Ryan Davis, founder of GiantBomb.com, host of the GiantBombcast, and ever-smiling funny man, has passed away.
He passed last Wednesday, the 3rd, for unreleased reasons. This is a devastating loss. I have met Ryan on a few different occasions. All at the previous three PAX’s, and all were full of laughter.
When I walked up to him outside the indie booth on the PAX East 2012 floor, he shook my hand and talked to me like an old friend he hadn’t seen in a while. Meeting him was literally a dream come true. We talked for almost thirty minutes about how cold Boston was, how expensive the terrible convention food was, and how great the indie games looked. That was the first time we met, and I will never forget it.
We later met at many a Bombcast panel, and the first picture I took with him and Alex Navarro is just above.
Whether he was drinking breast milk on stage, doing a Hulk Hogan impression at a Cards Against Humanity panel, or just chuckling it up on the Bombcast, he was always an ever-present, and ever-loving personality.
Ryan was even extra special to me, because when I met him four months after our first encounter, he remembered my name, citing “I could never forget a face like that.” Eight months after that, still remembered, and mentioned me by name on the Bombcast. As some crazy teenager from Maryland with big dreams of living in San Francisco and being the next name in games writing, Ryan’s impact on my life could not have been bigger. He made me believe, he inspired and still inspires me to keep going, and most of all: he made me laugh.
This industry will not be the same without him, and though the world was robbed of a presence that quite literally cannot be replaced, he will never be forgotten.
Just seeing that he is trending on Twitter shows how much an impact he had on people across the internet.
Rest in peace Ryan, and thank you for treating me like the good friend you were to me.