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Giant Bombcast - Let's Talk About Memberships!

I still fail to see a reason for the initial decision by WM to shorten the bombcast.
What's their goal?
They wanna save some bandwith? Really? When they have multiple sites with lots of video content?
They wanna save that 1 hour of work time for other stuff? This all doesn't make sense.
 
Draft said:
Doesn't make you a dick, makes you a rational person. Putting free content behind a paywall is shitty. Doing after explicitly saying you wouldn't do such a thing is ultra shitty.
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Especially when the bombcast is what built their brand. I'm sure most people would never have visited/heard of Giant Bomb if it wasn't for the podcast. It's how I found out about them.
 
NIN90 said:
I still fail to see a reason for the initial decision by WM to shorten the bombcast.
What's their goal?
They wanna save some bandwith? Really? When they have multiple sites with lots of video content?
They wanna save that 1 hour of work time for other stuff? This all doesn't make sense.
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To entice people to subscribe to get the full podcast? It's not rocket science people.
 
jett said:
To entice people to subscribe to get the full podcast? It's not rocket science people.
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No, WM decided to cut 1 hour BEFORE this horrible get-the-full-bombcast-as-member idea.
As put in this quote:

Mkliner said:
Because the higher ups decided 2 hours was to much time to waste on a podcast so instead of just getting rid of the second hour they made it an incentive to subscribe. Well at least that's what they were heavily implying on the explanation podcast.
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NIN90 said:
No, WM decided to cut 1 hour BEFORE this horrible get-the-full-bombcast-as-member idea.
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Oh I misunderstood you. To save time and money then. I always thought some of these gaming podcasts were stupid long, personally. I was a fan of the old 1UP podcast when it was 30 minutes long...when it started breaching the hour barrier I stopped listening.
 
I've always looked at the Bombcast as being a loss leader. You don't make much money on it, but it drives loads of traffic to the site where you CAN make money.

Trying to make your loss leader profitable kinda defeats the whole purpose behind it.
 
NIN90 said:
I still fail to see a reason for the initial decision by WM to shorten the bombcast.
What's their goal?
They wanna save some bandwith? Really? When they have multiple sites with lots of video content?
They wanna save that 1 hour of work time for other stuff? This all doesn't make sense.
Click to expand...


Yeah I dont see how money is saved by them cutting the Bombcast at 60 mins either. They are already in the room recording, what's another 60 minutes going to hurt? If WM was really pushing them to shorten the Bombcast to 1 hour, then they have no idea what they are doing. The only reason anyone goes to that site is the Bombcast, making it shorter is a terribly shortsighted idea.
 
Nitrousoxide said:
I've always looked at the Bombcast as being a loss leader. You don't make much money on it, but it drives loads of traffic to the site where you CAN make money.

Trying to make your loss leader profitable kinda defeats the whole purpose behind it.
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Yeah, but the problem is that they don't make enough from people visiting the site. I found it funny when they said that one of the subscription perks is no ads. I'm struggling to find a single ad on the site right now.:lol

edit: post below answers why that is...
 
Nitrousoxide said:
I've always looked at the Bombcast as being a loss leader. You don't make much money on it, but it drives loads of traffic to the site where you CAN make money.

Trying to make your loss leader profitable kinda defeats the whole purpose behind it.
Click to expand...
Bare in mind there's a hell of a lot of GB visitors they make no money off. I have never seen an ad (as I live in the UK - their second biggest market) so the ads the US visitors see have to subsidise everyone and they obviously don't make ends meet atm
 
yankeehater said:
Yeah I dont see how money is saved by them cutting the Bombcast at 60 mins either. They are already in the room recording, what's another 60 minutes going to hurt? If WM was really pushing them to shorten the Bombcast to 1 hour, then they have no idea what they are doing. The only reason anyone goes to that site is the Bombcast, making it shorter is a terribly shortsighted idea.
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It isn't shorter, I thought. They are still recording for 2 hours. They just cut it in half and release it over the course of two weeks. As they said on the podcast about subscribing, after the first week everyone gets two hours of content. Just one of those hours is from the previous week.
 
Ataturk said:
Yeah, but the problem is that they don't make enough from people visiting the site. I found it funny when they said that one of the subscription perks is no ads. I'm struggling to find a single ad on the site right now.:lol
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Haha I've never really noticed the ads on the site except the occasional big ones on the front page. I didn't pay 50$ to get the podcast early or get rid of ads, I did it because of all the entertainment over the past couple years.
 
NIN90 said:
That's not what we are discussing.
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Sounds to me like people are still whining over a "short" Bombcast, which won't really be the case after the first week.

I'll be listening to the full Bombcast while wearing my WM t-shirt however, so I'm not too bothered.. :lol
 
Dynoro said:
Bare in mind there's a hell of a lot of GB visitors they make no money off. I have never seen an ad (as I live in the UK - their second biggest market) so the ads the US visitors see have to subsidise everyone and they obviously don't make ends meet atm
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They need to rework their ad stuff, or hire more ad-savvy people. I get plenty of "international" region-specific ads at other websites like Gametrailers for instance, but for me Giant Bomb is an ad-free experience.
 
For all over people who bit the bullet, are HD videos simply not loading for you? They are not for me... Pretty disappointing considering I'm not paying for it.
 
notworksafe said:
Sounds to me like people are still whining over a "short" Bombcast, which won't really be the case after the first week.

I'll be listening to the full Bombcast while wearing my WM t-shirt however, so I'm not too bothered.. :lol
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I'll explain it again:
I'm scratching my head why WM originally decided to shorten the bombcast by 1 hour (BEFORE the idea of paid members getting a full 2 hour bombcast)
What's their goal? Save bandwith? Nah. Save 1 hour a week on the production of their biggest draw? Hell nah.
 
ACE 1991 said:
For all over people who bit the bullet, are HD videos simply not loading for you? They are not for me... Pretty disappointing considering I'm not paying for it.
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I only tried it once and it hanged when streaming it in HD and simply didn't load up so I just downloaded the vid, was much faster to do since it was going at 3mb ad I don't have to deal with hiccups in playback when streaming.
 
jett said:
They need to rework their ad stuff, or hire more ad-savvy people. I get plenty of "international" region-specific ads at other websites like Gametrailers for instance, but for me Giant Bomb is an ad-free experience.
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I always wondered how GB actually survived until I found out US visitors got ads :lol If they did worldwide ads I'm sure they could probably get around the subscriptions (especially if they had a donate button too) - but I assume they looked into it and it wasn't feasible.
 
NIN90 said:
I'll explain it again:
I'm scratching my head why WM originally decided to shorten the bombcast by 1 hour (BEFORE the idea of paid members getting a full 2 hour bombcast)
What's their goal? Save bandwith? Nah. Save 1 hour a week on the production of their biggest draw? Hell nah.
Click to expand...

its not just 1 hour, Ryan spends a lot of time editing it.
 
Just to note, Dave said in the chat when this was all first announced that they have a hard time getting ads because game publishers say, "Why do I want to advertise to the hardcore when they're going to buy it anyway?"

Which is true, for good content. It's hard to really argue that.
 
Mkliner said:
Don't be stupid they'll get to at least 4,754
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And then they will say "After much consideration and even without reaching 5k, it's Free Bombcast to y'all. You're all rockstars and you deserve it".

It's a great way to try to end up as good guys after all the BS they tried in the last couple of days. And it's a great way to get more people to subscribe even if they already reached the 5k number "Hey guys the Giantbomb is kidnapped, subscribe if you want it to live"
 
panda21 said:
its not just 1 hour, Ryan spends a lot of time editing it.
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So what you're saying is that they could free up a lot of time and effort by axing the obnoxious WiiWare and DSiWare segments?

I love the Bombcast but that crap wore out its welcome a long long time ago
 
Dynoro said:
I always wondered how GB actually survived until I found out US visitors got ads :lol If they did worldwide ads I'm sure they could probably get around the subscriptions (especially if they had a donate button too) - but I assume they looked into it and it wasn't feasible.
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I remember only ever seeing one ad, but inexplicably it was for Eat Sleep Pray with Julia Roberts. =(
 
Not much of a problem, I don't tend to listen to the Bombcast until the week after anyway. I will just skip a week and then can listed to the full 2 hours (I think I have that right?).
 
ACE 1991 said:
For all over people who bit the bullet, are HD videos simply not loading for you? They are not for me... Pretty disappointing considering I'm not paying for it.
Click to expand...

I haven't had any problem at all loading videos in HD as progressive. They're loading in real time, no waiting for it to load, and my ISP is actually somewhat below average speed for broadband.

Streaming seems to cause hang-ups for some reason, though.

kenta said:
So what you're saying is that they could free up a lot of time and effort by axing the obnoxious WiiWare and DSiWare segments?

I love the Bombcast but that crap wore out its welcome a long long time ago
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Which is basically the kind of stuff they are going to put into the "second hour" that everyone is freaking out over.
 
sdornan said:
Just to note, Dave said in the chat when this was all first announced that they have a hard time getting ads because game publishers say, "Why do I want to advertise to the hardcore when they're going to buy it anyway?"

Which is true, for good content. It's hard to really argue that.
Click to expand...

...they definitely need better ad-men. I don't see other gaming "hardcore" websites having problems putting ads out the ass.
 
sdornan said:
Just to note, Dave said in the chat when this was all first announced that they have a hard time getting ads because game publishers say, "Why do I want to advertise to the hardcore when they're going to buy it anyway?"
Click to expand...
Well then they need to hire some better people because they wont be in business for to much longer if they cant monetize their content.

stupei said:
Which is basically the kind of stuff they are going to put into the "second hour" that everyone is freaking out over.
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Chopping previously free content in half to put it behind a pay wall is shitty, end of discussion.
 
Valru said:
Chopping previously free content in half to put it behind a pay wall is shitty, end of discussion.
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I thought it was still free but you wouldn't be able to get the second half of each show until the following week, or have I just misunderstood?
 
Bojanglez said:
I thought it was still free but you wouldn't be able to get the second half of each show until the following week, or have I just misunderstood?
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Which might as well be a permanent pay wall, just ask Revision 3.

Revision3.com was charging subscriptions to get their podcasts 1 day "early" long story short it didn't exactly work out.
 
As I said, it won't make too much difference for me. I will just listen to it (in full) a week behind, it is not as if I receive any vital information in the podcast that is time sensitive, it is just something decent to listen to in the car or at work.
 
StuBurns said:
No, it's not. News and releases is the free bit.
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They said timely stuff, but some people were clearly saying in the one podcast that Wiiware would be cut, and then Jeff seemed to object. I think they have differing opinions on how important and timely that stuff is. :lol

jett said:
...they definitely need better ad-men. I don't see other gaming "hardcore" websites having problems putting ads out the ass.
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I also think they want to be very principled about the whole thing, as they've said. They don't want to promise to give any specific kind of coverage or content, they don't want to be beholden to the publishers in any way. I'm sure a lot of other sites don't just trade eyes in exchange for cash but also agreeing to write x number of previews or to cover y event. Giant Bomb has made it pretty clear they don't tend to make those kind of promises.
 
Ya know, you'd think that if they were serious about this whole subscription thing they would still have some sort of announcement about it or news story about it on the front page now that the BLLSL is over. Because if I go to the site now without being signed in there is pretty much nothing to tell me there is something to subscribe to.
 
stupei said:
I also think they want to be very principled about the whole thing, as they've said. They don't want to promise to give any specific kind of coverage or content, they don't want to be beholden to the publishers in any way. I'm sure a lot of other sites don't just trade eyes in exchange for cash but also agreeing to write x number of previews or to cover y event. Giant Bomb has made it pretty clear they don't tend to make those kind of promises.
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This is very true. Consider how the website came into existence in the first place.

Also, videos, their primary form of content, are expensive to make and distribute, in terms of bandwidth. Other "hardcore" sites deal with written content alone and the occasional podcast.
 
How does paying for access to a podcast even work? Does everyone have their own unique RSS feed with a limit to the number of times the mp3 file can be downloaded from it?
 
panda21 said:
imo wiiware and dsiware with generalisimo Jeff and his multicultural gang of friends is the most important part of the bombcast
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I like the DSiWare/WiiWare stuff too. I didn't realize there was so much hate.
 
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