A host of reasons I suppose...
First might have been the big staff exodus that led to giant bomb. While I am not the biggest fan of Jeff, a lot of good people left with him. And he really does care about games. So the staff that people identified with left. And it felt really shady on GS part.
The Site redesign was really iffy for a long time, and I think the old design still was better overall.. But at least it does not crash all the time anymore.
A lot of the actual consumer base likely got really disillusioned with the advent of GamerGate. You know.. the new wave of "holier then thou" people, with piss poor morals preaching that we should feel bad for being gamers (for reasons unknown). The journalism and review side of a good many sites had a lot credibility robbed from them (despite correct or not). Even those that just kept their head down and did their job (and did it well) got hit. And I feel like it did not really ever recover. Credibility is a hard thing... takes ages to build, and a single day to destroy.
Social Platforms. It is not just GS, a lot of gaming forums and sites have bled users for a long time, ever since Facebook and the like appeared, social groups tend to have taken over in some capacity.
YouTube happened, it suddenly got easier to find reviewers and gamers that mirrored your preferences better, and seemed less "corrupt" and thus had people flock to them. Making small satellite communities build around these people (like the angry army and such). As YouTube gained a ton of traction, site visits seemed to diminish.
Perhaps however the single biggest reason is the gaming devices and services we use now. My steam list is filled with people that constantly discuss games, no need for a forum, as the discussions are built right into the services I use. My PS4 has the same thing. Forums are not really needed for gaming discussions as much. And as such people likely stick to those friend lists as it is far less of a hassle. When you can simply air thoughts directly on the platform you play on.
I generally think it is a mix of the above reasons.
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