Do u member?

When Gamespot used to do fun things with its community, like the TF2 tournament, or 'who the best' voting brackets, live feeds and chat, Unions and badges and all that other stuff?

Then came CBS, and Gertsmangate, they took away Unions and levels and now nobody gives a shit.

Pepperidge Farms 'members.

Given how much the front page comments is closed down pretty sure the staff hate the user-base viewing us as Gamegate Trump types Anita Snarksezzian bahd.

To be fair, some of the ire they earn is arguably deserved. The front page is just masses of ads 70% - 80% of the time now. Like, not even attempting to hide it. Full of click-bait and self-indulgent politically motivated stuff. Or obvious "hello fellow kids" popular game leeching or telling us what Ryan Reynolds had for breakfast.

Not sure how much the community itself would want to engage with. Decent enough folk on the forum, from what's left, I guess. But like, the front-page folk seem to always have a chip on their shoulder. Say "hello" to them, and they'd probably try to start an argument.

I 'member.

Member the April Fool's Day Massacre? When a whole bunch of users couldn't take a practical joke, got indignant, and then left? 'Member that's when the forums started to go?

I 'member.

I mean, look at all the community-centric content on the front page here: Old timey Gamespot

Now it's just barely-breathing volunteer-moderated forums and opinion pieces. No excitement.

Was epic, but people on both sides overreacted.

I actually don't anymore. I've forgotten. I've been a forgetter as of late, this much I know.

We live in a dystopia now the good old days are dead and buried.

I joined as the golden age of Gamespot was coming to an end but I do remember the unions and featured user content on the homepage. It's kind of sad when you consider the site's current state.

I remember Feedbackula and how much more active the community was back in the day. System Wars had some really good back and forth arguments from some quick witted users (elegantspock we miss you). Now, it's boiled down to a middle school popularity contest with sales being the only Creme de la creme basis for anything and multiple threads trying to nitpick a small glitch or graphical soft spot as a damning condemnation. I miss the intelligent debates when users had a viable back amd forth.

Funny, I was coming to say the same about Feedbackula @rmiller365 cause I enjoy reading the comments but I do get that why it needed to go but at least it should come back as a special event IMO. Yes, Feedbackula means it encourages trolling in the comments section to get your post into the episode of Feedbackula and that was the real fun coming to Gamespot.

I remember when McDonald's had those little foil ashtrays with the McDonald's emblem stamped into them and they used to come by your table for refills. Now you you just feel lucky you get what you paid for and that it's remotely edible, don't have to worry that the staff isn't entirely comprised of people on parole, that the bathrooms aren't locked and need a special way to enter because they keep having ODs in the bathroom from people wandering in off the street with fentanyl laced bath salts.

i remember $0.59 hamburgers and $0.69 cheeseburgers.

Nah they lasted a bit longer than that. But wow was that crazy. Can't believe how upset some people were.

It is really freaking annoying that they dictate what can and can't be discussed on news articles. I'm still trying to fight this but being completely ignored again. If the article is in any way shape or form about women, BLM, or LGBTQ+, do not expect the comments to be open. I get that they can yield problematic posts, but that's why there's moderators. And if I can't discuss them on articles, I can make threads about them, but then the troll comments will show up there. Again, that's why there's mods.... But seriously, if you don't want people trolling sensitive issues on articles, don't even let people make threads in forums.

Anyway, GS has long ago given up on their community when they stripped their users of UCBs and unions. Seeing the ghost town that was General Games Discussion is just depressing. I still ask why I even bother still posting here.

I remember the User Soapbox. I used to get some people pissed as hell at me because I was always featured on it. I was hoping that section on the archive would have had more, because I wanted to find one of mine and read the comments.

was this the mod prank? I member. i also member the I burnt my gf's cooter with butter

I remember when I could visit the front page and not have 3 tv shows spoiled for me in the article headlines.

I made a bookmark directly for the forums after the last time.

I really miss Gamespot's E3 coverage. The live cameras on the show floor were really cool.

Gamespot was a great product of its time and had an awesome community. It's sad to see it gone now, but nothing lasts forever. Even GiantBomb isn't what it used to be anymore. Video game site like this are basically irrelevant now because there are so many outlets for video game media, namely Twitch and YouTube. Forums are also no longer the go-to for video game related discussion. People now would rather use Discord.

I mean, it's not like you couldn't reinvigorate the site with a solid plan and a committed push. I know web advertising is problematic these days (I block, you should, too), but there's the old subscription model; you just need a product. User tournaments, live shows, premium forums and profiles, fantasy brackets, promotional DLC...you're right, gaming news isn't marketable these days, but pandering to the gaming communities desire for community interaction could be. GS has done all of these in some form or another in the past, but now it seems they almost want to be another CNET. Ugnh.

I believe the ratio of problematic posts vs non problematic posts has shifted over the years. @olddadgamer if he ever sees this could probably give a more detailed response.

I would like to see more of the old lively GS forums that we once had.

I think the biggest problem is that the people who started these communities and were the stars of the show have moved on. It started when Jeff got fired in 2007, then it was a steady decline from there. The staff spent years building a product that attracted a particular audience at the time, and later on either chose to or were forced to leave. When they leave, the community they had helped to build basically falls apart and there's no need to stick around. GiantBomb was somewhat of a continuation of the community Gamespot once had, at least in video game content, but even it is gone now. It too is becoming less of a video game focused website and more of a general entertainment/pop culture site.

What hurts more is the fact that everyone is making their own content now. Once everyone discovered that you don't have to be a video game journalist to talk about and make videos about video games on the internet, people essentially just started making their own communities by sharing their content on social media.

@dariency: Social media also resulted in less new people coming to gaming sites. I think pretty much all forums has suffered due to social media coming.

A long time ago, I want to say like ~10 years.

I remember reading the blog of the mod atm he was banned. I thought it was weird when I couldn't comment on it.

Going to OT a minute later and there is a thread going and holy hell it got traction fast.

Yeah it was the epitome of "Well that escalated quickly" lol

@mrbojangles25 said:

Yeah it was the epitome of "Well that escalated quickly" lol

Yeah. But Spazz (I think that was the mods name) had to get off his high horse. Oh the community was split in two with that move by Jody.

I think a part of it is the sheer volume of problematic posts was too much to handle. I think the idea of “that’s what the mods are for” forgets that we’re volunteers. Some have drifted away, some have gotten busy with life, etc. COVID made our lives complicated, too. We would wake up in the morning, there would be 300 comments in each article, so many fights between users, so many things on every part of the political spectrum that needed to be modded, and we just didn’t have the manpower, time, or energy. Every single one of those articles led to four, five hours of work, at least, and damn, you try to do that with three kids doing remote learning. We couldn’t keep up.

If we could open those comments and not wake up to…..that….we would. We can’t deal with hours of work. We’re just normal users. If everyone would just be nice, the comments would open.

I would say, give that article a chance and if things do go south, well, we can always just close the comments but nope, we can't have nice things.

@br0kenrabbit: i come to balance the equation where injustice strikes in the form of lunatic wannabe communists or chest thumping nationalists it is my purpose in life to provoke and antagonize them.

I believe some of them goes south at the third post...

@horgen: sometimes not even.

And that’s why we can’t have nice things. :(