TIL my grandpa was right about GamerGate ruining game forums

I used to love arguing about old games on forums back in 2012. Then my grandpa told me the GamerGate stuff in 2014 turned everything into a fight about politics instead of the actual games. He was right, it changed how people talk about stuff. Does anyone else miss when game forums were just about cheat codes and high scores?

2 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

2 Comments

pat7811mo ago

Did you ever try setting up a separate section for off-topic stuff before things went sideways? I've seen forums survive this by making it clear that game talk stays in game sections and politics gets its own corner with strict rules. That way the main boards stay clean and people who want to argue can do it somewhere else.

10

evahenderson1mo ago

about cheat codes and high scores" - man that brings back memories. I remember my buddy Marcus, he used to run this tiny forum for old Sega games back in like 2010. Real tight community, people sharing their speedrun strats and glitch findings and stuff. Then around 2014, one of his moderators started posting political stuff in the off-topic section and it just spiraled. Marcus tried to keep it neutral but people started fighting so bad he had to shut the whole thing down. Real shame because that place was the only spot online where we could talk about how to break Sonic 2 in half without someone turning it into a debate.

2