I don't really like the new design, but I could live with it.

What's really crippling the site is the massive loss of functionality. Things are harder to access, the fixed page width is a joke so you have to scroll like crazy to see the information that was available at a glance on the old website, there's now a completely needless javascript requirement and the loading times in the screenshot galleries are atrocious.

As a retro gamer I've been using mobygames constantly for over a decade to look up games, check different versions for my collection etc., but with the new layout the site has become much less usable. I still use it, because there's not really an alternative, but I visit much less frequently than before and as far as I can tell most of the active contributors are boycotting the new design.

I really hope they switch back to the old layout or at least restore the functionality of the old one.

Another victim of the crime known as "web 2.0".

Wow, that's ugly for sure.

Whoa, at first I thought they have been hijacked... With the current design the site is unuseable.

Maybe Jim Leonard who sometimes posts here will explain the situation.
It looks absolutely hideous and I would have been okay with it if it was usable. Can't say it improves on the older site on that aspect either.

I was looking at it just earlier on today, and the first thing I said was "what the fuck is this shit?!?"

I have Jim's ear so I might be able to give him a nudge about this. When I saw the new design, at first, I thought it was OK, but the more I use it the more I don't like it. Navigation is difficult, the system is buggy in terms of showing screenshots (sometimes works, sometimes doesn't), and overall, it just has this cramped feel compared to before.

I'll get in touch with him and see if he wants to voice in on this or not.

Malik wrote:

Not sure if MobyGames being sold to GameFly has got anything to do with the crappy overhaul

Is that what happened? How unfortunate. I thought maybe the server had thrown a fit and that they were desperately trying to cobble together something that worked until they got the old layout back up, or something.

Mystery wrote:

What's really crippling the site is the massive loss of functionality. Things are harder to access, the fixed page width is a joke so you have to scroll like crazy to see the information that was available at a glance on the old website, there's now a completely needless javascript requirement and the loading times in the screenshot galleries are atrocious.

As a retro gamer I've been using mobygames constantly for over a decade to look up games, check different versions for my collection etc., but with the new layout the site has become much less usable. I still use it, because there's not really an alternative, but I visit much less frequently than before and as far as I can tell most of the active contributors are boycotting the new design.

You've summarised the problems pretty well. The looks are basically okay, but the design choices are just poorly though out at best. Lots of key functions have been lost, and the rest is hardly usable due to slow loading speeds, horribly inconvenient layout (menus and options that used to fit into one screen, like the Game Browser criteria filters, are now spread in unnecessary long lists that you have to scroll and scroll and scroll ad nauseam) and limited options.

The redesign effectively destroyed the website, being an enormous step back, and what is the worst here is that the community is being rubbed the same "Everything is fine, only minor bugs that will be fixed soon, nothing to complain about" attitude right into the face from the powers that be. AFAIK the situation wasn't brilliant throughout the recent years but this has really put off most of the core members (major contributors and content approvers), who are leaving the site, appalled by the situation (the redesign seems to have been an idea that was circulating for some time, and the key people at MG were presented with a preview of the new design some time ago; their feedback on the design and functionality appears to have been completely ignored).

All of this is really sad as MG used to be one of the best game databases out there (and the oldest to this day if I've got my facts right). Now that the people who had been spending a huge chunk of heir lives to develop the place are leaving, or are at best utterly disappointed with the situation and powerless to change it for the better, MG is not going to be the same again 🙁

Yuck!

The site has taken a serious performance hit, too. Also, if you do not get a database match, instead of telling you that nothing was found it tells you that the server has thrown an error. The worst of is that things are a lot harder to find.

collector wrote:

Also, if you do not get a database match, instead of telling you that nothing was found it tells you that the server has thrown an error.

Yep, I've reported this in the redesign feedback thread as soon as I noticed it (I generally type URLs instead of searching anything, and a list of partial matches was a very useful feature), but it hasn't been fixed. Instead, now I also can't type URLs like

mobygames.com/game/game-title

and get to the game page even if the title is valid, it redirects me to www.mobygames.com. So I have to type

www.mobygames.com/game/game-title

to make it work.

Whoever is programming the new version of the website clearly doesn't care about the users at all.

F2bnp wrote:

Maybe Jim Leonard who sometimes posts here will explain the situation.

I can't expand on the situation since I've had nothing to do with MobyGames since the sale to GameFly. I hear they have hired someone specifically to deal with website issues, so that's promising, but I have no more information than anyone else, sorry.

Malik wrote:

See what has happened to your favourite site : http://www.mobygames.com […]
Show full quote

See what has happened to your favourite site : http://www.mobygames.com

Maybe some will like it, but not me. It's colourless, lifeless and f*cked up. Goodbye, MobyGames. You were wonderful the way you looked and functioned before.

Not sure if MobyGames being sold to GameFly has got anything to do with the crappy overhaul, but the current owners do not seem to care, and sometimes play the victims... *shrugs*

'Give us the old site back' topic.

Aaaagh, I hope they're not adopting Java, Flash, and other web 2.0 shits we don't need.

They've already got Javascript galleries.

leileilol wrote:

They've already got Javascript galleries.

Why oh why?

Jorpho wrote:

Malik wrote:

Not sure if MobyGames being sold to GameFly has got anything to do with the crappy overhaul

Is that what happened? How unfortunate. I thought maybe the server had thrown a fit and that they were desperately trying to cobble together something that worked until they got the old layout back up, or something.

The sale happened three years ago. It's just that the only thing GF had accomplished in all that time was to scout their local junior high for a web developer, implement this gross disfigurement, preview it with the staff, and then promptly ignore the staff's feedback and sit on it for almost a year before launching it as-is.

I could live with it if it was just cosmetics, but it's almost as if they've gone out of their way to cripple every aspect of the site in the worst way possible. I hear the new layout was supposed to work better with mobile devices and tablets, but even there it performs much worse than the old site ever did, because sure, using hover menus for touch screens is a brilliant idea.

I love MG, and have contributed more to it in the past year than ever before (joined in 2004). But seeing as how it's simply unusable at this point, combined with a massive staff exodus - unless GameFly implements a complete rollback as an emergency measure, then you can stick a fork in Mobygames... it's done. :(

Oh god, I love this website and I had no idea about any sale. It's a vast database of games and for years it was a good place to browse for stuff. Covers, different versions of your favorite games, reviews, credits ...

I can't believe such a thing gets handled the way it has been. Perhaps if we all join the forum and express our honest opinion?

VileRancour wrote:

I hear the new layout was supposed to work better with mobile devices and tablets, but even there it performs much worse than the old site ever did, because sure, using hover menus for touch screens is a brilliant idea.

I haven't thought about that but you're right. This is indeed the worst case of an update one could imagine 😮

VileRancour wrote:

I love MG, and have contributed more to it in the past year than ever before (joined in 2004).

What's your alias at MG?

F2bnp wrote:

I can't believe such a thing gets handled the way it has been. Perhaps if we all join the forum and express our honest opinion?

That would be vary nice of you but it seems that the people currently in charge chose to completely ignore community feedback.

Also, they might consider a sudden influx of newly registered users as a statistic to back up the idea that the redesign is a success.