Now look, I don't want to be an ass and just bash on VGChartz. However, I think it's safe to assume that this website isn't perfect and can improve for the better- the forum hot topics is something that can be improved.

Considering how this is a game/sales/whatever website, you'd assume most of the hot topics on the front page would be relevant to the charts, games, etc etc. However, half of the time many of the topics are completely different topics. Movies, news, politics(which I am glad I stopped checking), furries, and much more appear quite a bit on the front page.

Perhaps I'm the only one here who has this opinion, but the front page should be dedicated to gaming threads. By this, I don't mean any non-gaming thread should be kicked off and ignored. Many non-gaming threads can be interesting to partake in(considering how they're usually better than the horrid NX rumour threads), but this is a gaming website.  Perhaps Forum Hot Topics should be divided into two lists(instead of one huge list)- Gaming Hot Topics and Non-gaming hot topics. 

What if it is about a furry videogame? Do both Hot Topics implode in that case?

I think Trucks is already working on something that will make the situation better for those who don't want off topic threads on the front page. From this thread. 

 "- Forum Hot Topic preferences to carry over to front page (all users)."

This is a neverending battle. We used to have General Discussion not appear on the front page. People complained, and Trucks (or someone) made the change for them to re-appear (yup, before that they were on the front page, that time ioi decided not have them in the front page).

I would like to see more discussion about sales like there used to be. Problem is, the sales aren't regularly updated anymore. It used to be exciting to see the weekly hardware and software updates and discuss them. Now, updates can go weeks to months. It's inconsistent. This may have led to users finding other things to talk about more.

Numbers being so behind really doesn't help either. Apparently Machina couldn't update the numbers due to a bug. Eventually the bug was fixed by ioi, but it took a good while.

Oh yeah, ioi still handles the hardware numbers! That explains everything.

The more topics you take away from the front page the more I'll post random shit in Gaming Discussion.

This site should probably be encouraging all kind of forum topics rather than less.  

The forum is the main reason i visit and lurked for a long time.  It's variety keeps it interesting even when not about gaming topics.  

There is not always an abundance of new gaming information, especially on sales, so this forums variety helps this site from devolving into the latest phil spencer tweet of the day (nothing against Phil but it's ridiculous) like some other sites I visit.  

I would personally encourage variety (hopefully growth with it) instead of this.  Just my opinion. 

It's dying because nothing really interesting is happening. When I still frequently visited the site a few years back, there was all kinds of interesting things happening in gaming - and this was my main source for gaming news.

I think the success of Wii was what made VGChartz "big" in the first place with lots of lapsed gamers returning and looking for a place to share their thoughts and such, and this was the place with likeminded people.

In any case, the forum should be made easier to use on mobile devices (as this is where the people are), I've been doing it since 2007, and the trend's only been for worse. The red themed forum was best by far on mobile.