Thinking of leaving Gamespot? Share your views here.

Despite the numerous amount of new moderators, SW is turning in to something entirely new: N4G spam. It's also full of non-SW topics and these moderators are locking/leaving open threads with great inconsistency. Trolls are making topics with false information, yet those threads stay open for days. Stupid opinion threads are popping up and staying with no supervision.

Games discussion has recently lost the majority of its most regular users and is full of spam advertising. That board is but a shell of its former self, much like every other board on this site.

The company-specific boards are ghost towns with little to no activity at all.

In all my years as a member of this community I've never been so dissatisfied with the content and policing of the site, or been so disappointed in the state of the entire site and community. I've also never been so close to leaving for good, just because of the uninteresting amount of blandness and atmosphere.

I'd really love to hear what, if anything, is being done to try to keep or entice current and former members to stay or return, in the state of this mass exodus taking place.

I'd also like this thread to be a hub for other dissatisfied users to share their reasons for contemplating leaving this site in search of better and brighter communities.

@Bigboi500: @geniobastardo: I have to say that the site took a big downward move for me when it was given its new look and feel, which I do not like. Too much white space and it is still much slower. I find myself using IGN more and other less gaming specific sites. Still, everything goes through phases I suppose. It's the fanboy stuff that I find so juvenile.

I pretty much left without a lot of fanfare and went to a different gaming site and forums. Much busier and not as buggy as these forums are. This is my first time back in about a year and it is slower than molasses in January. It hasn't improved since.

Yup, I've been thinking about leaving as well. This website has turned into a seriously buggy pos that constantly crashing. There are only a handful of cool people that I consider friends left on here. SW's has definitely went to shit lol. It used to be hilarious, now it's just annoying with the influx of the amount of idiots that make threads there these days. Also, there way too many blind fanboys on this site. The sad thing is, there is no other forum on the web that's like how SW's used to be. That's what made SW's unique previously.

We have been noticing that lately.Me and a lot of the mods at not around when most of the spam appears on that board(which is usually in the very early morning hours). I may be up a bit late at times so that's when I try to get rid of most of the spam.About your point about SW we are actually do get rid of the threads that look like they don't really belong on SW most of the time, but it may take awhile at times..If you think a thread doesn't belong on that board just PM us if we don't notice the threads.

I feel any problems posted in "Bug Reporting & Feedback" should be immediately addressed and they are not; I do not ever expect this to happen, so any problems will most likely remain for a long period of time, even the most basic problems. I will not leave here because of the username, otherwise I would have left almost immediately as I do not like the community at all or what is left of the community at all; many people are rude and mean on here and it was like that in the old days too as people feel you need to just man up and not care, no type of rules will ever fix this and that is my reason I quit IGN several times before I finally wised up. I see people complaining about the pending system, but a person was able to curse when complaining about the pending system in this category and a staff member allowed it, did not edit the post or anything and just posted about how the pending system is not going away; so the pending system does not censor properly, but it is not going away.

GameSpot needs to revert back to the previous website and notify everyone about the change via email; if the community is of an importance, I am guessing the community is not of importance to GameSpot otherwise GameSpot would have done everything it could to revert the changes. If the community is not of an importance to GameSpot, this website will never be the same and will remain that way; I doubt it will grow back to the way it was. I like how the moderators are more laid back now, as it was very intimidating in the old days when I was ignorant. But even if the moderators were not laid back now, I still have nothing to worry about for the most part as I have changed.

To be honest, I think GameSpot should just delete the entire website and reopen it as the way it was before, if they have to. Before they do that, they could notify everyone by email that they are going to delete the website, have it the way it was before and have former users know when it will reopen.

@super600: I see a lot of mods posting in threads like that, so it's a waste of time to PM them when they are aware of them. I see a lot of favoritism going on with mods on SW. Certain users never get moderated no matter what they say, while other users get warnings and suspensions over the silliest of things. It all depends on if you're part of the popular crowd.

If a user is popular or generally accepted, they can get away with making unrelated, opinionated blog threads about random thoughts. If anyone else tries to make something similar it gets locked down fast. Certain mods are wielding too much authority and locking threads that annoy them, even if they're well within the criteria for being there.

I don't wanna start naming any names, but one group of users are all mods, and their friends are all going to become mods as well sooner or later just because they think the same and have the same preferences and are buds. I'm pretty sure you know exactly of whom all I'm speaking of. It seems like the higher ups are just allowing these users to essentially take over control of the whole board. I like most of those guys personally, but I think what's going on is kind of unprofessional.

Some of the mods may be a bit newer or not used to modding yet on that board so that is why that may happen. I'm kinda guilty of doing that sometimes(mostly when I'm tired) or I don't have enough time to get rid of the threads, but we do get rid of most of these threads, but it may take some time to catch some of these threads. Just report the threads if we don't catch them and we will deal with them.

I too have been thinking about taking an indefinite leave from GS. I log in from time to time in hopes there will be some actual discussion ongoing, but alas, I vacate the forums in a trice. It used to be one could have a lively discussion with several other users around these parts, lately it seems there are a plethora of "which one to get" and/or abandoned topics.

I don't mind the new look, the load times could be better but I deal with worse so I can make do. But what I truly can not stand is the spottiness of the rule enforcement across all boards. Forums are a place for discussion, if there is non posed, the thread should be locked and/or deleted.

Another thing I don't like is the "secret" forum for mods where they discuss users without their knowledge. Threads like "what do you think about the user Sniper1234?" exist where they talk about users behind their backs. I think that's total crap. At one point I guess I've been discussed and deemed to be on the outside, or the enemy (why, I have no idea) because at one time I was on the inside where I had been given more leniency and leeway, but now my threads get locked with a quickness, and I get moderated where others don't over the use of words like "idiot" or "loser" or "little bitch" etc.

It's hard to defend one's self on SW when you're bombarded with insults and not allowed to fight back due to fear of being warned with a first/second/third strike. It doesn't matter if you're a vet poster as no benefit of the doubt will be given to long time users even if they've contributed over the years to the community, the only thing that matters is if you're part of the circle of friendly popular bros. Also, it doesn't matter if banned/ alt account users follow you around and harass you and goad you into saying something out of line (how I got my first strike). The politics of System Wars is annoying and high school-like.

The policing system is just too vague and shouldn't be left up to the mods discretion because, as I said, some users are virtually untouchable while others are always on thin ice due to their "status" or likability factor with those in charge. Their should be a universal standard where certain insults or phrases are off-limits with no exceptions. Not just racist or sexual preference and mentally challenge slang, but all clear insults and name-calling.

If you think you been wrongly moderated just bring it up with a mod on the team that posts on SW.

I was Karma down voted from posting on the site by PS fanboys. That called me every name in the book directly. With little to no rebuttal from me.

This flag system in place now lets the convicts run the prison. I have pulled back from posting favored opinions of Microsoft. This is not a proper way to post on this site apparently. You will get flagged off the island.

You have guys that all they post is uneducated / lies and FUD that run free. Calling names and posting garbage. Complete FUD smear campaigns. Unchecked.

I have owned every console, and I am called a lemming for sticking up for games Microsoft has on their platform. :p

Hey man that's how it has always been. Why change now? Giving a flag system to fanboys is not smart in my opinion. This will only lead to a one sided community. That's might be what is wanted here. Who knows?

Just my 2 cents.

I have been coming to gamespot since the early 2000s because of the very professional and informative reviews and discussions boards. I think the site started going downhill ever since the last site 'upgrade' somewhere between 2008 and 2011(the one before this with the big scrolling window on the frontpage). I think the site lost a lot of loyal users after that upgrade.

This current 'upgrade', in my opinion, has purged what was left of gamespot's soul. The site seems to be centred around attracting 10 year old COD fans on their smartphones (no offense 10 year old COD fans).

The site is far too flash heavy and buggy, many of the popular things have gone (like medals, and user reviews and many others), too many spam clickbait articles, videos don't work, comment sections are too difficult to post in (filters, mods dictating comments etc)

In conclusion: the site has abandoned its old fans (i.e. it's backbone) and is hopelessly attempting to attract a new generation and breaking the site in the process. Its hard to leave as I have been visiting for so long but I am running out of reasons to stay.

Post whatever you want. Just make sure that it does not violate the TOU. If we notice users abusing the flagging system they will be warned or moderated. Harsher penalties may be issued depending on the case.

I'm pretty much done posting. I know who did it.

Just look at the number of Sony fans to Microsoft fans in any forum on this site.

It's pretty obvious, were this forum moderation and rules stand.

A secret forum to bash posters? How quaint.

Thanks again for clearing my Karma though. It won't last, so I'm pretty much done.

I'll keep my account open in hopes of neutrality. I won't hold my breath.

Take care,

B4X

Another issue I have with the new rules and regulations and lack of enforcement, Animated sigs. I thought they were kiboshed? Guess not. I see them everywhere.

@LarkAnderson:

Were there any changes to forum signatures?

To avoid distracting signatures or forum posts that have longer signatures than the posts themselves, we have restricting sigs to a maximum of 500 characters and a single, non-animated image up to 600x125.

@Namgis: The animated GIF thing is getting sorted out pretty soon, so those will be going away like they were supposed to.

Why have you guys forbidden the auto-update trophy and achievement tags?

The real problem is System Wars being full of awful posters and awful attitudes, and it being the only really active board on the site. Something should be done to get the Game Discussion board more active and appealing. A lot of us love to talk games and participate in discussions, but we loathe the blind hate and fanboy idiocy of SW.

Hi all,

Since I'm a Gamespot visitor from the beginning of the site I come back sometimes to see if they made some improvements already to the new website. The last time was six month ago. I wrote something in the discussion forum about the new site in the feedback part of the site. I tought that was the place to do that. After coming back now after six month I see nothing is changed.

The biggest problem for me that I really like to read reviews from older games I missed or upcoming games wich I don't want to miss. To see if there are new user reviews written or new updates or MODS are made etc. The first problem is to find the option to search for games and arrange them in order (date of release, score etc). If I want to find all RPG games for PC from 2000 till now I get very unpredictble results. For example Mario Kart for DS, a lot of Japanese games without even a picture or a few Xbox games released in 2097.

The only thing what seems to work is to order the whole collection of games alphabeticly. I get around 12000 titles than and around 970 tabs to click on. To see games started with the letter W I have to click the tab button almost 800 times.

It's really sad to see that in six month time nothing is done with all the feedback given daily by this community.

Good old times...

The new site was made for the people who visit the front page only. All of the people in the community and forums, you were the afterthought entirely.

I think if fundamental forum functionality were reimplemented (go to last read post) that was stripped for whatever reason in the redesign, many people would begin returning and a healthier community would reestablish itself. It just comes off that GS really doesn't put too much importance in the forums anymore, and this is unfortunate because compared to the past this place has become a shell of its former self. I don't know if it's a lack of manpower, something CBS has done for cost-cutting measures or what not, but it's not even arguable these boards have suffered.

There are still good people and the occasional interesting debate to be found, and I like the color scheme, layout, and tools to insert images and videos, but crucial elements relevant to ease-of-use are still absent.

@MirkoS77: Crucial elements relevant to ease-of-use are still absent.

Could you list some examples?

Thanks for bringing up the last read comment feature. I've actually created a sticky thread up top to help gauge interest for this feature. If you could stop by, vote, and share some feedback / insight as to why this is an important feature that would be helpful in possibly seeing a return of it in the future.

@DigitalDame

Thank you very much for mention my post too!

As a registred user since 2005 (you was not even here that moment) I have my 10 year anniversary next year. To help you I post again what I post six month ago. That moment a lot of people agree with me. Maybe reading older reviews is not deliver some cashflow, or maybe it's because my English isn't perfect...I don't know. A reaction should be great!

This is my post from six month ago:

I’m a Gamespot user since the beginning. Last few years used the site for browsing older reviews from games I missed on different platforms. When I was young I was not able to buy all the games on the market, now I’m able to and the Gamespot and user reviews on this site were very helpful.

For example looking a list all the *genre x* games for *platform x* or all *genre y* games for *platform y* listed by score or date coming to the market.Another nice option was browsing the previews, not only newer games from big publishers, but also indi games and games I missed otherwise.

Gamespot also gives a suggestion about games the so called “games you may” like option and shows a list of games compared to the games selected. Also this is totally gone like all the options I mentioned before.

My problem is not the graphical design, I don’t like it, and it’s messy not clean (like a lot of new games compared to old games so this is maybe personal).The problem is that all the functionality what was making Gamespot a great gaming site for me is gone.Biggest problems with the new site for me:

No filter search option (select platform, date of review, genre etc)

Cannot find user reviews anymore

No “games you may like also” option anymore

No preview section anymore

Too difficult scroll through 200 pages without an option to go to page 43

The site for me feels like playing a demo of a game instead of the full game. For example if I want to see a list of RPG games coming out based on score since 2004 I get this top 10:

Burnout 3 for XBOX

World soccer for PS2

Mario Kart…..Is this a joke?

Reason for me to give this (possible negative) feedback is first of all that I cannot find much gaming sites better then this one. Also I hope someone with power to change some of the functionality read this post. What else can I do?

For years Gamespot was in my favorite list and I visit every day.Last month I delete the site from my favorite list because for me it becomes useless.Now I give it a try again and see nothing is changed.

I apologize for my bad English.

Sure, two things absent:

1) With the old site, at the end of the thread's title on board listing, there was a number in parenthesis (#), that, when clicked, would take you right to the last post.....not of the thread but that that user had read. As it is now it takes you to the last post, skipping all unread so the user has to remember for each thread where they left off and scroll to it to resume.

2) With the old site, in posting history, clicking the post would take user right to their last. Now, "Posting History" is "Watched Topics" which only shows the thread title which if clicked will take you to the beginning of the thread, or clicking the (>>) at the end of the title will take you to the last.

I do most of my posting on GameFAQs now since this site is slow as dirt, though I'm gonna be starting to post on Facebook more as well.

I've been here so long, I don't think I could leave. While there are issues, I still find very informative information here. Maybe I'm just set in my ways but I don't go other sites like IGN, GiantBomb, etc simply because I'm comfortable here. I hope all the issues get sorted out soon tho. I don't understand the purpose of System Wars other than to keep all the Sony vs Microsoft vs Nintendo stuff in one place.

I just went to the Xbox forum and saw that the entire page was full of spambot crap, so I came here to state my frustrations and found your thread. I can't believe this is being allowed, honestly. I think the site really hasn't been meeting my needs for interesting game discussion since the big changeover... it's not well moderated regarding the spam, but when I've tried to start threads that I used to start frequently in the pre-Gerstmanngate era (e.g. System Wars Haiku) I get modded within minutes. It makes no sense. I mean, they don't even have the PC Hardware forum on the main page anymore.... wtf?

Hey BigBoi... if you find a better place with a lot of users that's having a good game discussion, let me know... I'll jump ship with you. I don't have any real world friends that are as into gaming as I am, and it would be great to find a place that served the function this site used to.

We have noticed the spambot problem already. I don't like it either and I hope the spambots slow down soon.I get rid of a couple of dozen on a good night.If you notice any spam that has not been deleted yet you can notify

This right here is a perfect example of neglect and lack of concern from the GS staff. I asked this question 10 days ago and it's still being ignored.

Great work guys.

Lol.

I just wish the current site's creators had any semblance of an idea about how much they got wrong. Until then, we're just guinea pigs in their beta site.

@DigitalDame:

Do you want a good example? The new search is a joke. How do I search for "racing" games? Try putting just "racing" on the search field. I get 7 pages of games with the word "racing" on the title. There's no way to filter by genre or platform.

I am also a loong time user from GS, and this website rebuild is a complete downgrade in functionality. It's a pity that I'll have to get my game info somewhere else.

@Bigboi500@donalbane If you guys have a good community to indicate I'll also jump ship with you. Even though I'm not super active on forums, I like to follow intelligent discussions and to have a good place to find new interesting games. And info about my favorite games.

Link to a list of genre search links/workarounds on post #15; Driving/Racing (alt link) in particular. There's 67 'genres' in total, though not all of them have games attached to them.

Note that for some URLs you will need to manually remove the incorrectly added (by GS's editor upon submitting) / at the end of the URL in order for them to work correctly - this is because everything after a ? or # in a URL is not treated correctly on GS if there is a / later on in the URL, making the seemingly minor editor bug quite a large nuisance at times.

As for platforms - on the right site of the page on the new games page as well as any of the genre links (it's essentially the same page) there's a bunch of options, including a platform one which works correctly - just pick the platform from the drop down menu. The genre part in that section is unfortunately still broken (it was working when the new site was released, but has since broken and has yet to be fixed), but the links above are a suitable workaround for that until it's fixed.

As someone who came from IGN and was an IGN reader since the days when they were originally segasages.com, I can tell you that just In the little over a year I have been reading Gamespot, that Gamespot's news is always breaking a day or two earlier then most others and that the comments are generally pretty mild and aren't filled with useless console flame wars. Gamespot has become my go-to for gaming news. IGN on the other hand has become less of a gaming site and now writes articles on movies, comic books, and bad tv shows that people don't care about. Gamespot is a good site. :)

I have to say that I'm tired of SW not being SW but Resolution Wars. I swear to God, at any given moment, there are like five threads about resolution or graphics. At least before the re do there were discussions of games.

That's because of the new consoles. They just happened to come out around the same time as the redesign. ;)

1) The new "Notifications" view isn't nearly as useful as the old "Here are how many new posts there are in the threads in which you have participated" view. It's very easy to miss new posts in threads unless you have been directly responded to or quoted. This is especially true if you are an active poster.

2) The other thing that bothers me about the site is the consistency of moderation. This one's not new, but it's enough to adversely effect the quality of the board. I get that spam threads pop up like weeds and that for every 2 or 3 I see on the main page, it's entirely possible that mods have already deleted a hundred by the time I log in, but that's not just what I'm talking about.

For a specific example, a few months back (on the old board) there was a thread in which the op was talking about a game he didn't like. In the original post, he railed against the story and pretty much spoiled the entire plot. I told him to add spoiler tags to his or change the subject line of the post. Instead (just to be a dick) he changed the subject line to deliberately mislead people into thinking the post was spoiler free. I reported it, and it sat in the forum for days so I posted a question about it in the Moderation forum. That post sat for days, then weeks, I bumped a few times, then about a month later I got a response. The mod gave a rather flippant response was along the lines of "okay, I've changed the subject line but this is a month old so just let it go". I saw SW threads get handled several times a day and recieve a lot of attention, but a thread deliberately designed to ruin someone's game experience was completely ignored and I was chided for even caring about it (and, of course, nothing happened to the malicious poster).

There are other examples, but things like this really sour me on the topic of Gamespot forums. I don't expect mods to be at my (or anyone else's) beckon call, but a deliberately damaging thread gets ignored indefinitely while petty squabbling on SW gets top attention does not say good things about moderation priorities.

Honestly, other boards don't even have a SW forum and frankly it says poor things about the GS community that this is the most active board on here.

Obvious spam threads (new poster who has posted nothing but an obvious advertisement) are also sometimes ignored when the topic of whatever is being advertised is something interesting. Also, spam threads are more frequently locked than deleted (and when locked, links and Youtube videos are left in), which pretty much doesn't actually stop or discourage people from creating fake accounts to advertise since the ad stays up.

-Byshop

With each passing day, I feel more and more that I need to find someplace new, and that's mainly due to the degradation of the community.

The forums, which used to be full of life are now filled with spam, trolls, and raging fanboys. Those existed before, of course, but now that's practically all there is. This place is just a cesspool now, not even a shadow of what it used to be.

@Sword-Demon: I do not feel there is much else. Here are some options: The Escapist, Giant Bomb, NeoGAF, IGN, Destructoid, and the SEGA forum.

When the website changed blog updates, it kinda hurt a big part of the site's community for me. I used to follow some intelligent gamers who had things to say that were fun and interesting. I still follow some of them, but I don't know when they post stuff anymore. By this point, a lot of them have probably left.

I tried going to the forums to have intelligent conversation, but that's kinda rough.

Idk, I feel like I keep coming here because part of me wants to talk to other gamers about games, or other stuff. But I feel like the Internet really just doesn't do much to connect people, as ironic as that is.

Pretty much the same with OT. We also have moderators who seemingly pick and choose which portions of the ToU they follow, not to mention creating rules whenever they deem it appropriate.

@airshocker: I do see threads get locked in OT by mods with no reason given. It would be nice if the mods would at least post in each thread they lock to quickly explain why it was locked. Sometimes it's obvious and other times I have no clue why a thread was locked.

-Byshop

The new web page is slow. I'm not going to leave, but it's worth pointing out that it makes me want to go someplace else. This one loads too much crap that I don't care about.

Well, when the staff (not, the mods, the staff) are posting shit like this and then locking the thread when the entire thread backfires on them then you know there's an issue. I haven't posted GameSpot in a while simply because of the overall lack of moral leadership in the boards. Mods and Staff members alike are allowed to pick and choose which parts of the ToU certain members are allowed to follow.

I honestly don't miss this place. The friendships I've made across SW and beyond have completely gone well away from the boards that GameSpot offers. Be it on Steam, my personal Facebook page, or even my personal cell number, the people I've connected with through this place I'm still able to connect with. The cesspool that is System Wars no longer intrigues me and while there are some great mods and people on that board; that ship has officially sailed for me.

Slow and glitchy. There are still some pretty big bugs that are going on.

-Byshop

System Wars is just sooo hard to sift through these days. Just reading some posts there makes me feel ill. The pettiness has reached an all-time low, I can't take much more of that place. If GS doesn't do something about the spam bots in Games Discussion and soon I just don't think I can hold on much longer despite not having found a solid alternative. The Sony/Nintendo Discussion boards are a barren wasteland of nothingness.

@Bigboi500: They probably won't ever do anything about the spam. I am sure at least some of the moderators know about the problem, but it is still happening; I do not see newer moderators being any better at it since in general moderators have lives outside moderating and cannot take care of everything at certain times; they have to allow someone to be moderator who could be on more, but I do not see someone like that becoming moderator if not already done. From what I have researched, there is no solid alternative and I decided to stay on here until the website ends. But I do not see at least the forum part of the website lasting with so many people hating it.

This site is really just a mess. Nothing ever seems to work right, the community is just awful overall ( what's left of it). I've been posting a lot less than I used to, really not much desire to continue posting.