Are Forums Becoming Obsolete?

retro junkie

retro junkie

All You bases are belong to us.
Has the impact of technology had an affect on forums? Has twitter and things like Facebook nudged out the environment of a forum? You can only talk so much and then.... With the age of iphone technology and the popularity of twitter, where dores anyone have the time to visit a forum anymore? People are heavy into the Facebook scene. I keep in touch with family that way. Then there are the "spotlight on self - soap box" blog thing.

This is not the only gaming forum that you can hear crickets in the background. I sat in the Neo Geo forums on here for a while hoping for maybe a few to return. And now the "nothing" is spreading into the main forums. Maybe everyone is young and are getting on with their lives, moving on to different things. Or maybe people are getting things together in life, like careers and relationships. Things like forums are being put on hold. Makes it sort-of hard on an old fellow like me. I have settled down, been there and done that, sort-of stuff. I have my family around me. Looking forward to retirement in the not so distant future. 57-years-old is just around the corner for me. And loving every minute of retro gaming, with a very small sampling of the present stuff.

I really don't want to sound like a prophet of doom here, please understand. I also don't want this forum to end like I have seen a lot of forums go down. I have images in my mind of the robots in the last Matrix movie. Trying to get into Zion and then they come pouring in. Only instead of robots in a forum, you have the spam!

I hope this is just a dry spell around here.. kind of like a drought. We need some rain bad. We need a new gaming system to excite the masses! We haven't had that in a while.

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So what do you think Linus?
 
I never thought about what you just said, regarding facebook and twitter ruining things for traditional forums, but to be dead honest that seems to be the case here.

I thought it was because most people just moved on with their lives or because nothing exciting has been going on in the videogame community but I am definitely 100% wrong, we have 2 consoles in the horizon (Wii U and Vita) and we recently got the 3DS out. We have capcom and Sega that are killing their franchises or leaving them in the east. There is a lot to discuss.

I honestly don't think I'll stop visiting this forum any time soon but I am with you that I don't want to see it end.
 
I still prefer game forums for talking about games. The lack of character limits allows for more in-depth discussions. The problem is getting enough people interested in talking about the same thing, really. Even on my game boards I tend to be the only one playing the game I'm playing so sometimes I just don't get to talk at all about games. It's a bit of a bummer.
 
I don't think so. I just joined an Alter Bridge forum a few weeks ago, thriving community, love it there.
I think EGA has just suffered lately, with all the spam, having to can registrations, and there was never really much promotion before that...
And the absence of Mega. Mega had been the life of this place since Jack and fhq quit posting regularly. I kinda depended on him for gaming news, and lately its just been like... "Oh, there's a Gears 3 now? Who knew..."
 
I think they are. Not just to social media sites (though that's the big one), but even just comment threads after news articles and so forth. I love forums, and I love this forum, but it's harder and harder to find the time to post here. It's not just because I have less time, but because I spend a lot of time posting elsewhere.

I've also personally become a bit disillusioned with posting anything online. It's too bad, too, because I think all the time I spent posting on forums really solidified my writing skills. Ultimately though, posting online feels so... impermanent. Drop-in-the-bucket syndrome. I can yell all I want online, but is anyone going to see it? Is anyone going to care? Is anyone going to remember? So that's a bummer too. :lol
 
Maybe its time to make some more podcasts? :p

I dunno, a lot of the posts used to come from members who created drama in some way and ended up getting banned for a while or permanently, so our post count really suffered that way.

@Thrav: In terms of promotion, I don't think a lack of promotion is the case. I mean, you type in "Video Game Forums" in google and were like the 5th one listed. Thats pretty dang good haha. But not accepting new registrations hasn't helped for sure. Have to do something about that....
 
It has just been difficult to filter out legitimate new members with the amount of spammers that seeped through for a while.

With the holiday shopping season approaching, I expect that some new game releases will spawn some discussion. :D
 
Forums have always been a key way for people to talk about what the forum is based about. In this case video games. As its probably been noted already, (tl;dr) there has to be some new material to talk about granted there will be some coming up. But forums becoming obselete? to answer that question...yes.

/thread
 
I do not think it is forums in general, I think it is this forum, its sorta like a church...u have to keep getting new young members or eventually u will dwindle. I think the spam turns people off to coming here a tad, and I think we need mor life and posts and stuff going on to attract new members but we can't get new members good becuz of all the spammers that make registering harder. It is a predicament. Plus, so many members got banned. I am not saying they did not deserve it or have it coming, but to some degree controversy er lil punks er whatever were still adding life to things, just like natsu and gray fighting on fairy tail. (sorry been watching a lot of that lately) u have fighting and people making bad choices etc in a family but if u ban the family members u eventually end up with no family. I don't know a betterway to do things tho. U gotta have some rules and order so that people get treated with respect. Hmmmmm.

I tried to have my sister join but it did not sem to hold her interest for long, so I dunno....

We for awhile have mainly had our same members, and it is true that a lot of em have other stuff going on in life, I mean they grow up er get jobs er responsibilities er have kids er what have u and that takes time away from here (which it should if they have their priorities striaght) but there is noone new to replace them with. Plus, gamers sometimes don't feel like gaming for awhile, and then what is there to talk about?
 
Mai Valentine said:
I still prefer game forums for talking about games. The lack of character limits allows for more in-depth discussions. The problem is getting enough people interested in talking about the same thing, really. Even on my game boards I tend to be the only one playing the game I'm playing so sometimes I just don't get to talk at all about games. It's a bit of a bummer.
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I agree with about finding people interested in the same game that you are interested in. Being a diehard retro gamer, I am not bringing anything new to the table. Most people have been there, done that, and don't want to go back. I really am not getting excited about some new game, but I am being excited about getting a higher score playing Gun-Nac on the NES. I sometimes feel like I am in my own little world.

I too would rather discuss gaming in a forum like this. I think it does have it's place in the social gaming circle. I will admit that I have been unfaithful. ::) There are about 5 forums I visit daily, more like a run through, to see if there has been any activity. They mostly deal with retro gaming.

I must ask the question, "Why isn't the new systems like the 3DS, Wii U, and Vita stirring up any excitement?"

And another thing comes to mind concerning forums. Has there been a change in the our culture that is connected to the lack people in a forum like this?

Have we become the older gaming generation? :lol

And you are right ThravRande, there are certain forums that are still thriving. But there are not that many, it's not like it used to be.
 
Personally I dislike social media sites. All they seem to be good for is an outlet for whining or stroking your ego. They aren't really "social" at all, but rather personal and self centered. To me, forums are the real social sites, where it actually feels like a group setting.
 
Zidart said:
I never thought about what you just said, regarding facebook and twitter ruining things for traditional forums, but to be dead honest that seems to be the case here.

I thought it was because most people just moved on with their lives or because nothing exciting has been going on in the videogame community but I am definitely 100% wrong, we have 2 consoles in the horizon (Wii U and Vita) and we recently got the 3DS out. We have capcom and Sega that are killing their franchises or leaving them in the east. There is a lot to discuss.

I honestly don't think I'll stop visiting this forum any time soon but I am with you that I don't want to see it end.
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If you don't mind me asking, what franchises do you think Capcom is killing?
 
x2 said:
Personally I dislike social media sites. All they seem to be good for is an outlet for whining or stroking your ego. They aren't really "social" at all, but rather personal and self centered. To me, forums are the real social sites, where it actually feels like a group setting.
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I feel the same way even though i use facebook to communicate to alot of people. albeit i know alot of people who would disagree.
 
Fr0dus Maximus said:
If you don't mind me asking, what franchises do you think Capcom is killing?
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Mega Man, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry is a maybe (gameplay videos turned that around but I still can't stand the look of Dante). It's like their fighting game is the only thing I care about them nowadays
 
Zidart said:
Mega Man, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry is a maybe (gameplay videos turned that around but I still can't stand the look of Dante). It's like their fighting game is the only thing I care about them nowadays
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What did they do to ruin Dante?
 
x2 said:
Personally I dislike social media sites. All they seem to be good for is an outlet for whining or stroking your ego. They aren't really "social" at all, but rather personal and self centered. To me, forums are the real social sites, where it actually feels like a group setting.
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Good point. A forum like this is sort-of like we are all sitting around the kitchen table.
 
retro junkie said:
Good point. A forum like this is sort-of like we are all sitting around the kitchen table.
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Here the focus is on the topics being discussed, not the people discussing. Which I like, but seem to have less time for.

Have we become the older gaming generation?
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Absolutely. It's also true that new games/systems don't captivate my attention the way they used to. Part of it is I'm older/wiser/crankier and balance how much attention I spend playing/thinking/talking about games with other things, but another part of it is the games and systems themselves have changed, somehow. Identifying precisely how might be an interesting exercise. One thing I've noticed that's really disheartening is that I feel like I spend way more on videogames for way less. With online passes, re-order bonuses, DLC, and so forth, I just always feel like I'm getting cheated, like I never really own a full game, and like I don't even own the pieces of the game that I do.
 
I think in many respects forums are dying. Good forums always live... people return... things get better. Sometimes it takes things to get worse before they get better.

HOWEVER, services like EZboard (IMO) have been eclipsed by Facebook (Et all) which are more centralized. You get on Facebook, you don't have to promote, you add a few friends already on face book... you're done. Sites like this take a lot more tech savvy, time, maintenance, and skill IMO. Facebook is easy... a site like this tends to be harder. It's harder to get people on board as well... why should they come here when all of their social network is on a single service discussing mutliple platforms of ideas and topics.... again versus a site like this with a single idea and topic (even though there are some wide variety of topics).

Online dynamics have just changed over the last few years. It is how it is ... how it will be... things change, services improve, and to be honest... who knows what the next online technology will be.

I will say I hate twitter though...


†B†V† :hat
 
I dislike social media sites, but I still use them. :-\ I use twitter for my news (world, gaming, sports, whathaveya), facebook to communicate with friends and family, and that's pretty much it. I love forums. I honestly miss EzBoard :lol
 
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