A Quiet Subscription Discussion

Hi, Giant Bomb. You mind if we have a little talk? I'll keep it to my little corner here, since the forums are kind of frightening and full of irrational vitriol and conspiracy theories at the moment.

Are we cool to do that? Awesome.

So let's discuss this whole Bombcast split. Sure has been a lot of heated talk about it, hasn't there? Not to mention Mike Tatum, Whiskey Media's resident...well, I think he works in sales in marketing, maybe finances, but I'm not sure. Essentially he's one of the toppest of men. Anyways! Mike Tatum, on the suggestion of a certain user, decided to offer up an alternative to splitting the Bombcast: Get 5,000 subscriptions of any type by 1 PM EDT on September 10th, and Whiskey Media and Giant Bomb forget about the idea for good.

We'll get into detail about that a little later, but that sounds like a community quest, doesn't it? I think I've worked with those before. Maybe? Yes. STATS INCOMING.

Subscriptions Graph as of September 10th, 10:00 AM EDT
The yellow line represents the 5,000 subscription goal, the dark red line's the old pace we needed to exceed to succeed, and the dashed orange line's the old deadline before it was increased to the 15th. The bright red line's the pace we need to exceed for our new deadline, and naturally, the green line is the number of subscriptions so far.

Some quick stats:

• We're currently achieving an average pace of 130 subscriptions an hour. We needed 31.9 per hour to succeed.
• From this point forward, we need 4.88 subscriptions per hour to succeed.
• Our current short-term pace is 45.5 subscriptions per hour.
• If this pace continues, we'll either succeed in the next few hours, or by around noon tomorrow (EDT).
• My Arbitrary Estimation of Success is 99.98%. My Pessimist's Estimation says it'll take as long as tomorrow afternoon or evening to succeed.

OK, graph and stats aside. It looks like we've got a good chance at succeeding, but let's get back to the real discussion here, yeah?

There's been a few misconceptions on how this whole matter's gone down, to the point that certain users are painting this as some sinister conspiracy theory to grab at our money and hold all that we love hostage. Let's look at just how this challenge started.

Obviously, users were flipping out at the idea of a split Bombcast as soon as it was announced. A mixture of knee-jerk flippancy and genuine concern, I'd say. Solutions were proposed to convince the staff to keep the Bombcast as it is, and around 12:04 AM on September 9th, Giant Bomb user Llama tweeted the following to Mike Tatum:

"@whiskeymedia ill pay 60 dollars if you keep the bombcast intact"

This was a shared sentiment by a lot of users, and Mike Tatum responded with the following:

"Thanks for the thought. It's a good one. I'll make this deal with you and the community. If u like it, please tell everyone[...] If we get 5,000 subscribers by 10amPST on 9/10, the Bombcast goes free for everyone. Forever. Deal?"

Thus began this subscription drive. You'll note that none of the Giant Bomb crew were involved in this decision, and Ryan would admit during the Big Live Live Show that Mike came up to him afterwards to mention this deal, to which Ryan basically responded, "OK."

I'm already dragging on, but let's dispel rhetoric here, point by point.

They're holding the Bombcast hostage!

Nope. The idea of splitting the Bombcast certainly isn't ideal, but the Bombcast is not being held hostage. Users who have listened to the subscription podcast already know some of this, but it's basically been said that any time-sensitive features, like discussion of news or Wii/DSi releases would fall into that first hour available to everyone at the same time as usual, and the second hour would be less dependent on the time of its release. To me, that would potentially indicate deeper discussion of what everyone's been playing and that sort of thing.

Furthermore, this wasn't an evil scheme planned from the get-go. When Llama noted that the Bombcast deal was clever marketing, Tatum replied, "God, I wish we were that clever. Honestly, we're just trying to figure out an honest way to make a living. It's taken 3 years and [...] a lot of our own money. Now we have to make some money to keep the party going."

They're in dire straits, and need money!

Well, businesses do need money, but Giant Bomb's not in trouble. If anything, this is simply the transition from start-up to finally utilizing options to monetize the site in the best manner possible. Accepting money from the users is one such way, and unlike a donation feature, this allows Whiskey Media to give something in return.

Plus, Whiskey Media's run by Shelby Bonnie, the dude that brought C|Net to life. With that and the investment capital Whiskey's attracted over time, I'd say there's enough money to keep the sites afloat for some time. It's just time to start making money so that Whiskey can grow based on its userbase and not have to woo more and more investors.

There's also been talk about this subscription drive being about the new building and its related costs, but that doesn't appear to be the case. According to Tatum, "The short answer is we are paying less rent here than we were in Sausalito. The landlord is a GOOD friend!"

They could just put ads all over the site and we wouldn't need this!

How many ads have you seen recently? Those of us from the US have seen only a few, while international users see even less. Truth is, Whiskey's been relatively picky about who they'll take ads from in the past, as has been evidenced by the lack of any marketing and the constant questions of "how do these guys make money?" that used to inundate the forums.

The quality of ads has been relaxed somewhat since Whiskey signed a deal to have Sixapart grab most of their ads, but overall it's been stated that the only way to make enough money off of ads alone at this point would involve annoying dick pills ads, along with a bunch of pop-ups, pop-unders, eye blasters, and all those horrible ads we either hate or use Adblock Plus or another blocker to avoid. It's been stated that the staff loathe these ads, and generally they'll do anything to avoid them. Those that listened to the podcast also know Dave would rather work on fun stuff on the site instead of working of ways to deliver ads to users. Oh, and advertisers aren't willing to invest enough into the Bombcast to make that a worthwhile venture.

Key is, if you want a site you could enjoy visiting, ads are almost certainly not enough to keep Giant Bomb going at this point.

They lied to us about not changing anything!

Not really. This is a matter of quotes being taken out of context or simplified. Dave Snider has said in the past that he hates putting up paywalls, and that the site as we know it wouldn't take away anything already available. Yes, people will say the Bombcast split does exactly this, but the Bombcast will still be available to everyone over time, and the most crucial features will be in that first hour. Free users aren't losing the Bombcast. Plus, all the "Enhanced Community Interaction" stuff isn't so much putting up a paywall as it is giving dedicated users a chance for silly, meaningless interaction with the staff they enjoy. Free users can still enjoy the site and look at the rest of us for being weirdos (except for Lemon).

Of course, considering the odds the Bombcast won't be split based on subscription numbers, this really might be much ado about nothing. At the very worst, it's much ado about piddling semantics, as far as I'm concerned. People who say their trust has forever been shattered by a company trying to figure out ways to create incentives for a subscription program due to a few missteps are, quite frankly, people who almost certainly had little trust to begin with (and from the people I've seen dragging out this accusation, it seems accurate thus far), and that's unfortunate.

Giant Bomb and Whiskey Media are conspiring against their users!

Honestly, if you've dealt with the Giant Bomb staff for this long and you think their actions are intended to scam or con the userbase, you're completely ignoring Whiskey's business and marketing plans. Their plans are to create niche groups of dedicated fans for each subject that can relate to the staff and work with them to create a passionate and involved community.

Hell, that's the whole point. You get a bunch of devoted users, and they'll appreciate when a game company with good games decides to market directly to them, rather than the fodder of a general game site that covers everything. Of course, that also means they'll shit on really bad games marketed to them, but such is the risk with a business plan like this.

However, if you can't fathom anyone on the staff working on anything in your best interests, and consider them your enemy, it might be best to find another site to use. That's really an unhealthy, negative relationship that no one needs.
 

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed our little talk. If not, hey, I'm sorry for wasting your time. I just hate to see communities get all irrationally angry, you know? This happens all the time in MMOs. Every major patch would set off a whirlwind of hatred and threats to leave or unsubscribe from the userbase, but nine times out of ten it wouldn't amount to anything. I'm hoping (and relatively sure) that's the case here, as well.