Still definitely has its moments and the streaming content is often still fun, but the podcast just doesn’t justify its runtime anymore or make it easy to pick out the quality from the fluff. Janet and Patrick are great across the board, Rob has some great insights when he isn’t playing Rob The Character or endlessly monologing, Chia is a great editor, fine streamer, knows a lot about certain genres of games, great writer, but doesn’t much to the bobcat except for about the genres they are locked in on. I was so stoked when Danika came back and she can be very funny but not as much as she used to be without Natalie or Austin to play off of (the dynamic between her and Rob is extremely weird) and she just doesn’t have the analytical/journalistic juice and industry knowledge for a longform podcast that’s heavily about industry analysis and indepth criticism, she is too reliant on cliches (“can Danika go a single episode without mentioning she worked at salesforce, has ADHD, or describing something she doesn’t like as ‘giving her ptsd’-challenge.”)
I think they’ve shifted to being too personality driven but without the personalities to back it up and the podcast is too unstructured. They desperately need to cut the length of the pod, break things into segments, and have people play to their strengths/only be on segments relevant to their expertise. It would really help to get someone new on or back who was like Austin, Natalie, or Danielle Riendieu: very funny and charming personalities who are ALSO really strong journalists and analysts. I updated this review after Dia’a most recent appearance because she brought so much to the show, I beg of y’all to hire her.
