Reminders for those mourning the supposedly-impending "death" of what's calling itself Giant Bomb nowadays:
- This is the infamous tone-deaf text post by which Giant Bomb announced the departure of the founder of the site, Jeff Gerstmann, likening its makeup to SNL's rotating cast and effectively saying that people didn't matter. It also failed to mention the small detail that Giant Bomb had fired him.
- Voidburger defended the wording of this announcement vigorously on social media. This did not prevent Giant Bomb from laying off Voidburger a few months after that. I mention this not as a callout but as a demonstration of how little what called itself "Giant Bomb" after Gerstmann's departure cared for its people, even those who defended its worst decisions.
(Since this is the extended edition of this post, I'll also note that the other party hit by that layoff was Jason Oestreicher, who was fighting a battle with prolonged medical complications at that time.)
I know the diehards in the forums insist that it's toxic to maintain loyalty to the people who made a creative endeavor and that it's the Giant Bomb brand that deserves fan loyalty, not the people who once made it great. But a brand is a concept—a marketable asset of a corporation. Corporations have none of the loyalty that the diehards demand you show them, and brands have no creative power. A brand did not make any of the entertainment or art that you loved. What is allegedly on the verge of death is no more Giant Bomb than I would be a Beatle if I bought the trademark and named myself George Harrison.
Support people, not brands. One can make a few arguments for when Giant Bomb died, but it was most certainly dead after Jeff was fired.
(That goes for those who would lose work with the supposedly-impending closure. If you stuck around and liked what they did, do what you can to support their future endeavors.)
