Discuss the state of the forums and find solutions

[Renamed]

trunkswd said:

Renamed said:

It's best to leave it is now with minor tweaks. Site refreshes rarely invigorate long term activity and eventually lead to less overall engagement.

Dedicated forums are a dying medium. We all just need to come to terms with that. They are going the way of the old BBS, IRC, newgroups, etc... Do not waste money and massive efforts to revamp the whole site.

If any energy is increased, apply it toward sales tracking. Since VGC doesn't have corporate backing like IGN or GameSpot, it is the uniqueness of sales tracking that allows VGC to keep going long after thousands of others have died. Play to your strengths.

We will continue to do hardware estimates and report on shipment figures and player totals from official sources. It would be a long way off as it requires a lot of work to do, but we have some ideas on making it easier to find the latest shipment figures and player totals.

If retail polling is not an option (Circana, distributor or retail partnerships perhaps?) then any shipment or official data will need to be very accessible (as you noted) and usable.  More tools to make those numbers calculable in various scenarios.  These numbers are the heart of VGC.  More effort should be put into how users can work with the numbers than should be put into a site/forum overhaul.  

Basically do things that aren't or can't be done elsewhere. 
A place to discuss games and stuff - All over the place.
The Excel of video game sales data - Unique.