10k posts and sixteen years later...

I hit 10,000 forum posts here on Giant Bomb today, a fun number to stop and say, hey, thanks again to one of the best communities on the Internet. I hope forums regain their popularity. I dislike the impermanence of things like Discord and Slack, but I understand the functionality is better on those apps than it is a website whose forum tools have been broken so long now it's become the most depressing joke of the site.

No, but seriously, just wait for Sea Serpent. If you get that joke, hey, raise an imaginary beer, fellow old-timer.

I came here like so many did as a fan of the crew's Gamespot days. I was introduced first to the faces that would become classic Giant Bomb through @alex's Burning Questions letters and answers thing on Gamespot. His writing single-handedly hooked me on that site. And of course, Jeff Gerstmann's integrity led to me jumping ship here. I think I joined a few weeks into the site going live, not quite at the very beginning, but close enough. It would be years before I could listen to the podcast or watch live content, because back then, my Internet was still basically dial-up slow.

And when I think about me sixteen years ago, I'm surprised I'm the same person. I was a damn county politician, an elected Clerk and Recorder and the county's election official. I rented a little house with a basement with a clay foundation that endlessly flooded in the spring and fall. I had a girlfriend a thousand miles away, and I planned to move to Seattle someday.

Man, life changes. Today, I'm a writer, with about twenty or so novels out (cheap plug - you can find my best work under my real name, Cameron Lowe, so check me out on Amazon if you like supernatural thrillers, horror, or lit. romances). I don't game nearly as much as I used to - my legal blindness has progressed to a point where I have to play things on a Steam Deck or a Switch to be able to see them - but I still love games in a wide variety of genres. JRPGs will always be my baby of choice, even if I cuss them out for staying largely stagnant story-wise for the last twenty-five years. Adventure games are kind of hit and miss for me nowadays. I think there are a lot of really creative people out there making some incredible things, but I also think maybe those things aren't always as much "for me" as they used to be. And that's okay. Time rolls on. We change. We leave things behind.

I used to be a mod here, once upon a time. I was the dumbass Farva of the group, too enthusiastic about swinging my mod dick around, adn I'm sorry about that. But I had fun too getting to know @rorie (who is somehow an even nicer duder behind the scenes than he is on camera or on the forums) as well as the other mods like @zombiepie, @mike, @mento, and the others. I miss those days, but I sure as hell bet the mod team doesn't miss me getting tired and cranky during E3. Hah.

I had this thing planned out where I'd go back through and share some of my earliest posts but in true Giant Bomb fashion, if I click on my oldest post page (850ish), it gives me an error message. Since I'm not manually digging through all the posts, I'll instead refer to one of my oldest blogs, in which I had just bought a Wii and was playing Mario Kart Wii, Mario Galaxy, and Super Mario RPG. Fun times. I still think of Mario Kart Galaxy and Kart Wii as being fantastic entries in their series (with MKW being my favorite of all the Karts out there).

In sixteen years I've made more friends on this site than I'll ever remember, and that makes me sad. I wish I was better about keeping up with you all. I wish I was a more normal human being who was better at things like social interaction and not being overbearing or a fucking weirdo. But you are all amazing people, colorful and wonderful. Dankempster has been a damn good friend and a source of a lot of my favorite rock. As much shit as I give him, Zeep is one of the genuinely best dudes you're going to ever have the pleasure of talking to. @arbitrarywater is a fucking joy, and watching him and Zeep interact on Twitch is something I need to get back to because it's always entertaining. @mento is one of the sharpest people on the Internet and you should be reading hhis blogs. @slag is also a genuinely really cool person and always chill to talk to, although I do it far too sporadically now. Talor and Brandy, if you somehow stumble upon this, I apologize for forgetting your usernames, but you were/are great real-life friends. Claude, this site needs you, you goofy bastard. @mike gets a "I'm not worthy" award for introducing me to garlic chili sauce and for always bonking me on the nose when I needed it. Rorie was a voice of reason and fun behind the scenes, and I hate that he's not part of the crew anymore.

So much has changed with the site and I'm not going to drag this post down with my thoughts on that. I keep meaning to resubscribe to Nextlander's thing. I keep meaning to keep up with Jeff Gerstmann. I keep meaning to check out more content here live. But I don't. I'm not quitting this site or any of those old personalities (in fact, I'm thinking about rejoining Twitter just so I can keep up with them, even if I despise the nitwit in charge). But I do feel like my time here is more like an occasional peek through the window, and that's okay.

So, raise a durger, a toilet pie, an Oreo dipped in nacho cheese. Or just raise a beer, if those references were before your time. Love you, Giant Bomb.

Goddamn, I hope someday the forums get fixed.

o7

It's been a long road...

If you want to keep up with Jeff, you can probably still avoid Twitter and get on Bluesky. His only activity on Twitter now is mainly just posting when he's going live.

Great read! 10,000 is a lot of posts!

I feel like I am a completely different person than I was 16 years ago. At least I hope so. Certainly had less resposibilities as a 24 year old cellphone salesman, single and living with his parents just listening to webcomics podcasts and playing video games all day. Now I got a family to take care of and a better job. A lot less time to play video games but I squeeze an hour or so in when I can.

Glad you're still kicking around these parts, SparBu, and I'll be sure to keep digging up obscure Indie adventure games you may or may not have already beaten me to. That is, if I find a space between all the other weird trash I cover.

I keep meaning to get back into whatever Nextlander and The Gerst might be putting out there into the ether but besides the latter's NES game ranking feature there's not much that has caught my eye. I will occasionally check their reactions to a Direct or State of Play or something though, since I miss their insights.

@mento: Kinda the same. I enjoyed Nextlander's playthrough of State of Decay 2 and I hope they return for the third one. Besides that series, I kinda just pop in now and then on Youtube and see what they're up to. Jeff, I'd occasionally catch on Twitch but I haven't jumped on there in a year or two. No fault of anyone's, really. Just not as invested in gaming content as I used to be.

@chamurai: Sounds like life changes for the better. Good on ya!

@marino: Oh, good to know. I think I have an account there, though I haven't logged in since it first really hit the Internet. I'll have to see if it's still active.

Good for you! As here is to 10,000 more posts!

I have 8586 posts now across three different accounts. One you prob know very well back from "The Claude Years"

Bring back Hamz

@sombre: All right, now I'm curious. Who were you back then?

Yo! Really nice write-up! Some lovely sentiments here. It's great to look back and appreciate friends & good times. I've been around for a minute (registered in '09) but it's really only in the last few years I've actually been somewhat active on the site. I still mostly lurk and occasionally leave generally exhausting/annoying comments. But I'm thrilled that the community is still fairly active. Lots of great ongoing writing— Mento's blogs are indeed required reading.

Gratz on the 10k! Raising a freshly soaked toilet pie!

I used to post under Fallen189 back in the day. I single handedly wrote the entire Persona 4 page, by myself over the space of about 3 weeks. It kept getting vandalised and resubmitted by Hamz, which is why he has all the points on that page. I was very active on the forums back then.

@sombre: Oh yeah, I do remember that name. Right on.

Amazing achievement! Nice work Mr Buzzsaw! o7

Thanks for sticking around!

Sparky Buzzsaw is still a threat.

Thanks to everyone! Who's the best? You're the best. Yes, you!

@sparky_buzzsaw:

Hey Spark ole buddy, glad I happened to stumble across this! I appreciate the shoutout! You are too kind man

I don't think I knew you were a civil servant, that explains a lot actually haha. You have to be a pretty caring person to do that kind of work right. Elected too! holy toledo. what was campaigning like for you?

as for me

Can't say I'm on GB much at all these days, still love everybody here but eventually I was getting too frustrated waiting for years overdue improvements and basic maintenance to the wiki/forums etc. So I moved on. At some point it became more upsetting than fun. I think in many respects it would have been easier for me if I didn't know what GB had (2009-2011 ish) and could have been

There still really isn't a great GB replacement out there and maybe there never will be, old GB was really dang special. The best I've found these days is Backloggd (although Infinite Backlog has cheevo tracking like GB used to). I'm active there but to the same degree I was here.

And while Backloggd has the list and review functionality close-ish to what GB had (and also the critical mass of users. It's active!) , it doesn't have the blogging community or forums... So it doesn't really full scratch the itch

Congrats on 10k posts man, you are certainly one of the bedrock guys that has made this community the great one it always has been!

@slag: Good to see you around, Slag. Hope you're doing well. Agreed on the GB alternatives. It's kinda dire out there for gaming discussion that isn't happening on Discord. I'll check out the site you recommended. Thanks!

God I hate discord. No real sense of community, just endless live text scrolling. No editing, just a 24/7 stream of consciousness

@sombre: Yup. And I've never liked the big "pick me!" energy that endless stream produces, like you have to say the most brash out-there thing to be noticed.

@sparky_buzzsaw:

Preach, brother.

Bring back threads like the photoshop where Biff would deliver masterclasses weekly

@sparky_buzzsaw:

Backloggd is just kinda ok for discussion. It's basically intended to be gaming's Verizon of Letterboxd. So it's got good list functions and reviews, but there aren't many commenters or discussions too much. I think that's what not having the Blogs and forums does. People seem to be only on there when they have new thoughts to share, so I don't feel like it's a daily check in like GB was/is at its best

(it's built off of IGDB's wiki, which kinda makes me feel like a cheater haha. Man I miss when GB's wiki was the default standard everywhere).

The trick to Discord imo is to get into servers that have like 10-30 people active. The big ones are just miserable, too much stuff happening it becomes unintelligible and no meaningful engagement. But ones of that smaller but active size are kinda like a group text or book club, but also ones you where might be able to find a pick up game. It's a different beast but necessarily bad

Always good to see Veteran Duders. I'm very glad to have been a part of the Bomb, it was an important part of a tumultuous time of my life.

I'm a dumbass and left off one of the best friends I've made on the site - @danielkempster, one of the best dudes on the site and off it. Dan's blogs were must-reads on Giant Bomb and his taste in music is impeccable.

I am truly grateful.

I don't even know what giant bomb is but I like video game forums. I just got here and I hope this place keeps going.

Hope that the boards can keep on going and going!