Vinny, Brad, and Alex have started a new Podcast and streaming project called Nextlander

The guys leaving Giant Bomb upset me more than I expected, really didn't expect them to be back so soon doing exactly what I love from them. It's sad the whole crew couldn't stay together but I totally get them wanting out of the big corporate environment as much as I get Jeff wanting to figure out how to keep Giant Bomb going and making it work within that environment.

I'm subbed to both for now, I really hope Giant Bomb can come out of it's temporary stasis and make the site exciting again so I want to keep both subs.

I’ll continue to give GB my money until they won’t take it anymore. Bombcast and Friday streams are more than worth the $5 to me. Excited to support Nextlander as well. I need 40 hours of new content a week to keep me entertained during the work week, so keep it coming!

@humanity: I definitely understand where you're coming from. I think that putting that planning podcast behind a higher level subscription tier is fine, provided that they also publish the schedule for free. A sort of "inside baseball" look behind the scenes is great for those who want it, but that doesn't mean that everyone else should be left in the dark.

Hot take:

Jeff will get the GiantBomb up and running and leave corpo to join old crew.

Full Circle.

What im curious about now is will there be bad blood between Nextlander crew and Jeff/Giantbomb or are they gonna be open to collaborate on stuff in the future? I wonder if Jeff is pissed at them for basically abandonning Giant Bomb or if hes cool with them doing their thing in a new direction?

I mean... they built their following up since 2008 and even earlier. It's not like they had some investor come in and throw money at them for it.

This is the first thing I've seriously wanted to sign up for Patreon for, but ... $7/month (canadian) is more than I want to pay, especially when I have no intention of using the perks of that tier. Wish there was a way to contribute less per month without any perks. I guess I could just do one month of a higher tier and then cancel it.

(Oh, I'd probably want to listen to their "weekly ramblecast" but I ain't paying $13.50/month for that...)

I'm super excited to see these guys already and glad they will still be in games coverage. I think I'm going to pass on patreon and twitch stuff for now as I tend to shy away from those sites. I subscribed to them on Youtube so I'll follow them there. I'm sticking with the GB sub as I still want to see where Jeff takes this next.

On one hand I am happy to be able to see those 3 do fun things on the internet. On the other hand, I feel betrayed as a loyal Giant Bomb subscriber. I guess loyalty is a thing for me.

I hope that they mention this on the Bombcast. This thread is what informed me of this existing. I hope that this continues to Katamari in community support and crew (I think you know what I'm implying). This is exciting. The support that this already has seems to be a pretty big crash pad if certain internet personalities want to take a calculated leap...

They will absolutely not be allowed to talk about a competitor podcast on the Bombcast.

They literally have competitors ON THE BOMBCAST as guests and they plug all the time, I don't see why they couldn't congratulate the old crew on their new launch.

@crashman06: I work for a small-ish retail chain that was bought by Private Equity 2 years back and the experience was soul crushing. The previous company was all about work life balance, treating everyone with respect and making sure that we felt valued. The new experience is getting a new manager every other month, constant goals with no assistance to get there and the implication that "if you worked a little harder" you could probably get the 60 hours of work done instead of checking out at 5pm. I heard the conversation around the small team being sucked up into the big machine and then heard them talk and it sounded so freeing. I hope nothing but the best for them.

Brad straight up said he was not allowed to say he had the Tech Pod with Will on the Bombcast. Couldn't talk about it. This was mandated by on high.

I'd love to be wrong, but unless you buy into the "Jeff and the crew had a falling out" conspiracy, Jeff hasn't acknowledged NextLander on his twitter yet and he's tweeted since then. It feels like he isn't allowed to talk about it.

It's not the craziest thing to imagine that happening. Who knows?

@tehspectre: Yeah that just seems odd for how they talk about Waypoint/Dan and Abby's streams. Seems like a weirdly grey rule. Corporations are weird lol. also Jeff straight up when they left insinuated that he wanted to something along the lines of "play video games on the internet with you guys someday". The Jeff conspiracy is silly.

You dont need to worry about feeling "Loyal" to a bunch of game commentators on the internet. That's weird.

My assumption is that because Brad worked at GB, he couldn't use that platform to promote his side gigs. It's maybe not so much about "never talk about the competition" but more about preventing staff from promoting their non-GB endeavors in GB content. I mean, the Tech Pod isn't exactly competition to the Bombcast. Pretty different topics and format.

Dan was also not allowed to promote his movie podcast he does with his wife, Panning the Stream, while working at GB.

I think it's more of a podcast thing? I think NextLander is also GB in everything but name, so it will be seen as a -direct- competitor compared to Waypoint's more journalistic side and Dan and Abby just playing video games. Nevermind that they literally all quit in unison to make their own GB. I can't imagine Red Ventures being cool with that.

@tehspectre: Yeah you're probably right just feels icky to not acknowledge it.

Stunning news to be honest. I'm also quite stunned to see just how many people have signed up for the patreon (I wasn't expecting them to surpass NoClip).

GBEast was never really quite my cup of tea so it's not something I'm interesting in giving dollars to. I still really enjoy the Bombcast and so I'll keep my premium sub to GB. I don't think this needs to be a one or the other type situation (GB OR NL)...

Support the personalities you like !

Well I’m subbed to Nextlander now. Kinda wish I could cut my GB sub which runs until the end of next year and put that towards the other guys but I guess I should give Jeff the benefit of the doubt.

Man nothing about all this feels great for me

I don't know. Again, remember that none of the staff has retweeted NextLander's announcement or just said "Hey, NextLander!" on twitter.

Rorie retweeted the GB Duder's twitter talking about it, which feels like skirting around it.

This would be the exact reason the guys struck off to do their own thing.

Corpo oversight blows.

Anyway

So many drama queens on the GB forums. It can be fun to speculate, but keep in mind they are human beings.

That said, reality is almost always the most boring/mundane outcome. I think those who create the most drama here can attest to that.

Nextlanders dudes wanted something different and literally could not do it where they are. It’s hard to imagine GB duders have animosity towards the folks who helped bring GB to where it is.

Which brings me to my next point, those talking about “betrayal” and “using their former employer’s notoriety” to build a new community are talking out their butts.

First off, those who left literally BUILT this very site. To demonize them as if they are poaching off someone else’s hard work is flat out wrong. What you’re seeing is a trust keeping hold in their working relationship with the audience.

To that end, everyone here didn’t come to www.giantbomb.com because “www.giantbomb.com”. We came here because the crew fostered a community for us to gather. GB will push on with the amazing staff they have now and Nextlanders will now begin building something that reflects their vision. We all win, especially the audience.

@bstnrich: Right on point!

As long as they have enough meaty baps its gonna be alright

Probably says something about where my bread is buttered that this is the first Patreon I’ve ever signed up for and the first ex-GB staff podcast/Twitch venture I’ve bothered listening to and watching. It’ll be quite nice to keep hearing these guys’ voices on a regular basis.

The best (and likely) possible outcome is that we get two exciting and dynamic video game websites. That's it. What I'm about to say is cliché, but it's a truth that everybody should probably embrace: change is the only constant. Nothing stays the same. Everything in life is born, grows, shifts, renews, divides, fuses, and dies. I'm excited for the new direction Giant Bomb is taking as well as the more mom-and-pop style video game site they're building at Nextlander. It's more cool new shit.

This is super exciting! They have probably been thinking about this for a while. First time I've ever used Patreon lul. Can't help but wonder how this will affect GB. Personally, all the people at GB I cared about the most are now doing basically the same thing somewhere else so....

Thank god. I don't think I could live in a world where I don't get to listen to Vinny at some point in the week. Thanks for informing us.

Nextlander Patreon already has almost 10,000 patrons with a $5 monthly minimum. Split 3 ways that's a pretty sweet take even after operating expenses. I bet the guys are making more there than as RV employees.

I really hope folks won't be posting any ill intentioned messages about this on the Bombcast live chat. Already saw some eyeroll worthy comments over at the Nextlander Twitch stream about GB. People really don't realize how shitty their speculation can look like to people involved.

Reading the RV employees line as I'm also watching Mary Kish go over old E3 stuff on a twitch vod, and now I'm wondering if Nextlander could fund that Johnny V in an RV project with some of the Patreon cash.

Exciting times.

@bstnrich: Well said!

@tehspectre said:

At least we can all agree on that.

@novaprospekt: damn thats like give or take $15k each per month. $180k per year if they keep the same pace all year. thats pretty good!

Quickest $10 I ever spent I think.

wait so this isn't the sequel to skylanders?

jk, good for those guys, awful name tho

@lyndbako: From what they said they spent weeks trying to find a decent name that was not already taken on most platform and it was a huge pain in the ass.

I have heard 3rd hand (don’t trust me) from a press sneak fuck (don’t trust me) that there was definitely a falling out with Boss Jeff. Regardless of the specific reasons, when three people put in their notice at the same time, they are not happy.

Thousands of patreons and Twitch subscribers on day one is a very happy story. I’m looking forward to what both sites do next.

This is still assuming a lot, and I don't think it's clear or self-evident that the RV direction for the company is definitely something they were against and/or the reason they left.

The Nextlander episode 0 podcast did make it pretty clear that Vinny and Brad and Alex had a lot of grievances with how corporate interests were quite different from editorial interests with CBSi, that much is a given. Vinny certainly seems like he was dissatisfied with how little anybody in CBSi really cared about Giant Bomb and they got shafted on studio stuff multiple times on the east coast, by the sounds of it. It may be that the direction RV is suggesting is not worse but perhaps just similar enough to the profit-driven goals of CBSi that it's neither worse nor better. Just more of the same, and the three of them would rather turn their back on corporate ownership and do their own thing where they have full control, instead of always having to focus on quarterly or annual profit growth goals.

Vinny did state that it was probably a net positive that RV is actually paying attention to trying to grow/improve Giant Bomb (paraphrasing), at least when compared to the low priority/neglect/general disregard from CBSi corporate that they're starting to characterize their time with CBSi as. RV could still mess it all up, but that remains to be seen. We'll see what gets announced today/this week.

I still think it's very early to judge what the new generation of Giant Bomb will be, and it's also very early to judge what Nextlander will be. But I'm happy that they're both moving forward and look forward to seeing what the two sites come up with.

I have nothing to add.

I mean, I know Vinny/Brad/Alex are long-time colleagues, but it isn't really the Bombcast's job to inform the audience of every thing that past Giant Bomb staff is doing.

To my recollection, the Bombcast didn't specifically mention Patrick's news jobs, Dan's WWE job once that was made public, they didn't specifically say "here is Abby's Twitch URL", etc. If those people return to the site as a guest they are given the opportunity to promote their stuff (Abby has been back on GB a couple times, she mentioned her Twitch, it was fine), but otherwise, they're not going to give the weekly news bulletin on how Waypoint or Nextlander is doing or whatever. We're all adults here, keep track of the internet celebrities you like, follow them on Twitter or Google them every few days if it's really important that you keep abreast of what they're doing.

Foreword: I'm trying to make this post sound as non-aggressive as possible. It's not supposed to be an attack, but the tone sort of might seem like it is.

I don't get (semi-)celebrity gossip. What is the outcome of it? Like, even if you are right that in this case Jeff hired Sheik Zanzibar to assasinate Brad while Vinny and Alex were forced to watch from the sidelines... what does shouting it out help? Because to me, the only result from the gossiping is that the subjects of the gossip feel shitty when they see the gossip, which they most likely will since people keep on doing it in their chats. It's not going to put the proverbial genie back in the bottle or fix things if the "truth" gets out.

Listening to the Bombcast right now, combined with what we know about what Nextlander is gonna do, it sounds like we're gonna end up with a bunch of new and more varied content, so really we all win out here because we still get the Vinny/Alex/Brad content we want but also there's gonna be a bunch of new GB shows.