| Mr Khan said: The key about dividing forums is to allow for the creation of niche topics. That way we could discuss games like Fire Emblem or Folklore that gamers at large tend not to care about, but the subsets do care about |
I went back to Metacritic to find a game reviewed by a decent number of sites, and looked over the organization. The main way the sites are organized are by platform the game is on. This means the sites drive people together based on the device, rather than their interests in games. What was on Usenet, under PC gaming, is genres of games, which had sports, action, etc... having their own subcategories of games. I understand the need for people to be able to play the games, but with games increasingly being multiplatform, I don't see platform game is played on really being that great of a service as the main clustering point. I also know coming up with genres is tricky, but still I see it as better than what is now.
Anyhow, I wouldn't necessarily get rid of platform for game on as the basis of clustering, but would consider having adding another clustering point. One site I do see organizes by genre:
http://www.strategyinformer.com/xbox360/reviews.html
No guarantee it would cut down on console fanboyism, but might lead to more useful discussions and finding games of interest, and the preferred platform of choice.
