I’ll be thinking on this. I do believe VGChartz has several USPs (e.g. sales-centric discussion, very good community (by the standards of most forums), charming and well-written articles), and upon recognizing and further showcasing these USPs via a website overhaul, I could see this site really start to grow again. One idea might be to place greater emphasis on the communal aspect (i.e. forums). As is, if somebody wanders onto the site, they’ll assume it’s an outlet for gaming journalism, seeing the emphasis on and prevalence of articles front-loaded. As far as reputation and site ownership is concerned, I truly believe that a new website under the owner of three highly reputable members of the community (e.g. Bandorr, CGI, Machina) will need to be created soon, and under a new name. (VGChartz sounds, to me, like a website infamous for reporting inaccurate sales figures under the guise of them being reliable. VGChartz is a good place for organizing known sales data, and should not be presented as asserting unreliable estimates.

One idea could be to have a page on this site (i) explaining how data is determined, providing detailed explanations on how and why the sources sited are reliable and accurate (and an explicit clarification on how much more refined data has become over the years, to quash immediate rejection), and (ii) giving evidence via showcasing how truly small the discrepency between VGChartz estimates are and official data, (iii) include graphs and charts of all game system sales WHICH ARE OFFICIALLY KNOWN (e.g. create an user-friendly chart which plots out official NSW, PS5, etc., quarterly shipment data; do the same for software softwares from, e.g., Nintendo, Capcom, Sony, etc.; as somebody who is frequently needing to visit dozens of sources to find official shipment data on these matters, I see having everything centralized to a site with easy-to-use UI as potentially being a major USP).

More ideas: Create YouTube content for every article written, similar to how sites such as GameXplain, IGN, GameSpot, and…well…any popular gaming sites is run. I would volunteer to do the software editing (and maybe even commentating the vidoes) since I have lots of experience with this matter (I ran a YT channel, Alpha Ambush, throughout 2013-2017 with daily uploads), but I’m also working towards a PhD in mathematics atm lol. Engage in further outreach campaigns via X, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok (short-form videos could be a good addition, similar to longer-winded YT video articles). Do a name change (might also be necessary once the site is changed to a new one). Also, these videos could bring in revenue to afford paying for coders to execute any massive site overhauls.

I understand your pessimism, but I believe it is objectively wrong to say that solutions have been exhausted. There is still so many ways you can get the site to grow. Keep your chin up, and stay focused on getting everything sorted out. This situation isn’t beyond our control. Don’t be so defeatist.

I think VGChartz has interesting things but it's not the best at any, take the GameDB for example, there are other sites out there with far better GameDBs, as for Sales-Discussion, InstallBase is probably beating us in that now too. We do have a nice community but I think we need a better balance in quantity, it can be said that it's intimidating to join big sites but I think it can be as equally as intimidating to join small close-knit communities because you can feel like you're intruding on the "clique" or activity isn't high enough to care about the site, so we need a better balance there of encouraging more new users into the website which is proving difficult.

I've no issue with how any of the writers are doing things, it would be cool to see more unique personal opinion pieces and such, but that's about all I'd say. All I will say is I think Articles and Forums are accidentally competing with each other now, Lol. We have ideas on what to do about that but ideas are useless without coders, designers, etc.

"website overhaul" - For example, impossible to do right now.

As far as reputation and site ownership is concerned, I truly believe that a new website under the owner of three highly reputable members of the community (e.g. Bandorr, CGI, Machina) will need to be created soon, and under a new name.

I've been banging on about this for years, it's the absolute first thing that needs to be done before we can even do anything else. I have my own thoughts on who I would most love to see as the owners of VGChartz but yeah, before anything else, we need a new ownership that actually shows their face, shows they care and actually invests in the site.

VGChartz sounds, to me, like a website infamous for reporting inaccurate sales figures under the guise of them being reliable. VGChartz is a good place for organizing known sales data, and should not be presented as asserting unreliable estimates.

LOL. Someone said this before and I agree, at the very least, remove that damn Z and replace it with an S, the Z is so "early 2000s" Lmao.

One idea could be to have a page on this site (i) explaining how data is determined, providing detailed explanations on how and why the sources sited are reliable and accurate (and an explicit clarification on how much more refined data has become over the years, to quash immediate rejection), and (ii) giving evidence via showcasing how truly small the discrepency between VGChartz estimates are and official data, (iii) include graphs and charts of all game system sales WHICH ARE OFFICIALLY KNOWN (e.g. create an user-friendly chart which plots out official NSW, PS5, etc., quarterly shipment data; do the same for software softwares from, e.g., Nintendo, Capcom, Sony, etc.; as somebody who is frequently needing to visit dozens of sources to find official shipment data on these matters, I see having everything centralized to a site with easy-to-use UI as potentially being a major USP).

I like these ideas but we need investment, coders, designers, UI experts, security experts, etc, Lol.

More ideas: Create YouTube content for every article written, similar to how sites such as GameXplain, IGN, GameSpot, and…well…any popular gaming sites is run. I would volunteer to do the software editing (and maybe even commentating the vidoes) since I have lots of experience with this matter (I ran a YT channel, Alpha Ambush, throughout 2013-2017 with daily uploads), but I’m also working towards a PhD in mathematics atm lol. Engage in further outreach campaigns via X, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok (short-form videos could be a good addition, similar to longer-winded YT video articles). Do a name change (might also be necessary once the site is changed to a new one). Also, these videos could bring in revenue to afford paying for coders to execute any massive site overhauls.

Yeah, I've suggested this before, VGChartz doesn't do enough social media outreach. Every other site will have Podcasts, Twitch Channels, Active YouTube's with unique content and news, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, etc. InstallBase was open for a couple years and got an interview with Chris Dring and Matt Pistacella, Lol. Sites like XboxEra somehow get interviews with high ranking executives of videogame companies.

But we can't. We don't have the manpower. We don't have the investment. Trunks writes all the gaming news, runs the Twitter, runs the BlueSky account, the dude is one man and a powerhouse but he's just one man. He can't possibly throw up a VGChartz Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, etc. Dude has a life and VGChartz's pay is too dogshit for him to live on to also tell him to do all of this too.

I understand your pessimism, but I believe it is objectively wrong to say that solutions have been exhausted. There is still so many ways you can get the site to grow. Keep your chin up, and stay focused on getting everything sorted out. This situation isn’t beyond our control. Don’t be so defeatist.

I wouldn't say all solutions have been exhausted but I believe all solutions possible by an unpaid volunteer team have been exhausted, I'm just taking a more aggressive approach now because we've tried everything else within our capabilities and it's not working. My point is that the only way this site has a chance is if it comes under new ownership willing to invest into the site, and even then it may be too little too late, but that's the only chance we have, Imho.

I used to hold my tongue and only say this stuff in StaffChat, Lol. But after years of no change, even further monetary cuts, and the utterly fucking embarrassing hack where the owner couldn't even be bothered to show his face to the site and apologise, leaving it to the Staff to clean the mess up, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of lost comments because we didn't have a backup, and the fact that this site may yet still have major security flaws, I guess I'm just saying fuck it, Lol.

Nice one. I'll do the same. Others may join us. 

I used to spam tons of news in Xbox Empire, it's not that hard once you follow the right accounts, I could potentially start posting news threads again, I love TV and could make a bunch of TV based threads (but I can't decide whether an OT should be for the entire series or per season, I.E. Season 1 OT, Season 2 OT, or simply "*Insert Show* OT") and I would like to see the Box Office thread more active again.

I've done this all before though, and I'm not sure, I want new ownership before I try to invest again in the site. My main posting is Russia-Ukraine Thread and Xbox OT, the former because it's an important issue to me, the latter because of the community but I'm finding myself taking regular breaks from VGChartz lately and struggling to find desire to post at all.

I can't get behind the current ownership, I firmly believe it needs to be replaced, the fear is that we add a temporary burst of activity but ultimately nothing still changes, the site still remains outdated, the site still doesn't get new users, the ownership still does the bare minimum, whilst cutting staff pay further, we get hacked again, the servers go to shit again, this is a reasonable fear, because it's all happened before.

We try to boost activity, it works for a time, but the site still can't receive major updates due to a lack of coders, the site doesn't attract new users, the coders we have eventually leave and then we're stuck with an outdated site with multiple issues that can't be fixed or improved, the ownership still doesn't show its face, the staffs already dogshit pay gets cut even more, the site gets hacked due to major security flaws, we lose massive amounts of history due to servers that aren't backed up.

I don't know, I'm conflicted to even try.

So, where is everybody wanting to go after vgchartz?

I'm just going to talk to VGChartz users on Discord.

I'd join Installbase if it had other topic discussions other than sales but it doesn't so...

ResetEra is too big, I can't be bothered with sites which are specific to platform companies, I can't be bothered with Reddit either, Lol.

Something I’ve been wondering about is the “official” threads. The official Zelda, Nintendo, XBox, etc. these threads are long running threads and I’m sure they have a community, but when Zelda news drops it’s weird to not see it and then you realize it’s buried in an official page. It isolates the Zelda community from the main page. It may make everything cleaner, but that may be at the expense of things looking lively around here.

Shutting down those threads won't guarantee that threads will suddenly be made but it will upset people who like and use them threads, the Xbox OT was the only reason I joined this website to begin with, it shutting down would have been a reason I would have left the site, until the Russia-Ukraine thread. These threads have always provided a lot of engagement to VGChartz but lately even these threads have significantly declined in activity but it's arguable that Xbox OT's recent decline is largely due to Microsoft's fucking shit behaviour lately, thus shutting down the OT is even less likely to cause people to start making Xbox related threads.

The last time Mods interfered with the Xbox OT it resulted in an exodus of Xbox users, and an attempt to create a rival site which ultimately failed but still hugely hurt Xbox fans activity on VGChartz as a whole. The last time the Mods interfered with the PS OT it resulted in an exodus of users to a rival site which was successfully made. Both interferences caused a notable decline in activity for both fanbases across the whole of VGChartz. I don't think we should start our solutions by ripping away things that members of the community like.

There was a time where these OTs were wildly active, 100s of comments a day, and VGChartz as a whole was very active, despite how much activity these OTs had, everywhere was active. It's what we should aim for again, OTs exist on every forum and serve a valuable purpose in nurturing communities and a nice space for people to relax in, also not all news posted in these OTs deserves a thread, it'd be an extremely risky move to remove them, Imo, and I'm personally completely against the idea.

But there could be more of an effort made for news which is posted in these threads to also have threads made of said news.

The last line is more of what I was thinking, not their removal. It’s just sad when big news happens and you don’t see a thread for it on the main page. It adds to the feeling that the site is a ghost town. I think there’s always room for short-lived discussions on breaking news and info, even if that info is already being discussed in the official threads. 

The only issue is how do we encourage it.

I think making threads is already easy but maybe it's not and can be streamlined? Maybe increase the points for creating threads for those that care about that stuff? (Don't want to encourage low-effort thread spam though). Maybe we can have a button on posts which when clicked will copy/paste everything into a thread ready to be submitted, the creator then only has to pick the topic and write the title.