Current Events > What caused the decline of Gamefaqs?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Being slow to modernize the boards and FAQS?

Bad policy decisions on how to run the boards by CJayC and SBAllen?

Not growing the brand?

All of the above?

Better alternatives

Justin.

Vegy.

Turbam posted...

Better alternatives

Do you mean youtube videos making the text guides appear kind of primitive? Or is that only part of the reason?

Youtube...so many new games are not even getting FAQS anymore because most are just looking at Youtube for video walkthroughs.

The constant reg bans.

I tryed to keep the board alive but for almost 8 years Reg was in purg or banned for most of that time.

I tried folks but mods wanted it this way

@GoemonFan471986
@gords77

Im sure its a more nuanced discussion with a number of factors but I think it mostly probably has to do with YouTube.

Harmless hornyposting getting more moddable over the years >_>

The internet

I hate YouTube guides tbh I prefer guides I
can read and go at my
own pace

Anal bum covers

Gimmick posters

Probably youtube and Reddit. I never tried Reddit though when I searched for obscure dark fantasy rpgs they had good PC recommendations when people weren't acting like Shadow Hearts was obscure. Granted I missed it the first time around but by 2010 I figured out that racket.

Honest answer?

Gsmefaqs admins stopped doing April Fool jokes

Allowing echo bubbles to exist.

Discord and youtube and reddit and resetera

XFAQS!!!! People really liked those April Fools jokes? I thought they were funny but reminded me when print media would try and get away with that in the 90s and early 2000s. Granted I was more trust worthy than and it was easier to pull it off but there was no way GameFaqs was only going to cover the Xbox. :D

Reddit

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

The elasticity of what can be considered offensive has definitely hurt the site. I don't know if it was CJayC or Allen who did it but removing the ability to reduce penalties for moderation was regressive. Not as regressive as changing the appeals process to where mods don't have to give you a reason why your appeal was denied. Allen fucked up hard there.

Did people really get stalked when AMP was public? I felt like some jerks were looking at my amp just to find old topics so that's why I eventually hid it, but otherwise *shrugs* I never had problems with trolls per se. I just felt some people posted in bad faith on the NHL Board or in general at times.Then again when I thought most people were kidding and not serious it helped me have a light hearted personality to everything.

Being way too relaxed and forgiving when it came to trolls and other problem users. The # of users were valued more than the quality of users. So a lot of good users eventually left because the trolling got out control and the type of users who have hundreds/thousands of banned accounts and users who spend more time in time out than not? Well, those users kept being welcomed back.

Lack of modernization also played a roll, but to be fair the community used to flip out over even simple things like avatars. 10 year after modern boards at the time already had them.

I still think not moving over to youtube faqs hurt GF. I have no idea how they would have went about that considering most youtubers are independent. Reddit also hurt I think, for me after using reddit for seven years- coming back to this layout is a bit strange. Still has that early 2000s nostalgic feel to it. I wish tho GF would implement some type of upvote/down vote karma that is secondary from the traditional karma count. It would make sorting through posts a bit easier- I think the ease of use of reddit helped it explode. Everyone at my university has a reddit, no one has a gamefaqs account (generational differences)

Kamil posted...

Did people really get stalked when AMP was public? I felt like some jerks were looking at my amp just to find old topics so that's why I eventually hid it, but otherwise *shrugs* I never had problems with trolls per se. I just felt some people posted in bad faith on the NHL Board or in general at times.Then again when I thought most people were kidding and not serious it helped me have a light hearted personality to everything.

I won't say it never happened, but AMP was useful in detecting some trolls. Generally if you were saying stuff that made people feel like checking it out, it was a yellow flag at minimum.

Random low karma account talking shit that had their AMP private was almost certainly a troll though.

Ratchetrockon posted...

Discord and youtube and reddit and resetera

One of these things is not like the others. Resetera is much less active than GameFAQs, it just has more notoriety.

YellowSUV posted...

One of these things is not like the others. Resetera is much less active than GameFAQs, it just has more notoriety.

Ahh ok. I thought it was popular in users

Umbreon posted...

I won't say it never happened, but AMP was useful in detecting some trolls. Generally if you were saying stuff that made people feel like checking it out, it was a yellow flag at minimum.

Random low karma account talking shit that had their AMP private was almost certainly a troll though.

What I meant is that ppl could find topics in my amp just to flood them to 500 because I was a board hunter. Having old ass topics last for years and just figuring out the pattern or time to post was very funny in its own weird way. It's really strange seeing people I know from board hunting show up here.

I get what you are saying though, this long after the fact but it was fun to see where people were posting. I never used it in any sort of close to malicious way. I was just like oh that user posts there too. Neat. Maybe I'll swing by too.

Mods who are terrible and/or untrained.

If they were trained better then your current account would be banned

no, bc i am a TOS abiding citizen.

Ratchetrockon posted...

Ahh ok. I thought it was popular in users

Comparing "active users" from one site to another doesn't work. Each site has a different metric for what is considered an active user. Right now GameFAQs says it has 983 currently registered users on the site. Resetera says it has 2,147.

Despite having supposedly over double the users, the boards don't move that fast there (and remember, there are only 4 there compared to thousands of active boards on GameFAQs).

Resetera is either cooking the books and/or GameFAQs is really conservative with what is an active user.

Resetera bans you for breathing there so I'm not surprised lol

Only time I hear about Resetera is when someone is complaining about Resetera on Gamefaqs.

Reggiebush0Nine posted...

The constant reg bans.

I tryed to keep the board alive but for almost 8 years Reg was in purg or banned for most of that time.

I tried folks but mods wanted it this way

@GoemonFan471986
@gords77

stop the anti-reggie bias!!

All the above really.

To answer your question.

Yes

Overall death of forum culture in general, tbh.

Was Reggie Bush that good of a poster? I never seem able to escape that user. I never felt wronged but what a weird gimmick that never went away.

FAQs were replaced by wikias and YouTube, but weirdly enough some written guides still exist on IGN and similar sites

Bad SEO.

If you search for "(game) (thing)" the first result is usually some other website even though the answer is usually on the game FAQs message board.

Edit: only David Mink can save us now

I search for lots of games and Gamefaqs still has early hits. Lost Child and uhhh well there are lots. Granted new popular games just pay the way to the top of searches and well the general public doesn't like to scroll more than three entries.

YoungMutual posted...

FAQs were replaced by wikias and YouTube, but weirdly enough some written guides still exist on IGN and similar sites

I use some of the IGN guides

The loss of SBAllen and Duckbear

Vegy returning

Tyranthraxus posted...

Bad SEO.

If you search for "(game) (thing)" the first result is usually some other website even though the answer is usually on the game FAQs message board.

Edit: only David Mink can save us now

Funny, when I was looking up some things regarding FF Rebirth, I got GameFAQs links on the first page of Google which directed me to the message board. I guess it depends on what you're looking up exactly.

I vastly prefer forums like this to shit like reddit or twitter

Banning LUEshi. I believe he's no longer banned so long as it's not being spammed or put where it's not warranted, but lifting the ban was too little, too late. The wrath of the gods is now forever upon this site.

ssb_yunglink2 posted...

I vastly prefer forums like this to shit like reddit or twitter

Same, HFBoards is pretty good but it's basically hockey/sports themed but it's about as active as it here for a classic format message board.

MabusIncarnate posted...

Same, HFBoards is pretty good but it's basically hockey/sports themed but it's about as active as it here for a classic format message board.

I remember HFboards. I actually never went there but ppl here always mentioned them, I was apart of Thunderpuck forums and the modding scene I used to post all my NHL2K8 mods to share somewhere. Jagr68 remembers. I think thunderpuck went under awhile ago but I used to share my 2K rosters somewhere.

Kamil posted...

Was Reggie Bush that good of a poster? I never seem able to escape that user. I never felt wronged but what a weird gimmick that never went away.

@Reggiebush0Nine can you believe this? insulting!