Patrick Klepek Reveals He Only Made $65K at Giant Bomb in SF [Up: Klepek responds, see threadmarks]

[Relic]

Edit: I meant this for the gaming section and reported it immediately after I created it.

Patrick (currently at Vice/Waypoint) posted his recollection of his current and past salaries. Without knowing anything about those other companies, Giant Bomb stuck out to me.

I've had a lot of media jobs, so my memory is fuzzy on the older salaries, but this is my best guess:

1UP: 45k
MTV: 50k ("Permalancer")
G4: 55k
EGM: 72k
Giant Bomb: 65k (no raise over 4 years, iirc)
Kotaku: 77k
Waypoint: 90k

Today: $100k, thanks to yearly union pay raises.

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Patrick lived in the San Fransisco area around 2011 and sometime later stayed at Giant Bomb while he moved back to the midwest. His LinkedIn (came up on Google, I wasn't stalking him) says he was Senior News Editor at Giant Bomb from April 2011 to December 2014.

As a Giant Bomb fan, this number seems criminally low. Giant Bomb paints itself as hip, close to its fans, etc., and $65K in the bay area is a slap in the face. I hope in the last 5 years something has changed, because I don't want to pay for premium anymore if the site can't give its staffers a living wage. NerdWallet's cost of living calculator reports 65K in SF is the same as $39.5K in Chicago or $29.5K in Columbus, OH. These are present-day numbers, they probably weren't quite as dire in 2011-2014.

 

[NinjaScooter]

Giant Bomb paints itself as "hip"?

 

[Kamenjojo]

Did you not look at the other things he said?

 

[SteveWinwood]

i love how thats apparently the only take away there for you

 

[Shodan14]

Wrong side?

 

[Fright Zone]

There's already a thread about this.

 

[looprider]

But how much do teachers make a year? That should be the real outrage TBH

 

[Christian]

My initial thought is, "wow, this guy has been overpaid most of his career. Good for him."

 

[Soundscream]

I love how you gloss over the 45k at 1up also in SF.

 

[Mezentine]

As someone who has been involved with a company at its early stages I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff and the other senior members were making that much or less as well. I mean I don't know anything, but I doubt it was that everyone was making way more than him

Lack of a raise as the site grew is pretty shitty though

 

[shnurgleton]

weird to talk about Patrick Klepek like he isn't here

 

[subpar spatula]

I always thought these video game podcasting / news websites didn't make that much money to even pay employees 65k a year.

 

[Watership]

This is the worst kind of cherry picking OP, you're removing the intent of his tweets completely.

 

[wenis]

that's about as much as I made living in SF doing a media job as well.

 

[Ploppee]

They were independantly owned at that point and he was good friends with everyone on staff? He hardly seems like someone that would have been discriminated against. Sometimes you just take a hit to work at somewhere you love.

 

[Soundscream]

Also it shows how disconnected people on this forum are when people are upset at 65k a year when the Vast Vast majority don't make anywhere near that amount of money a year.

 

[Jeffram]

Yikes. If I remember correctly Patrick wanted to work at Giantbomb who may not necessarily been looking to hire at the time? (wikipedia seemingly confirms). Combination of them taking advantage of that or being independent and not having money to give could be it. Surprised no raise even after CBS bought them out.

 

[Fat4all]

https://twitter.com/patrickklepek/status/1270735136875843585?s=21

 

[Border]

GiantBomb is a great site but yeah, it's not exactly fair to compare them to MTV, EGM, Vice, or Kotaku. They work on a much more threadbare budget and have a much smaller audience.

EZ Allies rakes in maybe $500,000 per year on Patreon. After production costs, that gets split between 8-9 people......I suspect the situation was much the same in the early days of Whiskey Media/GiantBomb.

 

[fluffydelusions]

Those SF jobs are basically low income salaries for that area.

 

[TaySan]

If only i could make half of that. I know in SF that's like nothing, but still lol

 

[Heynongman!]

You should probably read the rest of what he said about working at GB. IE: Whiskey Media days, and not asking for raises. And also take into consideration the years he worked there. Not worth comparing it to 2020 SF numbers.

 

[Fushichou187]

I worked for a CBO (community based org) as a program manager, amongst other things, for nearly 9 years and the most I ever made was 48k. I lived in SF that entire time.

Tech, finance, and the public sector are generally the outliers in SF when it comes to outsized salaries. Not to say Patrick shouldn't have been paid more for the value he brought to Giant Bomb, but it doesn't surprise me.

 

[Pedro]

Very weird cherry-picking thread. If you wanted to ignore everything else about the tweet and just talk about GB, you could have posted this in the community thread.

 

[Deleted member 2145]

known ICP listener Jeff Gerstmann

"hip"

 

[Goldenroad]

TBF, not all 4 of his years were in SF, and if you look at what the IGN and Gamespot people who were working in SF at the time were getting for compensation (according to Twitter, see Mary Kish ($50K) and Arthur Gies($50K)), $65K seems a lot higher than the industry standard.

 

[Deleted member 60582]

Gosh, I hope he's ok

 

[VaporSnake]

known ICP listener Jeff Gerstmann

"hip"

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Lmao is that actually true?

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

Giant Bomb paints itself as "hip"?

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If this isn't hip, I don't know what is

 

[bionic77]

This is the worst kind of cherry picking OP, you're removing the intent of his tweets completely.

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Yeah this thread is BS and the OP is misleading.

 

[Haubergeon]

They were independantly owned at that point and he was good friends with everyone on staff? He hardly seems like someone that would have been discriminated against. Sometimes you just take a hit to work at somewhere you love.

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Not to mention at the time I strongly recall him telling a story on the Bombcast about how before GB offered him the job, he was very nearly ready to just quit the industry altogether and move away - and in fact he moved away a few years later anyway. His employment history prior to GB was also anything but stable. It really is weird to frame this as GB doing something particularly bad.

 

[Delriach]

If I told you how much I was paid for most of my career in both journalism and game dev you would be very depressed.

 

[Heynongman!]

Lmao is that actually true?

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Spofity Kids singing Minecraft Parody songs listener is more apt these days.

 

[Deleted member 2145]

Lmao is that actually true?

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he references ICP about once a month on average

 

[Zodzilla]

This is the worst kind of cherry picking OP, you're removing the intent of his tweets completely.

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Agreed.

Whatever salary he agreed to at the time is between him and the company and the time that he took the position. This isn't a question about whether his salary matches other people (like in the BA thread), since there's nothing to compare his salary to. Just because you feel that it's low does reflect anything on his expectations.

If he himself is not upset by that salary when he's listing it himself, then there's nothing to upset about. Save your pitchforks for better causes.

The point of his tweet is that he didn't feel that he had representation to ask for more until he was in a union and that bettered him financially. Not to throw others under the bus.

 

[Jebusman]

Come on OP.

 

[NinjaScooter]

Yeah this thread is BS and the OP is misleading.

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let's be real OP made this thread to "drag" Giant Bomb when based on the context and follow up tweets, that wasn't anything close to Patrick's Intent. That's just the nature of the internet these days tho.

 

[Teenage Fansub]

It was by far the smallest company from that list at the time before Gamespot/CBS.

 

[TheMango55]

if he didn't think that was enough money he wouldn't have taken the job

 

[inner-G]

65k seems pretty fair to me for writing about video games. That's more than most people make.

 

[FormatCompatible]

If this isn't hip, I don't know what is

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[StrangeRoboMemory]

Misleading and poorly thought-out OP.

 

[Heromanz]

if he didn't think that was enough money he wouldn't have taken the job

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But that's not how it works

 

[Teenage Fansub]

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Ooh ah ah ah ah!

 

[Deleted member 4367]

This is most definitely not the point of these salary disclosures.

 

[FaceHugger]

$65k back in 2011 would have been fine in my area, but anywhere near SF? I don't know.

I am surprised he's only just now hitting $100k. He's one of the more celebrated and recognized writers in gaming.

If I told you how much I was paid for most of my career in both journalism and game dev you would be very depressed.

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I know two ex game devs (back when we had to go into the office, I used to stop by their cubes daily), both nearly doubled their salaries by joining healthcare IT doing boring regular-ass programming. So I believe it. One worked for EA/Mythic, the other I forget.

 

[El_TigroX]

It feels like a lot of people just don't have proactive conversations with bosses and managers. At some point, it's on the employee to push that... you will only be valued when you force the conversation and have an open conversation about it.

 

[fluffydelusions]

65k seems pretty fair to me for writing about video games. That's more than most people make.

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Yeah but it's SF. I remember reading an article a while back that said under 100k salary is considered low income there. Don't know how accurate that is but I've been to SF and it is expensive AF

 

[Arc]

Damn I remember when this dude was an intern at 1UP. He took over Luke Smith's (who also had a thread today) job when he left for Bungie. That's was like 13 years ago!

 

[FaceHugger]

double post