Keep in mind that this was several years ago.  First, I was fed up with the tabloid, click-bait style of writing under Sterling.  Funny that he left around the same time.  Second, there was a relatively random event in the forums that was the proverbial camel that sat on the straw.  A new female (allegedly) user made a thread asking for help with identifying a game.  A veteran user yelled at her for not making an introduction post first (which is silly) and called her a "cunt".  She apologized for not making an introduction post but objected to being called that.  That led to a bunch of regular users jumping all over her.  That made decide that I didn't want to be part of that community any longer.

I think I joined for a number of reasons. I saw some fun and interesting posters I wanted to interact with and befriend, join in the debates on the side of Ninten, and got thread ideas for topics I thought would be good discussing. So after a long time of lurking, I eventually joined, and found quite a fun and interesting cast of people xD

I went on this site for a while before I finally decided to actually make an account.

The first time I tried to make an account I think something went wrong because my account never seemed to have gotten made, so then I think I gave up for a bit before trying again and then it worked.

I don't remember why I specifically joined, it was probably just because I wanted to join in on the conversation since I went on this site a lot anyway. I remember when I would go on the site that I would see a lot of posts (good and bad) that I wanted to reply to as well, so that was probably a reason.

I like statistics, sales in general and mainly the comg thread

Its so cute and fluffy, and I can't help but poke and annoy it.

Found this site because of weekly updated sale numbers. Saw forum and an interesting community on the side one day, lurked for a while before joining.

It was for the sales discussion and the nice community. I was pondering about joining on 2012, but I desisted due to the wars and how intimidating the mods were with the bans. I thought I was going to get banned as soon as I joined. But I didn't want to miss out on the conversations. So I joined.

I felt that way too! Specially when reading the rules where they say they'll be harsh on the new users (since they dont know their way of posting), I seriously thought I wouldnt last long.

To be honest, I would've banned me pretty early on

I came to watch the X360 vs PS3 vs Wii battle somewhere around 2006.
This is what it looked like: https://web.archive.org/web/20070305162554/http://www.vgchartz.com/
After a couple of years using VGC as a source for sales numbers my children said I should join and become more than a lurker.
The shift from being happy that there were weekly updated sales numbers, to the disapointment when the community demanded absurd accuracy in the presented sales figures, was difficult. So what was left was the forums

Also the battle between XB1 vs PS4 vs Wii U has not been very interesting. Also the digital download software has made those sales more difficult to get correct.

I was being pestered to get a Wii U - the kids had been saving up for it for a year, ever since it had been released, and I wanted to do a little more research before buying.

Reading the site and forums helped me come to a decision, and it was interesting and entertaining enough that after buying the console, I decided to stop lurking and join.