Goodbye to Gametrailers; Hello to Easy Allies!

Sterica

So Gametrailers just made this tweet.

https://twitter.com/GameTrailers/status/696858020215586816

Apparently Viacom sold Gametrailers to Defy at some point, and I guess Defy has decided to drop them like a bad habit. YouTube is probably to blame for this, as you really don't need a dedicated place for trailers when even indie devs can have a YouTube channel. And high-profile trailer reveals on Twitch likely didn't help matters, taking away the potential for exclusives.

SniperGuy

https://twitter.com/Bgamer90/status/696861194221678592

Seems pretty sad. Looks like it happened pretty abruptly for the people working there.

Sterica

Yeah, if you check the main site there is absolutely zero news about it as if nothing happened.

SyphonBlue

SniperGuy wrote: »

https://twitter.com/Bgamer90/status/696861194221678592

Seems pretty sad. Looks like it happened pretty abruptly for the people working there.

That shit should be fucking illegal

Shadowfire

Kind of saw it coming when Defy picked them up and the updates to the site started to crawl. But I'm going to miss their video reviews.

Really hoping those folks land on their feet. There's some talent there that needs to be picked up.

Zilla360

Aww, pants and drat. I've been visiting GT on and off since '2003.

I hope the GT Time podcast continues in some form. Lots of people saying Patreon.

Mandatory Update was amazing.

Grove

This sucks. I always enjoyed their reviews and it was one of the few sites I still visited with any frequency.

fRAWRst

I loved alot of their content, the retrospectives and their invisible walls podcast thingy when it was good

Shadowfire

Oh right. We should probably get on downloading those retrospectives and such now if we want to keep them around.

Edit: or not. Looks like it's all still fucked up from the transition.

Athenor

I found out about this because Screw attack posted their old intro reel. I hadn't really associated Screw Attack with Game Trailers, as I think the last time I ever did anything with GT was.. god, 2007 or 2008?

Unco-ordinated

Bobkins Flymo wrote: »

Yeah, if you check the main site there is absolutely zero news about it as if nothing happened.

The site has been a mess for a while now, Defy Media's tech team completely fucked up the transition to the new site (and video player) and never bothered to fix it.

This is some really shitty news. I remember going to their site really frequently back in the day, because that's where almost all the big trailers would go up first. Youtube and Twitch killed that but I thought they'd done a great job over the last couple of years (basically since Satterfield left) of transitioning over to a personality based site. The Final Bosman, Huber Hype, GT Time, Mandatory Update and some of their other stuff (stream, retrospectives, etc) were all pretty fantastic shows that I feel should've been far more popular than they were, but sadly, they just didn't have the backing from Viacom or Defy to really take advantage of that.

Fingers crossed the crew manage to stick together and come up with a new website. E3 will be a lesser show this year without Kyle's chair standing or Huber's crying.

Sterica

I question why they even bothered transitioning or even picking up GT if they planned to shitcan the whole thing so quickly.

shoeboxjeddy

The staff should try for a Patreon or something. Worked for Greg Miller (or seems to have?) and Jim Sterling. Might have to be a core group though, I doubt one fund source could cover them all.

skeldare

Damn this sucks. Really liked a lot of the people who worked for GameTrailers. Also going to miss their reviews.

Brainiac 8

That is horrible news. Gametrailers was a site I used to frequent alot. Their reviews were top notch and I used to watch the Wiicast and screw attack stuff there.

Hope everyone lands on their feet.

Buttcleft

I wasn't a big consumer of game trailers, but holy hell it sucks all the dick that their entire world just was ripped out from under them without warning.

GnomeTank

Never a huge user of GT, but damn the way it went down. Not sure who Defy is, but they seem like real assholes. There are right ways and wrong ways to go about things, and this was clearly the wrong way.

Unco-ordinated

Bobkins Flymo wrote: »

I question why they even bothered transitioning or even picking up GT if they planned to shitcan the whole thing so quickly.

Yeah, I don't know either. They bought it, gutted it (fired two thirds of the staff, stopped working with Keighley) and I guess they thought they'd retain the same viewership while a skeleton crew worked themselves to the bone. Seems like they had no clue what they were doing.

shoeboxjeddy wrote: »

The staff should try for a Patreon or something. Worked for Greg Miller (or seems to have?) and Jim Sterling. Might have to be a core group though, I doubt one fund source could cover them all.

Kinda Funny earn $75k a month between their two Patreon accounts. So yeah, I'd say it's worked out pretty well for them.

emnmnme

Their video reviews were tops. Well-edited and informative.

Farangu

Damnit. I always tended to prefer their viewpoints when looking at reviews, and their quality was top notch.

Just...Damnit.

Edit: And who the hell pulls this kinda shit on a Monday?!?

GnomeTank

Unco-ordinated wrote: »

Kinda Funny earn $75k a month between their two Patreon accounts. So yeah, I'd say it's worked out pretty well for them.

And that doesn't include their YouTube and Twitch monetization. Kinda Funny is doing just fine for themselves right now.

Archsorcerer

Did they jump on the eSports train? BTW, did they ever change the video player?

Opty

GnomeTank wrote: »

Never a huge user of GT, but damn the way it went down. Not sure who Defy is, but they seem like real assholes. There are right ways and wrong ways to go about things, and this was clearly the wrong way.

Defy is a shitty, shitty company. They also own The Escapist which rocketed down the shitter, bleeding talent and eventually welcoming the most unsavory elements of the gaming industry to their pages.

SteevL

That's a shame. Not a site I went to very often, but they put out a few good features that I remember watching.

Houn

Yeah, I'm not surprised. There have been plenty of signs since Defy picked them up that they weren't long for this world (broken site, layoffs), but it's still sad. They were my go-to source for game reviews, because even if I disagreed, they were always so good at getting all the info in there without bias that I could form my own decisions easily.

You'll be missed, GT.

Aegeri

What an incredibly shitty thing to do to these poor people. It sucks that they can get away with this.

Opty wrote: »

GnomeTank wrote: »

Never a huge user of GT, but damn the way it went down. Not sure who Defy is, but they seem like real assholes. There are right ways and wrong ways to go about things, and this was clearly the wrong way.

Defy is a shitty, shitty company. They also own The Escapist which rocketed down the shitter, bleeding talent and eventually welcoming the most unsavory elements of the gaming industry to their pages.

The Escapist is held together at this point with silly string and putty, which will instantly fall apart if their only draw left in Yahtzee ever decides to leave.

GnomeTank

Surprised Yahtzee hasn't left. That guy could create a Twitch/YouTube empire of his own pretty quickly if he wanted to pump out the content. I'd watch him stream random games.

Waka Laka

This is actually a damn shame. The quality of Gametrailers grew and always had good reviews. The Final Bosman was amazing stuff.

Something a bit suss about this all though. There is a tactic that lots of companies do; buy out rivals just to shut them down and this happening so soon comes off so soon after the buyout is sketchy as fuck.

Beezel

kinda hoping they can get their heads together and make their own shit like Giant Bomb did in a way.

Ayefkay

I have followed GT on and off pretty much since they started, I still remember watching trailers from their site during I.T class at school. The last year or so they have produced some of their best content backed by extremely talented people, Brandon Jones, Ben Moore, Michael Huber, Kyle Bosman, Ian Hinck and Elyse Willems, I hope they all find new work fast.

The patreon idea would be great, I'd love it if some of them still worked together In some way.

Dusda

Aw, that sucks. I always liked Brandon Jones' work on the reviews, even if I pretty much stopped visiting GT a few years ago.

Aegis

Well fuck. I only became aware of them at last year's E3 coverage, and found them to be incredibly informative and a joy to watch, and was just starting to browse more of their content & twitch streams.

Mblackwell

I loved watching their stuff, particularly Final Bosman, Mandatory Update, and Huber Hype, and they always did great reviews. I hope these guys can bounce back quickly with something new. They'd been reduced to core staff in the last few months and hopefully they can start a Patreon or something together under another banner.

reVerse

Gametrailers is the one review site where I agreed with their views more often than not, so it's sad to lose that source of information.

GnomeTank wrote: »

Surprised Yahtzee hasn't left. That guy could create a Twitch/YouTube empire of his own pretty quickly if he wanted to pump out the content. I'd watch him stream random games.

He's not streaming, but he does play random games on his Youtube channel with his friend, including games he made. It's just one video per week, though.

Undead Scottsman

Their retrospectives were fantastic, and once upon a time, when I thought E3 coverage, I thought Gametrailers. I haven't been a big viewer lately (especially after Keighly stopped producing content for them) but still a bummer they got dropped with so little warning.

Waka Laka

Just finished watching their last stream

Gametrailers Final Stream - Back to Liberty City

The last 10-15 minutes were hard. Holy shit.

PLA

GnomeTank wrote: »

Surprised Yahtzee hasn't left. That guy could create a Twitch/YouTube empire of his own pretty quickly if he wanted to pump out the content. I'd watch him stream random games.

He does play random games on youtube.

darleysam

It's been a long time since I've been round GameTrailers' way, but those guys saw me through the early years of the last generation. Particularly around E3 time when they'd always have the conferences and, well, trailers that came up.

I guess Funhaus are about to have to take on a tonne of interns.

MrVyngaard

Waka Laka wrote: »

The last 10-15 minutes were hard. Holy shit.

Yeah... that was a real painful moment in particular there, when he looked up at the camera and said he'd never been unemployed before in his life. You could see he was scared.

VirtualVolt

damn. the slow hemorrhaging of all traditional games media has really got me worried. whenever a story like this breaks, my first thought is "God that sucks for whoever frequents the site, and it's contributors" and my second thought is "Who's next?" It seems like only a matter of time until all the sites that we know and love will shutter their doors. Hopefully not Penny Arcade...

Mr Fuzzbutt

GnomeTank wrote: »

Surprised Yahtzee hasn't left. That guy could create a Twitch/YouTube empire of his own pretty quickly if he wanted to pump out the content. I'd watch him stream random games.

They probably give him a shit-ton of money, since he is the only reason the site even exists.