I'm sure everyone has their own reasons for participating in a space like this, but I wonder how much of it is the urge to find something written by actual people. Web searches turn up AI generated responses, and social media is drowning in bots. How much are folks aching for something real?
For me it is just a far more reasonable way to responsibly communicate with people. To curb social media addiction as I slowly delete all of my account and to (ideally) find platforms that are less reactionary/bigoted, I turn to platforms that are less convenient on phones, aren't run by algorithms and are typically far better moderated.
Plus there is that general nostalgia that forums as a concept give me. I'd spend so many afternoons as a kid on my grandparent's computer just endlessly refreshing forum threads on shitty dialup that would take ages to load anything. Wasn't easy for me to socialize irl and so I more or less got most of my communication with others via message boards and such.
Recommended? Not at all, but it's all I had at the time lol.
So yea, this type of enviornment is just ideal for me on many levels, at least for now.
I miss reading magazines, but I believe their time is long over.
People would subscribe to weekly (or even monthly) publications with the expectation that that info couldn't be found anywhere else, and that's simply no longer the case.
Very true, but it was a very different time back then lol. No GameFaqs, No internet. Someone will do a full playthrough within 24 hours of a game coming out nowadays. The magazines cant really keep up anymore. Its kinda sad.
I'm just glad to be using a forum again. All the ones I used to frequent have died or become useless for over a decade now. Replacing them with places like reddit and discord was a mistake. The internet has become a monolith.
I just want things to go back to the way they used to be. It was fractured but way more interesting.
I would argue the bias is still there on youtube. Of course everyone 'says' they arent, but getting FREE equipment and games from many different companies makes it quite possible.
I've recently grown tired of the Video Essay format that's become so popular on YouTube. It's mostly dudes who have the hottest take known to man trying to drum up engagement or the most vanilla, inoffensive take ever that has been regurgitated over 20 years. Every once in a while I find a good one though. I blame the Horror community for popularizing long video format.
The long format I dont mind, but the original magazines used to have interviews with developers and other factual info that was beneficial for the gamer. Not to mention images of the game that no-one had yet. Youtube doesn't really provide that in most cases. All the companies just 'direct' the info to us. I gotta say I miss the magazines!
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