Giant Bomb, the long-running games media outlet and website, is currently going through a "strategic reset." These are the words shared in an official Fandom statement in a post made to the official Giant Bomb forums.
On May 1st, producer and host Jeff Grubb announced on Bluesky that he is no longer with Giant Bomb. He states, "Well, that was a dream come true. Knew it wouldn't last, though. Out of a job at the moment."
Mik Minotti, a regular Giant Bomb contributor, says that he "will no longer be contributing to Giant Bomb." Minotti says, "Jeff (Grubb) was a workhorse and a hero for the way he shouldered so much responsibility there, and I am furious with the way execs treated him." Minotti remains the managing editor at GamesBeat. He will also continue to work with Grubb on their gaming news podcast, Game Mess.
Earlier in the week on April 30th, Giant Bomb creative director Dan Ryckert stated that he will no longer appear on the Giant Bombcast, the website's weekly gaming podcast. He said that he had no interest in Fandom's vision for the future of Giant Bomb. Ryckert currently has no mention of Giant Bomb in his social profile on Bluesky. He also posted the following remarks to Bluesky on May 1st.
Getting a job in games media seemed almost unattainable when I broke in back in 2005. In the years since, it’s become almost impossible and ultimately inadvisable. I can’t imagine trying to break in today.
— Dan Ryckert (@d anryckert.com) May 1, 2025 at 12:37 PM
Independent is pretty much the only option now. Support your favorite creators directly.
In the episode, hosts Jan Ochoa, Mike Minotti, Dan Ryckert, and Jeff Grubb spent a decent bit of time mocking the new "brand safety" content guidelines handed down to them from Fandom.
Early in the evening on June 1, a new thread was started by user "timmyquivy" on the Giant Bomb forums. The user, timmyquivy, appears to be director of community safety for Fandom Inc., Tim Quievryn. Quievryn, adorned with a Giant Bomb "Staff" badge, said that Giant Bomb live streaming is temporarily paused and that what is going on is "part of a strategic reset and realignment of our media brands."
As you know, Giant Bomb live streaming is temporarily paused. We understand this programming pause isn’t ideal for our audience, but it's part of a strategic reset and realignment of our media brands.
We appreciate your patience as we build the next phase of exciting gaming and entertainment content for fans everywhere. Out of privacy for our team, we will not comment on any staffing changes.
We know you still have questions and want answers. Our promise to you: we’ll update you in real time as soon as we have more information. So stay tuned for more updates and we will be keeping this thread open as a place for you to discuss these changes.
We appreciate your patience as we build the next phase of exciting gaming and entertainment content for fans everywhere. Out of privacy for our team, we will not comment on any staffing changes.
We know you still have questions and want answers. Our promise to you: we’ll update you in real time as soon as we have more information. So stay tuned for more updates and we will be keeping this thread open as a place for you to discuss these changes.
Giant Bomb was created by Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis in 2008. In 2012, Giant Bomb was acquired by CBS Interactive. Then in September 2020, the site was sold to Red Ventures. In June 2022, Giant Bomb co-founder Jeff Gerstmann planned to part ways from the site. In his personal podcast, The Jeff Gerstmann Show, he said that he felt overly stressed and creatively stifled "by the increasing bureaucracy and time spent on business and management while working under a corporation." In a later episode of his podcast, he revealed that he ended up being "fired three weeks before [he] was going to quit."
Fandom Inc. purchased Giant Bomb and GameSpot from Red Ventures back in October 2022. In January 2023, Fandom laid off multiple employees from several of their owned websites, including Jason Oestreicher and Jess O'Brien from Giant Bomb.
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