Video Game Personality Ryan Davis Dead At 34

(Reuters) - Video game journalist and podcaster Ryan Davis, known for his devout fan following in the tight-knit community, died last week at the age of 34, Giant Bomb, the news gaming site he cofounded, said on Monday. Davis had a visible online presence in the video game community through the popular podcast "the Giant Bombcast" he hosted every week to discuss industry news and review games. A former editor at the video game news site GameSpot, Davis co-founded Giant Bomb in 2008.

Three years later, Time magazine named it one of the top 50 websites of the year, describing it as a sort of Wikipedia for gaming news, reviews and commentary - "a mashup of a traditional game-info destination." The cause of Davis' death, which occurred less than a week after his wedding, was not given by Giant Bomb. "In the face of this awfulness, many of us will at least always remember him as we last saw him: outrageously, uproariously happy, looking forward to his next adventure with the biggest grin his face could hold,"

Matthew Rorie, product manager at Giant Bomb, said in a message posted on the site. Minutes after the post was published on Monday, video game industry analysts, game enthusiasts, journalists and games publishers like Ubisoft and Amazon Video Games took to Twitter to express their sense of loss. "A sad day in the industry, RIP Ryan Davis," was posted on the official twitter feed of Amazon Video Games. "Every time I saw Ryan Davis, I left smiling," tweeted Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. (Reporting by Malathi Nayak; Editing by Edith Honan)