That's what I like to hear :)

I used to feel like my body is burning when people troll whatever. So I defend the underdog, even if I don't really like them. Just to make them bitches feel grounded. Now I find myself trolling things before trolls can troll, to take their fun away. I befriend fanboys so they feel loved too and get sad when they get banned. I make sarcastic comments and some people don't get it. Then they flame me, and I love it. I also like to fish for replies, good or bad and then i defend points that dont make sense and make them sound like they do. Something is wrong with me. Maybe its the fact that I've become bored of videogames and this forum has become a game to me. 😢

Ah, forums. I've been on one or another since I was 12, almost always video game related in some major capacity. The things I was focused on though were rather.....illegitimate, so I mostly spent my time helping people with their piracy first, with discussion and criticism on games happening much later. It wasn't until about 4.5 years ago that I finally joined a community that prioritized game discussion more and console hacking less (although still prominently). Here's what happened to me:

I went from largely not caring about how any game company was performing to being able to crap on any one of the big three at any moment. I especially have become critical of Nintendo because of how many people I've seen defend Nintendo as if their personal honor was at stake. The amount of people I've seen invest seemingly every ounce of their free time into defending one company or one game is absolutely absurd. I'd argue that I'm fairly moderate overall, but I've been called a Nintendo hater a few times because I happen to call a spade a spade. I suppose in some respects I've become more radical, but only in regards to the communities surrounding games and game companies, not so much the games and game companies themselves.

I do give forums like this credit for igniting my interest in video game journalism. Without them, I'd still just be casually gaming without much care in regards to the industry as a whole.

Not so much for me, but it definitely changed the way I typed :p

I see way too many potshots being taken at any given opportunity. In fact many debates just end up turning into who can be more cynical and make more snide comments to make the other person look bad, It kind of kills the who spirit of having an open ended respectable discussion and promotes this radical behaviour.

I think it can, if the forum contents are biased in one specific direction. For example, if 300 people all with the same unpopular opinion congregate in one forum (we'll say 50 actually post rather than lurk) and basically stay on that forum, leaving momentarily to find evidence of their prejudices, it can feel like there are way more people who agree with them. Facebook has the same effect - when six of my friends post three or four pro-Bernie Sanders stuff, it fills my feed and looks like there's more support for that guy than there might be. (Just an example, not getting political here or anything.)

GameFAQs can be this sort of environment, if people stick to just one system board, visiting others just to troll.

I personally have always been very open-minded for everything including video games. To me it seems like most people in this site is similar, with a few exceptions of course. I don't frequent every video game site but from the ones I know vgc certainly has the best ambient when it comes to moderation, discussion and the way people express

The forum are controlled by three borg factions gaining to members each day to each form their one collective mind lol

At least me, I was quite radicalized before I joined any forum. I lean towards one side, but I do see the pros and cons of the opposite side, so I'm not aggressive towards polarizing opinions unless I'm heated up, which is very rare. I just try to be more subtle on the way I speak my mind.