Ah ok, that makes more sense.

Seems that way. I frequented GAF for about a decade and can definitely attest to the echo chamber nature of it. They wouldn't ban you for holding right-leaning views, but the general crowd very much leaned left and didn't take to kindly to opposition. Mods never hesitated to ban people when discussion got heated or turned south. That kept things in check but also stifled discussion and definitely contributed to the sour reputation GAF has in some circles.

Despite the echo chamber and sometimes-authoritarian mods, I'm sad to see it go. Big gaming news often broke there and it was a really useful place to keep up with the industry.

Big PC gaming contributors like Durante (fixed Dark Souls shitty port as well as a plethora of other crappy PC ports) posted there frequently as well. I hope he finds a new hub to post in.

What a shame, I was only a lurker there, but they seemed like decent folk, a good place to get advice about games or gaming-related scoops as someone said earlier, and they wouldn't berate you for liking J-RPGs. I used to visit the PC screenshots thread quite often and admire the stunning screens of modern games run at Ultra settings and crazy resolutions.

I think the community overall leaned pretty heavily towards the console side so the J-RPG thing isn't that surprising. It's a shame. At least from just frequenting the threads for games I was interested in I didn't really notice any bad sides of the community.

Too bad the leaders there are shady. A Neogaf moderator was arrested for child pornography a few months back. Heard he banned anyone who dares to badmouth or accuse him off being pedo.

http://www.craveonline.com/entertainment/1287485-former-neogaf-mod-reportedly-arrested-child-porn-case

As much as it pains me to say this but, general quality of the community as a whole was in part due to its rather obnoxious and infamous elitism (thus keeping out the bottom-feeder trolls and loudmouthed kids), although the criteria by which members were admitted were incredibly arbitrary. I think I applied there a few years ago, they turned me down, I didn't really give it a second thought after that.

Didn't really post there that much, and there are other places on the web to get info on newer/older games anyway. So...nothing was really lost in the end.

Yeah, crap like that definitely needs to get punished.

Anyone aware of similar alternative forums that have special threads for games? Other than that I mostly use Reddit which is useful for information but less useful for just casually commenting on games.

Great news!

NeoGAF had no redeeming value at all. Just another bunch of SJW, virtue signaling, socialist and communist hypocrite scumbags and parasites.

How much longer until Kotaku and Polygon bite the dust?

I don't know what half these things are supposed to even mean but I'm assuming it happened in threads that weren't about games to begin with?

When he complains about the weather he posts the same thing. :P

Actually, when he complains period, he posts the same thing.

Something along the lines similarly befell Something Awful, which required paying 10 bucks to register. (And 10 more if you got banned.)

But rather than sexual assault, the founder simply went loony and the community went, "We're not having this", and promptly left.

Ow ffs, and I just remembered I had an account there and that it might be a decent alternative. Does still seem to be relatively lively, at least the game forums.