I don't do obituaries or memorials, but last week Ryan Davis, co-founder of Giantbomb and former Gamespot writer, passed away having only married his then-fiancé Anna mere days earlier.
Ryan Davis was not just a games reviewer (in fact towards the end of his life, Ryan veered away from actually writing about games and instead set about doing his best to organise the day in day out activities on Giantbomb.com, a site which he and Jeff Gerstmann had lovingly created together in a bid to show the Internet how games journalism should be done.
Why this is such a big deal for me is because I followed the Giantbomb crew in some way shape or form on a daily basis. Be it through their tweets, their content on Giantbomb or various other random yet entertaining ways, I basically followed (and still follow) their everyday activities, as well as their 'professional' movements on a daily basis. Giantbomb has basically become a facet of my life. I hear about various American traditions and events through their weekly podcasts, and heard what the individual members of their team got up to each weekend. As any Giantbomb member will attest, once you'd heard a few of their Bombcasts, you felt like a part of a small but faithful community. Which is why losing Ryan, who was essentially the Father of the group, is so tough.
Ryan would host their videos at events such as e3 and PAX, he'd head up their Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday shows, he'd host the Bombcast, he'd host a lot of the hilarious quicklooks, and he was basically the Hostess with the Mostess. In short, Ryan made Giantbomb what it was, and his chemistry with the rest of the group (especially Jeff) was magical. As someone on the forums recently posted, you'd tune in to hear them talk about toasters if they were doing such a thing. They made anything and everything interesting, and so losing the cog of the process will change everything.
So yeah, it's going to be different.
RIP Ryan Davis.
