Giant Bomb

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again your host as we look back at the most notable community-created works and site-related news from the previous week.

However, before get into that, let's talk about the big piece of news many of you are still talking about. Last Friday marked the final day Matt Rorie was an employee on Giant Bomb. As stated during Episode 780 of the Bombcast, he is leaving to work for an "unprecedented opportunity" that he was offered by a long-time friend. Rorie is leaving the site on good terms and has no ill-will directed at Fandom. This was his choice and you'll find out what the future holds for him in two weeks as he spends the next week visiting his mother.

If there is some solace from this disappointing news, Rorie has maintained that he will continue to participate on the site through the forums and Discord, but in a reduced capacity when he can. However, there's no denying his loss is still very much that, a loss that likely cannot be fully replaced. In between his efforts to handle site tickets and customer service, he also took time to interact with the community. I, like many of you, probably had more interactions with Rorie than any other staff members on Giant Bomb and can confirm that the man you saw on camera was the man he was in-person; an absolute delight.

So, if you have not done so already, please consider dropping a comment in the thread thanking Rorie for all he has done on and for this site. Also, Rorie took Luchadeer for his years, but the old Giant Bomb couch still lives on.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week. This time we have a well-rounded assortment of works to review as well as some hilarious Dan-inspired things to enjoy.

For those of you that have been reporting episodes of Game Mess Mornings not appearing on the site or even in you podcast feed, the issue should be resolved. Likewise, some people are seeing black screens when watching old premium videos! If this issue is impacting you, drop a comment in the bug thread about the issue and feel free to read about and try some work-arounds. For example, try clicking the three buttons at the bottom of the player and Go To GB Player.

Finally, thank you all for your patience while Jan was out with COVID. He's still recovering but was able to process and work on many of the video processing requests many of you made the past week. If you notice any videos that are still not on the site, feel free to drop a comment here or in the Discord.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week. This time we have an incredibly well-rounded edition of the Spotlight that has a little bit of everything while people get excited for Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and Atomic Heart.

However, many of you are still having issues with the new video player as well as the video encoder. As mentioned last week, the embiggen and fit to window options are in the works, but we don't have an ETA at the moment. The design and bug team are working with the tickets that Rorie is filing on your behalf, so, continue sharing your issues with the video player and the current API.

On a related note, timestamps on podcasts and videos on YouTube are rolling out slower than expected and this is not due to Giant Bomb no longer valuing timestamps. This week, Jan, who does most of the timestamps, had things that ate into the worktime he normally uses to make those.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week.

After a delay due to recent events, the Giant Bomb Community GOTY 2022 Winners have been announced! If you want to see how the community vote stacked up with the staff GOTY awards, or just like this feature, drop a supportive comment in the article!

Dylan Host, the Community Manager of Safety for Fandom’s Community Safety team wants to introduce himself! What's his job and when should you contact him? Some people are confused as to how their overlaps with Rorie's and, as they say in the write-up, they are happy to respond to any comments you drop their way.

This next note is a throwback to those of you that have been on Giant Bomb for a while. Drew Scanlon and Danny O'Dwyer have a new episode of their F1 podcast available. Give it a listen if you want a fun rundown of all the upcoming events for the season and other news connected to F1! Likewise, Grubb's off-site Game Mess Patreon is nearing the 250 patrons mark and thanks anyone who joins.

Finally, if silly but fun stuff like this does not sell you on why you should join the Official Giant Bomb Discord, then I don't know what will.

Intro: Hello everyone, and welcome to another exciting week here on Giant Bomb.

Last time I wrote I said we were close to re-launching the store and…we are still pretty close to doing so! I apologize for the delays here. The ownership of the store has been transferred to my account and all of our merch from Social Imprints is being shipped to our new store partner. Untangling all of the merch and getting it rung into inventory will take a bit, but we are still planning to launch with the seven shirts from last summer - hopefully less busted this time, but the samples are great! As well as those, hopefully we can unpack some of the merch from our inventory shipment When we do launch I’m going to have to ask for your patience in getting up to speed - I’ll be handing all your store code and 10% off discounts manually, I assume, so please as always drop me a line at the support email address and we’ll try to get you sorted.

Hey everyone! These are the results of the community GOTY - the results of which (resultingly) have been resulted below. This year, 712 of you submitted a top ten list, for a total of 5854 votes (not everyone always puts in ten games, which is fine!) on 500 different games. Wow! Amazing!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week.

Well, I guess an explanation is in store from me on why things on the forums are the way they are this week. As many of you probably noticed, a spammer bumped about 200+ threads and articles. The spammer has been banned and nuked, but you as you can see, my articles continue to clog up the forums. The issue is being investigated, but it appears anything posted by staff members might have some kind of immunity against reverting threads to their normal spots. This is not intentional, and the engineers are working on identifying why this is happening.

For more context on why The Spotlight in particular seems popular with spambots, this has been an issue for years. For example, search "Giant Bomb Community Spotlight" on Twitter and be amazed at how many bots retweet these articles. As things stand, we are banning and nuking bots when they appear as soon as possible.

In terms of something you all can do to help the site get back to "normal," I have an idea. As you view this edition of the Spotlight, when you see a blog or thread you find exciting, please, drop a comment in support of that blogger or drop a relevant on-topic reply in the thread. If we can get even a handful of people to do this, the amazing things everyone posted and created will finally return center stage, which is what they deserve in the first place.

Finally, Tamoor ended up guesting on an episode of Nextlander's movie podcast to talk about Demolition Man. To give this podcast a listen, consider joining Nextlander for $10 a month! With that out of the way, let's jump into the Community Spotlight!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am honored to be your host as we look back at the latest great works from the Giant Bomb Community.

Many thanks to everyone for working through all of the hiccups with the new video player, and if you are still experiencing issues with the player, feel free to drop a comment in the official bug reporting thread. Known issues include videos starting muted, no saved positions are saved, and there is no longer a red progress bar anymore. This is a company-wide video player, but the Fandom engineering team are taking input from the Giant Bomb community in an effort to improve it as best they can. If you wish to have moment-to-moment updates on how the video player is improving, feel free to join the Giant Bomb Discord and drop a comment in the "Site Tech Issues" channel.

For those asking about why the 02/10/2023 UPF archive is not on the site, Jan and company are still getting accustomed to the site's new encoding method and they will have to delay the site archive for a bit. For now, catch the VOD on Twitch. Encoding issues are also the reason why recent features have been slow to hit the site.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the past week. This week seemed to be the week when everyone announced the shuttering of their multiplayer battle royale and/or live service games, but there's plenty to discuss about the site and its incredibly active community.

The site recently debuted a new video player and the site would like your help in ironing out any bugs or site issues! Get the details on what this means, and feel free to share your input in the thread. Some features, such as the Embiggen™ option, are still being reworked, so don't assume that the loss of certain features or options are permanently gone.

Likewise, if you are experiencing issues with the site API, we have a new bug reporting thread for that as well.

The debut of this new video player coincided with other production issues and hiccups throughout the week. Video and audio versions of the latest Power Bombcast should be fixed. Titling and description issues with Game Mess Mornings as well as GMM being broken in the RSS feed should no longer be an issue. With all of this in mind, send some good feelings and thanks to Jan.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Monday morning/afternoon Rorie’s Roundup of things happening on Giant Bomb. I was going to do this weekly but, well, the last couple of weeks have not been great! Sorry for the interruption in service but hopefully I will be able to pick these back up on a weekly basis going forward. Note that Friday Night Forkin' was mistakenly left off the schedule above but it is going forward on Thursday night! And we'll have a Community Co-Op Corner on Friday at 4 PM Pacific!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week. Obviously, the site is still processing the loss of Jess and Jason from last week. As a friendly reminder, it is strongly encouraged you do whatever you can support those impacted by the layoffs that hit Giant Bomb and GameSpot and if you need some help, here are some links:

Giant Bomb

• Jess on Twitch - https://twitch.tv/voidburger
• Jess on Patreon - https://patreon.com/Voidburger
• Jess' Linktree - voidburger.com
• Jason on Twitch - https://twitch.tv/unastrike
• Jason on Twitter - https://twitter.com/unastrike
• Justin on Twitter - https://twitter.com/megaberrycrunch

For those that really took the loss of Jess/Voidburger hard, be aware they were on an episode of noclip's podcast that you can give a listen. If you want to learn more about what they think the future holds for them or what they think of the current state of games journalism, it's a necessary listen.

The Giant Bomb staff are aware that the Programming Schedule & Show Notes on the front page needs to be updated. The good news is that Rorie is hoping to get back to the weekly roundup posts on Mondays going forward.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I am you host, @zombiepie. That first sentence has never been difficult for me to write, but it sure was this week. As most of you already know, Jess and Jason were laid off as part of sweeping layoffs that hit virtually every site in the Fandom network. Other names impacted included Mat Elfring from GameSpot and Justin Vachon who was the Giant Bomb and GameSpot's lead brand designer. Some truly talented and wonderful people who are now gone and that's gut-wrenching.

Jess is an amazing person and highly talented video producer and their absence is a huge loss. She provided endless laughs and smiles as well as a steady supply of Giant Bomb content that got everyone through some incredibly tough times.

Jason has been a rock for the Giant Bomb community and their presence was something to look forward to for nearly ten years. Others have already thanked them for their mentorship and genuine kindness and I will join them.

Mat Elfring is a name that many in Giant Bomb community today may not remember. But, for those that were here long enough to recall the Whiskey Media days, you may recall them being a regular Comic Vine fan prior to rising up to become a face that welcomed you whenever you logged in.

The latest designs from Justin Vachon were amazing and they brought a new sense of freshness to Giant Bomb and GameSpot on the front page and elsewhere. I loved everything they made and wish them and their future endeavors the best.

Support these people.

Hey folks, and welcome to the inaugural issue of what I guess we’ll call the Rorie Roundup for those of you who have some serious time in the GameSpot / Giant Bomb ecosystem. This is intended to be a weekly recap of what’s happening behind the scenes (and sometimes in front of the scenes!) here at Giant Bomb. I chose the picture above because I have been playing a lot of Returnal, which may become a relevant factoid to the Giant Bomb homepage if I finish up something that I'm working on.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created content from the previous week.

With GOTY now fully in the rearview mirror, which I hope all of you use on a regular basis when driving, the site is getting back into the swing of things. Dan is back after a bad bout of COVID and that means Grubb's torturous journey into the world of Bubsy 3D has returned! There was plenty of news to mull over thanks to Ubisoft, WWE, and Wizards of the Coast, but I am getting ahead of myself, so, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping.

News

Earlier this week several people have reported issues with the site's video player. As seen in the thread, the issue should be largely resolved, but some are still saying there's a little bit of jank when using the video player. For example, one person is saying they still have to *middle-click* (open in new tab) before the normal video will play. If that or any other issues are plaguing your experience on the site, please click the link and file a report.

As mentioned last week, if you are a part of the Giant Bomb Discord and are a premium member, find the comment from Bakalar about Fandom looking to conduct interviews by "Giant Bomb Superfans." Fandom wants YOU to tell them what you'd like to see on the site and why you still enjoy what's going on here.

Welcome to a jam-packed edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight brought to you by the wonderful year of 2023! Your host, as usual, is @zombiepie! After a short break to give everyone plenty of time to enjoy the holidays and the 2022 GOTY staff lists on the site, I'm glad to help usher you into a new year with plenty of community-created goodies.

This edition of the Spotlight is genuinely packed to the gills. So, I'm not going to waste your time this week. All I ask is that to hundreds or thousands of you that read or use this feature, please consider checking out at least one or two of the community-made lists or blogs on the site and tell the author "thank you" or "good job." Let's try to start 2023 on as positive a note as possible.

News

This week was a slow one for Giant Bomb and that's due to a handful of unforeseen circumstances. First, Dan caught COVID and his infection was an especially bad case with him needing to be off camera while recovering. The hope is that all of the normal programs will return during the week of 1/8/2023, which includes the return of Grubsy. Arcade Pit also needed to take a break last week due to unexpected issues.

If you are a part of the Giant Bomb Discord and are a premium member, find the comment from Bakalar about Fandom looking to conduct interviews by "Giant Bomb Superfans." Fandom wants YOU to tell them what you'd like to see on the site and why you still enjoy what's going on here.

Finally, as mentioned during UPF and as part of Jess' Twitter thread commemorating her first full year as a Giant Bomb employee, she's officially engaged with her partner. Feel free to wish the two of them the best in their adventures together.

What’s up my gamers? This year I invited my son to participate in the GOTY fun because there’s no one to tell me I can’t. That’s right folks! Nepotism, babyeeeeee!

In reality, his opinion is of increasing relevance, where mine is just… also here.

So let me get my list out of the way so that we can take a look at his, which was hand-written and scanned for your viewing pleasure.

10. NORCO

Wow, a point-and-click game that had me engaged in the year 2022. What kind of ass-backwards bizarro world are we living in? NORCO had its hooks in me out of the gate, because that game gets down to business immediately and drops interesting exposition from the second you hit start.

Plus, I’m a sucker for retrofuturism and robots– mostly because I’m a shallow one-dimensional idiot and only one flavor of cyberpunk dystopia speaks to me anymore.

10. Evil West

So you hit the punch button and hold it down to launch the enemy, then you jump up and Superman-punch them into an environmental hazard–killing them. Then, you’ll lasso the tick in front of you, drag them in, punch, Superman, repeat… this all feels pretty good.

Hey all, 2022, huh? I cannot lie: this one was a rough one! We said goodbye to Jeff Gerstmann, we got sold to the fourth company that has owned Giant Bomb while we were still trying to figure out how to extricate ourselves technologically from the second company that has owned us, and Jesus Christ those fucking shirts. Editorially things are going well, but from a behind the scenes point of view, it’s definitely been a lot of lurching from emergency to emergency. Combine that with taking maybe 3 days off all year long, and you have a recipe for limping across the finish line of 2022! And as soon as 2023 starts, we get to do it all over with Fandom! So far they have been a very fun company to work for, but I can't stress enough that switching to whole new HR/benefits/expense reporting/contractor systems has been A LOT to deal with lately. Working on it! Gonna get that store back up as soon as I can in 2023!

Baby’s second GOTY at Giant Bomb! Wow! It’s happening!

Honorable Mention: Save Room

Hey man, this is cute. It’s a bunch of puzzles based on the Resident Evil 4 briefcase inventory system. It’s a bunch of em, it’s cheap, it’s something I didn’t know I wanted so bad, but I did.

Honorable Mention: Tinykin

If you take Pikmin and Chibi Robo and subtract the time limits and stress, you get Tinykin. It's a really lovely game with tight controls and satisfying collectibles. It also manages to have rather sprawling levels that don’t feel overwhelming, due to its usage of speedy and logical traversal via silkworm rail grinds. Each level has a great sense of momentum and a flow that just feels good. It’s a bit shorter than I was hoping – about 6 hours – but it was a very pleasant time overall!

I’ve never written a Giant Bomb top 10, but I’ve definitely always taken inspiration from the many lists I’ve read on the site over the years. It’s always a strong reminder that game tastes are varied and also that more stuff comes out than any one person could ever play. With that in mind, I’d like to give you a snapshot of my year with 10 or so games that were great for me.

10. Mario Strikers: Battle League

I know a lot of people weren’t happy with Mario Strikers, but the game had almost everything I needed from it. Very few people complain about the mechanics of recent Mario sports games because, on that front, they are almost always solid. And in the case of Mario Strikers, the core soccer (or strikers, as it’s called) action is nonstop fun with space for strategy and mayhem. I wish it had better online support, but it’s still one of the best sports games of the year.

You know what’s wild? This whole year! I’ll spare you the whole spiel about the ups and downs, but here are a couple big milestones for me this year:

• Hit five years at Giant Bomb, this is officially the longest job I’ve ever had!
• I am the host of the Giant Bombcast
• My partner and I have a dog now!

From the bottom of my heart I want to thank y’all, the community. Whether or not you’re premium, whether you only watch older videos, whether you’ve been here from the start or for a little bit, or whether or not you occasionally check in from time to time; thank you. You all are the reason we can keep doing this. We’ll always make sure that you have a little home at the little corner of the internet.

Also wanted to give an additional shout out to the following homies: Jean-Luc, Matt Shipman, Evil Uno, Broadway Alex, Justin Vachon, Mike Minotti, Jesse Vitelli, Kam and Nate, all of the GB staff, Abby, Ben, Michael Higham, my partner, and last but not least Dave Bautista.

Now for the list:

10. Immortality

It's the time of the year when everyone reveals the games they love the most from the past 12 months. Naturally, this comes in the form of articles where they eloquently write about what each game stirred in them and why they believe it will be remembered for years to come.

I will not be doing that.

I have written extensively about each of the games in my list on the internet, so if you want to read what I have to say about them, you're just a Google search away. This is Giant Bomb and, somehow, I’m now a member of the team. Before we carry on I just want to highlight how unbelievable that statement is—it would give young me an actual breakdown. I always dreamed of working at GameSpot, but Giant Bomb felt so out of reach that I didn’t even let myself fantasize about it. I can’t express how wild it is that I’m now here, doing a list as a member of the Giant Bomb team. And that means I can express how I feel about the games on this list how I want, because this is Giant Bomb, baby! AND I AM ON THE TEAM.

Anyways, I have chosen to do my list through the beloved medium of gifs (not pronounced jiff, eat my ass gif maker person that keeps saying otherwise, you’ll never convince us). Not just any gifs, though: anime GIFs.

Anime is a wonderful medium that has made me feel all kinds of things. For every game, there is an emotion; for every emotion, there is an anime; and for every anime, there is a gif. Enjoy.

Wow, it’s my first ever Game of the Year list on Giant Bomb dot com! I’m equal parts honored and intimidated* to write one of these, partly because I don’t really like to be perceived and partly because 2022 has been an absolutely cracking year for games, and it was very hard to choose a top ten.

This year has been a whirlwind, simultaneously going by in the blink of an eye (it feels like yesterday Tam, Jan, and I were shooting Summer Game Fest vlogs on the mean streets of LA) and dragging its feet (I’m specifically calling out the slug days between December 19 and 22). Time may not have any meaning any more, but if there’s one thing I’m proud of this year, it’s that I can finally call myself a member of Giant Bomb (instead of a brandmate), and I can’t wait for all the fun and weirdness that 2023 will undoubtedly bring.

Here’s my list!

10. Stray

I have a cat. I spend a lot of time talking to my cat, taking cute pictures of my cat, and taking my cat to the vet (it’s not her fault, she has hot girl tummy problems). So yes, the cat game has squeaked onto my top ten. I thought it was adorable, and also gave me this very funny video of Peanut.

As I sat down to write this, I realized that this marks a decade of putting together my yearly top ten list for Giant Bomb. That includes a few years before I started working here, a few years after I left, and now—hey, I’m back! And as usual, my list is a mix of bigass AAA games and fun indie stuff. I guess the throughline for all of them is that they’re games where you do a bunch of shit instead of listen to or read a bunch of shit. Anyway, here’s my ten!

10. Cult of the Lamb

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we ease into the Christmas weekend. Despite the site rounding off its GOTY content last week, we have plenty of community-made goodies for you to enjoy. For one thing, we have a slate of GOTY blogs and lists from your fellow community members that are all worth a read while you wait for the staff to come back from break. Speaking of which, we have a handful of news items that are incredibly important, so, let's get into it now!

News

In case you missed it last week, here's a link to the VODs for Giant Bomb's video coverage of GOTY:

• Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2022: Day 1
• Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2022: Day 2
• Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2022: Day 3

Community 2022 GOTY voting has begun as well. If you experience any issues with community voting, feel free to drop a comment in the bug reporting thread. Likewise, we now have a thread where you can post and embed any of your 2022 GOTY lists! Feel free to post and discuss what you have on the site if it is any way shape or form connected to GOTY.

Welcome to a very GOTY-themed edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the week. As said in the introduction, this week is all about surfacing staff and community GOTY goodness. If you or someone you know posted a GOTY list or blog that I missed, feel free to drop a link to it in the comments and I promise to get it on the next Community Spotlight! With that in mind, let's get into it.

News

Obviously, the big news is that the site dropped three days worth of GOTY content last week for everyone to watch and enjoy. If you somehow managed to miss these streams, here are the archives:

• Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2022: Day 1
• Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2022: Day 2
• Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2022: Day 3

Community 2022 GOTY voting has begun as well! If you feel like diverge from the staff in their final rankings of games released in 2022, then send in a vote for the community pick. If you have any questions about voting or experience any issues or bugs when trying to send in your vote, here's the thread for that. In general, don't worry about games that came out in previous years or were only in Early Access. If you liked it, vote for it.

Pictured: What many are calling a lock for GOTY???!?!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am honored to be your host as we look back at the biggest news and best community-created works from the previous week.

Before we get into the news, I will likely break out the GOTY spirit for the Spotlight next week. For those unfamiliar, I tend to have fun categories for GOTY content when the site and staff pivot to that time of the year. Also, expect a thread on the site soon where you can post and send me your GOTY list or blog for inclusion on the next Community Spotlight. With that out of the way, let's review some NEWS!

News

Let's talk about GOTY plans. For now, the only thing we know for certain is that starting this Monday, the staff will be doing three days livestreams themed to GOTY starting at 12 PM PST. These streams will go longer than your usual Giant Bomb livestream and the theme for each is a mystery. Likewise, Rorie has confirmed in different channels that community voting will take place at some point next week or the week after. The same form and system from previous years will be used.

As many of you already know, because Tam, Lucy, Dan, and Bakalar were out attending The Game Awards, certain videos and features took a break this week. For example, you can't make Grubbsy without Dan.

Also, Jeff Bakalar was on an episode of Nextlander's Never Been a Better Podcast and was joined by Abby! Remember, this premium tier podcast requires a $10 subscription on Nextlander's Patreon.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week.

It's hard to imagine, but we are in the homestretch of 2022! Where did the time go? If you are wondering about the site's 2022 GOTY plans, give the most recent Bombcast a listen, or hop on over to the News section for a quick summary. That said, if you plan on posting any 2022 GOTY blogs or lists on the site, please remember to drop a link to them in the comments of the latest edition of the Spotlight. I promise to get them on the next episode! With that note aside, let's jump into the news!

News

As stated during the 766th episode of the Bombcast, episode 66 of Albummer will be the last episode of the show here for the foreseeable future. If you enjoyed Albummer and the fun crew at Two Minutes To Late Night, use the comments section of their last episode to thank them for their time and hard work over the last year. You can also follow the group on Twitter @2M2LN.

As stated last week, the status of Friday Night Forking is that the fourth episode is the "Season 1 Finale." The feature was contracted to be a four episode first season. If you enjoyed The_Windbag, follow The_Windbag on Twitch. From the sounds of it, some "hints" have been dropped there regarding what the future might hold.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week.

The feel-good Giant Bomb Extra Life team storyline of 2022 continues! Last weekend, khetix hosted their stream and raised $1,139, hightopninja was able to raise $4,280, AND mookie1515 captured $2,600 during their belated Extra Life Stream! If you missed their charity drives, don't forget that you can still donate by clicking any of the links I provided.

For this weekend, oleetku will be streaming and hopes to raise $550, followed by fasajones who is aiming for $1,000, and jake_plays_things who has their sights set at $1,500! Again, click any of the provided links if you have even a small donation to spare.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week. It's not every day that we see the pending doom of a social media network, but hey, it's been a year! Regardless, the community was pretty vocal about me keeping the Tweets section of the Community Spotlight. So, it will remain until Twitter ceases to exist. However, as you will see, the theme with this edition of the Tweets section involves the other social media platforms staff use on a semi-daily basis. All current staff are still on Twitter and while some have created accounts on Mastodon and IG, that is not universal. But more on that in a little bit! For now, let's review some site-related news!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the latest works and creative endeavors of the Giant Bomb Community!

News

Jeff Bakalar and Austin Walker were both guests on Nextlander's sixth "Never Been a Better Podcast." Be aware, this podcast is locked behind Nextlander's $10 Patreon tier.

As we will review shortly, archives of Extra Life 2022 streams are delayed but will be coming to the site. With those two notes away, let's review the real meat and potatoes of this edition of the Community Spotlight, PHASE TWO OF GIANT BOMB'S EXTRA LIFE 2022 CONTENT!

Wow, I was NOT ready to try and go for 24 hours last weekend! Luckily I'm out of town, but there is another amazing weekend of Extra Life #content coming at you starting tomorrow! As always, my deepest thanks to everyone who has joined our team and streamed to raise money For The Kids. I'm going to try and do another stream sometime in the next month to get some money sent to people who didn't raise so much, but if you're interested in joining the team, feel free to sign up here!

The ENTIRE WEEKEND will see various luminaries from our Discord server streaming to twitch.tv/gbdiscord! That's right; no need to track down a bunch of different Twitch names; it'll all be in one place at the same time, so tune in throughout the weekend; this stream should be in giantbomb.com/chat for most of the weekend unless there's any overlaps with the below! Here's a schedule of these Discordian streamers!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie am honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works form the previous week! This weekend was the start of Extra Life 2022! Even if you are reading this edition of the Community Spotlight after the streams and charity drives have ended, you can still catch up with VODs of streams you missed.

Also, be aware that you can continue donating to Giant Bomb's Extra Life 2022 page until December 31st, 2022! If you couldn't donate when the event started or was live, do what you can to spread the word and feel free to give what you can when you can! So, without further ado, let's talk about how you can help Giant Bomb have a fun and successful Extra Life this year!

Extra Life 2022 Plans & Information!

If you are reading after the main weekend event is over, be aware some community members and staff will be streaming after the normal Game Day block of November 4th through 6th. For example, the Giant Bomb Discord group always streams during the weekend after the main site does.

That's right, it's almost Extra Life time again here on Giant Bomb! We have a cavalcade of guests and fun in store for you this year. We've already raised almost $15,000 as a team, and we're hoping to hit a grand total of $223,566 to make our lifetime donation total a smooth $2,000,000.

EDIT: I am now being told that we were that far away from $2,000,000 LAST YEAR and thus we are probably almost all the way to $2,000,000 already! We'll celebrate when we hit it but we might as well have a nice big goal to work towards!

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am honored to be your host as we look back at the latest works and offerings from the Giant Bomb Community. This week, we have new shows and more Extra Life goodness to talk about before you dive into the meat and potatoes of this edition of the Spotlight. Speaking of which, I will be participating in the event! If you enjoy the Community Spotlight feature, please consider donating to my page. Also, Marino, who is the person that edits this feature ad makes it actually readable, is in charge of the Giant Bomb Moderators account. If you appreciate our efforts to keep the site safe and fun, consider donating there as well. With that in mind, let's go ahead and talk about the site related news.

News

Hey, everyone. Let's start the news off with something incredibly positive! This week Jason and Lisa celebrated their 15th anniversary. If you have been watching Giant Bomb long enough, you might even be able to think of your favorite Extra Life moments involving Lisa! Regardless, feel free to congratulate them in reaching this very special milestone in their marriage.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week.

Today marks the official start of Giant Bomb's recruitment and fundraising for Extra Life 2022! I know I have been promoting the site's team page for the past few weeks, but this week Rorie published an official article articulating and outlining the site's plans for the event as well as some of the faces you can expect to see during Extra Life Weekend from November 4-6! However, let's not get ahead of ourselves because I have a special section of the Spotlight siloed off to relay everything you need to know about Giant Bomb's Extra Life plans and how YOU can help! But before we get to that, let's talk about some of the site-related news!

News

A bit of recurring theme last week involved Giant Bomb staff getting involved in other podcasts as guests or their own sidepieces. For example, Grubb is starting a new Game Mess Decides podcast where he and a guest talk about this important development and what it means for the gaming landscape. Then there's always the GameSpot After Dark podcast where you can always expect to see Tamoor hosting a group of GameSpot employees in a discussion about recent releases and news.

For those of you that prefer to use Twitch when a livestream starts, the staff added over a dozen new emotes, most inspired by the Giant Bombathon, and if you want a "cheat sheet" of what these might be, here you go!

Folks, Extra Life time around these parts is always a fun adventure into the minds of sleep-deprived idiots who have Very Funny Ideas For A Stream at around 2 AM. I know I’m one of them, and so can you!

That’s right, folks, we are gearing up for a bigger and better and in-personer version of the Extra Life streams from the past couple of years. Giant Bomb staff, associates, and friends are going to knock you in the head with FUN over the weekend of November 4th through the 6th! This year we are aiming to raise $223,556 for UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. If that number sounds suspiciously un-even, it’s because that will make our lifetime total raised a cool, clean, even $2,000,000. With your help, we can do it!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back on the best community-created works from the previous week.

With the site making a full recovery from the Great Giant Bombathon and the staff making the long journey back to their homes, things are finally getting "back to normal" with the usual programming populating the site.

Before we transition into the site-related news, I first want to issue a huge congratulation to a couple of Giant Bomb members. Over on Twitter, @MoonRei_Razing got married to another Giant Bomb fan and even ended up getting a tattoo in commemoration of all the memories the site and its many staff members have provided them. Please join me in wishing them and their partner a very happy marriage and a wonderful journey in the next stage of their lives.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the last week. That said, one important site-related news item dominated the the talk on the site the last week and we will discuss that news item shortly. However, regardless of where you stand regarding Fandom's purchase of the site, I think we can all agree the staff have shown with the Giant Bombathon that there is a collection of excited people and guests that want to continue putting up a great show for all to enjoy. I don't want this to come across as a sales pitch, but as we will review shortly, there are some exciting things coming up in the future that give me and many others confidence that the future is brighter than some might want you to believe.