Vataro wrote:
Well that's dumb. Who do they think kept this place together? Best of luck, I'm sure I'll see you elsewhere.
Well. I'm assuming that they think that the forums most of us frequent (and which Kao is most involved in) aren't remotely their primary source of revenue. I happen to think that's shortsighted though, because as Joph correctly points out, the need for sites like this just for game information has largely passed. What has kept this site going while so many others have closed was the community aspect of it. People continue to come to this site because this is the site they've come to for gaming information, and to chat with people in the gaming community, post stuff about games they like, and yes, for some of us, get into ridiculous arguments about all sorts of things while bemoaning the lost glory days of online gaming (or something like that). The game specific forums are critical, but the glue that holds them together (and gives anyone a reason to come here rather than the various official game sites) is the broader community that is available here.
Unfortunately, that has steadily declined over time. Not going to get into a huge discussion of why, but it has happened. And as a result, this site has entered a kind of death spiral. Not sure there's a way to recover that. You have to have the trust and goodwill of gamers if you want them to come to your site in addition to the official sites for the games they play. Allakhazam had that, in spades, for a long time. But it's been dwindling, and just like Tarkin, the harder ZAM squeezes its fist to keep them, the more gamers slip from their grasp (too much?).