889: PAX East 2025

New World World Order. Right.

Oh, hey, oh, you gotta press the button.

Tolturns Green He specifically, yeah, I know, I remember 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 of weeks.

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, and I will toss to mister 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 the first time. Yeah, yea, we're doing the catch up now. Yeah, okay, now what we discussed. You're scaring my son.

Boo this child. Here's the thing though, when it happened.

Me and Backlar 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 eight days, god feels like a million Yes, me and Backlar 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.

Sho should do to solve this.

And what that created was an opportunity for me and Backlar to get in the room with them and we talked about and agreed.

About the future of what we're doing.

Here 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 media, I mean, god, we all know, right at this point it is a complicated thing and and no one's been able to figure it out, Like we have not been able to figure it out. So at a certain point, why are we expecting anyone on the other side to be able to figure it out either. So when we looked at the history of this site, Giant Bomb, and the many owners it's had, whether it's you know, Whiskey Media, I need two hands, CBS, Red Ventures, we could do a mount

Yeah, yeah, kay, yes, h m.

Hm h.

Yeah, h.

M h.

I believe. I believe that's uh. I think we.

Should say, real quick, they sold to me in bacular but we're gonna share.

Thank you, okay, he thank you? Oh cool? So yes, that's a shoot. That was a shoot. That was a pop right, Oh that was what that was? Real quick.

Dan was planning that pop all week, even before we knew this was gonna happen.

So the fact that you popped that hard. It's going to go to his 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 Grub 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 Manatti.

I'm not doing that. No, I'm not doing that at all. What are you talking about?

No one said this, well, many people were saying it, where is he Mike Manatti has been at Disney last forty days. Yeah, he's been every day. We're getting pictures of him smiling in front of a fountain or something.

Yeah, you know, we know it's a on around. So uh.

He was completely in the dark about all of this because we like dropped him from the group chat bye bye. He wanted this because he wanted to be in Disney mode.

He wanted to enjoy Disney, and we oblige of course.

Yeah.

So and all of the h a lot of stuff goes into something like this, and a lot of talks and everything, and Mike Manaughty was just on a Mister Toad's wild rideing and a corn dog or whatever.

He does the cool, the cool, the cool stuff.

Yeah, so this morning we gave him a call to inform him of something.

And ask him a question, and uh, let me just go ahead and throw it to the clip.

That's pretty Disney. Can we get the video and there it is?

Yep? Okay, yeah, thanks you for time muted. Oh oops, it's my first podcast grub. Do you want to explain? Yeah, Mike, we bought giant Bomb. Who's we 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 dot com?

But really, it's going on really yeah? Yeah, this is a shoot.

Yeah, okay, we're going to business together.

That's five owners.

Uh, this is a shot, right? Am I still allowed to say that? I don't know? Okay? Uh? Yeah, what what's they sold it to you? We can tell you.

Well, we'll talk about the full story off discord, But yes, we own Giant Bomb.

I took the job, jump on that. Yeah, pulled off something great. I mean I did most of the work part of it.

But yeah, yeah, that's amazing.

That's you realize.

I stated that I was never gonna contribute to Johnny Thrum again.

I made a whole showing protest of it and everything. I'm a wire.

I said I would never appear on Giant Bomb again. But things have changed. Yeah, okay, a card subject to change. So I still have to play my next Black Club game.

Maybe Wednesday is the plan.

So yes, yeah, all right, I'm gonna maybe get some contact negotiations on that.

Yes, that's amazing.

What well, here, we'll stop the recording here and we'll be able to talk just us here.

All right, Yes, all right, that's okay. Well, then that's it. He should That's what his cameo is, is just reacting to get used.

What sucks is he said a bunch of slurs, so we couldn't show when the monoail came by.

Yeah, man, that's her. That's your fifth owner of Giant Bomb right now.

Oh yes, and.

We're uh, we're gonna 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, and uh yeah, so we're gonna get all the details here in a little bit.

But yeah, I think I think so what it was?

Episode eight eight eight was technically last week because it's Friday, right.

And let's not miss a week.

We didn't miss a week, so we'll just do eight eight nine right now, Yeah, let's do eight.

Hit the music?

Yeah, okay, three, are.

You guys recording? Okay?

Wow, Hey everybody, It's Tuesday, May ten, twenty five.

Welcome to the Giant BombCast, live from Packs East. I am your host, jan Ochoa, joined 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?

I got it?

I just tole triple ages. We got the triple H of the JEEF officer. We've got the chief content officer of the team.

Dam Riker.

You didn't take co owner. Wait he didn't take co owner? Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait you.

Didn't say co owner. Can you just say it co owner? Dane record? Okay, now there we go. Yeah.

Yeah.

Michael Manatti is away on assignment, but we all know that.

He is the be 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 bomba Ru.

Yeah, it's really nice to be here.

This is my first BombCast in a really long time.

Well, you've been very busy in meetings. Yeah, yeah, that is true. I've wanted to say this for quite a while. And I apologize for the wrestling right off thet So, uh, what do you guys want to talk about?

Oh, all right, I don't think people got the reference. Well it's okay, yeah, twelve podcast points.

So we're gonna we're gonna 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 it's coming so hot that it's uh, there's definitely gonna 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. Felt first podcast. Okay, So it really has been a busy week. It's been a lot. It has been me and back are are we're actually dead? I don't know. We died a couple of days ago. It was a lot, but it's here now and now it's 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.

To make it clear, fandom has been very helpful.

They want 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 where it's like, yeah, the BombCast continuing tuesdays, that just that train keeps rolling the news show. Yeah, you're gonna keep doing that. I might do it, I might do it Monday. Yeah let's go sure.

All right, Jeff Grub, It's see you Monday for Game Mess Mornings.

Game Mess Mornings. Yes morning. Uh.

And the timing worked out really beautifully on this because it's about time for Mike Manatti to suit up for his Blake Club game. He's gonna look so oh you folks don't know what he's where. Wait the picture you showed me that one. He's gonna be so cool. Yes, yeah, he has all of the game ready to go. He's got the game. So Wednesday, New Blake Club season starts. And I think something we're really excited about too is like just removed from you know, meetings and in stricter

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 this was possible, and a lot of the ideas we got back where people want to see you do your bullshit, They want to see you just go into the stuff you care about

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 we are going to lean into subscriptions. The that's the model here. We're going to go back to, hey, join the Giant Bomb membership, and that is we're going to go right now it's five dollars, We're going up to ten dollars because that money is going to go to us. Now, I think it makes sense, and you go to giant bomb dot com slash join right now you can get into that. And everything that happens from this moment forward is supporting this team and doing what

And also it's important to us that the vast majority of the content now is going to be free.

You know, when we were 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 middle of your scaling, and it's 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.

Yeah, we talked about doing voicemail dumb truck.

Yeah, of course you're so backed up? What's that You're so backed up? Buddy?

I can't wait for the let's catch up Jeff back or 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 super broad Patch well Tomorrow's Saying and Lucy James, and it was.

Such good idea.

Yeah, uh, and you know, we didn't know how this plane was gonna land, and you know, things didn't really materialize until the eleventh hour. And you know that podcast is absolutely gonna gonna continue.

Probably as an independent project.

And I just I just personally how much I love doing that show with that with that crew.

And who was at the panel yesterday for Jeff Ches's Bizarre Adventure?

Yeah right? How good was that because I learned a lot about anime. Yeah yeah.

You also I got to talk to super Eye patch Ball last night at the bar about how ja no EPO?

And I'm really really into that show. Wow.

Did did not expect so much fit to be about how big a 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. Yeah, well it's like Rocky, but he's got you.

He talks about Dix. I want to do something more sincere tam Lucy, thank you so much. Yeah I mean him. When I say you mean the world to us, I le'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 can't wait to find a way to work with you guys again.

I'm absolutely it can't be understated how much a part of the DNA you both are to this brand.

Yes, that's never gonna change. We love you, guys, Yeah, we love you. Wow.

Uh on that note back alarm. Yeah, thank you man.

I In this last week, I've 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 Chuck Towski helped, like stuff you didn't even tell us about. I didn't realize it, man I, And I'm sorry and thank you.

I mean it, like, let's do this together. Let's get to work, man, kiss Yeah, thank you? Yeah, man absolutely all right. So what are we getting fired?

Man? What are we gonna do next? I mean we're starting right away.

Yeah yeah, new show Monday podcast returns on Tuesday.

Yep, dump truck. Yeah.

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 it. We're gonna do our best. We're gonna try to figure it out. It's in like thirty minutes, I think. Yeah, and doing it ourselves too.

Where it's like, we did get a lot of support for summer games, 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 to help us. But like, we got to put this together. We're gonna be scrappy. It's it's gonna be scrappy. We're gonna do our best to make it look cool. It's not gonna look good, but it's gonna look cool. Hey, hey, hey, we're gonna do our best. Cool is good.

Yeah, that's where I'm at. Yeah.

Yeah, I have a couch that used to live in a basement.

Yeah, can you get a U haul?

I can drive a truck down to Los Angeles if we want that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I like I like I like catches.

Okay, oh yeah, yeah, there's a lot of games to talk about that we haven't Uh, we've had a little break.

It's weird taking a break.

Yeah, Like I was traveling a lot, and you know, the stuff going on in the last couple of weeks and yeah, feeling it's getting backed up in like the switch to like we are a few weeks away from that.

It just feels like there's like so much happening, and it's like we got to like set up a business, do all this stuff. Like we're gonna get to work right away, but it's gonna be a lot to figure out, so we're gonna yeah.

Yeah, I just 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, Yeah.

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 gonna forget this.

It was pretty wild. Yeah, yeah, didn't.

Wasn't it like a day or two ago that didn't Stacy ask you, like, are you going to die?

Yeah?

She was like, you know, I just need to know, you know, if that's gonna happen, I mean eventually 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 for sure.

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, like, how does that change things for you guys? Like, 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 all kidding a side, like yeah, same, right, but but you never do her.

You just sort of like last time you threw up?

Yeah, ooh, I think maybe like two months ago?

Okay, what like on purpose or like is it ever on purple?

Yeah?

Yeah?

Yeah, I mean yeah, okay, okay.

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 Kajima Productions two weeks ago.

Oh yeah, the last time I threw up was in your your house? Oh yeah, yeah house.

Yes, it was just food poisoning. It wasn't even like a fun.

Yep.

All right, So listen, we're gonna, Like I said, we're gonna get to work. We're gonna figure this stuff out. But in the meantime, man, what do we talk about? Like what do we tell people?

Maybe, Hey, a couple of new shirts heading to store dot giant bomb dot com.

Yeah, like yeah, that's the thing.

We got everything, like all all the stuff, like the store everything is ours.

So yeah, you to the store right now, backlog all the accounts everything.

It's not just like the name, it's yeah, oh yeah, archives, yes, yeah, that is like 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 take like what like you have been doing Dan taking select old shows from the archive on YouTube.

There's a Donkey Kong game coming out too, And I want to have all a burgle my bananas yes and yeah yeah, let me ask so Mike Minatti for 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 honest, gauge, don't just pop because you feel like you're supposed to hear level of enthusiasm he wants to do something called Monday Mornings Missed with Mitch.

Is that good? Most people are dead silent.

Yeah, yeah, it's just it's just Chuckdowski and ABC over there.

Yeah, the chats being weird right now. I don't know what you would I like miss.

Here's the thing.

I'm afraid we would both like missed a lot. I mean, is it like blueprints?

I think it might be. Yeah, because I have no idea. Yeah wait wait, hang on hand. Should we do a missed feature? Yeah?

We should not invite him. Yeah, that's it.

No one tell Mike's idea. Okay, we're gonna have meetings. We have to tell him.

So yeah, just freedom to do whatever the hell we want.

Yeah, and yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

It's like, you know, we did get a lot of benefits from working within a bigger business that like provided a lot of safety nets. Now we are we are operating without a net now, and that's scary. But it does enable us to like a lot more freedom to try a lot more stuff.

There is there is more flexibility in terms of like 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 like, oh, 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 talked to the five of us. It's like should we do this, and now we'll do it.

Yeah, Dan, that's the point. Yeah, yeah, an agreement. Yeah, okay, cool, Yeah for sure, Okay, cool business right there, that's business. Wow, excellent.

So yeah, probably first week go a little little standard, just as we you know, kind of get our feet wet with the new thing. But the 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, so 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, so have to give the URL out again. Yeah yeah, giant bomb dot com slash join. You'll be supporting what we're doing, and we're really looking forward to like getting this started right now, getting to.

Work right and you say right now, and like literally from this moment anything that comes into Giant Bomb is directly to us. So yeah, anything store anything premium yep.

Yeah, and with you know, with the with the patient stuff I talked about earlier. You know that also is related to like how people can.

Get in touch with us if they just want to ask us a question. We don't have a direct mechanism over that just yet. Yeah, we're waiting on a couple of emails to open up again. But uh 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 gonna start to feel real to you? Like where like where you're at right now in terms of like like mental 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. 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 or what no, no, I.

Was gonna say, well, no, soon yeah we'll know how many hours?

Yeah, but yeah, it's it's gonna be it's gonna be a bit of Yeah. How about you, Jan like, is it even begun to feel real? No? Yeah?

Not?

You're a right, jan though, right what you're okay? Barely Yeah, it's fine, barely. We hang it and clanging, baby all guess no breaks with it?

Ya I mean no, no, ye mean YadA means what they say.

He likes it when we say it. Yeah, yeah, he likes how white it is what we say. No word, Jane, It'll be smooth.

You're just you just have to handle all of the production for all of giant bomb dot com. What I could use ovs 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, Okay, I'm just I'm just playing. But uh 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 chuckle heads 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

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 is all gone in the last five years. And it's just very surreal right now. H was not on my Bengal card, no, And uh yeah, I'm just 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.

Like since Giant Bombs 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. I'm looking forward to like just kind of realizing we're in the same space and just trying to like work together. One of the things I've learned is like we're not competing in any way. Like the community wants to support everybody and make this all happen. They want as much

So looking forward to a lot of that as well.

Please, for the love of God, like and comment on every single subscribe to the podcast. What else do they say? Tell friends, give us money? All these things? Ring the bell? What's the bell? The what is that on YouTube? I'm oh man, I'm oh man.

Yeah, we gotta do YouTube too, dude, 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 was thinking about this earlier today, and I was thinking, huh, I kind of want to just send Dan somewhere again.

Yeah, I'm game, yes, absolutely honestly, like made his flight home from SGF.

Shouldn't go home.

Wait, I don't go home for step No, it sends you to like another city without you know.

What if we hide your switch to in a different city.

It is getting mailed to Minnesota and you are not touching it. Okay, although, Greb, you're getting her sent to La. Yeah, it's gonna be a nicky sass. Yeah, we can at least like play summer. We'll dose some multiplay.

Yeah, we'll play some Mario Kart sure, yeah, absolutely, honestly, we'll probably just stream Mario Kark from LA.

Yeah. That was great.

Yeah, from wherever we are exactly Again, it's thrifty, so we're gonna be all like you know, on bunk beds.

And the AIRBNBA.

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 when he would normally pay in other ways and now it was his money just immediately turning into qpon Paul Reikert mode.

Look, it was astounding. It's tell the contail start. Yeah.

Literally in my DNA, I think it was last night because technically my last day was yesterday and they canceled my corporate card. We went to a bar or something and I looked and it normally been like, ooh that cocktail sounds great.

It's twenty dollars. My god.

Okay, the beers are nine. That's still quite a bit, but I'll go with the nine dollars beers. I gotta start thinking about that stuff now.

And now we're like, hey, friend with corporate card, you want to go to dinner? Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My partner didn't know anything until yesterday.

Oh nothing, and.

Then I just dropped everything on her.

Yeah how to go?

Well, you know, I'm looking up how to get your dog to be Instagram famous? Now sure? Yeah yeah yeah yeah. She took it while incredibly supportive. Hello, yeah yeah she's not hot.

Yeah, I will say also to bank, Bunk was amazingly supportive. And she's watching us well, Bunk razor gizmo boss.

Hello, yeah.

That was one of the most helpful things. Is like 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 did. 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 dot com with a K and it's like you've come so far, Like I believe in you and I don't even believe in myself. That's incredible to hear. So, yeah, that was really nice. That was really helpful.

Yeah, what's crazy is, uh, I had always planned this trip with Staceyan did to come and I.

Don't think did knew any of this until this moment.

Well, shaking his head, dip, are you understanding it now? Sort of Okay, it's good. It's a good it's a good thing.

It's good. Yes, it's good.

And uh, you know, uh, Stacy's just being so supportive and just uh.

That was a real interesting day. Let's just say.

And uh, you know you just saying like, uh that you know that you were just so happy for however the shakes out and just having that support means so much.

So that's working out. Yeah, yeah, for sure, Happy Mother's Day. Tomorrow, y'all.

Yeah, shouts out to all the single mothers.

Also, for no particular reason.

Beckler, I feel like if you still had hair, just over the last like 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.

There are several times where Dan's loud voice is just saying stuff that we've all agreed not to say. As he was was not into a microphone, fine, yeah, but into a crowd like random people at.

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 like nondescript gentleman. And then he turns around your guys into podcasts, yours a great gaming podcast, and then like he proceeded to add us on LinkedIn.

Oh cool, Yeah, he couldn't find me, so I think that's just you and him now.

Oh well, yeah, we're like this, we're like dming every data.

And then we just shut up because we're in the middle of like all right, we need to go just kind of put our heads together at the bar and like as soon as that guy started talking, it's like, well, it's not happening now.

Not that loud. No, it's loud.

No, like uh, you know some people have that voice that just sort of carries you know, when like someone will leave a room and you're like, why can I still hear that?

No? My hearing's bad too? About you hearing? Oh? Okay, no, no, no, relate.

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 discuss I.

Feel like there's been several but yeah, show of hands. I'm gonna pull the chat real quick, 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, down, hand down and doing another one. How many of you have used this feature?

What that was most of the room.

More people use the feature than multiple people on a phone call.

Yeah, it's yeah, seven calls. Wait I thought it was three. Well we only had so many people there. But that's what like discords for it. But some people, now when you're talking to lawyers, discord.

No, that was like, so all those calls you're doing was like most people on the number of times I heard Backlar this week be like hang on, let me get them, like it.

Was like fifty times. Yeah. Wow.

I just don't understand the context that you would do. I don't like talking to one person on.

The yeah 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, like men, I didn't the first time in like the nineties, quite a while years.

I just can't think of a single scenario I would do that, and not even cell phones, man like land I guess, just how do you do that on a land line? I don't know.

There was like a star number like started seventy nine, like it's been a thing forever, Like haven't you ever seen any boardroom in any movie ever?

But yeah, but then 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's he calls back our who's right across from us, and then his eyes just widen and then he's like oh, the ad feature.

And it's like there's only six buttons and one of them is just AD and I've never seen That's it.

It's simple. I'm proud of you, though, Dan, thank you. I mean, I don't i'll ever use it, but I'm glad I know it.

I guess yeah, growth, Yeah, tremendous.

So that's your practice. I guess at some point I'll see it. Yeah, you know, maybe tomorrow. I don't know. We have not played games, no, no, no, no, no.

It's been Yeah, the game of capitalism maybe that's about it.

Yeah, have you played games at home during all this? No? No, you dude, no, Like, let's I want I want you to understand. H I have not enjoyed anything. No, yes, like I turned off that part of myself. I'm not joking.

What about hockey, bo, It's the best time for hockey, and I have not been able to enjoy. Right, I was telling, well, the devil's lost, so okay, okay.

At least we're in the playoffs. Fuh god, I know, help me right in the gut. Yeah, that's I'm sorry, now I get it.

Uh so, Uh yeah, I couldn't enjoy I told tam Lucy and John that last night during the panel was the first time I could.

Relax on stage.

Yeah, Like I mean like I so we signed and I signed during the JGBA panel last night.

Hell 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. And 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 have you've ever been to the Twitch party. It's not for forty two year old men.

You guys aren't the demographic room.

It's like there are multiple rooms with DJs. It's not just what there's multiple rooms with DJs.

There's no room where there's not a DJ, like Dubstep, Sonic the Hedgehog. Yeah yeah yeah, and just blast 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.

I'm like, I'm going to die here.

So yeah that I just that's what's happened to me, where like my body's like ready to just blow a bart in every direction.

So yeah, yeah, I didn't enjoy it.

No, you guys should play the Expedition thirty three. It's really good. Mary's flipping us off. Thank you for incting it's married. Has a great time, Mary, Mary, Remember you're my she ro. Yes, there we go, got a little pop.

I have a question for did what did you think was happening with all of this? Especially get them on a mic here? Yeah, come on, come on? Can we u mute that one? Yeah? Are you gonna so you have to talk to the hill right? Coming back? Are everybody? So? What did? 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 ten. What the heck? Yo? This kid knows how

Okay, it's a child all right, I love you.

Buddy, thanks for coming asking for his autograph.

Yeah all right.

Oh, we either we either gave him the best weekend of his life or guaranteed therapy.

Wait, I'm not the one who was farting on his bed. That was me.

Yeah, yeah, all week it's been great.

That's been like the business couch just just pulled out bed and you're just ripping it.

Like He's like, that's my bet, and I'm like, well, I've been farting on it, deal with it. Oh man, all right, so new era Giant bomb, What the hell? What do we do next?

Yeah, just get back and get to work.

I mean, like the packs has been weird here because like normally I'd be walking the floor a lot more, playing more games things like that. I didn't get a great sense of like I did a couple of laps on the floor, But I mean I.

Like, here, I've seen a lot of dice.

Yeah, concerning amount of dice, Yeah, almost too much dice.

That's this is a dice show.

It does feel like like you look at the show floor and you're like you get the vibes of like, oh, gaming's in a weird place right now, and like it'll figure itself out. It will because people care about it, But it does feel like it's representative of something going

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. And like the timing was crazy last week because like we had all of our stuff going on and then the Poly news and everything, so it was just like, boy, I've really spent the last like week

Yeah, it's play.

It's much closer to that than it is traditional 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 to break in now and get a full time job doing this, I don't.

It was always really hard.

Yeah, and I never wanted just to discourage anyone, But at this moment, it's like, yeah, if you're looking around and you think it's grim, you're you're probably right.

It's weird.

There was a time like when I worked a game Informer and people would, you know, like howd you get your job? I would always write back and I would always give it. I would read articles and stuff and give something, and like I would give very earnest well meaning like try this, try this, you know, submit the

And 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, like right, So it's like you kind of look in the situation like that's like, wait, okay, do these big.

Events even make sense anymore? So it's yeah, I don't know. I really like them.

I think, 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, like you know, kind of funny min Max next Lander.

Like they do great work.

But also there was the privilege of like you came from traditional games meeting, Yeah, you got your following there, and we also, I guess now can fit into that category. So it's like, yeah, you can't just be twenty one years old, twenty two out of college and start a Patreon, you know. 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 been like 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, Like 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 know where we're climbing to anymore.

I mean, not to glaze you grub, but I feel like you've done a pretty fantastic job about having a multitude of different guests on Game as Mornings, game breaking news, and really shining a light like finding really dope people.

Yeah, thanks man, I appreciate it.

I I can't tell you grab how many times I've like reached out to you afterwards. I did not know this person before I saw them one, Like, wow, I gotta follow them, like you know what a great mind you know, like and a lot of them are very young and breaking in and everything. Right, So and I think that is you know, you're gonna keep doing the news show.

Yes, we'll keep doing that, and like that. It's helpful because there are so many cool people. It makes it very easy on my side to just to 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, because like we've 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 gonna get that money and so then we give up, and now it's like, wait, we should totally do the dumbest ideas.

We have all of the merch yes, yeah, no approval.

I guess we're gonna have like a majority rule system is at the plan we have five, we have an odd number.

Let's just let back of our say yes and no. We have like a contingency.

It's like me, you and Minatti will be a contingency and overrule anything.

Yeah cool, but Danza but Janza.

Yeah, really, there's no puns you can do with Mike Manatti's name.

Menah No, no, nothing works with that. Yeah, what do you what do you think he's thinking right now?

He's not watching I think is it fireworks time? It doesn't.

No, he's on the planes, he's on the plane home. He think he's thinking about Disney fireworks.

No, I think I think he's thinking. I wonder when the next time I'm going back.

To 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 there and it was pretty impressive.

Yeah, it went by right, away passed by twice during our call, and both times he raised his eyebrows when.

But what but what? None of us like he obviously had that in the shop.

That was intentional. He is accidentally from the Disney Mono.

Rail that he loves, like you know, he must have gone through it three times. I'm so glad you guys said that because it's so true. Like you said, it was like perfect amount of headroom above his head.

Here's a great thing about Manati too, because like you know, we got five of us, we're all gonna have to you know, we're all going to be on stuff and everything, but we'll also have kind of more specialized things.

Mini.

What does that mean? Pinball's back on pinball? We'll see, We'll see, look we will. We'll have breaks in programming that you can do.

Ye think it to the eleven people super about pinball?

Hell yeah, hell yeah, completely forgot my train of thought.

Yeah, like Manati, he's like 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, I mean, it's it's our it's our percial breast photo. We said this the AP News.

Yeah yeah, they were like, are you sure this is what you want?

The press really look like, what do you mean we're sure?

Photographer credit to Mary Cash Chrish.

Was our photographer. Yeah, also a great chob.

There was so much ship in the grass that we were standing on like we were like all just trying to avoid it.

It was crazy. Yo, bunnies are just in the wild.

Yeah yeah, wait yes, wait wait wait wait hang on, hang on.

Oh okay, well let's 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, guys, do they like do they have to like switch the bricks out?

Does that not make sense? Do bricks lest forever? Why did we stop using them? I don't think we stop.

They're popular, just like diamonds. Bricks are forever, Yes, exactly. And and it's it's the O G brick, the OG brick. Yeah yeah, yo.

They probably like powerwa washed it or something.

Yeah, maybe clean them up every now and then. Dang, I know, oh I get shipped about three way calls.

Yeah, oh buddy, the one time ever. But and then you you found out that like there's little bunny rabbits in the wild.

Yeah, I like lost my ship 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?

Yeah, yeah, you're gonna get ticks, but yeah you can have it, dude.

Yeah yeah, what wildlife?

Do you have an saf like foxes sea lions? Uh? Hell yeah, shouts out to the area. Can you three give me another?

YadA?

I mean y mean, YadA mean, Jeff got, I mean sound authentic? Yeah yeah, yeah, proud of you guys. Yeah, thanks Jan Look at the growth. Yeah.

Should we just go through the deets one more time?

Yeah?

Probably? All right.

So Giant Bomb is independent, it's employee owned.

Yep, in case you forgot in case yeah, should wait wait wait wait, I want to spring this now. It's sorry for coming it hot. Should we vote for an employee of the month?

Oh yeah, yeah.

No, because you motherbuckers are going to make it a joke where I never win it.

If yes, if you.

Know, they can do the first vote, they can do the first vote.

If you think Dan should be Employed the Month. Cheer if you there were some cheers, no the booze, actually take the cheer. Yeah, counter rappets. Those are the minuses.

It's like a scene a thing. I would say it was like fifty to fifty. Sure, I'm the John Cena, That's what I'm saying.

Mike Manatti.

He can't co own a company and win Employee of the Month in the same day.

He hasn't had anything to do with the last week of conversation.

Being the same. Janet choa thirty podcast points for all of you.

Thirty that's Jeff Grubb boo, Jeff Backlar. Yeah, congratulations, Jeff Backlar not first employee.

Of the month. I got a plaque on the wall.

Now, you don't get shut out that that was just applause because they wanted your.

Kid to feel good. So, yeah, we're back.

Giant bomb dot COM's last join memberships are going to support us.

We're gonna get to work on a bunch of stuff. We're gonna try to do SGF. We're gonna be back with content this week. We're gonna do a bunch of new stuff as well. It's going to be awesome. If you make a game and when I advertise with us.

Absolutely, what is it?

Oh yeah, we're big on Raid Shadow Legends all of a sudden.

Yeah, I love vps. It's just the best. Yeah, I bills whatever, whatever.

I also just want to I think we should all take a second to obviously recognize all the fine people at Packs and people who you put on this show and they h this is this is only my second time out of pas uh, and it's 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 Packs for having us, and obviously Pierce and all of our people there who represent the show, thank you so much.

Yeah. Absolutely, And you're doing these Yeah that'd be fun.

Yeah, 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 it out, figure this out right away. Yeah. None of these skills are transferremed No.

And if any if any of our friends can expense meals and when I have dinners while that's great.

Or at our homes that's fine. Yeah, mortgage.

If anyone knows the safest way to walk to the airport, let me know.

A train. But yeah.

Once again, like we are able to be here because of y'all. So any amount of support, whatever it is, ringing a bell, I guess I've heard today or whatever.

We we we would love it and we love you.

I've heard the acronym before, FUBU.

For by us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, Okay, cool. God, I'm not the I'm not the oldest one here. Now he's aging in front of our eyes.

I think that is part of why, like we are confident enough to try to this is because you know, we've worked at a lot of different game sites. We've seen a lot of comment sections and things like that. Yeah, 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 like being on the outside when I was a game and farmer, and I would see the stuff that's happened like Gersman and Davis and those guys, and it's 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

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 its Giant Bomb should go on, and so we're gonna do it. We are gonna just it's gonna 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.

Thing, okay, heard me? Well all right, Jen? What did we learn? Yeah? Well, what did we learn today?

We learned that the four of us plus Mike Manatti, who is in an airplane somewhere, is the now co owner's Giant Bomb.

Uh.

Giant Bomb is now independent giant bomb dot com slash join please you know think about it. And also yes, yeah, I'm sorry, I don't know what came over. And also it is far too late to get a Mother's Day gift tomorrow, so you messed up? Yeah, by your mom a subscription to Giant Bar probably, Yeah, that's.

What every mom wants. Yeah, look like what yeah?

Four three four middle aged men and then like the hot one?

Yeah cool? Mike Manatti, Right, ladies love Mike Manatti. Baby. A lot of people like Mike Vanatti. Yeah. So anything else? Yo?

Or should I hit the music? Just one last thing? I see it? I still love game Spot. Everyone should still go in game Spot. They're doing great work over there. I'm gonna keep going there. I'm gonna keep referencing them on the news 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 miss this, but we're going to try our hardest to get Nikki and Sean uh back in the door with us.

But thanks to them for everything.

Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, Like I would not have felt comfortable taking any kind of day off if it wasn't for Sean Yeah, and Nicky has been absolutely essential to the last Yes, hell yeah, uh.

Should we hit the music now? Let's yeah, let's hit it.

Thanks everybodybody coming on everyone.

Throw him up, Thank you for watching. Everybody.

Wee 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 Time podcast.

Good b