It's Thanksgiving in the US so I thought it might make sense for people to share some positivity about things they are thankful for this year in the spheres of gaming and Giant Bomb itself. If you want to throw in stuff in your personal life I'm pretty sure that @zombiepie won't force you to beat Kingdom II: Shadoan without a guide.
In gaming I am thankful:
Good single and traditional multi-player games are still being made despite industry trends and an executive push for exploitative live service games. We continue to get amazing games from every level of the industry,
Indie devs continue to push the boundaries of game design and give us new and exciting experiences. As AAA has gotten less experimental, with some notbale exceptions, indie devs continue to try new things, remixing old and inventing new gaming mechanics so gaming never gets stagnant. So many indie games are at such an incredible level of polish and creativity that I can't imagine sticking only to AAA these days.
The live service trend seems to be cresting and at least some publishers are realizing that not every game can be the only game people play. It seems that every few years we get these obnoxious trends that eventually go away and it's always great when they do. I am old enough to remember when motion controls had to be put into everything. Live service games aren't going away, but as long as those mechanics aren't shoehorned into every game whether they fit or not I will be happier.
Access to older games is slowly improving. A lot of older games, even licensed older games, have made their way to modern platforms recently. I love being able to find and play these older games without having to hook up a CRT. More compilations like Atari 50 please. Microsoft should get some of those old Activision games out and make it a priority.
Gaming in general seems to be in a decent place, at least creatively. Without discounting the business and employment turmoil that has rocked the industry this year a lot of great games have come out in relatively good shape. I love games and it's great to still have games I love coming out regularly.
For Giant Bomb I am thankful:
Giant Bomb still exists! There have been some tough years along the way but the site is still standing unlike a lot of contemporaries. That should be celebrated.
Most of the prior cast members are still putting out content so fans of every GB era have material from their favorite personalities. Jeff Gerstmann will always be a threat, but even people who aren't doing it full time like Ben Pack pop up places from time to time, which is cool.
Blight Club. It's one of the best shows GB has ever had and it comes closest to capturing the energy of in person content over the Internet. It effectively channels a lot of Dan's wacky ideas into a format where they work well. Right now it's the content I look forward to most on the site right now, so, yeah, I am thankful for Blight Club.
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