E3 Chat link in first post.

After reading Jody's pre-E3 blog, I have learned that there will be no subscriber chat for E3 video feed this year. I just want to provide my feedback to this decision to scrap the chat this year. I think it's a very bad decision. :(

There are usually a couple of hundred people that jump into the E3 chat, and while this is only a tiny fraction of the site traffic for the week, these subscribers that jump into the chat are loyal subscribers to the site, and this chat is one of the best things about E3. I am one of these loyal chat users, and while I don't pay for my subscription anymore, I can safely say that if I were still paying for a subscriber account, then I would definitely cancel that subscription now.

Watching hours of GS E3 video is usually great, but the subscriber chat makes it so much better. We get to chat away with people that we know on the site, and chatting about some of the events happening live on screen is one of the best bits about the entire show. The subscriber chats for the irregular appearances of On the Spot are fun, but the chats at E3 are a lot more fun.

Take the fact that it's removing something that makes E3 on GameSpot completely awesome away, and you're still left with the fact that subscribers to the site are feeling completely ripped off now. This is cutting something that a lot of people keep their subscriptions for, I personally know a few that have kept it for the ability to chat. Subscribers hardly get anything compared to with time gone by, and while I understand most of the decisions relating to that, I simply cannot understand this one.

Can it really be that hard to have the chat open? I would love to hear why it was pulled for this year.

I know there is a board for E3 discussion, and comment sections too, they aren't the same as a live chat with some other people that love the site enough to pay for it. I usually post in the board, and sometimes the comments, but I am always in the chat, or at least, I was always in the chat.

GameSpot has always had amazing E3 coverage, and while the video coverage will be good this year, I hope, the lack of chat is a severe gap, and a big negative for me. I am very disappointed at this decision, and I still can't understand why it was made.

I am not looking forward to E3 as much as I was.

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Link to chat!.

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I simply can't understand the reasoning behind it. The only reason I actually pay for TA was for chat rooms for E3 and OTS and considering we've had about 4 episodes of OTS this year where I've been able to chat I'd say that's pretty bad value for money. The chat rooms are one of the very few benefits I get from subscribing to this site and now like pretty much every other feature we used to have you're just going to take it away? The chat room was one of the only reasons I used to watch E3 on your live stream even with all the techinical problems and bad quality that we had last year,At least now I won't have to waste my time sitting and waiting for live feeds to start because I might as well just go and watch highlights somewhere else. Hell I even know people who have taken time off work to watch the E3 live streams and stay up until 5am talking in the chat. And could you at least give us a reason cause I honestly can't see one myself.

Can you actually tell me what I payed $39.95 for last december cause at the moment it seems I'm paying about 40 dollars to have a coloured username on the forums which to me seems like a pretty crappy deal.

I can't understand why they would take the chat away. It was one of things that made watching the E3 event more interesting and now they take it away? I'm not sure why, but could you guys at least reconsider?

I would go on a rant about the now worthless TA account but Caddy and Joe nailed it.

As someone who just renewed his TA account this month all I can say is "Well that sucks":shock:

I have to say when Karl told me earlier I was pretty gutted.

I understand that there cant be more than 100 of us that frequently hop into chat for OnTheSpot and the annual e3 Live show, but Im sure a javascript chatroom cant tie up that much of your resources. Hate to say it, but chatting to everyone is the main reason I subscribe. Especially gutted as Im finishing work this week and was looking forward to chatting away in my underpants eating poptarts all next week ;)

If its a personel issue why not allow a few of us temporary moderator status to monitor the rooms. Im free all next week, Im sure Caddy is available for some of it, and im sure edu, sidburn and others would help too.

You've seen how much time we spend on Gamespot each year.
We're lonely animals who deserve the comfort of communication with our fellow nerdlings over the marathon that is e3 :)

Going to join Caddy and say I think the loss of chat is a terrible thing. It was my favorite part about the E3 coverage, celebrating all these new games and new annoucements with people who were just as excited about it as I was. I made lots of friends on the site through the chats and had a great time with them. The chats have made the E3 coverage enjoyable. Like Caddy, I know I won't enjoy watching hours and hours of coverage on end without them. I can see absolutely no reason why you would remove them. I'll just be frank and say I think it's a really stupid decision.

I get TA for free being a mod, so I feel kind of like I don't really have room to complain here. However, before I was a mod, I'd always subscribe during E3, so I know how it feels. Feature after feature has been stripped from TA in the past few years, with none being added back to replace the ones taken away. Why take this one away? Honestly, these chats during E3 and on the spot were one of my favorite benefits for being part of TA.

Also, as a moderator, this is going to cause huge problems for us. Moderating the chat was easy--it didn't go too fast, it was easy to boot people who were misbehaving, and just being there and talking to the users was usually enough to get them from being disruptive. Simple. Moderating comments in real time will be a nightmare. It's going to be slow, spammy, moderators are going to be both doing the same post at the same time, making it worse & less time efficient. We obviously can't suspend for every spammy post, but if we don't they'll continue. It's not the same easy process of gagging someone in a chat for a few minutes. Really, a nightmare.

Not looking forward to E3 half as much as I was.

Is there any chance this can be changed before E3? I really don't understand why this decision was made and think it should be unmade as soon as possible.

If its a personel issue why not allow a few of us temporary moderator status to monitor the rooms. Im free all next week, Im sure Caddy is available for some of it, and im sure edu, sidburn and others would help too.

dannyodwyer

[QUOTE="dannyodwyer"]

If its a personel issue why not allow a few of us temporary moderator status to monitor the rooms. Im free all next week, Im sure Caddy is available for some of it, and im sure edu, sidburn and others would help too.

Caddy06_88

Is there any chance this can be changed before E3? I really don't understand why this decision was made and think it should be unmade as soon as possible.

SkylinePigeon

I find the decision to not have subscriber chat during E3 to be both bizarre and counter-intuitive. From this, it seems that TA and Plus subscribers are getting very little value for money. This also seems to go directly against the description on the sign-up page for both Total Access and Plus accounts, stating that there will be, quote; "Online chats for live events and shows".

My personal reasoning from that statement would expect that, E3, being the biggest trade show of the year, is the No. 1 show you would expect there to be chat for. Therefore, the decision not to have it seems utterly confusing.

Nice work Gamespot, take something ELSE from us. That's great work you're doing by the way. No On The Spot, no Tournaments and a podcast that has about as much character as Al Gore. What the hell are we paying for again?

The E3 chat is the one and only reason why E3 is even watchable, for christ sake the coverage lasts almost 12 hours on some days. Do you actually expect us to sit on our arses refreshing pages like idiots for that length of time? Get your heads out your arses Gamespot, there's no plausable reason for this other than your own stupidity.

Very much dissapointed by this decision, the live chat is an integral part of the GS community.

Bring it back PLEASE! ;)

one of the best things about this event is the subscriber chat. That is just what makes it worthwhile, I don't remember their ever having been a bad problem with misbehaving in the chat. It is restricted enough to keep the numbers down and has seemed manageable.

Also that option of chat gives us a feeling of interactivity - even if it is just because we can make comments about what is happening but still is great fun and I would hate to lose that.

without chat I predict that viewership will drop

What you have said is pretty much how I feel about this. I know we are going through difficulty times with the whole economy crisis and things like that, which might be a reason why there is hardly any live content on here anymore. Quite frankly, what is the reason paying for a subscription when we don't get any content that is worth it. No OTS weekly, no TTV, no cvol features and now no chat on the E3. A lot of people have said and I have said it but Gamespot hasn't been the same since 2007 and the way its going, it clearly isn't going anywhere good.

I don't tend to post and things like that here as much as I used to but I still visit the site nearly all the time. I always came round E3 time to watch the press conferences and have fun chatting to other subscribers and staff but this decision is clearly a bad one since what fun will there be watching E3 now without the fun of talking to fellow gamers. I hope they reverse this decision but I clearly doubt it since they never tend to go back on their word.

Add my name to the list. Not having a live chat room is like an emptiness in the GS community. We can discuss the event with the community but you need to check every single comment that are posted in able to respond/post. It is not the same thing!

As I just posted in my blog, I saw this on my bloglist, nearly seconds before I was going to start suscribing just so I could be in the chat. :P

As I just posted in my blog, I saw this on my bloglist, nearly seconds before I was going to start suscribing just so I could be in the chat. :P

GearHead3000

I know we're probably in the minority, but I first signed up to TA for the chat and conferances. Also on a production level, the majority of questions for the live show during e3 came from the chatroom.

Look, if worst comes to worst and GS don't implement chat - I'll set up a chatroom on my own server that we can all use and blog the address.

Hopefully an admin will stop by soon... msudude211

Man I never got to do one of these chats. :( I bought a subscription when I joined GS which was just November 08, very dissapointed about this.

Nice work Gamespot, take something ELSE from us. That's great work you're doing by the way. No On The Spot, no Tournaments and a podcast that has about as much character as Al Gore. What the hell are we paying for again?

The E3 chat is the one and only reason why E3 is even watchable, for christ sake the coverage lasts almost 12 hours on some days. Do you actually expect us to sit on our arses refreshing pages like idiots for that length of time? Get your heads out your arses Gamespot, there's no plausable reason for this other than your own stupidity.

Dave_petrucci

All I can say is amen. Paid subscription for this site is totally unnecessary.

No E3 chat? WTH am I paying for Plus then? :|

I am very upset that there will be no chat this year, is there any particular reason why there will be no chat this year? Every Live event that GS has streamed in the last 4 years has had a chat, Live events like OTS, TGS, Past E3s, Prince of Perisa marathon, the launch of the Wii and PS3. All of these events had a chat, What makes this E3 any different?

BOOOoooooooooooooooooo.........:cry:

curious to see what the staff response will be to this.

Nice to see Gamespot has responded to this. Either it takes 3 days to get a decision made in the Gamespot offices or they're even more oblivious than I thought. Nice work Gamespot, you just cocked up E3 for your loyal fans and conned a few subscribers in the process.

I'm quite disappointed to see that no admin had the time to stop by and address our concerns in the last couple days. I really wish I didn't just renew my TA subscription in March.msudude211

I do like how you completely ignore your payed subscribers for several days. I guess you're ignoring us seeing as you either have no reason for removing the chat other than your own stupidity or the reason for the removal of the chat is so completely dumb you're not going to tell us. Either way thatnks because you just saved me £30 this december.

I'm guessing it is because they are busy with the preparations for E3, but even still, it doesn't take much to spare 5 minutes to thread and reply. Especially as some of the admins have posted on other threads. Now that it is the weekend, it's more unlikely we will get an answer.Sharvie

[QUOTE="Sharvie"]I'm guessing it is because they are busy with the preparations for E3, but even still, it doesn't take much to spare 5 minutes to thread and reply. Especially as some of the admins have posted on other threads. Now that it is the weekend, it's more unlikely we will get an answer._LiquidFlame_

I have a feeling they were trying to update the chat to match the new wide GS and just got caught in a time crunch. Even if they are trying to rework and update the interface for a new chat window, why not dust off the old chat window and let us use that for the time being? At least until a new one can be fashioned for the new site layout.chicknfeet

That might be the case, but removing it altogether isn't the best option either:(. I understand what GS has gone through the last 2 years, but I'm noticing that the perks of becoming a paid subscriber are slowly being taken away (no tournaments and now this).

It will be very annoying having to refresh the page that I'm streaming to update the comments (unless they've changed that to real-time). They could have removed it for any other show except this one. Oh well-_-.

[QUOTE="chicknfeet"]I have a feeling they were trying to update the chat to match the new wide GS and just got caught in a time crunch. Even if they are trying to rework and update the interface for a new chat window, why not dust off the old chat window and let us use that for the time being? At least until a new one can be fashioned for the new site layout.Jerell_rast

That might be the case, but removing it altogether isn't the best option either:(. I understand what GS has gone through the last 2 years, but I'm noticing that the perks of becoming a paid subscriber are slowly being taken away (no tournaments and now this).

It will be very annoying having to refresh the page that I'm streaming to update the comments (unless they've changed that to real-time). They could have removed it for any other show except this one. Oh well-_-.