Okay this ended up being a somewhat large wall of text that skews kind of negative. I'm not trying to dogpile, just get my thoughts down on where their main gaming podcasts stand and what could be done to improve them in my opinion.
They definitely need someone else who's passionate and has different tastes involved in the gaming side of their channel. Western GaaS games are absolutely dominating the discussion and that's only going to continue with The Division 2.
Fran is absolutely the right person to lead discussion on GaaS games, but his inputs don't stand out as much because the rest of the group has been talking a lot about GaaS games before he was hired. Fran, however, is an end-game grinder in GaaS games and will be able to speak with more authority on these games, which has already been seen a bit with Anthem. Yes, he likes the game despite its flaws, but he's been able to get into the details of why he likes it while still knocking it for its flaws.
Greg was always this person for single player games for me. Recently, though, it seems like he's exclusively playing Switch Indies on the road and GaaS titles at home. I love a number of GaaS titles. I have hundreds of hours in Destiny, Fortnite, CoD Blackout, now Apex Legends, and I'll likely dive deep into The Division 2. But, because I'm playing as much of those games as I am, I'm looking for a little more in-depth commentary on them than "I logged in and checked out new thing in Game XYZ and it was cool!", which it often feels like is Greg's take on the GaaS games he's into. I'd love to hear his full opinion on more AAA single player games, but it seems like he isn't playing many of them these days, or at least not playing many of them to completion...which is fine by the way! I don't mean to gripe that his tastes aren't aligning with mine or anything, just explaining how I feel about the content they're putting out related to these games.
Andrea seemingly still plays a lot of single player games and I've enjoyed her takes on a lot of them. I'm someone who enjoyed Andromeda for what it was and agreed with her a lot of the time on that game and I've also disagreed with her on other issues (most recently on Anthem, like many others have already stated). Overall though, I find her to be a solid dissenting opinion most of the time and she isn't a stranger to being the only one with a specific opinion on the show, which I respect and often appreciate. I do agree, however, that it may be time to abstain from EA discussions for a while like Jared did. On yesterday's KFGD she went from "I can't talk about Anthem anymore" to "we should remember to appreciate that online games even work at all!" in about 3 minutes. I know she was kind of on tilt from all the "feedback" they're getting so I understand the reason for the rant, but that's just going to add to the "AndrEA" comments (and far worse comments) that she gets.
Tim seems to be doing a better job of coming in with a strong opinion on what he's been playing and defending it. He's overall a pretty positive voice, so I don't feel like he's going to come in and just rail on a game that he doesn't like, which is fine, but I still walked away from his Kingdom Hearts opinion thinking "glad he enjoyed it, this isn't for me at all." Like many have already said, I think he's improved a ton and is more confident getting on camera and giving his opinion on a game.
What seems to be one of their biggest issues right now, for me at least, is show format.
KFGD - This show is so dependent on the news of the day that it's always going to be GaaS heavy. There are multiple days a week where we're hearing about Anthem/Destiny/Fortnite/Apex updates in the news and that's going to segue into discussion about those games. It's hard to have a new "topic of the day" every day for a podcast so I don't expect this to change.
KFGC - There are two big positive changes that could be made, in my opinion, on Gamescast. 1) A dedicated topic of the week that's sent out to everyone day(s) prior to the show so points of view have time to develop and a solid discussion can happen and 2) More detailed coverage of the games that the team is playing. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread about how Giant Bomb has members come to the podcast with multiple pages of notes after a preview event or game launch to really sink their teeth into the topic. I haven't listened to this week's GC yet, but it's the type of situation where I would hope that people are coming into the podcast with detailed notes from their time with games like DMC5, Days Gone, Sekiro, etc. In a week where each of those games has been given huge write-ups and detailed videos across the internet, KFGC needs to have something to say more than "I played this game and I liked it and am looking forward to playing more of it."
That's just my take on what I feel is lacking from the podcasts, personally. I know others feel like there could/should be more JRPG discussion, but that's a bit out of my wheelhouse so I don't notice as much that those games are missing.
Also, I know this post is pretty critical but I still really like the team overall and I think the people gel really well together, which is an important piece of the puzzle for a successful channel. I'd just like a little more critical substances in the gaming discussions, personally.
