The last few years have been a strange time for the gaming community at large — if such a thing even exists as a single entity any more — with one of the most surprising incidents being the apparent fall of NeoGAF.

I won’t be shedding any tears over the site’s possible demise, since its shift into heavily left-leaning progressive politics, the idolisation of women and minorities as infallible beings to be worshiped and unquestioningly protected (as opposed to regular human beings, the same as anyone else) and the immediate, uncompromising exclusion and demonisation of anyone who didn’t fall in line with these values had made the site a laughing-stock for anyone who just wanted to, you know, talk about games. Plus, most relevantly to us here at MoeGamer, many readers will know that the site had been unfriendly to discussion of many modern Japanese games for some time now, with threads on some titles such as Criminal Girls completely banned, and the entirety of the site’s substantial Senran Kagura community unceremoniously ejected one day without any prior warning or explanation.

But the fact remains that what was once a proud institution in gaming culture — one of the longest surviving gaming forums, and formerly a hangout for journalists, developers and gamers alike — now lies in ruins. And that’s significant to anyone who was ever part of it.

Continue reading The Death of a Community →