Giant Bomb

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.

Folks, if you’re not aware, we like to all get together and do some Big Stuff every once in a while here at Giant Bomb. It’s been a couple of years since the beginning of quarantine made it more difficult to travel and get together, but this week we hope you’ll join us at the Great Giant Bombathon Live, when all of your favorite Giant Bomb personalities (and me) will be heading to New York City for a fun day of streamin’ and chattin’ and hanging out in chat and Twitch.

If you want to know what to look for, check out this video that I clipped out for social media but have had a hard time uploading to the site itself:

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. With the site's staff girding their loins for the first in-person live studio event in over two and a half years, sentiment is at an all-time high. Speaking of which, if you still are confused, the Great Giant Bombathon: LIVE will be an all-day stream of in-person content starting at 12 PM EDT on Wednesday, October 5th. Nonetheless, we are getting ahead of ourselves! Without further ado, let's get into the site-related news and wonderful things the community has been up to recently.

News

It's time to review a new batch of news and information about the pull t-shirt designs. First, and foremost, Giant Bomb is not going to reprint the recent shirts until they find a new merch partner. The store has been shut down and is on "hiatus" until further notice. An email about shirt refunds should've gone out to everyone who tried to buy one. If your order has been cancelled and you did not get a refund, please drop a comment in the previous thread. If you are wondering what the end-goal might be, Rorie believes that the site will reprint the new designs and its previous merchandise in a few months but it will involve a whole different billing/shipping situation.

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 crazy to think, but this week marks the one-year anniversary of Jess/Voidburger first appearing on the site as a guest! I think we can all agree that Jess has been a hugely positive addition to the site and as one of the main fixtures today, her energy and enthusiasm is greatly appreciated. So, if you have not done so already thank her for the past year and all she has done for the site since.

News

We have a major but disappointing update from Rorie about the state of the Giant Bomb store and what is going on with the latest batch of t-shirts as well as the print on demand service. As you can see below, production of the shirts and the store as a whole is on hiatus. For those that still have not received their goods, you should expect an email from Social Imprints on how to get a full refund.

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. There was a lot of gaming-based news to process, but one of the bigger ones to hit the gaming community involved the recent layoffs that hit Fanbyte. Jeff Grubb has stated that in the coming weeks you can expect to see a strong rotation of former Fanbyte staff as guests on Game Mess Mornings. However, while many of the staff impacted by the Fanbyte layoffs are friends and supporters of Giant Bomb, the staff and moderation team again plead for you all to avoid engaging in fantasy hirings and "bookings." While we all understand that these comments come from a place of love, they are distracting to the present situation and place the staff and community in an awkward and uncomfortable position. With that out of the way, let's talk about some site and community-related news!

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 endeavors from the previous week. It was a whirlwind of news and content this week, and I think that is reflected in this edition of the Spotlight. However, let's jump into the newly formatted "News" section of the Spotlight to see what wonderful things the site, staff, and community have been up to recently.

News

Earlier in the week, Giant Bomb was temporarily read-only to allow the engineers some database migration work. Obviously, the site has reverted back to its original state, but if you notice any technical issues, features, or tools that are inaccessible to you, let out a yelp in the thread announcing the event.

If you are wondering about Arcade Pit not airing an episode during the week of 9/4 to 9/10, the feature took the week off and will be back soon!

For those of you that enjoy VTubers, there was a fun moment when Kson reacted to Jeff Gerstmann, Brad Shoemaker, and Ben Pack talking about Fallout 76. To add context, this was part of reaction stream as they were watching ''The Fall of 76'' by Internet Historian. That said, this image certainly messed with my brain:

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

News

Unfortunately, some are reporting that the most recent batch of t-shirts are still not of the quality they would like. Rorie posted an update on what the site is doing about this setback and responding to anyone who has experienced this.

Let the site know by tagging them on Twitter or sending an email to support@giantbomb.com if you are still seeing an old version of the Bombcast in your RSS feed or podcast reader! If it is a third party app, provide the name and hopefully they can try to figure out what's going on! The feed has been updated with the correct file so if your app lets you refresh or redownload that might help?

Good news for wiki editors that submit release data on the site. The full form for "add release" should be fixed on the site. If you still experience issues, drop a comment in the thread below!

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 form the previous week! After a busy site-related news week yesterday, things were decidedly calm, which makes my life easier. As reviewed last week, the new t-shirts are back up and available through the Giant Bomb store! Furthermore, the bumper stickers that were made on-stream are now available for purchase.

However, people are continuing to report poor printings of shirts they ordered from the Giant Bomb store. It is believed that these shirts are delayed orders of shirts printed from the same batch of bad shirts from before. If you have any issues, email support@giantbombstores.zendesk.com OR drop a comment in the new shirt thread. Rorie is responding to comments posted in the thread daily and feel free to @reply him if he doesn't send you a response.

There were a few scheduling issues last week.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am honored to be you host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week. We have a lot of site-related housekeeping to discuss, so, this week we'll just jump right into it.

The recent t-shirts are back up and available through the Giant Bomb store! Furthermore, the bumper stickers that were made on-stream are now available for purchase.

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. Hopefully everyone enjoyed EVO 2022 last weekend as many of you even took the time to drop by the Giant Bomb chat while the event was running. For future reference, if you or a community feel like a major gaming conference or event warrants keeping the chat open for the special occasion, please reach out to Rorie on Twitter or Discord. While there's no guarantee that the request will be accepted, those are the channels to get your voice heard in the first place.

When it comes to the new t-shirts, we have a few updates. As was the case last week, the site's store managers are working to address production issues. As part of these production checks, the new shirt designs will be temporarily unavailable until the print centers pass a quality check. If you wish to learn more about the problem, here's a link to Rorie's on-site post about the issue. Also, don't forget to send an email to support@giantbomb.com if the shirts you ordered come back and do not match what was advertised.

Some of you have sent emails to support about receiving an email with the subject line "Welcome To Giant Bomb." This email is NOT FAKE, and instead, part of a final check by Rorie to set up the weekly newsletter feature. While there's no official ETA on when to expect a return of the weekly newsletter, progress is being made.

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.

Unfortunately, we have to talk about some negative news with this edition of the Spotlight. As many of you are already aware, recent orders for the new t-shirts started hitting homes and many were shocked to discover they were not printed as advertised. The site and managers of the store are aware of the problem and doing everything that they can to refund any and all impacted orders. The affected shirts are mainly the Temple and Tarot shirts, but we have also seen some issues with Cat/Yarn design being printed off-center and the Bomby shirt also looking far more plastic-y than anticipated. If any of these problems describe your shirt order, please email support@giantbomb.com.

You can also use the Giant Bomb Discord to get updates on the issue and reply to the Tweet I linked above to direct contact Rorie. For those of you that would like to avoid using Twitter or Discord, here's a link to Rorie's on-site post about the issue where you can learn about the problem, ask questions, and report specific issues for you impacted orders.

That’s right folks, we got new shirts on the docket! This is probably the BIGGEST shirt drop we’ve ever done at Giant Bomb, and we’ve got some new twists and turns this time around. Let’s dive in, shall we?

If you are a Giant Bomb Premium subscriber, you can get 10% off your entire order (pre-shipping) with the code GiantBomb10Percent at checkout. You’ll need to be using the same email address as the one tied to your Premium account to ensure that this discount works! If there are any issues with this, email me at support@giantbomb.com!

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 from the previous week. Obviously, the big news this week pertains to the seven new shirts, one of which is exclusive to premium subscribers, that just dropped in the Giant Bomb Store! If you have yet to check them, give them a gander and be amazed by the wide variety of styles this time.

However, with a major release of merchandise like this, a few issues have cropped up.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am honored to be your host this week as we look back at the best creative endeavors from the community! Hopefully all of you have a competitive spirit because the big news this week relates to an upcoming friendly competition the Giant Bomb community will be having with the MinnMax community. On Monday, July 25th at 9 PM EST / 6 PM PST, MinnMax will be hosting a video game trivia competition. If you have interest in joining you can either subscribe to MinnMax's Patreon to join their Discord OR you can join Giant Bomb's Discord and find the referral link in the "News" section. If Giant Bomb wins, then Dan gets to pick a game under ten hours to force the host of MinnMax to play to completion.

As many of you may recall, Jess was away on vacation following the Bombcast, but if you miss her already, consider checking out the episode of the Super GG Radio podcast she guested on recently. If you were wondering, the Super GG Radio program is a gaming podcast produced by NPR Illinois.

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. For those of you that tuned into the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run last weekend, I want to thank you for your support and words of encouragement! Overall, the event managed to raise over $3,000 for the National Network Of Abortion Funds! If you missed the event, don't worry as you can still donate to the team using this link! Special commendations are in store for nickieroonie for playing Cuphead with their feet and managing to get reported by IGN as news!

A few programming and staff notes for this and next week! During the week of July 18th, Jess hopes to get a new Hot Takeouts up on the site before she leaves for vacation. If you don't see her on the site during that week, that is the reason. Also, if you are on Twitter, you might be aware that Jan set up an NGL account where you can ask him anonymous questions. Please be nice, but he's already answered over 100+ questions at this point.

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 from the last week. If you are reading this during the weekend, be aware that the Giant Bomb staff and community are running an emergency community fundraiser for the National Network of Abortion Funds! Expect plenty of exciting streams all weekend, which you can watch in the Giant Bomb chat! If you want a schedule of the planned events, feel free to check out the announcement thread. Also, please click the team page and help out some of the people on the team still looking for their first donation!

The Giant Bomb staff were active around the internet beyond your regularly scheduled content this week.

• Jess and Jeff Grubb were guests on a RiffTrax livestream where they played more of the RiffTrax video game.
• Jeff Bakalar was a guest on a recent episode of Nextlander's Never Been a Better Podcast! For that particular Nextlander podcast, you need to be a $10 or more contributor to their Patreon.

Finally, last weekend marked the 9th anniversary of the passing of Ryan Davis. In the Tweets section you will find a handful of touching tributes to one of the original members of Giant Bomb. Consider sharing your memories of the man in the tribute thread linked.

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 works from the previous week. With another month down, the site and its staff are jumping into the heart of summer. As such, be aware that several staff will begin taking vacations. Monday July 4th is a holiday in the United States and there will be no scheduled streams or video content on the site on that day. Also, Jan announced at the end of Run for the Hills 09 that he will be taking a much needed vacation and the feature will go on hiatus until he returns.

To continue the note from last week, the site's staff are working with ActBlue's Abortion Fund to help provide women with healthcare and abortion resources. If you have even a small amount to donate, please consider doing so. Over on GameSpot, the site has an even more exhaustive and in-depth article about what everyone can do to fight for reproductive rights in the United States.

Earlier this week, many community members experienced a 503 Error when they attempted to download old video content. For most, the issue has been resolved, but if there are any specific videos you cannot download or the error is still a problem for you, drop a comment in the linked thread.

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 creative endeavors from the Giant Bomb Community! Well, I'm not beating around the bush this week, the overturning of Roe v. Wade has set back women's health and reproductive rights fifty years in the United States. With signs that this Supreme Court decision might signal the unpinning of marriage equality, contraception use, and more, it is understandable that the staff and community of this site are pissed. We all should be. I want to thank the hundreds of you that have commented in the community discussion thread for this topic that have remained non-insulting and proactive about what to do next. If, however, you were one of the half-dozen asshats that criticized Jan and Jess' decision to delay Run for the Hills until next week, then, as Jan put it, you can leave.

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 from the previous week. Well, it's crazy to think that it has been a week since we last met, but that is indeed the case. To everyone who dropped thoughtful and kind messages last week, I want to thank you for doing so. Giant Bomb as a site is indeed changing, and as I said last week, it's okay to be concerned or angry at first. However, the people who are still here definitely have shown that they care for this site and want to continue with many of its traditions. Likewise, a hearty congratulations to Jeff Gerstmann for whipping up over 6,000 subscribers on Patreon in about a week!

The 16th was Dan's birthday. If you have not yet wished him well in turning a year older, you can send him a silly Tweet.

A lot of Giant Bomb members have been asking about the source of all of the new logo and design work on the site. The main person responsible for these new designs is Justin Vachon and you can thank him on Twitter for all of his hard work. For example, he shared some insights into the Game Mess Mornings logo that are worth checking out if you have not already.

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 was an eventful week here on the site to say the least, so let's get to it.

The founder of the site, Jeff Gerstmann, is no longer a staff member here on Giant Bomb. The announcement that Giant Bomb and Jeff would be parting ways shocked us all. Following the news, the site revealed that its new core team would feature Jeff Bakalar, Jeff Grubb, Tamoor Hussain, Lucy James, Jess O'Brien, Jason Oestreicher, Matthew Rorie, Jan Ochoa, and Dan Ryckert.

As we announced on the June 7 episode of the Bombcast, Giant Bomb Premium is evolving and it's pretty damn exciting!

Starting today, we want to enter a new era of transparency with you, the GB audience. So here’s what you need to know: Giant Bomb and Jeff Gerstmann have agreed to go our separate ways.

We’re not just going to gloss over this kind of heavy-hitting news–it is a big moment. Jeff is a co-founder of Giant Bomb and has been at the heart of the site since it launched in 2008. Whether it's Quick Looks, live streams, or the Bombcast, you have consumed content that he had a hand in making. Jeff has shaped Giant Bomb in profound ways and he's also been a key part of bringing on board the voices that have defined the site through its different eras. To this day, Giant Bomb’s influence on the way video games are covered on the internet is still as pervasive as ever, and Jeff remains inseparably attached to that legacy.

But things change: life unfolds; priorities shift, and people come and go. And the same goes for Giant Bomb.

Many people have called Giant Bomb home, but they've also ventured out in search of new opportunities and, each time, it has been difficult to see, for us as their colleagues and you as a community that follows them. But what has always helped us–and hopefully you–is understanding that Giant Bomb has never been about one person. Giant Bomb has always been greater than the sum of its parts.

What started as a group of people in a basement evolved into a couple of websites in another basement. That became two offices on each coast, and eventually–out of both necessity and opportunity–a group of friends scattered across the States. Fundamentally though, through each of these changes Giant Bomb has remained what it has always been: a bunch of passionate friends talking about and around video games.

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 big news that most of you are already aware of stems from Jeff G's recent absence on the site. Jeff revealed on twitter that he is seeking medical treatment for TMJ. This work of photoshop from sebmal on Twitter is the hopeful best case scenario for Jeff in his possibly surgery and recovery.

For those of you that noticed the "Manage Cookies" button on the lower left part of the site, the issue should be fixed for a majority of users. However, if you are still seeing the button on your browser, click the link and file a bug report that indicates which browser you are using and if you are on mobile.

Speaking of Rorie, in case you missed it last week, Rorie dropped a comment in regards to the current state of Giant Bomb premium. While it doesn't address everything, definitely check it out if you haven't read it yet.

Also, Jess made a printable 4K Kirby June calendar and it is fucking 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 on the best community-created works from the previous week.

First, in case you missed it, Rorie dropped a comment in regards to the current state of Giant Bomb premium. While it doesn't address everything, definitely check it out if you haven't read it yet.

Continuing with the site-related housekeeping, for those of you that noticed the "Manage Cookies" button on the lower left part of the site, the engineers are aware of the problem and will try to have a solution soon! Feel free to drop a comment in the thread provided in the link above if you continue to experience this issue well into the week or it is making site navigation especially difficult right now. With all of that in mind, let's jump into the proper Community Spotlight!

Tweets

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 from the previous week. With the warmer weather starting to kick into high gear, we are edging perilously closer towards the perennial "Summer Game Drought!" However, that does not mean the site will stop belting out awesome content. As many of you are already aware, Jess and Jan wrapped up another successful season of Run for the Hills! If you are wondering what other shows can fill the void until the third season, remember to check out the Programming Schedule and Show Notes page which gets updated at the start of every week!

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-made works from the previous week. It was a relatively calm week for games beyond the game delay announcements. I'm not sure if any of you were honestly surprised to see Redfall and Starfield delayed, but I sure wasn't considering how little of both we have seen. That aside, let's get into the site-related housekeeping.

First, you all might want to give the Programming Schedule and Show Notes page a check considering a few shows that were on "Hiatus" recently got move to "Coming Soon" or "Active!"

Likewise, remember to check out the dedicated bug reporting thread for the Apple TV app as well as the dedicated bug reporting thread for the Roku App. Mr. Rorie has been pretty active in both threads to make sure any and all comments that get posted in either receive a reply. Also, if there are any of you that feel like we need dedicated threads for other streaming platforms (i.e., Chromecast, Amazon, etc.) feel free to drop a comment here and I will relay your input to Rorie.

Videos

Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run VODs (By: Various)

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.

Alright, this week we have a couple of important announcements about video player apps related to Giant Bomb. You may have noticed that the original Roku/Chromecast/Apple TV Megathread was locked last week. As Mr. Rorie explained in the last comment in the thread, all of these apps and video players are becoming so wildly different from one another that it seems best to have several dedicated threads rather than one mega-thread. As a result, the site has a dedicated thread for those of you with issues using the Apple TV app as well as a dedicated thread for those of you that encounter bugs or issues with the Roku App. If there are any of you that feel like we need dedicated threads for other streaming platforms (i.e., Chromecast, Amazon, etc.) feel free to drop a comment here and I will relay your input to Rorie.

On a more light-hearted note, our sister-site GameSpot set up and recorded their first studio podcast since the start of the pandemic! If you want to hear Tamoor, Lucy, and Jean-Luc have a ton of fun sharing how excited they are to be back in a studio, give the most recent GameSpot After Dark a listen!

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!

When it comes to important announcements and fun facts, we have a few to review this week. First, there's going to be a new feature on the site that is similar to "Best of Giant Bomb," but this one will be titled "Dear Giant Bomb". It will compile the best/worst emails and calls that the site gets for the Bombcast or Voicemail Dump Truck. If you enjoy this feature, consider following its editor, sebmal, on Twitter!