At work, my ears have a lot of free time. My eyes, my hands and my head is pretty engaged with what is going on, but my ears only get to do something when talking with coworkers. So I listen to a lot of music and podcasts. Usually back and forth between the two, rather than a mix. Sometimes, I'm in the mood for music. Sometimes, I'm in the mood for talking and chatter. My job goes back and forth between planning and execution constantly, so it's a great way to keep the boring execution phase of my job lively.
My favorite podcast shuts down its doors today, and that is the Brodeo aka GFWRadio formerly CGWRadio. The Brodeo starred the editors of Games For Windows Magazine formerly Computer Gaming World, who were Jeff Green, Ryan Scott, Shawn Elliot and Sean Malloy with Robert Ashley and Anthony Gallegos.
CGWRadio began on February 16th, 2006. The first couple episodes were a little odd, but they eventually figured it out. On August 8th, 2006, they announced that CGW would become GFW and in November launched their first issue.
GFWRadio combined a unique brand of gaming humor with the trials and annoyances of working in the gaming journalism business and the joy of being in the business.
After listening to GFWRadio, I never thought I'd have such an insight into the gaming media. This type of perspective is something that I never even thought about 4 years ago being a gamer. 4 years ago, I was still writing about games, but I never had the insight as to what the game's designers were thinking about, what the publishers were doing to promote the game, and what really went into making the game to begin with. I know so much more now-a-days about the pressures these publishing companies put on game reviews and journalists on exactly what they say about a game.
They also talked a lot about the themes in games and what the game really meant to them and wouldn't pull any punches. They'd give you their complete honesty opinion on what the game did right and what the game did wrong. They'd also completely deconstruct some games talking about character interaction, plot devices and themes.
Discussions on GFWRadio were a good balance between these industry related topics, and high-brow video game analysis, but weren't afraid to go completely low-brow too and talk about stupid things they do or have done. It's really just a bunch of guys bullshitting about their jobs, lives and games they play.
That's really where the term Brodeo came from. Jeff Green was browsing around Urban Dictionary and found this definition: A get-together or a party where the attendance is predominantly male. He brought it up on the podcast and the cult following of GFWRadio labeled it as such.
The real humor of the show came from "Hero's of the Web", Dramatic Readings, Stories of griefing and gaming, and other coined terms, segments and jokes that became running gags.
April 8th, 2008 marked the beginning of the end as Ziff Davis put a hard start to Games For Windows Magazine. Actually, I suppose, Ziff Davis declaring bankruptcy was really the beginning of the end. But shifting from a print magazine to the online space wasn't really something the GFW editors had been prepared for.
I wish I would've evangelized this podcast more when it was in its prime, but oh well. Popularity is not the reason it's ending. It's ending because the key voices of the show have now gone on to do bigger and better things.
In June, Sean Malloy announced that he had gotten a job for Blizzard and left 1up. Last week, Jeff Green recorded his final podcast and he left to work on the Sims with Maxis and EA. And this week, Shawn Elliot finishes up the Brodeo and heads off to 2K Boston to work with Ken Levine (creator of Bioshock) on his next project.
Ryan Scott, Robert Ashley and Anthony Gallegos are still at 1up and have said that they'll continue to podcast in some form or do something, but the actual Brodeo, has ended.
Times change. Jobs change. People grow up. You complete college, you gotta move on. You get your first job or your break in the Industry. You usually start at the same place many other begin as well. Eventually, you gotta move up in the Industry. So that's basically it.
A lot of voices have moved on from 1up, but there's plenty of new voices as well. With the Brodeo gone, I think I'll turn my attention to 1up FM, 1up's new podcast.
My hope is for a GFW Reunion at PAX 2009. ^_^ It was neat meeting Shawn Elliot at PAX, but I really didn't get to say too much to him.
Anyways, You guys should definitely check out all the previous episodes of CGW/GFWRadio, which are hosted at archive.org. I'm not really sure which would be the best to begin at. Probably around May 2006, if you plan to go the full distance.
Also, last week's podcast, Jeff Green's final podcast can be found in its entirety on video. (part 1, part 2, part 3)