If anything, it feels too fast and loose. As someone who doesn’t watch all the content all the time, it’s hard to follow and could probably use more structure.
Giant Bomb’s Indie Media Reboot or Paywalled Farewell Tour?
The Scrappy Reboot No One Asked For
Well, it finally happened. Giant Bomb, once one of the most respected names in gaming media, is now floating in the icy waters of independence after years of corporate shuffling.
Vox Media, after acquiring both Polygon and Giant Bomb, went full Order 66 on their teams—mass layoffs, gutted staff, and enough drama to keep Reddit humming for weeks. But unlike its cousin Polygon, which was unceremoniously purged, Giant Bomb didn’t go out with a whimper.
Nope.
The remaining staff suprisingly grabbed the wheel and bought the ship themselves.
Giant Bomb lives! Fandom has sold the site to us and it is now fully independent and employee-owned. We'll see you all on Tuesday for the Giant Bombcast.
— World’s Famous Giant Bomb (@giantbomb) May 10, 2025
For more info right now, head over to https://t.co/eOhDx8bEYV pic.twitter.com/5Rib2uv9ig
And while that might sound like a feel-good, underdog success story…it’s really more like watching a beat-up tugboat break free from a flaming cruise ship.
Charming? Sure.
Destined to survive? Let’s just say—I wouldn’t take off your life jacket.
The Slow Implosion of Giant Bomb
Let’s rewind.
Giant Bomb once had real pull. It was weird, funny, community-driven, and—at its peak—felt like it actually understood games without constantly talking down to the audience. But somewhere along the way, that bomb didn’t just stop ticking—it fizzled out.
The golden age ended the moment the chemistry started slipping.
The untimely passing of Giant Bomb co-founder, Ryan Davis, in 2013 was a gut punch to the community, and the site never quite recovered that magic.
What was once a party turned into a ghost town, with others like Drew Scanlon and Dan Ryckert leaving over the years.
And the numbers back it up. According to Semrush, Giant Bomb was recently still pulling in about 2.95 million visits in December 2024. But by February 2025, that number had dropped to 2.47 million—a nearly 16.3% drop in just two months.
That’s not just a stumble; it’s a trip down a flight of stairs with no banister.
And to be clear, this wasn’t some slow seasonal dip. The site saw a 19% drop between January and February alone. If that’s not a red flag for your scrappy, “we’re going indie!” revival plan, I don’t know what is.
And that’s not even comparing to the traffic when they were actually popular years ago!
Image Source: Semrush
You don’t need a data scientist to see what happened.
Giant Bomb stopped being cool.
Not in an “old man yells at cloud” way—but in a “wait, why am I still paying for this?” way. The inside jokes got stale. The chemistry thinned out. And the increasing injection of political or ideological content alienated people who just came for game talk and a few chuckles—not lectures with their Let’s Plays.
Was it burnout? Corporate meddling? Or maybe just the slow rot of turning a gaming passion project into a platform for left-leaning think pieces no one really asked for?
D) All of the above.
From Corporate Leash to Indie Leech
Now that the staff has purchased Giant Bomb, they’ve promised a bold new future—creative freedom, autonomy, and all the funderful buzzwords you’d expect from a Patreon pitch. But here’s the kicker: they’re going all-in on a $10/month subscription model.
Yes. Ten. Dollars. A. Month.
We want your money. We need your money. Give us money.
That’s more than a standard Crunchyroll sub, more than a Steam game during a weekend sale, and almost enough to buy one (1) burrito with guac in California. For a site that’s been on the digital equivalent of life support for years, this isn’t so much a power move as it is a Hail Mary.
And let’s be real—nobody was forcing them to churn out soft progressive hot takes before. That was already the direction they steered toward with corporate backing. Now that they’ve gone indie, I don’t see any shift in tone, just less funding and less reach.
It’s like they took everything that wasn’t working… and doubled down on it.
We’ve officially reached the “we’re independent now, please ignore how broke we look” arc of Giant Bomb.
And it’s not inspiring—it’s kind of sad.
Same Song, Less Dance
Giant Bomb’s independence might sound romantic—scrappy creators cutting ties with the big bad corpos—but without Vox, Fandom, or even G4-level support, they’re basically just another voice in a sea of copy-pasted left-leaning ideology from IGN (Ziff Davis), Polygon (Vox), and Kotaku (G/O Media).
Except now, they’ve got fewer resources and are betting it all on people willing to fork over $10 for more of the same.
In my opinion, this feels more like a farewell tour than a new beginning.
If anything, this could become the “final form” of post-2018 gaming journalism: a dwindling circle jerk of disconnected voices yelling into a subscription paywall.
Could This Mean a Job in Gaming Again for Alyssa Mercante?
Let’s talk about the ghost of Kotaku’s past: Alyssa Mercante.
The former Kotaku editor was unceremoniously let go during one of G/O Media’s recent layoffs. But her name keeps floating around, especially with her ties to folks like Jeff Grubb and others associated with the current Giant Bomb crew.
Could this be the setup for her gaming media redemption arc?
There’s not enough repentance in the world.
An important message straight from the @giantbomb couch! pic.twitter.com/pSGkzOIeie
— Alyssa Mercante (@alyssa_merc) June 8, 2024
She’s remained in the public eye thanks to her involvement in the absurd defamation/stochastic terrorism lawsuit against YouTuber Smash JT—a lawsuit that, in the opinion of many, has done her reputation no favors.
And now, with Giant Bomb’s doors swinging open under new management, the idea that she could claw her way back into gaming media isn’t necessarily out of the question. If you’re rebuilding your team from the ashes and already circling the same ideological drain, why not bring back one of the internet’s favorite punchlines?
Image Source: Old Alyssa Mercante Profile | Twitter/X
I’m not saying it will absolutely happen—but I wouldn’t be surprised if she pops up in some form. It would be the cherry on top of a sundae no one ordered.
Final Thoughts: Is the Giant Bomb Journey Already a Dud?
So, what are we looking at here?
A bold new era of independent gaming journalism, finally freed from the shackles of corporate oversight? Or just the latest chapter in the slow-motion implosion of an industry that lost the plot years ago?
To me, this feels like an old brand trying to repackage itself as something fresh while using the same spoiled ingredients. Giant Bomb isn’t rebuilding itself from the ground up. It’s reassembling the same parts and praying that this Ship of Theseus floats.
Will it survive? Maybe. Stranger things have happened.
But personally? I’ll be watching from the sidelines, popcorn in hand, fully expecting this feel-good reboot to end in a Patreon-funded crash out.
Game over? Maybe not yet.
But it sure feels like the credits are already rolling to me.
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Eric
May 11, 2025
Isnt that the guy who claimed some story was his or something?