Giant Bomb Loses Alex Navarro, Brad Shoemaker, & Vinny Caravella

Giant Bomb members Alex Navarro, Brad Shoemaker, and Vinny Caravella have announced that they'll be leaving the beloved website on Friday, May 7. The trio leaves the company with only 4 remaining employees, including co-founder Jeff Gerstman, and will leave the company in a confusing and strange place for many fans.

Giant Bomb has made a name for itself over the years as a humorous source of video game coverage. The site has combined its incredible amount of knowledge of the gaming industry with its laid-back and absurd humor to provide an even balance of journalism and general content creation. Gerstman co-founded Giant Bomb after a scandal with a GameSpot review of Kane and Lynch where he was seemingly fired for giving the game a less than stellar review. Management was allegedly pressured to push Gerstman out, leading to other GameSpot employees, like Shoemaker, Caravella, and Navarro, leaving the company in protest.

Several months later in 2008, the group started Giant Bomb, and it has become a trailblazer for the industry. Now, it's the end of an era as several key Giant Bomb members are leaving. No reason has been given why the three long-time personalities are leaving the company, but some suspect that it's due to Giant Bomb being recently acquired by conglomerate Red Ventures. It's unclear if Giant Bomb will still maintain its rather iconic coverage of E3 this year or in future years, but Gerstman has plans for the future of Giant Bomb. He noted in a statement (via GameSpot) that the company has spoken to new creators.

    There is a collective vision for what the future of Giant Bomb is and it involves both familiar and new faces. We're already in talks with creators so that we can begin the next chapter. We're fully aware that this marks a big change and we're using this as an opportunity to rethink what this site is. It's a chance to introduce new personalities from different backgrounds and explore categories and topics that we never have before

There will be plenty more to say later as I figure out what the future holds, but for now I just want to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who supported us all this time, and all the people who have helped me and worked with me along the way to get where I am.

I'm going to take a breather, spend some time talking with friends and family that have been neglected for too long, and then get back to working hard on something new. Just have to figure out where that energy is going. Again, thanks so much for your continued love and support.

I will spend some time tonight catching up on all your messages and DMs, but for right now I think I just need to take a walk around the block. let's save the goodbyes til Friday. we've still got videos about video games to make!

Despite its prior controversy with GameSpot, Giant Bomb was able to eventually make amends in some way as the two share an office and are under the same parent company. GameSpot employees have regularly appeared on Giant Bomb's shows and it seems likely that they'll be more prominent while Giant Bomb attempts to fill the void for the immediate future.

It's not clear what the plans are for the trio who departed the company, but it seems likely they might stay in the gaming space. Giant Bomb will likely feel a lot different going forward, and it remains to be seen how supportive its fan base will be without the majority of its key personalities.