We were struck by the news this week that Giant Bomb senior editor Ryan Davis passed away last week. After coming out of university, I started to get back into gaming in some haphazard way. After working a terrible job at a popular high street entertainment retailer, I was unemployed and bored, games were the best place to spend my time in between applying for jobs.
I remembered discussing video gaming with a friend a few months previous and the name Giant Bomb came up. Around Christmas of 2009 I started downloading their podcast. Every week since then I've been listening to the staff of Giant Bomb on my commute - Their personalities made the gaming part of the show secondary and hearing tales of food, Coke Freestyle machines and being misquoted by newspapers became my favorite parts of the show.
Listening to their recommendations made me pick up some games I would have never heard of otherwise. After recommending the podcast to Aidy (in an effort to get him into the 21st Century of gaming) he got just as hooked as I did. Wait until I tell him that Buckner and Garcia wrote a song about the site!
After hearing of his untimely passing at the age of just 34, many people said they felt as if they'd lost a friend. It’s going to be strange not hearing his voice whilst driving to work. Watching and listening to the material he was involved with inspired me to stop being lazy and to do more dumb stuff with video, podcasts and people.
We pass on our sincere condolences to Ryan’s wife, friends and family.