My take is that a lot of us who used to spend a lot of time on internet forums have gotten older or our responsibilities and behaviors have changed. I guess social media and instant video content has also shifted how we interact online these days. I haven't been here in over 10 years, but I've decided to become more active again. For the past year, I've been revisiting old behaviors and websites I used to enjoy. 
Pretty much. Although there are still some traditional forums out there that have huge userbases. It can seem a bit sad sometimes when one considers how active a community there was posting here 15 years ago compared to now. That's part of the appeal for things like Discord communities or other forums. With large active communities there or chat message type media like Discord, you can post something and often have someone reply right away and start a conversation or a topic or chime in on something be discussed and get involved. Here, it may take a few days to get a reply and even then it can be big news if you even get two or three responses. That slowness, or in other cases getting no response at all, can further add to a turnoff for users to look somewhere else if there isn't much reaction when they do take the time to comment here.
So, well it's appreciated that you want to re-engage with the NWR forums, just know that it's a much slower pace here these days and don't let that dampen your enthusiasm or think people are shunning you if there aren't quick responses. Like lolmonade commented on, I also still prefer the forum method of posting and its more organized approach to topics and discussions rather than the endless stream of comments. (Or the two different groups of people posting on two different topics with all their replies getting in the way of each other's discussion like I've seen happen on Discord.)
That said, game media has also changed a lot. Two decades ago, with things like Gaming Magazines or some TV Shows like X-Play or Electric Playground, it felt like there was always some gaming news or reviews to talk about or share. Nowadays, it just feels like here's a trailer. Here's a release date. Game gets released and maybe some people care about the review. Otherwise, it's just on to the next trailer and cycle. I guess there was more speculation back then. You might see a few screenshots of a game or maybe there was just a title announced and so gamer's imaginations could run a bit more wild.
Nowadays, particularly with Nintendo, it just seems to be to wait for one of their usual three Directs of the year to air, see a whole bunch of trailers that explain the games and give a pretty good idea of what to expect, see that it will be coming out pretty soon in a few months and that's that. You usually know if you want to play it or not from that info and, for the most part, you don't really get much more info on the game until it releases. Sometimes there might be a Treehouse thing where more details are shown or another trailer or two but lots of times there isn't that much more given. Compared to the perhaps more steady hype train, its more like sudden quick geyser bursts of water then back to peaceful silence. I guess I kind of miss the 2000s era Nintendo Power which would do things like developer interviews with teams working on hyped games like Twilight Princess or Super Mario Galaxy and getting insights into what they learned from past games and how they were applying that stuff to the new game being worked on. That kind of stuff made gaming discussion more interesting and, while there was Iwata Asks, it feels like since Iwata died, gaming talk has just gotten a lot more focused on the consumption or transactional aspects. Did you see the trailer? Did you like or not like the trailer? Are you going to buy or not buy the game? Now that the game is out, did you play the game? Have you beat the game? Was it good or bad? and then repeat those questions from the start.
I'm not going to say it can't be fun to be hyped up and excited with other people about a trailer or a new glimpse at an upcoming title or that there's nothing to discuss or speculate on it but I'd also say the types of games to create any big discussion like that are few. I mean, how much do you want to speculate on, say, the story of Mario & Luigi: Brothership or what its gameplay will be like. Same goes for Super Mario Party Jamboree. Wanna talk about what characters might be playable? It's not exactly Smash Bros. here. What new sort of minigames might be included? Which boards looked neat in the trailer? I've got nothing against either of these games. I'll likely own them both because I'm a die-hard Mario Party fan and Brothership is the most excited I've been for an M&L game since maybe when Partners In Time came out. It looks like it may finally do something different with the Bros. moves you learn and the art style looks great. But these games are pretty known quantities at this point so discussion on them just feels redundant. That's why I look back now and appreciate how stuff like Nintendo Power was able to find engrossing ways to promote games whether you cared about them or not.
Fans like us just don't have that same information anymore and I feel it has also hurt and slowed down game discussion. The best question in the "cycle" I posted earlier was the last one on whether the game was good or bad because it often feels like that is the only point in which we can finally get into a meaty discussion about a game. Unfortunately, people aren't always playing a game when it immediately releases and so, again, discussion could be slow as others catch up or may want to avoid spoilers until they get around to it.
That's what made Breath of the Wild so special. As we got closer to the release date and Nintendo began leaking forth more information, it lead to a lot of fun speculation talk. Then when the game came out so many people were talking about their journeys in the game and so there was so much to talk about for helpful hints and suggestions of things to see or find and it wasn't just a quick three or four paragraphs of whether it was a good or bad game to the player and that's all there is to say about a game. Nothing has really recaptured that on the forums since and I think it will be hard for a game to do that again with how gaming news seems to be handled these day.
Anyways, that's my extra spin on why posting is decreasing in the popular Switch era.
Topic: Switch is so popular people don't even post (Read 7412 times)
