There is just a lack of interest in video games on this site. So many game get released and go completely undiscussed. You wouldn't know that certain games even released if this was solely your forum of choice.

Console wars died in 6th gen. Sales just are not interesting anymore due digital becoming such a force. Is it time for VGC to sort of change what it is about? We are currently stuck to a dead moniker.

The logo flips people the bird to fuck off so everyone fucked off.

Switch 2, next year will pump some new blood into it hopefully.
Also if this site thrives on rivally, we need to have a hands off, stance on it,.... basically being too quick to ban people = empy site then (if we follow that logic).

Eh, I was a mod at the time, and probably one of the most active in politics. I can't recall any permanent bans purely from posts in politics sections. Typically the practice was to ban from politics first. And, it was really a handful of users repeatedly, not so much a wide group.

The actual amount of bans was not large enough to significantly impact traffic from my perspective. Whether the decisions had ripple effects one way or another with people thinking things were too strict or lenient who knows. I'll say personally from my perspective interacting in the politics section made me less want to be a part of the community as a general user. I'll avoid specifics to remain viewpoint neutral, but if someone showed themselves to be a generally gross person, I don't really want to shoot the shit with them about Mario. 

At any rate, just speaking for myself here, I never saw promoting or maintaining traffic as part of my role as a mod. If mods were unfairly enforcing rules and that was killing traffic, that's one thing. But if the rules were being enforced fairly, and that was hurting traffic, then it's the site owners choice if they want to change the rules. If I had been expected to just do what was best for traffic, I wouldn't have been interested. 

Hire a good web designer. Please lol. Restera has a normal mobile site, it can't be that hard to make one.

Also, what's the deal with most sales data being TBA on the front page?

I wasn't talking about pezus and his gang leaving for Vizioneck.

In 2017 the forums were already smaller and most people knew each other. This means that when someone talked shit, a lot of people were going to remember who that guy was, i.e. raised accountability. Pre-2017, there was already rampant discussion about how and why Nintendo should go third party, so 2017 was meant to be the year that sealed the deal. This was further fueled by lax moderation for trolling Nintendo, so early 2017 was really the perfect storm to go all out and talk crap about Nintendo. The gulf between predicted Switch sales and actual Switch sales was tremendous, so it wasn't that much of a surprise that quite a few previously very active users took a hiatus, if they even came back at all. Or that some began to get banned, because their trolling couldn't be dressed up as an acceptable argument anymore.

The tl;dr

• Less young fanboys on here, the current ones are getting older and lost the passion to defend their plastic box which decreased the activity on the forums
• The site is impossible to navigate on mobile and too many ads
• Gaming forums are dying in general so there's nothing you can do to revive it, you can just slow its death
• Increase adaptation in digital downloads and no competition between the rival gaming companies, sales wise, does not give much incentive to join a gaming sales website.
• Fun threads are not allowed

Tell me if I forgot something.

When it comes to hiring a web designer we don't have the money to spend thousands overhauling the site. We have some web devs who do volunteer work helping keep things running and updating what they can. It would be yo to the site owner, ioi, to spend the money on a big overhaul. 

We changed to posting the hardware once per month when the monthly data comes in as it means the initial estimates are more accurate. We've been getting a lot of heat when we weren't spot on and had to make adjustments when monthly data came in. The reason there is TBA is because only Japan data is available right now. Europe estimates should be posted next week when that monthly data becomes available then America's once NPD/Circana is posted, followed by rest of the world, which gives us the rest of worldwide data. 

Sure this does mean hardware estimates are posted later but it also means it is more accurate than in the past. 

Well, that's kind of the issue I guess. Changing the site's trajectory would mean changes and changes would mean money. Maybe the market's just too competitive, it's not worth the investment, and the powers that be are just content to enjoy whatever income comes their way during the declining year. Certainly a respectable position, and honestly the path I would probably take. As a 90's kid I definitely have a nostalgia for web based forums, but I just don't think that's where the money is at anymore. 

Bandorr is going to learn and try to make improvements with the mobile version of the site. I have created a thread for people to post any issues / suggestions on ways to fix / improve it. 

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/247526/vgchartz-on-mobile/1/