I’ve been a passive member for some years now. Still do daily visits, mostly to check for news and statistics but also because there used to be many interesting discussions and rumours circulating in the forum. It’s kind of a different place now, though. I think it has to do with updates to the site and how poorly it works on safari on iPhone, especially when I’m logged in. I had to log out to make sure I wouldn’t throw my phone in the wall out of frustration.

Just wait till I come back with my Rocket League threads.

Nintendo won. That is why. With no battles left to be fought, what are we supposed to do? Play games?

How do you think I always sit behind my computer?

On a more serious note, I agree with this. The industry is boring, that's why VGC's been mild for a while. Nothing really happens. No new awesome, never before seen tech and ideas or whatever, no newcomers, no one's dying, everything's been going exactly the same since forever now, no nothing.

Of course not, like I said in the now apparently closed thread about 'unpopular opinions'; Gaming's actually not really that much fun.

I think a few issues:

1. People still clinging to their "Nation" threads years later or rather "mega" threads in general. I warned moderators about this and I believe it should be stopped. People are posting their opinions in those threads and not in the forum...in fact many new articles are not even posted in the forums these days. I find all my news/rumours/trailers from Youtube these days...and when i come on Vgchartz to give an opinion - nothing. I would need to navigate a Nation thread...and god forbid you post in a thread where you are not welcome due to supposed allegience.

2. Mods are struggling to ride the balance between posting as a user and as a mod. You cant enter into a debate as a "User" and then start moderating that same chain. Its ridiculous. Moderators also seem confused between a shitty unsubstantiated post with actual rule breaking. A shitty post is not automatically flaming or trolling. Its a fine line, but finding that balance is the goal.

3. Lack of new users and older users moving on or are simply less active. I guess this is probably the biggest reason. This is likely due to the fact that much less importance is placed on sales numbers...I mean new weeks sales threads were super relevant back in the day, I would even say it was the most relevant for the health and activity of the site.

4. Lack of emphasis on Sales figures - already covered above but i feel it also deserves its own point. Vgchartz is just another gaming forum for me at this point, with a relatively friendly userbase.

5. On the political front and other non gaming topics - it becomes super difficult to foster open discussion. Mods have their personal preferences, and one persons life view can be entirly insulting to another. No easy answer here...but id say tougher skin is required here with a lean towards laxed moderation. If someone is being civil and not outrightly directin an insult to wards another member the post should be okay.

Pretty much.

No real big news all round to get people interested (generally) or big announcements/releases to get discussions going. We had a massive influx of users, including myself during the build up and launch of the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. Things should get a bit more busy next month around E3 time.

Not for me, but it has become more civilized with the pool of users shrinking. The overall quality of posts has slowly risen over the past few years, when the community was much bigger there was also a lot more shitposting. Overall, I like this place more now than I did 2-3 years ago, I even had an extended break from the site due to the amount of bickering and poor threads popping up weekly. Many have complained about the politics section being toxic in the past; for me, that was the only place where any worthwhile discussion took place for quite some time.

As Curl put it, gaming has gotten boring. Resident Evil 8 comes out Friday, where's the hype thread?

I made the RE6 one, someone can make the RE 8 one XD

Since I can only like a comment once, I'm calling it out here again.  You nailed it!  

I'll add that this site is called VGChartz, but fewer and fewer people care about sales and charts.  The name ain't gonna bring in new users like it used to.  That's a fundamental problem that probably cannot be solved.