The forums are stagnating - what should be done about it?

[averyblund]

Hi everybody, been more than a year since I posted. Expected not to again, but saw this topic and thought I'd explain what turned me off.

1. The new site layout is horrid, the ads are obtrusive and the forums are split into too many subforums. The OP is right about that.

2. The sales figures available like others said no longer are conducive to fun informed debate. This leads to the biggest issue.

3. The community has gotten mean, not sure how else to say it. As somebody who don't really hold a big allegiance to any console in the current gen,I felt more and more that any opinion that wasn't part of a certain console fans groupthink was viciously attacked without regard to merit. Even the greatest console in the world has flaws, can we not have civil discussion about it where everyone can enter open minded and respectful? This polarization really killed honest discussion and by doing so I believe alienated our more nuanced, intelligent, and long term membership.

One thing I think that really reflects the community shift to fanboyism and closed-mindedness is the sales discussion. When I joined people actually talked about games, how they were doing, what was going wrong, and if they were making money in the end. Now the sales discussions are almost totally limited to the big AAA releases and the console wars. I really miss analyzing games from the niche on up,I remember people trying to figure out what went wrong with Cursed Mountain, or why Silent Hill Shattered Memories wasn't a better seller. The consoles are a fun horserace, but its the games that run on them that I am more interested in better understanding.