What brought you here and what keeps you coming back?

I'm not new, but my opinion is still valid.

I started lurking VGChartz in late 2009 when I Google searched the top PS3 games and a VGChartz popped up. I admired the site design and a few of the members, so I looked up some other threads. This was during the PS3 Slim release so there was a lot of things going on.

I eventually became fond of a few posters and followed their activity. I also saw some members that I didn't like and I followed them in order to see them proven wrong. Then, early 2010 came and there was still a lot going on. The PS3 Slim release, the Uncharted 2 release, the GoW3/Heavy Rain hype, I finally decided to join in Feb 2010 mainly to hype up GoW3.

My first month or so here was mainly just posts about God of War 3. I eventually grew to a more active & diverse until about May. That was when the site changed to 5.0 and I couldn't stand the design and left to N4G. However, when E3 2010 came, I had to come back. Microsoft had just released the 360 Slim and I had to come back to see the outcome (It was a huge success). I've stayed active on VGChartz ever since.

I've been coming here to check out random sales data for a couple years, off and on. What got me to sign up and start posting was the list of interesting forum topics that are constantly changing. It seemed cool to have a video game forum that wasn't necessarily relegated to just games, but also politics, philosophy, and other fascinating topics. So here I am.

I lurked in 2007 mostly reading benkenobi88's toys r us thread.. untill in 2008 there was  contest to design vgchartz T-shirts... which would have involved real dollars  which a few of us won... and then never heard anything about it ever again... I feel tricked... so I'm staying here untill I can get my prize!! When I get it I'm outta here!

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=29431

Got the exact same question by Jay520 himself a while back. I'll just post my response here:

"Well... It all started long ago when I wanted to know how much each console had sold. Wikipedia had some numbers but they were always out of date and I wanted more frequent updates so I googled "console sales" and VGChartz came up.

That was about a year ago, and as time went by I started to gain more and more interest about the forums and some of its interesting topics and members which ultimately made me join."

=)

The charts. Sadly, they are gone. Why am I staying now? The community, for the ones who are on my friends list. Yes, you heard it, if your on my friends list that is why I'm staying. That is why I've gone through stages of deleting people off my friends list. Also... the sales are quite nice to talk to people about.

I came for the charts.

*Looks around*

Well, bye then

Well, it's not new, but I wanted to see how Nintendo was doing in sales - and got to one of VGChartz chartz searching in google, probably. I fell in love with the fun discussions.

NintendoPie said: The charts. Sadly, they are gone. Why am I staying now? The community, for the ones who are on my friends list. Yes, you heard it, if your on my friends list that is why I'm staying. That is why I've gone through stages of deleting people off my friends list. Also... the sales are quite nice to talk to people about.

I also initially came for the sales and charts but have stayed for the forums and members. It seems like this is the case with a lot of members, both old and new.

I cant remember when I first started but I stay because I think all the people here care/know more about games then most industry experts.