New Gamespot Is A Mess, Here's My Resignation

I'm sure there are countless other topics like mine that describe their annoyance/disappointment with Gamespots new web-page layout, but regardless, I feel the need to express my opinion because I've been a registered member on this website since May 2005...

Now back in the 2005, I don't remember what GS honestly looked like. But I do remember that Platinum Subscription services were available for paying members, as well as the MUCH missed .01 rating score that they would use for game reviews. All those are gone now, which nobody knew why and are to this day greatly missed. I guess isn't honestly up to the website members to decide whether or not a layout change needs to happen, but we SHOULD be able to voice our opinion on the possibility of a change of layout. It's probably inevitable that website change, after all, you start to see certain imperfections and would like to see certain facets change/revamped. Over the course of time on GS, they've changed layouts every couple of years. Some more annoying than others, but over time made sense after navigating your way around the new layout and getting used to things and noticing why they made those certain changes. They made sense. Not all of them mind you, but most of them.

Now we're in for another GS website change, but this time - it's a f****ing mess. Sorry for the language, but it's necessary to express my frustration with this change. Before this layout, the Gamespot website was nearly perfect. It was easy to navigate, the news sections were nicely categorized, latest reviews were easy to find, the member rating system was easy and accessible and the over-all layout was simple yet intuitive. All of that is gone now... Replaced with a bombastic layout that makes no sense. The review rating system has been changed AGAIN into now a 1.0 increment which takes away even more grading diversity than ever before. The interface is garbage and cluttered, the forum system is now not appealing at all, which is a shame because the Gamespot forums were the BEST part about this website... The forums for this website was great because it was populated, and full of regular users. But now the over-all forum interface has changed for the worse...

I don't honestly care if other people agree with me on this, but Gamespot was almost perfect the way it was... I wish my comment would convince the website designers to change it back to the way it was, but we all know that isn't going to happen.

Please don't misunderstand, I don't want to sound like I'm griping or bitter.

I love this community and thank all of you for the good memories and fun times. But now this is where I say good-bye. It was fun everyone, and I hope to see you all again on another website. Regardless if I can actually deactivate my membership or not, this will be my last post on this website. We've had good times Gamespot, but I no longer wish or want to be a member of this video game website... I'm sorry things had to turn out this way for the people who share my concerns and objections to this new website change. I'll probably still visit this website time and again out of habit, but I won't post any longer and I'll find a better website to be a member of. Farewell Gamespot, I will miss the old days...

Sincerely,

Caleb E. Rees (Digital_DJ_00)

I fully agree. The new layout is very frustrating, the old one was elegant and simple, why mess with it if it works just fine?

:/

I agree. I always come to GameSpot 3 or 4 times a day before the update, now I rarely visit GameSpot. The layout is confusing and load time is long. I could easily find the stuff I want to see before, now it's a mess. All my tracking games are gone... I know I can re-add them, but I don't want to do it due to the long loading time.

I agree.

The new site is slow and confusing.

Like the people above me I regularly visited the site (generally at least 1x in a day, some times more) and everything was working as it should and easy to find.

Now things are a pain to find, weird things show up under 'new releases' (Mafia2 wtf?) and I can't seem to browse upcoming weeks for coming releases.

Also videos appear to be not working properly most of the times.

I rarely visit now, since the site is not pleasant to use.

I too really wish they'd go back to the previous version, that indeed was close to perfect :)

Some people will say stuff like "accept change!" and all that, but let's face it, change isn't always good! Don't fix it if it isn't broken!

I visited this site a lot when unions were still around. I don't visit it as much now, but I still have faith in gamespot.

totally agree

old site was very easy to navigate & easy to read without a lot of mouse clicking. maybe they could have made a few small changes but this new layout is bad. so confusing. why are games from 2009 2010 listed in the new release section?

The forums are a mess and dying and the site layout sucks, search engine is a joke, no user levels, no new post indicators.

Used to visit the site once a day at least, now only twice a week.

2 months after beta and you still won't listen to feedback, your (ad revenue) loss.

Agreed. The previous front page layout, game search engine and forums were easy to navigate and very user friendly. The new gamespot is change for the sake of change which is not always a good thing unfortunately.

Even the FAQ explaining the reason for the new layout was dumb, truth be told. Now gamespot looks like a robotic, drone, techie forum site. Even IGN is easier on my eyes to navigate than this cluttered catastrophe known as the front page. My interest in this site has declined dramatically with this new update.

I didn't want to be one of those "they changed it, now it sucks" people. I wasn't wholly opposed to the site update, but everything I used to come here for now is either gone, hard to get to, or flat out broken. And we're talking broken for weeks. There's hardly any reason for me come here anymore beyond seeing what shock-scores they're assigning to high profile games in reviews this time.

Can you be a bit more specific. Please?

Gee, where do WE (the users) start?

The layout? (how do I look for Xbox One info., for example?)

The reviews? (I see a short, saccharine list of the latest, but how do I burrow down by date, etc.?)

The look? (cluttered, confusing - my god - I feel like having a seizure the moment I look at the home page!)

Seriously, are you looking at the same site we are?

We're not resistant to change per se (so don't brand us as such), but change should be for improvement, not just because! The simple, easily navigable layout is gone, replaced by a 4th year graphic arts student's graduation project - just a MESS!!!

I agree. I really don't like the new site at all.

Come guys, why can't we have the old forums back at least?

Let's see:

- Stacks don't work. Gamespot had my complete game collection and wishlist neatly organized; I can't touch or alter them at all now. They're also missing basic functions like sorting. It's a step backwards.

- Notifications work sporadically.

- Feeds are a mess. Fuse had a sense of community but what shows up on my feed seems to be random and I can't interact with it at all. It's like it exists in a blackhole. I don't feel like I'm connected to anyone at all.

- Points and badges weren't a huge deal to me, but it feels like the achievement/trophy tracking was a huge waste of time now that the feature was dropped. First you guys went with Raptr, which worked pretty well, then you spontaneously went with Playfire, which didn't work so well. Now that Playfire is getting their act together, the feature is gone. Awesome.

- Searching and clicking on games railroads you to the reviews. That becomes grating if you frequent game pages on this site.

- All of my ratings seem to have disappeared.

On the flip side, I actually like the new forums. The old forums used to be pretty buggy for me. I guess it's too bad that I do the majority of my posting on the GameFAQs side.

I think I've given the new layout a fair shake by now. There's always growing pains when websites get remodeled and sometimes it's hard to see that the new version is actually an improvement over the old one. So here's my informed opinion on the new site:

It's horrendous.

I can't find anything I'm looking for. There's games I've never heard of that were released years ago showing up on the front page under recent releases. The layout is sloppy, not user friendly, and makes horrible use of the space on the page. Couple that with the fact that there's only one reviewer left on this site who's opinions I can read without facepalming or yawning, and you have a recipe for disinterest.

I agree, me too i'm leaving this site...after 8years...i can say more...