Well, the last line of this post held true up till now.
After watching Gerstmann's stream, there is no way any rational person can conclude his departure was voluntary. Those leaving jobs through an orderly, respectful parting don't cobble together a Patreon the morning after their hastily-announced last day on their job while they're so choked up they can barely speak. The lockstep evasiveness of the rest of the staff about the incident; the complete corporate-speak of that utterly tone-deaf press release that completely downplayed Gerstmann's significance to the site and their very jobs and was so desperate to shove him off the stage; the fact that, again, the departure of the founder of the site and one of the most influential figures in games journalism was announced by a single tweet from the man's own account after he departed, marked by none of the honorariums given every other departing on-screen personality... I complained copiously about the state of the site after the ill-fated Red Ventures sale a year ago, and, yeah, the old guard, Gerstmann included, had very demonstrably reached the burned-out, fed-up asshole stage of "sick of your job," but throwing an industry pioneer and the father of two young kids out on his ear and practically dancing on his cleaned-out virtual desk while promoting your significantly less-talented asses was absolutely not the way to rectify matters.
And yet I see that most of the superfans have, indeed, swallowed the "lol everything's hunky-dory!" corporate PR line. Two explanations: a) an absolute lack of EQ or real-world knowledge of how workplaces function, and/or b) a total need to consume, consume, consume unquestioningly lest one betray the brand. The latter is endemic to sci-fi and fantasy fandoms, which are notorious for accepting diminishing returns and prolonging a property way past its natural end, but also has set in boiling-frog style among some Giant Bomb fans with the parade of increasingly-vital departures from the company in the past couple years. Also, for all the online railing against capitalism, people do think that corporations are their friend after a few honeyed words over social media. Not even honeyed, in this case. Sweet-'n'-Lowed.
I'm disgusted with how those still at the site have comported themselves in this travesty, and I'm glad I have better people in gaming media to support.
