****** Disclaimer, this thread was written to talk about why a forum with fewer features and lower quality gets more support then VGChartz. It is not meant to be an attack on the user base of any forum including VGChartz. It also isn't meant to directly attack the integrity of any site. Rather it is meant to simply ask, what is so appealing about NeoGaf specifically or any other gaming forum*******

Alright so I have been on game forums since the 90's. My favorite forum was the Nintendo N-Sider forum back in the day. I mean it was Nintendo's official forum and their were definate perks to being a member. Nintendo used to give promotional things away to users and you could get your posts into Nintendo Power. You could even become a sage in which you got to work with Nintendo employees.

I went from that forum to a way weaker forum NintendoNow of the E-Mpire network. It was a basic forum but their was a sense of community and I met Viper their. However quickly I followed Smeags a fellow N-Sider vetern to a forum I had never been to before, VGChartz. VGChartz offered features no other forum did a quick glance at someone's tag showed you which consoles they owned and what games they are playing. You could earn points etc...etc.. from posting and the bias of users wasn't that drastic. Despite all the changes that have occured VGChartz has remained the most proffesionally looking and runned gaming forum on the internet.

Then recently I heard mention of how NeoGaf is ruling the forum industry. Now I remember going to NeoGaf years ago to check it out after N-Sider shut down. I found the forum was home to many developers and many intelligent users. However the site did seem like every other forum at the time. So I just recently heard about NeoGaf rocking VGChartz numbers wise. So I go to see the forum and man its like travelling back in time. The forum looks like something out of the ninties it has no unique features it doesn't even have a news site, it lacks a video streaming part. All in all when comparing it to even the likes of 1Up its a disaster.

So this gets me thinking, VGChartz is clearly one of the best made gaming forum's on the internet. So why do people go to NeoGaf? I mean I could go online and make a prettier forum using free software and little programming knowledge. Infact Teh Bat Cave one of the forums I helped found years ago looked better.

So why do gamers prefer such an inferior (feature and visual wise) forum like NeoGaf to VGChartz? Why do developers and industry folks post more and take NeoGaf more seriously when the site itself looks like crap?

I just don't get why we have such inferior numbers to NeoGaf, VGChartz may not have all the latest news but at least they have it. VGChartz has all the latest sales figures not NeoGaf so wth? We have great members known all over the internet yet we don't get as many members posting here.

Why do gamers prefer NeoGaf and some other forums to VGChartz? I really would like to hear what makes other sites more attractive?

I mean to me community and features and staff support is what makes me choose a forum. Other forums lack VGChartz finesse so why do people even go to them?

Probably because people have been going to NeoGaf for years now. They know people on there and thus keep going back regardless of the features or the (lack of) fancy designs. It's had years to build its rep and community and people don't like to change once the've found something they like.

I will tell you, because you can have intelligent conversations on that website without being swarmed by butt-hurt fanboys that derail every thread. I could tell you what people think about VGChartz but I would probably get banned, but I'll give yo a hint it's not so much the website but the community. And the recent articles don't help.

VGChartz has a much more strict moderation policy than sites like gaf. Whilst most on VGChartz consider this to be a feature, the majority of the internet consider it a bug.

Scoobes also has a point that simply having established a userbase earlier on can help tremendously

VGChartz = Springfield
Neogaf = Shelbyville

ioi = Disco Stu

People favour simplicity I think. In my experience the most successful forums are the simplest ones.

VGC is bloated and slow (slower than 89% of the web pages, according to Alexa).

However, once you get to know the site it is very good, but not everyone manages.

One question: Did more people join the site when it was simpler and more straight forward? I would think that's the case.

I'm not very familiar with Neogaf but every time I check their gaming forum I find more interesting threads to read at one glance than on VGC in a month. Also: They actually have more than 3 people who are or were PC gamers.

VGC's strength in comparison to other sites has always been the sales and industry discussions. Not anymore. The only sales discussion we have these days are EU or NA or WW Up where many posts cheer for a random game on a Sony console that sold more than 5000 copies last week.

How do you figure? Between the ~6 month waiting period for account approval and people getting permbanned left and right (especially juniors), NeoGAF seems far stricter.

Exactly,  get banned and you are totally fucked...

"People favour simplicity I think. In my experience the most successful forums are the simplest ones. VGC is bloated and slow "

"VGC's strength in comparison to other sites has always been the sales and industry discussions. Not anymore."

"Content is more important than features"
"VGC's main advantage (sales data and graphs) has diminished to the point where it isnt a real advantage anymore"

Fully agree with those comments I would have wrote the same thing. Actually I was but then decided not to.