Giant Bomb GOTY 2019 Discussion Thread

@nutter: You can use qlcrew to find timestamps of all his entries on upf.

@stephen_von_cloud: If you don't like the content you are paying for, then stop paying for the content and move on. Just because you are paying for content (I don't mean you, specifically. you seem pretty chill) does not mean the GB crew has to put up with abusive and shitty comments. And I think its unfair to assume they are ignoring all criticisms and feedback.

@jesus_phish: Thanks! I use qlcrew here and there, but haven’t noticed that feature. I’ll check it out.

Now it's all said and done, I didn't completely hate the podcast section of GOTY, but like others I definitely prefer the old format.

However, the non podcast content left a very bad taste in my mouth when compared to past years. Only 2 group video's is such a shame, as that is the thing the site does so well. I did enjoy the Winter Games at least, but even that was a slight chore at times due to the audio quality.

Also I do understand East had less time in San Francisco this year than normal, but that is really no excuse when they have done plenty of cross coast things before (Quicklooks, Hitman Double Agent/Killing Busey, East vs West Rocket League, etc), so I wish they had at least done something along those lines.

It's is rather fitting my Premium ran out this week, as the disappointing end of year videos helped the choice to not renew for now. (But let's face it, I'll probably sign back up eventually for Mass Alex 3.)

Anyway, sorry this post was overall rather negative, so on a more positive note, Happy New year to all!

While I agree with many of the sentiments around GOTY format, it's the common sentiment that the loss of group content is the real tragedy. For me, the festive atmosphere and feeling of a family get together in past years was a like a gift of its own It made me feel like I was celebrating the holidays with the GB Crew, and I hope they find a way to recapture that magic. It means more to me than any of the other GOTY content.

@candivore: I agree with this. The GB crew seem like they have no chemistry anymore. They all seem so different from each other - a point that seems to have been exacerbated by the office split.

They seem so sterile with each other anymore. It reminds me of how I talk to my coworkers at times. And to be fair, they are coworkers. But it used to feel like a group of friends just talking about and playing games together, and they just happened to work in the same place playing and reporting on video games. It doesn't feel like it used to. I've been looking for something that felt like GB in the Whiskey Media days, but I think that's a once in lifetime kind of thing.

@coryukin: GB had been my only steady source for games content for years. I think the GOTY stuff is easier to remember and compare than week-to-week content, but if you go back and listen to some classic moments, year-round, it’s totally different. Watch some old best-of GB videos. It was a totally different thing. People seemed to be having more fun, and it came across.

People mention other podcasts, but as much as I miss old GB, none of the other stuff ever holds a candle to what these guys do, even when GB bums me out, it feels WAY better produced and offers much better chemistry than other podcasts. There are things about current content that I don’t like, but it’s still a better package than anything else I’ve seen out there in recent years.

Anyhow, yeah, Whiskey-era Giant Bomb was lightning in a bottle. I’d love to find a crew to listen to with the talent, energy, and attitude of classic-GB, but no one else has really cracked the production and personality formula.

I am baffled why the staff would go in a direction of solo-content, for me it’s always been about the people and the interactions they have. Having fun together. I only watched 3 videos and they áwere just so boring. This is the time to have fun, instead it feels like they opted for somethung that would be way easier to produce - one person sitting down and monologueing...so dissapointing.

The two shows we got were fun, but one one of them was very hard to watch for a non native speaker, because of the jacked audio.

Personally, GOTY content feels a bit worse every year, sadly.

I hope they get it together for the next year!

Also get rid of the god darn table. It ruined the studio. Get back on a sofa and get back in the groove!

I think it's time each coast does their own separate awards. I think it would breathe new life into GOTY.

There would be less people in the room giving everyone the opportunity to speak. I feel like we just heard from the same people during the deliberations this year, and not everyone got to put their input in (which is hard to do with the room full of people).

They could start the deliberations later in the year if they don't have to travel, giving them more time to play games from their backlog and the games released later in the year.

Additionally it would allow each coast to get creative and come up with unique categories. I feel like each year the crew seems less and less enthused to be doing the deliberations, this would allow them to have fun with it.

@nutter: at this point it’s a matter of finding people that fill in a certain niches. I sometimes listen to Waypoint for their more critical analysis up until I think they get up theirs own butts. I also enjoy Kotaku Splitscreen because it’s very organized and the trio there seem to complement each other - I especially enjoy Maddys input.

Unfortunately it doesn’t capture GB at their prime, but honestly neither does GB anymore so what do you got to lose.

I know I'm the minority opinion here, but I felt compelled to express it in light of the near universal negativity being expressed here.

Overall, I found this year's GotY offering to be enjoyable even though there was less of it. I liked the individual videos for random categories and I feel like they were a great way to get unique insight into the crew members one-on-one. Of course it's not the usual banter between personalities, but having them in isolation is great too. It's like when Ben or Jan do solo morning stuff, when Jeff does old game streaming from home, or when Rorie streams WoW/MMO content; to me, it's a fun dive into what the crew is individually passionate about.

I very much enjoyed the three days of recap. It really helped me remember what games were released this year and it was nice to have everyone's views of them expressed in a group setting. It offered the crew a chance to refresh their memories of the games too, which made the category days much more streamlined, especially for the Top 10 list. I appreciated the relaxed atmosphere they had going on, like an extended family getting together to catch-up and talk about what all they did in the past year. They got to explore each other's thoughts in a way they don't normally get to do as a whole crew, and though I agree it probably could have been streamlined too, I didn't feel it was as bloated and unnecessary as others have expressed.

I dunno. I guess I don't feel the same sentiment of betrayal that other people seem to be feeling regarding the discussions, and I was satisfied with GotY. There is a lot of great and thoughtful criticism here that I don't entirely disagree with, but it feels like a general sense of negativity and I wanted to highlight some positive parts of this year's offering that I felt was being underrepresented.

Might as well split the coasts into separate websites then.

@humanity: Team GFB Radio is back. I’ll need to give these new episodes a listen. Lang is great, I just need more drunk travel stories and Dave going off on shit and a little less Disney stuff. I’m behind (at Pax West 2017), but it’s a great show when it’s not quite as much about theme parks.

I’m also pulling for Dave to have had sex in his Prius, and Darryl to throw it in the hoop. These are important milestones in life!

@mellotronrules said:

This. Regardless of whether it drove the decision, I agree the actual ranking is what predominantly causes negativity. You've got interesting and positive discussions devolving into bickering and pettiness solely because stuff needs to be ranked. And as a result people in the comments start complaining about how arbitrary all the lists are or how 'bad' arguments undermine the value of the rank order.

I think they could bring back the different categories, so that the talks become more varied, more specific and more in-depth. They'll make a selection beforehand and then just discuss the items on the list. That's it. They simply avoid ranking anything and focus on the discussions, the rants and the bits... all the things we like the crew for (I think).

Ranking is a silly practice, like review scores, especially in this 'live' context. There's no added value. It leads to talking in circles and annoyances among everyone involved.

Stop ranking stuff.

That said, I personally enjoyed this year's content, and I also did before the format change. I like the crew and like to hear them talk about games. That's all I want, really.

@thebootlegsaint: I liked this year and all, but separate GOTY's by coast would be such a bonkers idea that I'd love to see it.

Or maybe each coast picks their candidate, then they duel it out to pick the one true GOTY. It worked for American elections, what could go wrong?

I think at this point all I want is a All Systems Goku website. The only award category would be best "Goku"

@csl316: That'd be hysterical. They have a list of primary candidate games that duke it out amongst their coast. Them they pick their winner and take it up against the other coasts candidate 😂

Although I am continually appreciative of the staff's work, I was really bored by this year's GOTY discussions, and I'm having a tough time identifying why I feel this way.

As a high school teacher who gets about 2 weeks of time off over the holidays, I have built this tradition over the past few years of doing some sort of home renovation project while listening to the GOTY content. Although it might sound silly to some, this is sort of the highlight of my year - my daughter is at daycare all day, my wife is at work, and it's just sort of my time to myself to get my hands dirty, cut up a bunch of shit in the garage, and listen to GOTY.

As opposed to the last few years' content, I was just bored to death this time around, and as I articulate above, what puzzles me is that I'm not sure why I felt this way.

For those of you that might have had a similar perspective, what do you think were some of the reasons?

Again, I continue to be appreciative of the staff, the work they do, and I'll for sure continue to support the site. I just feel like I needed to get that off of my chest :)

Thanks for reading,

-Rick

I understand Jeff’s argument about using two weeks of work to produce one week of content, but to me GOTY is second only to E3 as the biggest and best things Giant Bomb does.

If my 2 cents mean anything, I wouldn’t mind them producing less content in December/November to go bigger on GOTY stuff. Maybe the east coast could Skype in and do cross-coast stuff? Not at all sure about the logistics, but Alex used to do it for GOTY.

I would have been satisfied with cross content done online too...There are plenty of online co-op games and discord voice chat is a thing.

I haven't finished watching all the videos but one minor complaint I have is do they have to use so many cuss words?

Bit annoying if I'm trying to watch while doing the dishes with the kids around and they are at the age where they repeat all words they hear. Had to switch it off every time. :(

@chaz934: I’m curious how they justified it in the past, spending all that time on GOTY. The TV episodes year, the FMV year, the video games are gone year...they used to do some great stuff. The deliberations, of course, were amazing then, too.

I think last year’s (or maybe the year before) Blitz championship was fun. Dan and Ben make for a fun team of hosts (which they’ve gone back to repeatedly), and Dan and Jeff’s game was fun to watch. Small things like this that just bring some new chemistry to the mix can be plenty of fun.

Actually, I’d love to see Jeff, Vinny, Brad, and Alex do the old guard, knives-out GOTY deliberation. That’s a cross coast team you never see anymore. Let them give us a little classic Giant Bomb and go knives out. They don’t need to talk about every game. They don’t need to do 5 days worth of shows. Just do a top 10 (or hell, a top 5) and maybe two days of mixed fun and serious categories.

In the meantime, let the others come up with new end of year game shows, playdates, skits, whatever. Abby, Ben, Jan, Jason, Rorie...Business Goddamn Dave...I bet they could come up with some fun stuff.

If there is one thing that I can say definitively after the last 2 years of the new format, it is that I hope to not see the expression "knives out" for a very long time.

@sethmode: I couldn’t disagree more, but having an extra 15 hours of NOT listening to podcasts this holiday was actually nice.

It has been a poor year for GB and to now lose one of their bigger personalities in Dan.. could be a tough 2020. For me the podcasts going over every game for 3 days doesn't work.. the most enjoyable part of GOTY was the elaborate and fun video content each year.

I agree with the GB East & West GOTY pods may be best in 2020. If it's a week they get together then spend that week filming? I'm sure Abby & Ben would love to get involved in those videos of the past.

I'll see how this year goes but might be forced to not let me sub renew after being part of GB since day 1 that would be shame.. content has dried up. Maybe some new life on the West & East may help.

From 2017 to 2019, I have not cared as much about the GOTY deliberations. Parts of the 2017 podcasts I remember being heated a little too much for my liking. Granted there are moments in the past where it gets a little heated, but I recall that year being more heated than others. With 2018 and 2019 with the new format, I'm not sure if it is really obtaining its desired goal.

There are some really memorable discussions from years past, like the Minerva's Den v. Shadowbroker debate, Austin's Invisible Inc. filibuster, and even random one off stuff like when Proteus ended up being nominated for Best Looking Game. Some of these are more just really good discussions (like Austin's filibusterer), while others happen because of the categories help frame the discussion. That's the primary reason I like the number of categories in the past, and not the split between the yearly recap section.

When they run down a list of 80 games in chronological order, it's mainly a Bombcast / Beastcast segment where one or two people say, "I've played [INSERT GAME NAME]" or it turns into a 20 to 30 minute discussion, which may be interesting, but it's also 30 minutes spent on one game when there are 79 other games to talk about. With the reduced categories this year, it also felt like, why? Why spend 13+ hours talking about every game, when most won't be brought up in the 5 awards? Especially when some years a game can win or be nominated multiple times. A part of me can't help but think there was 20 hours of discussion to award Outer Wilds 3 out of 5 awards. (Nothing against Outer Wilds; it would have been similar if The Last of Us, The Witcher 3, or whatever game has won multiple awards won 3 out of 5 categories. The ratio of talking about games and awarding one game most of the awards just feels off.)

My actual biggest complaint for GOTY is it is just too long now. At least this year the deliberations were only 20 hours long. Wasn't 2017 or 2018 something like 26 hours long? That's insane. I remember years ago I had a 10 to 12 hour car ride where I loaded up a GOTY deliberation I never listened to before and it lasted the entire length of the trip. When it's the equivalent to 3 days of work--during my holiday--it's just too much.

My ideal would be the old format with like 10 or 12 awards, and maybe streams or videos of people playing a game they really liked. In terms of video content, I really enjoyed the 2013 deliberations where Brad, Jeff, Vinny, Patrick, and Drew played a bit of their favorite game from that year, or in 2014 when the site had a poll and people voted on what games they wanted the staff to revisit. Like with how much Alex loved Ape Out, what if he had a video where he played and talked about why he loved Ape Out? Or Jeff and Control? Or one last Apex: Legends stream? And with these type of videos, you could theoretically do them before or after the deliberations; together with everybody or just on the East / West coast.