Why do you choose to interact with the community here on GB?

I'm curious, and I'd be very much interested to hear from as many of you as possible. The more perspectives the better. I guess I'd like to know what your initial draw to the social aspect of Giant Bomb was, and then, if you've stuck around for a while, why you've made that choice.

Why do you browse these forums looking to interact with others? Why are you reading (and potentially commenting on) this thread? If you were to really consider it for a moment, to what would you attribute your motivation?

For me, I think part of it (perhaps a lot of it) is getting some sense of acknowledgement of my thoughts. I'm someone who has a hard time communicating in person, and so being able to do so in a more passive environment is often times the only situation in which I get to really have conversations about certain things I'm thinking about.

Perhaps some of you share a similar motivation. Or perhaps yours is something completely different. Perhaps you have several equally significant motivations. In any case, I'd be interested to know.

Typically, I don't.

@jjweatherman: Because you are so damn sexy.

'cause I like you guys deep down, also a lot of dumb stuff happens here, and I can get a smile out of that :)

More recently, I don't either. The whole internet thing has become a bit tiring, but that's part of what makes me so curious.

No need to point out the obvious.

Because it's nice to be able to talk to people about something I like in a way that I can't necessarily do in real life. The community here is one of the better ones on the internet as far as the video games go, for as much bitching and moaning as there is about how it has gone down the toilet as of late, along with the weird cult of personality surrounding the staff that occasionally crosses the line between "involved" and "upsettingly involved"

Also, I've been here for 4 damn years and have amassed enough street cred to make myself recognizable. If I signed up for NeoGAF, I'd have to build most of it up again.

Because for the most part, it's drastically different than all of the /v/ communities out there. Most of the time, things don't devolve into "I hate your opinion, you're stupid! Neener neener neener!" and thoughtful discussions about games usually blossom as a result of this.

@arbitrarywater: Holy shit, it has been that long. Kinda weird that we have stuck around a gaming website for a couple of years. And if you want to count the Gamespot days....

this is a good question op, its not something i had considered. i think my my motivations are kinda similar to yours but the obvious benefit of forums (for me at least) is that i can talk and learn about a subject i'm interested in despite the fact that people in my every day life have no opinion on or interest in it.

Well I came to Giant Bomb intially for Game reviews/opinions etc. I was getting back into heavy console gaming after a several year hiatus and remembered the whole Gerstmann-gate thing right after I had to slow down due to IRL stuff so I figured I'd give this place a chance. Liked the guys back in the day, although I didn't really know who they were. Saw the Dark Souls Quick Look and realized this place liked games in the way I like them.

This may be stupid, no it is stupid, but Quests about posting/blogging is what converted me from lurker to poster. If the Quests for that didn't exist I would have never posted on the forums most likely.

I guess what kept me posting was the surprisingly decent conversation (in particular some of the bloggers) which made me realize how much I miss shootin' the sh!t about games with my buds. Very few of my friends play at all anymore and the ones that do play nothing new. Given my work schedule and other commitments this an outlet that scratches that itch without interfering with my responsibilities.

These days I'm not sure what keeps me posting, probably just inertia of the routine. I admit I'm reconsidering whether it's worth my time, although I seem to be continuing doing it anyway. The new site with its' reduced communication features isn't really doing it for me. Certainly a lot of my favorite posters seem markedly less active or are gone, chances are I'll eventually go back to lurking too.

Because there are a lot of people in the Giant Bomb community that have the same likes in games and things involving games that I do. Regardless of crazy ass posters, it's easy to ignore them because they're a minority.

Since I'm paying a subcription fee for this website, might as well use all the content it offers.

To be fair, we're probably in the minority here, as I feel like a large number of the people active on the forums during the early part of the site have since left/been banned in some sort of spectacular fashion. I could rattle on about the heydays of these forums, back when men were men and talking shit about Nintendo would get you paragraph'd courtesy of the Wii Defense Force. But those are the stories of old men, old men from different times.

@arbitrarywater: Back when hamburgers were sandwiches.

The personalities and the content that comes from the community are all super interesting, and sometimes unique and utterly hilarious.

And because I like talking about all sorts of shit, just like a lot of people here.

I like the community for the most part, and have been here since the beginning.

I visit the forums to know the thoughts of people who have the same passion as I. It's nice to know that I am not the only person who cares deeply for the medium.

Fair enough, haha. I like your sense of practicality.

@slag: I actually think that's pretty cool that the quest stuff ended up getting you more involved in the community. I'd bet Dave and the rest of the old engineering team that designed that stuff would be happy to hear that.

@arbitrarywater: I'd agree that the people here have always seemed generally pretty okay. Especially relative to some other internet destinations. That's definitely part of why I was around so much before, as well. I really enjoyed talking with the same group of people day in and day out.

You make an interesting point about being recognizable. I'm not sure if you're being serious, but whether you are or not, there's clearly that feeling in other people. I think the relatively recent thread about the duder wanting to become more popular on the site that I keep seeing resurface shows that. I seem to remember a shocking amount of sincere and thoughtful responses, too. Clearly people think about this, and it's important for them to be known within an internet community, which I find interesting. I suppose I understand to an extent, but I always end up thinking, "to what end?"

Anyway, thanks for all the responses thus far.

This is where I get to come and say all the (potentially dumb or controversial) random shit that happens to be on my mind at a particular moment; to just pour it all out and express myself in a stream of consciousness type way, without censoring myself (too much at least). I used to keep my 'real' mouth shut in the name of civility or whatever. But life's too short to not be honest and say what's really on your mind, hopefully without offending anyone in the process, but if so, so be it. This is something I don't get to do in real life, so I appreciate having the avenue to do so here.

This whole anonymity thing, man. It's fuckin' weird. You can be whatever you want, up to a point of building up a certain 'anonymous' identity, at which point it sort of ceases to be anonymous at all. But lately I've been taking the more "who gives a fuck" approach. At the end of the day, it's all just keystrokes, and even more, it's all just bits of data. None of this shit's real.

@pillclinton: Yeah, okay. You know, I actually constantly forget about the anonymity factor. The username that I use everywhere doesn't exactly facilitate anonymity, and so I've pretty much always treated my online activity as something anyone I know could potentially discover. At least as long as I've been a part of an online community, which admittedly started with Giant Bomb, so not too long I suppose.

But yeah, that's probably a shared rationale for quite a few users. Maybe this community is so appealing because people can potentially bond through a common interest with little to no risk. I agree, it's fuckin' weird. The internet's a weird thing.

I think I just might be a masochist. I did buy Final Fantasy XIII last year and played it, fully, and enjoyed it for the most part. I also read YouTube comments at times despite knowing better.. or wander into GB threads titled "The problem with Patrick.." just a constant stream of self abuse really.

#2 Posted by HistoryInRust (5935 posts)

With regard to gaming, I don't -- at most sites. This is pretty much it. I didn't start out posting or anything here, either. For a couple years, I just consumed the content and occasionally threw my meaningless thought about an update or video or game into the ocean of others in the comment section of videos and articles.

I guess I probably mostly started to participate with the community after memberships started. Guess I figured the content was worth paying for and if I was going to pay for it I might as well chill with everyone. The community here is large enough that it has the same issues almost every place on the net does -- you have your trolls, you have your (troll or meant) racist, sexist, whatever stuff. You have your outright jerks. But definitely less than most places online. And, for the most part, it's a pretty friendly place with a good population of adults (and older adults).

I suppose I might babble less around here, if I had a lot of friends who played games that I could talk to, but I don't. Most of the people I've spent the last fifteen years working with are a decade or two older than myself. They deal more in mortgages, car payments, retirement funds, babies, children going to college, etc. The few who do play games almost exclusively play on PC (which is fine, so do I) and only play one or two games . . . and sparingly. So other than my younger brother, I don't have people I can talk to about games.

So this is sort of where I can come and bullshit about them and read from people who know far more about games than I ever will (because I haven't played them a lot my whole life -- mostly in bursts for the last 15+ years). I sometimes think hanging out at NeoGAF might be nice or some of the smaller communities. Some of them certainly have a more active "let's hang out and play XYZ game all the time" community that is sort of lacking here (at GB, we mostly talk together, but don't play together). . . but this place mostly feels like home. And as to why it feels that way? I guess half of it is that the community is pretty good. The other half is that the duders feel more like dudes sitting around talking with my about shit than "I'm a beat reporter with spunk, bloggin' all day for muh readers!" person that make up most of the other sites.

Plus, if I weren't here, who would replace me to fill the asshole-deficit left behind?

PS: Asshole Deficit is my favorite Butthole Surfers cover band.

I spend so much time in this god dammed forsaken website, I might as well post stupid things while I'm at it.

Eh. That data isn't the truth, whole and nothing but. I've been with the site since the beginning, and unspooled those first five-thousand within the first couple months. Lately I haven't had much in the way of continued ambition for being a notable personality in the community.

I like talking about games, or yelling at people about games. I've never had RL friends that are as into games as me, however, so GB became my outlet for that stuff. I can't speak to any other communities out there because GB is the only gaming site with content that I find worthwhile, but I think the people here are fantastic (even when I'm yelling at them).

Mostly because I'm bored really. Why Giantbomb? Because it's on my list of interesting gaming sites, all of which I participate in when I'm bored =) It's also nice to have a go-to place when I have questions that a quick google search can't answer and get a more general buzz feeling for games I might be interested in.

Holy shit. The first couple of months?! I've posted a lot, but that's been over like . . . five years or however long it has been (though I still kind of don't understand why that is a stat that shows up).

Because sometimes I am very stupid and think that other people value or respect my opinion. I only work every few days so I post while I am at work and have nothing to do until I get yelled at and then I get dejected and stop posting for a few days. Then I go to work and get bored and start thinking that hey, maybe I have something to add too! Then I get yelled at. It's a vicious cycle.

Oh, and I find myself bored at school often (right now for example). And I don't have any friends that care about games the same way I do...

I'd basically stopped for a few years; I did at the beginning because the smaller size of the community actually meant I got to know members and opinions, and given that I know very few people in person with the breadth of knowledge about games and the industry that I and many on these boards had (or have - and that's not meant as a boast, I just play a lot of games and read about them more, as do many on this site), it was nice to have people, that I could come to understand, to discuss the industry I love so much with.

As the site grew though, I lost most of my motivation to use the forums, as it started to turn into the sort of anonymous and kind of impersonal conversation that generally fails to stimulate. As of late I've found myself browsing the forums more often, but that's mostly a product of having recetly moved overseas, and the timezone difference meaning most of the people I'd talk with early on in the day (I generally work / go out later on in a day) are asleep.

I've always found this place fairly friendly, often funny and super creative. I've enjoyed foruming for years and Giant Bomb seems one of the better out there. My posting over the last year dipped a bit, but I just got permabanned from GAF the other week ( :( ) for a stupid comment so now I'm posting here more. :P

Typically I don't feel like anyone's ever paying any real attention, but I at least enjoy engaging on the topics and having a think about them, then putting my thoughts down.

I can't remember what made me post my first post, but if I had to guess someone had an incorrect opinion about a game I like and I had to put them straight. Since then it's been a constant crusade of righteousness, righting wrongs and establishing order wherever I tread.

Because I've tried partying and hanging out with others and smoking weed and everything people do, and I got really bored of it.

Interacting with real people is so boring and weird man, nobody is genuine or resilient against peer pressure/bandwagoning, they all do it, I'm not a fan of social interactions anymore. It is forced and ostentatious, I'd rather spend my life focusing on my education/work/hobbies, with a touch of light social interaction on the web. And GiantBomb is it!

There's some sense of camaraderie that comes along with it. Plus, I have relatively few friends who are into video games and of them, I'm the only one even remotely dedicated to playing video games. So, it's nice to be able to come to an online sanctuary that has been walled off for us to enjoy in our little pen and for the casual observer to come and gawk at our peculiar behaviors.

I don't consider people trying to argue with me for no reason (pretty much all that happens to me on these forums) as "interaction".

You're wrong and a terrible person!!!

I POST ON HERE COS I HAVE A WHOLE LOT OF NOTHING TO SAY AND I NEED A PLACE TO SAY IT.

actually i mostly browse for the odd bit of gaming news, i post occasionally to express an opinion (feels kinda pointless), but also to poke jabs at all the young bucks.

I'm a glutton for punishment.

And I just like to interact with people. Despite simply seeing words and images, there are still living, breathing human beings behind all of it.

Giant Bomb is a site that I like, and there are discussions on it. So, being a part of those discussions is often a nice way to feel like part of the community.

I enjoy talking to people about video games and PC news. =3

Oh, the first time I went to Giant Bomb was through a Rock, Paper, Shotgun article. I just stuck around since then.

Egotism and inertia?

The community here has been one of the least hostile video game places I've been to on the internet. People here aren't jerks and usually you get well thought out posts or actual human to human level conversational interactions. Since then, I realized you guys are actually alljerks but damn if we're not a family of like-minded passive aggressive jerks who treat romance threads seriously and have a freaky borderline obsession with the crew!

'Cause it means I get to participate in stuff like this.

I don't know. These are the first forums I've ever posted in regularly. On most forum based websites I frequented in the past I tried posting but then would give up and just lurk. I suppose part of it has to do with it felt like on this site people were actually reading what I wrote and responding back in interesting ways, and it wasn't just me shouting my thoughts into an empty void.

@arbitrarywater:

It does seem like the more notable figures from the old days have gone. Like that guy with the BB Hood avatar. Banned from one day to the next. What was his name? What did he do? It exists now only in the fading light of our memories.

edit: To answer you JJ, I think we've been here so long it feels like home. Even if, as in real life, you don't go there all that often or have mixed feelings about it, you'll always go back. That and it's still better than any other major gaming site's community.

cus why not?

Eh I guess I like to share my opinions with everyone. Even if it's just agreeing with whatever the post is about or the ever fabled opposite opinion.

A few 5 minute breaks to talk about video games during the work day makes things a little less monotonous. In addition, with this communities general lack of butt-holes (besides me), and a few people that are genuinely entertaining, why go anywhere else?

A bunch of reasons. First and foremost, I have very few friends in real life who I can talk to about video games. They recognize all the big titles and everything, but if I were to drop Darkstalkers in during a conversation, no one would have a fucking clue what I'm talking about. I made a list on the site about franchises I'd like to see continued/reborn and Panzer Dragoon was on that list. Someone dropped a comment saying they'd also love to see that. That would not happen in my personal life outside these forums lol.

Second, despite what some would like to think, more often than not, the community is pretty fucking awesome. Ok yeah, there are times when some of us act a bit iffy and it kinda ruins the mood, but that seems to be a rare case. There's tons of great people on this site which is an increasingly rare thing on the internet these days.

Lastly, I was hired by a "rival video game website" to go undercover and take you guys down from the inside. Sadly, I turned and now I can no longer bring myself to finish my mission so I'm hiding out here until I die.