Vinny Caravella, Alex Navarro, and Brad Shoemaker, foundational members of the Giant Bomb team, announced today they are leaving the site.
During a live podcast recording on Twitch, the three announced that their last day is Friday. Giant Bomb founder Jeff Gerstmann is staying at the site for now.
Giant Bomb was established in 2008 by Gerstmann and fellow journalist Ryan Davis following Gerstmann’s controversial firing from GameSpot, and would eventually hire several former GameSpot editors like Caravella, Navarro, and Shoemaker to fill out its ranks. It set itself apart from other games media at the time by focusing on a subscription model that heavily relied on its hosts’ abilities to act as personalities rather than strict journalists.
After getting off the ground in San Francisco, Giant Bomb opened a New York City office in 2014 known as Giant Bomb East, which produced a separate podcast and unique projects before the covid-19 pandemic and staff departures forced the team to condense into one group again. Other notable Giant Bomb employees over the years have included Patrick Klepek and Austin Walker, both of whom now work at VICE, as well as WWE podcast producer Dan Ryckert and living meme Drew Scanlon.
Kotaku has reached out to Giant Bomb for comment.
DISCUSSION
With Official Playstation Mag UK closing and now most of Giant Bomb leaving...
Christ, if this hobby ends up getting inherited into the hands of those drooling Consumerist Youtube dweebs, Reddit nerds, and the reactionary chuds that lose their mind when we talk about anything adjacent to real issues instead of staying with actual critics and journalists I’m going to be *quite* upset.