Direct me to the drama please

[TSTR]

MAKE RACKETBOY GREAT AGAIN
WE'RE GONNA BUILD A FRONT PAGE
IT'S GONNA BE YUUUGE

[samsonlonghair]

Wow. Miked dropped a big ol' truth bomb there.

I'm going to be thinking about that post all day. I can genuinely say that the notion of a 404 homepage makes me depressed.

[marurun]

Haven't you heard? We're post-truth, now. Truth bombs can no longer hurt you. Only the feels bombs can.

[ElkinFencer10]

Hey, I love yall. Just popping in to say that.

Everyone can be an ass hole at times (for the most part; I'm not sure I've ever seen Fragems say a single uncouth thing, now that I think about it), but the way I see it, we're a family of sorts, and families are going to fight and say things that they regret (or should regret). At least that's how I see it. When it comes to comments said in a heat that cross a line, I'm reminded of a Facebook post I saw not long ago - "You don't get to tell someone that they didn't hurt you." Sometimes it seems like we get too hung up on whether or not something should have hurt or offended someone and lose sight of the fact that, reasonable in your mind or not, it did hurt or offend someone. Getting hurt or offended by words isn't a weakness; it's just a part of having emotions. I think most of us - and I'm absolutely included in this - could stand to be a little more empathetic and think about when we upset someone rather than whether or not that person should have been upset.

Just by two cents. Feel free to ignore me if you wish.

[Gunstar Green]

2) The web - and retro gaming on the web - has changed dramatically since the heyday of this site. It launched before social media took off (Twitter and Facebook both have only been a significant thing since like 2006/2007). At its peak popularity, it grew in large part to exposure on Digg and promotion across forums. Returning the site to something like its "former glory" and prominence would entail much more than just generating new content and posting it to the front page. The entire "front page & forums" model of content creation is largely gone by the wayside and is unattractive to many web users today.

That's a big one I think. Retro gaming as a hobby exploded and has become something of a dead horse topic on the Internet. One doesn't have to go far to find a decent resource on it. It's one of those things where we've gotten to the point where there's not much left to say. Every stone has been unturned for the most part. There are still of course many esoteric games and consoles out there that there isn't much information about but it's largely because most people wouldn't care to discuss them anyway.

It's not just an issue with Racketboy. I've seen this before with other communities (not going to point specific fingers at them here), especially smaller and more focused fan communities of properties or brands that are no longer producing new content. Eventually that community runs out of things to say and conversation goes off in other directions because people still like conversing with their community even though they've got nothing left to say that's technically "on topic."

It's part of why Internet communities are homogenizing into things like Reddit and Tumblr and such. Bigger but more distant versions of the forum communities of old all available in one place. More modern social media has been slowly killing off less versatile forums for some time because that's where the people go.

So it's easy to say, "Let's go back to the old days when all we did was talk about games," but I understand it's a harder thing to actually do especially without a steady stream of new users with fresh perspectives.

[jp1]

Has anyone considered stepping outside the box a little and focusing some articles on newer indie games that have retro inspiration, maybe talk a little about the games they pull their influence from, and ways they have made new innovation while keeping old style?

Focusing on retro or retro based games that are making their way onto mobile platforms would be another way to take the discussion into a more popular direction. Remakes, ripoffs, spin offs, etc...

All the old topics that were so popular could be applied to this as well. I'm sure there are games that really excel on the mobile platform and given their easy accessibility drawing some of them to light could be a cool direction.

I would speculate that plenty of people with smart phones are looking for good games and nice reviews or articles to help.

Not to mention all the last gen stuff that is now considered "retro" by tons of people. I'm always interested to see what the end of a console generation produced once the developers know how to squeeze every little bit out of the hardware.

It might be fun to explore the progression of popular series throughout the different console generations and how they evolved. Why and how hardware advancements changed the games for better or for worse.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I like retro pc games and the love is only starting to brew.

[marurun]

Are you willing to write? Then do so. Write what you want to read. Just make sure your grammar is sound.

[JoeAwesome]

^^Absolutely what GG just said.

"When it's all said and done, there's nothing left to say or do."

A generalization, yes, but it's very true. New "retro" games don't have nostalgia going for it; old retro games are all fairly done and dusted (at least the ones in English); and very few developments on old hardware don't do anything for me. And so I've moved on to other topics in forums.

Don't get me started on "what if..." topics, either

[Gunstar Green]

I like retro pc games and the love is only starting to brew.

Me too, GoG and Steam have done a great job bringing many of them back for a new generation to experience. For the longest time I felt kind of sidelined as retro consoles got all the love when half my time spent gaming growing up was via DOS and later Windows 95.