Tell us what changes you would like to see.

Joshua Ramsey

Administrator
Staff member
We are revamping our forum site this week and we would like to know what you, the users, would like to see when you visit here.

Different layout, interviews, Q&A's....etc


Sound off here and lets work together to make the the community the Gotham wants....and the one it needs
 
For starters, the site hasn't changed a bit since it launched last year and the ads still kill the entire site. It bogs down my CPU (I have an i7 8700) and the entire experience is bad really. I've stuck with GR since 2001, but I've stopped coming back to GR for the past 5-6 months in hoping the site changed and it hasn't.

I had issues since the re-launch of not being able to login and post comments in articles or the forum. I am just now somehow able to. I was extremely active with GR for years and years and this was the first time I had to stop being part of GR simply because the site is broken and still is. I don't know what's going on, but all the promises that were made during the re-launch haven't been done. Not a single one. There's been plenty of time, I gave the site a few months to breathe and evolve, but clearly, nothing is happening. Maybe some article on the front page posting some insight would alleviate frustration for long time GR fans.
 
Yeah there are a lot of kinks that just need to be ironed out.

I think The People Speak was a great idea that just needed some refinement. Rather than a place to tell stories, which is neat and all but shallow and hard to keep going, it should be a place where you go to post general opinions/have people write short opinion pieces. Set a few ground rules (ie no political bashing, don't be a jerk, etc) and it can have a lot of conversation.

That and just having a greater all around presence. I know it's tough, but it's hard for people like me to even post much when it feels like everything is going straight into a vacuum.

And, honestly, I feel like we could cut the number of forums considerably. We don't really need separate Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft boards anymore.
 
I agree with Longo. I think the separate Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft boards might be a bit unnecessary. Maybe they can be archived, so we can still access/read them if we'd like?
 
I agree with you both. This is one of the most dysfunctional gaming sites around, worse than 1UP was. Has there been any major staff changes? Who is actually running and coding the site? This seriously feels like a blog site and the ads make it feel like it's on life support. I've had to block ads on GR for YEARS because they crash my browser and generally are just obnoxious and annoying.
 
@Longo_2_guns @Ivory_Soul @Master_Craig

Hey folks,

I'm going to give you some context here as I can understand frustrations from long-time readers, who may be upset or concerned by the various changes that took place during 2017.

I took over GR in September 2017 when the site wasn't doing so hot. It wasn't performing badly, per se, but it hadn't really hit a major breakthrough in terms of viewership. It's a difficult world for online media these days, and when a site isn't performing as well as it could be, that can spell trouble. GR is owned by a network, and when I took over the number of editorial staff assigned to the site had dropped to 3, myself included.

As you can imagine, running a site such as GR with just 3 people was no easy task. It meant that community-focused projects, features, and other more time-consuming projects had to be put on the backburner for a while as we focused on keeping GR stable. Thanks to a hell of a lot of hard work, we not only managed to do that but we also managed to start rolling in more readers than GR had achieved with a larger team (though not a perfect indication of readership, you can take a look at GR's Alexa ranking to see how much has been achieved). This ensured that in early 2018, we could start hiring more staff. By the end of 2018, we'll boast a workforce of 20+ GR staff, with us currently housing 10+. This includes an expanded editorial team, which will make up the largest workforce that GR has had since its inception in 1996.

But obviously, I can understand the concerns and the opinion that GR started to feel "like a blog site." The reasoning behind this is that throughout late 2017 and January 2018, we had such a small team that we couldn't do anything aside from work diligently to ensure that GR started reaching the heights it was firmly capable of reaching. This included a lot of behind-the-scenes work that didn't translate into content that would be appealing to our community. We knew that we would lose out on some of GR's dedicated community during this time, though sometimes you have to make difficult decisions for the benefit of your future, and this was one of them. In April, we achieved the highest number of GR users since 2007.

However, if you've been tuning into the site recently, then you'll notice that things have changed. We set up a podcast, a Twitch channel (and achieved Twitch Partner status within 4 weeks, imjustsayin), contests, even a bloody magazine. In modern media, every site struggles with maintaining a dedicated audience, and while GR has enjoyed a much better community than most, the late 2017 blip it experienced inevitably saw more than a few drift away. Now that GR has finally hit its stride, our goal is to regrow the community, bring in fresh faces, and make sure that you folks want to keep returning.

I'll be making changes to the forum today ahead of E3. On top of that, I think a refresh of our community features is in order. If you like certain features, community posts, or have any ideas for stuff that you'd like to see, then please comment -- though our job is to reach out to you folks, your input is invaluable, too.
 
Thank you Paul! All your points are clearly valid and I understand them completely. I used to work for a mega-corporation fairly high-up and I understand it's all about money at the end of the day. Without that there's nothing. However, what about the ads? Those were the #1 reason why most long-time GR readers stopped coming to the site. Even an ad blocker doesn't get rid of most of them and the site still loads horribly. I had no idea there was a magazine, podcast, Twitch channel, or contests. The front page is very cluttered and it's hard to determine what's new and what's not.

Hopefully, by the end of the year, the site will start forming something more unique and GR feeling. I still remember when GR relaunched for the first time over 10 years ago and it was in beta for maybe 3 or 4 years. It at least had a unique feeling and felt like GR. I'd also love to see "skins" on the site and maybe something akin to a retro GR skin from back in the 90's.

I got a load off my chest and I hope we didn't across as rude or inconsiderate Paul. It's just hard when you're a reader and have no insight to what's going on behind-the-scenes. Patience can only take you so far.
 
You didn't come across as rude! I want there to be as much transparency as possible on GR, from both its community and staff. 2017 was a year of great change, and this has left us in an excellent position in 2018. Unfortunately, making major changes can wind up dividing a community, and now we can finally focus on building a dedicated readership of GR users alongside our continued efforts to grow out the site's reach. We have interesting new projects posted to the site all of the time, and all of them are featured on the cover panel -- if you regularly check in, you'll always see something we're working on. For instance, our current E3 2018 predictions contest that will be running throughout next week, alongside dedicated leaderboards to show who's in contention for winning free games.

We do need your help in growing the community, though. I understand the prior frustrations, though now that GR is hitting its stride again, the only way we can know what you want is by you telling us. The first change we're making to our approach to the community is the introduction of new community features. If any of you have ideas for interesting and fun community ideas, please head on over here and let me know!
 
I only want to know one thing. What are the top 5 click through websites? I don’t want to subscribe to Alexa.com though...
 
I'm not subscribed, either. The top 5 sites, in general, are Google, YouTube, Facebook, Baidu, and Wikipedia. No idea for the CTR, though.
 

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