis Diak like insisted on coming on their podcast and talking to him about it, and like scolded him and said, you're gonna regret everything you said when you played the final version.

Were rude of the day that you insulted to humans.

I don't think.

I don't think he ruled anything Jesus Christ.

But this is even this conversation is what is fun about games journalism because even a shit game, you have the kind of horse trading like shit.

Do you remember that terrible preview?

I I do genuinely miss this about games journalism, like it's the one. It's probably I miss it more than the writing about the games, because backupece he's done. We had like logs, Steve Hogerty Will Porter, we had all sorts of like fun other people like Ryan, all the people from the mag who just yell at you. And I think that and actually I'm curious your thoughts about this. I think what this industry also needs to do is rebuild the solidarity because it was quite There was quite

Then yes, well, I'm curious to hear where you think like the friction primarily lies.

I think what it is is that so many people have been hired, fired, hired fired, so many people have left games journalism, gone into pr and then the people that own these companies have stopped even being the classic like Fortune as Fortune Future or Dennis Publishing. It's the people. So you've always had ign as this kind of thing over here, this juggernaut, and then remote work to an extent as well, has done it too. It's just there's

Sure.

I mean, that's absolutely been my primary thought that pops in my head throughout this entire experience, is we really are in this together, and that I mean, when I say us that we're in this together, I am thinking about the other people who are in this creator driven space. So kind of Funny's been super supportive and helping us out and giving us pointers and stuff like that. The guys over at next Lander have been pointing out Dan

On Gailey Do the Daily Show. I'm gonna do it.

I'm probably gonna I'm probably gonna misrepresent it. But it was like moral ambition was the name of the book, and it was this idea of you should in the system that we have have ambition to try to do big things, cool things, try to go make money. That's fine, But when confronted with a fork in the road about hey, I could do this or I could do that in that moment, go with the one that feels the most

Riff that you're talking about a little bit. I don't know.

We're not going to be able to get back to people who are reactionaries that have turned to right wingers on YouTube.

And they were never part of it exactly. So we just got to focus on the words that are there.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, And there's a lot of people who are right there ready to listen again.

We just got to like let them know it's cool in here again. Yeah.

I think we need to get back to the lots of smaller teams. I think because absolutely, I'm actually really glad you corrected me. I thought Polygon was that they grew too big. That was just the assumption I made, which was incorrect, clearly not. Yeah, not what I've heard from anyone that I've talked to. Yeah, it sucks because I was originally they talked to me at the beginning of Polygon. I was in PR at the time, and they're like, yeah, do you want to come over here?

Like probably in the beginning for sure, but they definitely kind of figured out out over time.

Oh no, No, they no, they genuinely they wanted to need to do PR. I think it's just McElroy and it's I think that the future is going to be lots of smaller ones. I think the games as well. There is less competition because it's not like scoop heavy. I guess you could play a game first, but at that point you're just you played the game. Like.

I still think there's a semblance of that, and there is, but.

It's not like compared to getting a massive funding announcement in tech or like a breakdown technology.

You're sure sure, like a partnered embargo thing I.

Mean, yeah, still competition certainly, but you're right, like there's like everyone is small. That's what the landscape is. And it's the reckoning of corporate media. Having this realization of like, our competition is thirty thousand small independent creators and how do we how do we like come to terms with that in a way that will satisfy what we need this thing to do?

Answers.

Yeah, and the answer is no, one knows how to do it because probably there is no answer. So that realization, that epiphany, which I think everyone has to have, like for themselves at one point in their life, you know, kind of lends you to why you know, things like this wind up happening.

And I think that there's also the problem of all of these big entities buying things and draining all the personality out is it's replaced all the personality with people on YouTube that post pictures of themselves frowning and saying the dragon age just got woke in it or whatever.

Oh that we got to take those pictures of us frowning guys.

Yeah, right, based organization.

H I got to work on my pointing.

Like the the and this is this is a reference as well, just to any listeners is like Uber Driver sucked me off, and it was like the Rob Whisman picture. Anyone who doesn't know what that is. I swear it's not just me talking about that.

But if my favorite is the Undertaker got a podcast not too long ago and seeing the Undertaker do YouTube faces is.

Yeah, that's so special.

It comes for everyone.

But we need the opinion, like we do actually need the opinion back. It's just the gaming online. I feel like a loss dropper out of nonm sometimes because it's like gaming online is like, oh you don't like fucking Sonica Mario, I will kill you, Yeah, yep, you insult Bubbsey the Bob can't?

I will?

Yeah, well I can, and I have.

You know, fanboyism is a currency for sure. And I think like that argument of position, as much as it sucks, right, is a thing that probably too many people are finding the worst things about themselves and placing it into the energy of that discourse online. And you know, I think that's what probably you know, separates for my personal taste what I want to watch and what is out there. And I think, uh, you know the fact that you you know, I think like personality is another former currency.

Yeah, we were in that question, like where's the Lester bangs and video games journalism? That was part of that new gamesjournalism thing, and it's like it did happen.

It was probably Donkey Like it's probably.

Big YouTuber like just kind of does funny talking over gameplay and he's got a pretty good eye and.

He probably thought he was Yeah, but yeah, and I mean.

Yazi is definitely part of that lineage for sure.

Video game nerd, video game YouTube guy.

I saw yeah, yep, yeah, I And I like Yatse's original stuff. I really don't want to look what's happened since it's one of those things where I hope nothing bad happened.

Yeah, you know, a Yachtzi is still kind of doing his thing. I think he's over as second win now, which is a Patreon back thing.

It's h yeah, it's and I think that every time the ground is seated away from personality, it is kind of fitting into the right wing type people though, because the right way it isn't like you get a bunch of clicks just for being nice or loving stuff, right, I mean.

Yeah, it's very easy.

I think it's very easy for people who are able to make that pivot into hate currency and hate juicing where they're just like, oh my, like I can easily hate on things and use that as ammunition and weaponize this, and that becomes my primary mode of revenue generation. I can pick a target, juice it for all it's worth, like a cancer, and then move on to my next victim. And as long as I'm able to like just you know, jump onto the next melting iceberg, I'm gonna be okay.

In this past week, there was one of these creators who was and someone like screenshot I didn't posted the Blue Sky or whatever, him complaining that his video she does about one individual woman video games journalist no longer get very many hits for months and months and months, He's like, this was my whole business now I'm not making any money.

It's my whole business.

He's like explicitly saying, woe is me, I'm not making money from harassing this person anymore.

It was one of the most insane things I've ever.

Seen to turn it into a conspiracy, and you say, oh, I've been shadow band over an algorithm against me because of course, of course, Yeah, I know what. All these creators seem very very happy too.

That's the one thing about it. Yeah, they all seem very.

Okay, take a good line of work, very normal and happy with the lie.

Yeah, they don't seem to health get for that. They they only genuinely don't seem to like playing video games on the computure.

So nope. I mean they could just do it, and they always choose not to.

No, we get to look at everything through the lens of like, okay, what's the angle on getting people pissed off about this? And that sounds exhausting and miserable.

That stuff is a little bit of low tide right now.

I mean that stuff did pop off again in the last few years, but it didn't last as long. Everyone kind of saw through it, and now you are seeing people who were probably pretty young and impressionable in like twenty fourteen, when the original gamer Gate stuff was happening, talking about man, I wish I just didn't click on that one video is telling me all the things that all the ways that feminism was ruined video games, Like I could see now that that was a bad choice in the path of my life.

I wish I wouldn't have done that. I wasted years.

And it's like these kids are growing up and seeing stuff in like the next generation will be a little bit more cynical about that going forward, I think, But it's always going to be there and they're always going to be trying to it. Reality is, if they do it and they get rewarded, the algorithm is built to reward them. It's going to keep happening no matter what, as long as.

That's the case.

See what always pissed me off about that, Other than all the hate and the getting people angry in the attacks on journalism. On top of all of that, they don't seem angry at the fucking games companies were actually making the realness. Put aside the made up sexism or made up misandry. It's all bullshit, not even going to humor it. I don't know. Look at the fact that NFL has given one company, Electronic Arts, this one game, Madden,

When there was good competition, and they're like, oh, crap, we better lock this down.

And they did. Yeah, yep, they did, they did. And that feels like something. I'm not saying they should be a hate campaign against anything, but maybe if you're going to do one, choose an actual giant company doing horrible ship.

Yeah, they because they don't care that. That's not what they're interested in, right, Like, that is not the story for them. The story has to be deeply personal and accessible. I don't I think you know. An expose about that is is uh is like sort.

Of boring in a way to you know where it leads.

It leads you to the thing. As always it's like, oh, the whole capitalist system. Rightly, these are all symptoms and that is not going to help them with them trying to sell this idea that you're isolated because the feminists want you isolated.

Yeah, you're right, Yeah, because you're isolated because the system, the system you're within, has kept you separate from people.

They're all walkable.

Cities, right, there's content to entaglea. It's woman.

Yeah, that's it. It all comes to that.

Yeah, in our space, it's women in uh, you know, common politics, it's immigrants, it's it's yeah, always the scapegoat.

Yeah, well it's the son of a woman and an immigrant. I think.

No, I guess the father of daughters was.

The line from Spider Verse as well as like as the son of a mother and the father of a daughter. But it's I do have hope seeing Giant Bomb do what you do. When the bad stuff happened, I was definitely like games journalism's fucked, Like this is just like polygon everything, just like look at it. Just was very dark about it. But like, actually, I feel like there is an independent wave happening and there are so many like amazing creators like Lucy James of course former Giant Bomb.

Yeah, I mean, I think everyone likes that. It's because it's a good story. It's a it's a good story with you know, I don't want to call in a happy ending, right, but a very like, you know, a positive way, a positive outcome of a thing that seemed to not have any realistically happy you know, turnout.

And then and it came from like the fact that the audience was so excited. It's like, oh, you know, they wanted to do that thing to keep going. We're able to keep it going. It's so yeah, you can match that up and make that makes sense, and it feels like that should be a business.

And we all agreed, yeah.

Yeah, And the tone of our conversations internally, you know, you go to a month ago versus how we're talking now, which is like, oh my god, it is a world different. We've got optimism and you know, we're always passionate and everything, but now it just really feels like we're free to to directly make this stuff the audience wants.

Yep.

Yeah, but I think you're right.

I think that I think you're right about an independent sort of wave happening because I think, you know, I don't I'm not a big like fate or or you know destiny person But what I am is that Yeah, well obviously, but but I think like on a long enough timeline, you have you know, doors that open that allow the sort of like spread up a thing that people kind of want to put their energy into and

Uh.

And I can be you know, super jazzed about that, especially in the manner did I would like it of not to have had to happen so quickly.

I wish maybe I had.

Another week or two where Grub and I could have handed this plane. But yeah, it it is definitely a bright future in that regard for sure.

Yeah, And it's I also think that I don't know, personality is profitable. I think that there's real It requires patience, which private equity does not like. But like cool zide media, we've done pretty well giving people a runway to not fuck up but love them. What you're doing. I feel like you guys haven't. I's a question though, so it's just you. How many people are you right now? So it's usually and a few other five people? Are you

Yeah, I mean the reality is like Backler's right, this stuff came together so fast that we don't really have insight into what like our own personal financial futures look like.

With this thing.

We have an idea, we feel pretty okay about it, but it's like, you know, we're going to keep pushing to try to grow because as fast as we can grow, or as many as many people as we can get to support it, we can then begin to look at doing other things of bringing other people on. But it's it is scary, and so we want to try to figure out as much as we can on our own so we could be solid and then all of the

Right, it's like like you said, like, we haven't even seen the first dollar yet. You know, we we have no idea what to expect in terms of this, and like even though we were a small outlet under the corporate umbrella, you know, there was a freelancer fund and budget and things like that, so we were able to bring people on and pay them regularly and things like that, and just the business realities of it. Uh, you know, the Jeff's here definitely looked into it a lot, and we we don't know yet.

But yeah, I mean, I'm you know, I'm very I feel like there was a there was a time where people were sort of like, oh, another one of these, like how how can the market handle another you know, Patreon or or independent thing that needs you know, direct support to sustain itself. And you know, I kind of I kind of throw that argument away. I think it is truly a rising tide situation because, you you know, the the the independence allows for collaboration in a in

Are you going to do any event stuff live stuff. I realize, all if this is very new, but what are you thinking? And it always do not neat to be specific, we announced at Packs East.

The timing worked out crazy, like you know, signatures were a signed like the day before pack season. We're able

Well, you're going to bring us out for CES right in January.

I don't know how the hell I'm going to get you there or whay you're going to sleep, but if you have to be in town, I'd love to have you on because that CES has become like the fucking solidarity Fest. If anyone like we're gonna we're extending see yes to two hours per episodes to two a day, Like we're gonna have tons of people on, and I just think that that's what the indis can do for each other. I'm not even saying like put me on. I'm just saying the acknowledging and working together on this

Mm hm yes, I mean without a doubt.

Yeah, I'll do the the you know, we're gonna try to do GB at Night at Summer game Fest and things like that. That's a lot of work right now because it's less than a month away and this all kind of happened real hot.

We're doing our best, but you.

Know, for that, you know, GB at Night is this thing where we just have our friends come sit on a couch and I interview them and we do like six segments a night, and the whole idea is just about like getting cool people from the industry into the same room together so we could just talk this stuff

Well, guys, thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can people find you other than johnbomb dot com.

Let's let's hit giinbomb dot com slash join if you want to become a member and support what we're doing.

Jo yeah, Jeded, that's We'll give you all the information there.

But other than that, I'm grub dot WTF on Blue Sky and that's where I'm mostly posting these days.

Yep, I'm a Dan Reicherd dot com on Blue Sky, Dan Record on Instagram.

Yes, I am Jeff Bachelar pretty much everywhere, and yeah, you know, like that's another good thing, right, Like we're you know, we can kind of serve people wherever they are, right so, like it doesn't matter where you're looking for us. We don't have this kind of like shackle around us where we can only do a thing here or there. And you know, it's a lot more accessible now, which is awesome.

Thank you so much for joining me, guys, and thank you everyone for listening. You can find me at Google dot com. That's where I live, and you will now hear a message that I will never re record. It's going to be the same one from when I was a weird band that was unconfident in my podcasting ability.

Thank you, Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T T O S O W s ki dot com. You can email me at easy at betrofline dot com or visit Better Offline dot com to find more podcast links.

And of course my newsletter.

I also really recommend you go to chat dot where's youoead dot at to visit the discord, and go to our slash Better Offline to check out our reddit.

Thank you so much for listening.

Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media.

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