I signed up for the game database, stuck around for the news and discourse.

Of all the places I've visited, this one is the least 'angry', if you get what I mean. People here are still open to reason and debate, while on social media it's mostly closed opinions, conform with the circle jerk or leave. I also like that things go a little slower here (less people), so I can actually keep up with topics!

What I like most is the diversity of people on here, forming an all inclusive community. (Well as long as US political debates don't heat up too much lol)
The site has mellowed out a lot, I guess we're all getting older and wiser :)

All I will say is It is obvious from the VGChartz taught you how to think heading that you never read any of my posts.
Talking of how and why I arrived here by way of googling sales figures for a game whose name now escapes me and VGChartz popped up and was the only site at the time that had the answer to my sales question,I then lurked till I encountered a thread discussion I really wanted to post in so I joined in May 2008 .

I remember your username, but I don't I don't remember the vgc meme I'm assuming you're referencing. EDIT: This is a reply to BraLoD idk why it won't quote you.

I used to love looking at the sales database for hours. I would religiously look at COMG every day and I probably joined to comment on that original thread. I never commented that much or had a huge presence, but I was mostly in the Nintendo threads. It is nostalgic and a bit sad that it's declined so much. When was the peak - around when I joined in 2012?

I still come here to look at the weekly Famitsu numbers and occasionally comment.

I'm not sure it taught me how to think, but it sure taught me a lot about discussions and argumentation. I've seen, and taken part in, some amazing discussions in here since I joined over 16 years ago. I came here originally from having grown tired of the boards on Gamespot, IGN, and other sites, so much toxicity and such little good conversation to be had. We've had some periods with more chaos in here as well, but it was never as infected as most other places, which is why I'm still around after all these years. The moderator team and the moderation rulings themselves are also a huge factor, we don't really ban topics, and the mods are generally good at not choosing sides (I was even a mod myself for a while, many years ago).

VGChartz (and some other forums) taught me that there's no point in getting in a argument/debate with someone because in the end it results in a total waste of time and energy.

I guess I can apply it in real life as well because of that.

Also ironically, years ago I would want to be social with as many people but the conversations often turned awkward (at least in my point of view, there's a lot of weirdos on the internet and even here lol).

So I guess you can say VGChartz and other sites taught me not to be as open/sociable with people on the internet because there's far more bad actors than there are good people.

I guess you can apply that everywhere in this world and not just the internet.

All this helped me motivate me for improving myself instead of having to depend or spend time and energy on other people. (Though I guess you can say it made me more self centered lol - but I dont see that as a negative for myself).

So I'm in a better place now than I was in the last decade.

Edit: As for why I still visit this forum, I guess you can say its nostalgia (reminds me of a old Anime forum I visited back in 2006 where I was active in 2006-2007 - I would visit every now after that and then but it eventually closed in 2010) , but I'm not as active on here as I used to.

I like the slow pace that it is now compared to what it was before and only post in specific threads instead of all them like I used to.

Being on ResetERA reminded me of the discord chats, conversations were many and went on too fast (and how pointless the conversations were most of the time). I just visit ERA for news about games, anime, movies, etc and dont really engage with anyone there either.

This place is like ERA but to a way smaller example - say comparing a ocean and a pool lol.

Willing to ride it all out until the end even if my conversations dont lead me anywhere on this site.

Regardless, I see myself as a guest just visiting temporarily for nostalgia sake than a long time active member of the community who wants to engage with other users.

I wouldn't personally say VGC taught me to think, but the forum did align in many ways how I think back in the day when I joined. Originally it was when the Wii was new and hot and I tried to find sales figures for it how I found the site. After some time of lurking I joined the forum because of how mature the discussions were compared to any other videogames forum there was - and also the age of people was much higher than your typical videogames board. Most of the time spent here was during the working hours, so after losing my job (well, actually they paid 6 months salary on top of resignation time's salary for resigning) in the 2009 recession I didn't have as much time being here as I had earlier. And after some update that made the forum almost unusable on mobile (that I almost exclusively used on the site) I stopped coming here, along with nothing really interesting being going on in the games world. Nowdays I just peek every now and then to see if there's something interesting going on.

I must say that the people who were active here in 2007-2010 were really awesome - and why wouldn't they still be.

Banned for spamming the same post on the forums - TrunksWD

I think it's better than average as far as internet discourse goes... but far from good.

VGZ is like the opposite of gamefaqs forums.