9 Long years on this site

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The_Last_Ride

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Edited By The_Last_Ride
Member since 2004 • 76371 Posts

When i started on this site i was playing a PS2, now the PS4 is about to launch in Europe and it's been a long ride. I have gone through games like Battlefront 2 on the PS2 to games like Mass Effect and Tomb Raider on the 360 and PS3. There are a lot of people i have gotten to know through the years and i have pretty much seen how the site has changed through the years for bad and for worse.

I have seen and lived through two major site updates and seen the bad and the good on this site. The firing of Jeff Gerstman and many of the controversial decisions Gamespot has done over the years to the growth of the awesome community and the unions. It's had its up and downs, but i still like this site.

The one thing that first drew me in was the whole idea of the forums and interacting with people on this site. Also getting news and having debates about games and issues have been a big part of the forum life i have been part of.

The reviews have also been a big part on why i have been on the site getting informed on games i want and feeling the waters, it has changed a little lately, but i still go here for news and debate.

i have expressed my issues with the site to the staff and other users here and they mostly agree. I like this site and i have for nearly a decade. I hope the developers and managment will listen.

Since i started as i stated before i have changed my taste in games with only liking RPG's and Sports games when i was younger to growing to like racing, action/adventure, First-Person-Shooters, Third-Person-Shooters, hack and slash, mmo's, stealth games and even rythm games to an extent. I have gotten deeper into gaming in this last gen than i ever was and that is thanks to the big library developers have given us, Not only the big names, but also the smaller ones.

I started out with the 360 in late 2007 when my little brother decided he wanted to take the leap into the next generation in gaming. I was pleasently surprised how big the leap was compared to the PS2. I played a lot of games on the 360 and enjoyed my time on it. But since 2011 there were few games that really compelled me to get exclusives. There were mostly games like the arcade games from the online marketplace or games like Forza 4 and Horizon. So i decided to buy the Playstation 3 last year. I haven't had any regrets when i bought it. The reason my brother and I chose to go with the 360 in the first place was the price. Where i live it would have costed us 1000$ to get one, and we didn't have that money as teenagers. But when the price finally dropped a little and i saw it on sale last year i had to get one. I have been a fan of Sony since the early PS2 days. I have enjoyed so much of the library the both of the consoles have given me and choosing either one this generation has not been a mistake nor would i say for anyone else. They both have strong and weak sides. But i am a positive person that looks more towards the positive sides than the weak ones.

In retrospect i think this generation of gaming has been the one with most variety when it comes to games. Storytelling, gameplay, graphics, etc have all had big leaps and matured during the course of this generation.

So just wondering if anyone agrees or has some sort of input?

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platinumking320

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#1 platinumking320
Member since 2003 • 668 Posts

@The_Last_Ride: Technically, absolutely. Gen duration of course there's no question. Though the variety is noteworthy, the target marketing bubbles have also gotten noticeably narrowed than in older gens. Now we have critical backlash of some gamers trying to say their tastes are not a 'monolith'.

I think there were a lot of Japanese or middle tier American franchises and quirky titles that wouldn't have been played as much if they came out in 360/PS3 gen.

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loafofgame

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#2 loafofgame
Member since 2013 • 1742 Posts

@The_Last_Ride: Why do you keep coming back here? Other sites also have forums...

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Jacanuk

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#3 Jacanuk
Member since 2011 • 20281 Posts

@loafofgame said:

@The_Last_Ride: Why do you keep coming back here? Other sites also have forums...

I havent been here as long as Ride, only a couple of years but the answer to the question could be that there are simply nothing out there, the old gamespot forums was intuitive, easy on the eyes and you could always find something to talk about and most of all very active and was in its peak probably one of the biggest gaming forums on the net.

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loafofgame

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#4 loafofgame
Member since 2013 • 1742 Posts

@Jacanuk: Yes, but you're talking about the old GS forums. From your and The Last Ride's phrasing I sense that the GS forums have, to put it mildly, not improved after the website change (and perhaps even over the recent years). So do you then keep on coming back because it's too much of an effort to try and invest in other forums? Or is it simply some sort of feeling of loyalty...? Or is it really the case that even after this change other forums are still crappier than these?

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The_Last_Ride

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#5 The_Last_Ride
Member since 2004 • 76371 Posts

@loafofgame said:

@The_Last_Ride: Why do you keep coming back here? Other sites also have forums...

Uhm, i know... But i think the community here is great to be honest outside of System Wars and OT. So that's why i like it here. I have been a member of IGN just as long, but i have like 3 posts there, i just like it more here...

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Jacanuk

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#6  Edited By Jacanuk
Member since 2011 • 20281 Posts

@loafofgame said:

@Jacanuk: Yes, but you're talking about the old GS forums. From your and The Last Ride's phrasing I sense that the GS forums have, to put it mildly, not improved after the website change (and perhaps even over the recent years). So do you then keep on coming back because it's too much of an effort to try and invest in other forums? Or is it simply some sort of feeling of loyalty...? Or is it really the case that even after this change other forums are still crappier than these?

For me its a case of the other forums still being crap compared to Gamespot, i tried going to NeoGaf but it never felt comfortable, they have one huge mess of a main forum where everything and everyone just post. IGN, Giantbomb, Eurogamer and then a few local ones are also pretty dull and not very active.

So together with a bit of loaylty because i loved the old gamespot, with Ryan, Alex and On the spot. I still remember their marathon GTA IV stream which was just epic fun and you could hear that the guys really wanted to do it, not like today where they hire some semi-known guy from twitch to do a batman stream solo which seemed so bad that i wanted to fly to SF and just go in there and hit the produce with a rotten tomato :)

Even gamespot's xbox one and ps4 launch streams seemed bad, Danny seemed like he wanted to be anywhere but there and the rest tried hard but failed miserably to convince me that they really wanted to do it, it wasn´t like the old Gamespot crew where you could feel their enthusiasm and their love for gaming.

Is probably why i still stick around Gamespot.

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The_Last_Ride

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#7 The_Last_Ride
Member since 2004 • 76371 Posts

@Jacanuk said:

@loafofgame said:

@Jacanuk: Yes, but you're talking about the old GS forums. From your and The Last Ride's phrasing I sense that the GS forums have, to put it mildly, not improved after the website change (and perhaps even over the recent years). So do you then keep on coming back because it's too much of an effort to try and invest in other forums? Or is it simply some sort of feeling of loyalty...? Or is it really the case that even after this change other forums are still crappier than these?

For me its a case of the other forums still being crap compared to Gamespot, i tried going to NeoGaf but it never felt comfortable, they have one huge mess of a main forum where everything and everyone just post. IGN, Giantbomb, Eurogamer and then a few local ones are also pretty dull and not very active.

So together with a bit of loaylty because i loved the old gamespot, with Ryan, Alex and On the spot. I still remember their marathon GTA IV stream which was just epic fun and you could hear that the guys really wanted to do it, not like today where they hire some semi-known guy from twitch to do a batman stream solo which seemed so bad that i wanted to fly to SF and just go in there and hit the produce with a rotten tomato :)

Even gamespot's xbox one and ps4 launch streams seemed bad, Danny seemed like he wanted to be anywhere but there and the rest tried hard but failed miserably to convince me that they really wanted to do it, it wasn´t like the old Gamespot crew where you could feel their enthusiasm and their love for gaming.

Is probably why i still stick around Gamespot.

Totally agree

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#8 I-AM-N00B
Member since 2012 • 470 Posts

Wow 9 years is a long time, that means you've been a member of this site since I was 10 years old! I've only been on this site a couple of months myself.

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loafofgame

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#9 loafofgame
Member since 2013 • 1742 Posts

@Jacanuk said:

So together with a bit of loaylty because i loved the old gamespot, with Ryan, Alex and On the spot. I still remember their marathon GTA IV stream which was just epic fun and you could hear that the guys really wanted to do it, not like today where they hire some semi-known guy from twitch to do a batman stream solo which seemed so bad that i wanted to fly to SF and just go in there and hit the produce with a rotten tomato :)

Even gamespot's xbox one and ps4 launch streams seemed bad, Danny seemed like he wanted to be anywhere but there and the rest tried hard but failed miserably to convince me that they really wanted to do it, it wasn´t like the old Gamespot crew where you could feel their enthusiasm and their love for gaming.

Aw, come on, you sound a bit bitter. I mean, that batman stream with another guy was more of an exception than a rule. And the 72hr extra-life stream was pretty amazing. And I had the completely opposite experience when watching the xbox one and ps4 streams. Chris and Danny went very well together in my opinion (and he seemed to get along fine with the other staff aswell). I never once had the impression that Danny didn't want to be there or that they weren't having fun. But hey, I haven't been around for that long, so maybe... I don't know. Are you sure it's not a bit of nostalgic bitterness clouding your judgment there...? ;-)

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ZZoMBiE13

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#10 ZZoMBiE13
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@The_Last_Ride: Congrats on the nine year milestone. I know I haven't known you personally for very long, but I've enjoyed our conversations.

That's really what it's all about. We can discuss the content of the site until we're blue in the face. But the forums live and die by the community that fuel them. And I think this place has some interesting people. Even when I don't agree with what they're saying, I still enjoy reading the interplay of opinions.

When the Gerstmann thing happened in 2007, our union went off site. Some of us tried to stick around, but it was never like the pre-2007 levels of activity. We still all post in that off-site forum, though I've wavered in and out of both communities in the years between then and now. But having friends is a powerful motivator when it comes to choosing a site to spend time on. And I think this is still a pretty good one.

I do miss the emoticons though. :(

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Jacanuk

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#11  Edited By Jacanuk
Member since 2011 • 20281 Posts

@loafofgame said:

@Jacanuk said:

So together with a bit of loaylty because i loved the old gamespot, with Ryan, Alex and On the spot. I still remember their marathon GTA IV stream which was just epic fun and you could hear that the guys really wanted to do it, not like today where they hire some semi-known guy from twitch to do a batman stream solo which seemed so bad that i wanted to fly to SF and just go in there and hit the produce with a rotten tomato :)

Even gamespot's xbox one and ps4 launch streams seemed bad, Danny seemed like he wanted to be anywhere but there and the rest tried hard but failed miserably to convince me that they really wanted to do it, it wasn´t like the old Gamespot crew where you could feel their enthusiasm and their love for gaming.

Aw, come on, you sound a bit bitter. I mean, that batman stream with another guy was more of an exception than a rule. And the 72hr extra-life stream was pretty amazing. And I had the completely opposite experience when watching the xbox one and ps4 streams. Chris and Danny went very well together in my opinion (and he seemed to get along fine with the other staff aswell). I never once had the impression that Danny didn't want to be there or that they weren't having fun. But hey, I haven't been around for that long, so maybe... I don't know. Are you sure it's not a bit of nostalgic bitterness clouding your judgment there...? ;-)

Well, it might be a nostalgic feeling kicking in, but go look at some of the older stuff like their GTA IV stream or search for Ryan Davis or Alex Navarro on youtube. look up his Robocop review :) or most of the older reviews it seem to be a lot more fun and the reviews seem a hell of a lot better.

Or watch a few on the spot videos, and i am sure you will see a difference.

Also think Carolyn had more respect from the community then and she was a lot more on screen than now, Now most of them are hiding and it seems to be more a written boring polygon site than a vibrant happy "we love gaming"

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loafofgame

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#12 loafofgame
Member since 2013 • 1742 Posts

@Jacanuk said:

Well, it might be a nostalgic feeling kicking in, but go look at some of the older stuff like their GTA IV stream or search for Ryan Davis or Alex Navarro on youtube. look up his Robocop review :) or most of the older reviews it seem to be a lot more fun and the reviews seem a hell of a lot better.

Or watch a few on the spot videos, and i am sure you will see a difference.

Also think Carolyn had more respect from the community then and she was a lot more on screen than now, Now most of them are hiding and it seems to be more a written boring polygon site than a vibrant happy "we love gaming"

Isn't part of this change also the result of changing times? Games becoming more generally popular and websites trying to appeal to a broader audience by being slicker and maybe more careful? And a broader audience (together with developments in social media) also brings in a more vocal and perhaps less considerate crowd...

I've watched some reviews and on the spots and I really think we're two different generations of Gamespot users. ;-) I feel like I first have to get to know the people you mentioned before I can make a fair judgement. And it feels like I should have been there at that time. I only joined this site in January (I'm not that young though: 27) and I grew to like the current staff. These are the guys I started out with. I don't know any better and I probably never will, because my bias has already totally ruined me. ;-) But in a couple of years my favourites will probably be replaced and I'll be too attached to this website to leave, but all the people I liked are gone. Maybe, MAYBE, then I'll understand how you feel... ;-)

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The_Last_Ride

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#13 The_Last_Ride
Member since 2004 • 76371 Posts

@I-AM-N00B said:

Wow 9 years is a long time, that means you've been a member of this site since I was 10 years old! I've only been on this site a couple of months myself.

yeah it's been a long time

@ZZoMBiE13 said:

@The_Last_Ride: Congrats on the nine year milestone. I know I haven't known you personally for very long, but I've enjoyed our conversations.

That's really what it's all about. We can discuss the content of the site until we're blue in the face. But the forums live and die by the community that fuel them. And I think this place has some interesting people. Even when I don't agree with what they're saying, I still enjoy reading the interplay of opinions.

When the Gerstmann thing happened in 2007, our union went off site. Some of us tried to stick around, but it was never like the pre-2007 levels of activity. We still all post in that off-site forum, though I've wavered in and out of both communities in the years between then and now. But having friends is a powerful motivator when it comes to choosing a site to spend time on. And I think this is still a pretty good one.

I do miss the emoticons though. :(

true, it's what it's all about just having like minded people to talk to from all over the world. :)