[Xantar]

I suppose when you showed me this thread you were expecting me to complain about stupid members or something. But actually, I think your biggest problem is a structural one that's out of your control. The fact of the matter is ALL small- to mid-sized videogame forums are dying out. Especially the ones that used to have a strong Nintendo base. I see it all over the internet. I have a couple theories about why this is, and I'll let you decide whether any of it applies:

1. Current events - there's a lot of interesting stuff going on with politics. Maybe you think things are going in the right direction and maybe you think they're going in the wrong direction. But the fact of the matter is there are a lot of dramatic things happening. And they are real. I used to keep an eye on videogame news to see what Kaz Hirai or Reggie or Robbie Bach would say, but now it's more interesting to see what Barack Obama and Dick Cheney are up to.

2. People grew up - this one is pretty obvious. I'm guessing a lot of people here used to be in high school and are now in college. Or in grad school. Or have jobs. There's less time to spend posting on message boards. I suppose you could try to fix this problem by recruiting more high schoolers, but let's face it: most high schoolers are idiots. I can't believe some of the stuff I said back in the day.

It's probably even worse for Nintendo fans. I don't have any solid data to back this up, but my experience has been that Nintendo fans are generally either young enough that the family friendly image is appealing rather than a turn-off (i.e. under 12) or old enough to remember the NES days (i.e. over 21). Problem is the people who spend the most time arguing over pointless stuff on the internet are people between the ages of 13 and 18.

3. The videogame industry changed - to be specific, it fragmented. If you get 20 random videogamers together and name a random videogame, only three or four of them at a time will have played it most of the time. They just won't have a lot in common to talk about. The only way around this is to be as big as GAF or IGN.

4. Blogs - back when GameTavern first started, I don't think the word "blog" existed. Now they are very common, of course, and they are almost as convenient for discussion as message boards. And personally, whenever I have some complex idea that I want to express, I would rather write a blog post and then whore it out show it to people so that we can chat about it.

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Yeah, I guess you could stand to have somebody in the Politics forum other than Strangler who actually knows anything. Some people could stand to have a transplant of their central nervous system. But fundamentally, GT is not equipped to appeal to what people on the internet want. And honestly, I don't really care.

One small question, though: why exactly are movies and TV shows discussed in a separate forum from the Happy Hour?