Favourite Gaming Podcasts?

[Jim Steele]

There's hundreds of them. It seems that 6 out of 10 internet users regularly present one... sometimes. Most of them are shit, but here's my cream of the crop:

Joystiq's Xbox 360 Fancast

http://xbox.joystiq.com/tag/fancast

It's a load of tosh and nonsense, but often quite informative and I've grown to like the presenters. Even Dustin, who seems to play NOTHING BUT Halo and fucking Gears of War.

Australian gamer

http://www.australiangamer.com/podcast/
Let Matt & Yug (and occasionally, Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame) litter your lugs with Aussie-centric gamer chat. It's often rather funny, it does show up Yahtzee to be a bit of a cock though.

Invisible Walls

http://www.gametrailers.com/show/invisible-walls

Gametrailers' own podcast, hosted by game journos and people who run the site. It's by far the most formal show I listen to, it's very on-topic and there's not much in the way of whimsical tangents which seem to be a staple of every other gaming show, but it's well worth a listen.


Them's my faves. What's yours?

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Lastly, because some of you will be expecting it, here's a shameless plug for Gamewank - produced and co-presented by ME.



(I know Bob started a thread about it last week, but... shut up)

 

[Hermiod]

I don't know if it counts as a podcast as such but CO-OP is superb.

No review scores, just people talking about the game.

 

[firehawk12]

Without a doubt it's the Bombcast from the Giantbomb guys. Their video content is pretty awesome as well - especially their full, as of now 65 hour playthrough of Persona 4. I have no idea why, but there's something oddly fascinating about watching people play a game and react in horror to Japanese wackiness.

I'll happily admit that Gerstmann et al is hit and miss though. I personally don't agree with his review philosophy, but the wackiness that happens on the podcast makes me think that these are guys who managed to become somewhat powerful - to the point where they could launch their own site after the GameSpot controversy and carry a lot of the audience over - yet have no delusions of grandeur.

I listen to many others, include the "big three" podcasts (1up, GameSpot, IGN) and a few indie podcasts (Player One Podcast, Gamers With Jobs, CAGCast, Idle Thumbs, the various 1up exodus podcasts (Bitmob, Geekbox, Rebel FM), Out of the Game - which recently tore apart the plagiarist at GamePro Arcade), but Bombcast pretty much takes the cake.

Sort of unrelated, but there's also Squadron of Shame, Retronauts and Retroforce Go (which I hate but still listen to for some reason) for podcasts that cover old stuff.

Co-op's good too. They got more than 10k in donations after the 1up exodus and they used the money to get a deal with Rev3 which thankfully let them keep the style of the former 1up Show. It's sort of funny how Rev3 managed to get more ad content than 1up.com did though. Although, the same old Square Space/Netflix/GameFly/whatever ads kind of indicate where podcast advertising is nowadays.

 

[Servo]

The only gaming podcast I've ever listened to is yours, Jim lad.

 

[Sheep]

Without a doubt it's the Bombcast from the Giantbomb guys.

Ditto for me. I listen to their audio podcast weekly, and it's probably saved me from a few bad purchases.

 

[Timby]

Giant Bomb for me, as well. I can't stand the Joystiq crew; not only are they smarmy as all hell, but I just hate Skype-recorded shows.

Plus, they stopped using Nick Cave as their intro music. Fuckers.

 

[Kirk's_Tights]

Nick Cave, lol.


Giant Bomb for me.

 

[Jim Steele]

Gonna go try out Bombcast, seems to be popular.

 

[Hermiod]

Co-op's good too. They got more than 10k in donations after the 1up exodus and they used the money to get a deal with Rev3 which thankfully let them keep the style of the former 1up Show. It's sort of funny how Rev3 managed to get more ad content than 1up.com did though. Although, the same old Square Space/Netflix/GameFly/whatever ads kind of indicate where podcast advertising is nowadays.

They've also had ads ranging from beer to driving safety campaigns. Though I don't think a games rental service is a particularly bad sponsor for a video games review show.

 

[firehawk12]

Which is odd because GameFly didn't bother advertising with 1up back in the day. In fact, no gaming podcast that I know of has any real sponsorship. Although, I suppose video ads are just easier to sell than audio ads.

 

[Hermiod]

Which is odd because GameFly didn't bother advertising with 1up back in the day. In fact, no gaming podcast that I know of has any real sponsorship. Although, I suppose video ads are just easier to sell than audio ads.

Aren't they usually designed to drive traffic back towards a website that does carry ads, though ?

Revision3 is, obviously, a for profit operation with employees who want to be paid for their work.

 

[firehawk12]

The 1up guys have spoken about it once in a while and in the rare instance would get a game ad during the audio or video podcast, but they couldn't really make it work. It's the same problem as magazines and websites, where all they can get is endemic advertising.

I think Rev3 has a similar demographic (perhaps seen most tellingly when they canceled the "chicks on tech" show that they ran as a counterpoint to Tekzilla), but for whatever reason they were able to at least draw from a slightly broader array of advertisers.

Not much broader, mind you, because it's GoDaddy and Netflix and Square Space every single week... but at least it's not just random games.