On a more serious note, what happened around here? The VGC community used to be fun and pretty happy go lucky. Why is everyone so serious and touchy all of a sudden?
I noticed a lot of the conversation has died off around here. I think for a long time the new consoles and their issues dominated conversations. It's hard to see a thread not derail into that conversation somehow. That automatically gets everyone a bit heated. Several topics get started that seem to exist for the sole purpose of getting people stirred up. I know I started a topic I tried to devote just to the games to try and steer the conversation elsewhere. But constantly talking about something that pisses us all off I'm sure changed the dynamic a lot.
This is something I don't think is just on here though. Basically, I think the gaming community has just been pissed the last few months. I do see a lot of places getting out of it though. But I know I had to unsubsribe to some youtube channels because a lot of the happy go lucky aspects left. I was just watching complaint videos over and over. Everyone was touchy.
I know I got frustrated at a lot of stuff and am sure it came out in some posts. In fact, I can point to a few exact ones. But I wrote some touchy and frustrated posts more than once.
Plus, attendance died down a lot from some regulars. It is kind of a chicken or the egg type of thing. But this changed the dynamic a bit as well. I see a few of the UK members on RetroCollect, which makes sense being a UK site.
Mostly, I think a lot of the members here are still angry about the Rodney King verdict. I know it has been on my mind a lot lately. In fact, I'm sure that is the main reason for most of the trouble here.
EDIT:
The above may sound strange. But, you should have seen the change in dynamic on Sonic Stadium and Sonic retro forums when stuff about Sonic 4 was being released. Fans were pissed and the forums reflected that. I remember one of the moderators posting an open letter featuring the sentence "Sonic 4 is tearing us apart". It was hard not to laugh, being a not very big sonic fan. But it was absurd how the dynamic changed. I don't think this site has had a huge change because it is generally pretty happy go lucky.