SquallStrife wrote:

I don't mind the Slashdot layout. It's much cleaner than the old one, but at the same time less sterile feeling. Maybe driving away some of the crotchety old Linux-as-a-religion sysadmin types will attract a fresh crowd.

If your way of attracting a fresh crowd is going style-over-substance and bloating up the layout, with useless images that take up more screen real-estate than the actual content and slow .js for eye-candy, then you're doing it wrong.
The designer responsible for the MG fiasco has finally posted on the forums, and pretty much admitted a "personal failure", and yet they're keeping the current layout anyway. If they're that insistent on shooting themselves in the foot, my contributions are ready to go elsewhere as soon as there is such a place.

At least GameFAQs has somehow managed to endure even long after its buyout – at least for now. You'd think other people might learn from their example.

VileRancour wrote:

IT IS THE FUTURE! […]
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IT IS THE FUTURE!

Ugh.

You sir, just caused the entire forum to wince. Good job! :B

What's extremely scary though is the number of places that ARE taking that kind of approach... >_<;;;

Malik wrote:

http://cdn.hitfix.com/photos/2551070/Uhura-and-Scotty-look-like-someone-just-died.jpg […]
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VileRancour wrote:

IT IS THE FUTURE! […]
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IT IS THE FUTURE!

Ugh.

how appropriate. The iPhonization of Star Trek.

VileRancour wrote:

Here, this was done in 20 minutes or so, like all designs of this kind probably are. […]
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vetz wrote:

Atleast we still have Vogons 😀 Not any Iphone crap here so far

Here, this was done in 20 minutes or so, like all designs of this kind probably are.

It has tiles! It has shitty clashing colors! It uses Segoe UI! It has BIG images! It takes two pages to show what can be shown in two rows of text! It's social!
IT IS THE FUTURE!

Ugh.

Not to mention that the table of MT-32 supported games is jacked.

http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,35/p,2/

VileRancour wrote:

http://i.imgur.com/a7U0DNps.png […]
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MY EEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jorpho wrote:

At least GameFAQs has somehow managed to endure even long after its buyout – at least for now. You'd think other people might learn from their example.

The only offensive thing about the GameFAQs redesign was their choice of font.

If GameFly was serious about the redesign they would've hired whoever coded GameFAQs' redesign. It was very well done. But nooooooooooo. Why bother, they only wanted Moby's game database for their store.

VileRancour wrote:

The designer responsible for the MG fiasco has finally posted on the forums, and pretty much admitted a "personal failure", and yet they're keeping the current layout anyway.

Hmm, looks like I missed a major development there...

http://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,4/d … ,181781/#181853
"The fact that we've lost the support of the approvers I can't consider anything less than a failure on my part though, and for that I'm sorry."

VileRancour wrote:

http://www.mobygames.com/forums/dga,2/dgb,4/d … ,181781/#181853
"The fact that we've lost the support of the approvers I can't consider anything less than a failure on my part though, and for that I'm sorry."

And it only took him almost 20 days to make a statement. Anyone else would've addressed the problem immediately.

One of the worst parts is that Jim/Trixter is STILL writing as though he's an employee of Gamefly, despite his insistence that he is "left Mobygames" and that he "has nothing to do with it anymore". Corn Popper, Jim,...etc are all the same.. He is not an employee, but he's contradicting himself. His writings are more favourable towards the Gamefly's interests, not the true contributors of Mobygames.

Of course, Corn Popper's writings on the other hand, are blatant disregard against those who have been "passionate" about the site.

We have a saying ... you can forgive your enemy, but you can never forgive a traitor....

They are still not listening to the "passionate" pleas by those who were really "passionate" about the real site.

The new site is not even a site. It's like what's left after an earthquake.

Malik wrote:

They are still not listening to the "passionate" pleas by those who were really "passionate" about the real site.

Pretty sure "passionate" is being used as a nice word for "abusive".

And they're right to not respond to abusive PM's, emails, or comments too, you can't reward that kind of behaviour no matter what it's over.

SquallStrife wrote:

Malik wrote:

They are still not listening to the "passionate" pleas by those who were really "passionate" about the real site.

Pretty sure "passionate" is being used as a nice word for "abusive".

And they're right to not respond to abusive PM's, emails, or comments too, you can't reward that kind of behaviour no matter what it's over.

Thought of adding my points further to the "passionate" thingy, but you're a good friend (even if we have differing opinions - Windows 8 for e.g.) and I don't want to make the topic go up in flames. 🤣

Anyway, it's the contributors who have been abused and deprived, while people like Corn Popper is just playing dumb and the helpless "middle guy", after selling the soul...err....site to the dev...errr...Gamefly. If he's paid to keep his mouth shut, I guess it's working well for him, either way too.

SquallStrife wrote:

Malik wrote:

They are still not listening to the "passionate" pleas by those who were really "passionate" about the real site.

Pretty sure "passionate" is being used as a nice word for "abusive".

And they're right to not respond to abusive PM's, emails, or comments too, you can't reward that kind of behaviour no matter what it's over.

While it is true that some of the core members of MG have said harsh words about the whole situation, the attitude of "we did some mistakes but other people were rude about it so it makes us right" cannot be justified.

Having only joined the MG community over a year ago, I cannot boast to have good personal knowledge of the people like YID YANG and others who have been "passionate" about the redesign, however I am very certain that the harsh words on their part can only be regarded as a measure of severity of the state into which MobyGames was plunged by the flawed redesign.

Your post above, however, seems to imply that the people who were outraged at the changes they did not ask for having been dropped onto them without their consent or advance knowledge, and then being entirely neglected by those who did it, are nothing but a bunch of abusive kids who cannot communicate their unjustified discontent in any way other than rude posts that any sane person should ignore. That is certainly not the case and I cannot agree with you.

Malik wrote:

Thought of adding my points further to the "passionate" thingy, but you're a good friend (even if we have differing opinions - Windows 8 for e.g.) and I don't want to make the topic go up in flames. 🤣

😀

Malik wrote:

Anyway, it's the contributors who have been abused and deprived, while people like Corn Popper is just playing dumb and the helpless "middle guy", after selling the soul...err....site to the dev...errr...Gamefly. If he's paid to keep his mouth shut, I guess it's working well for him, either way too.

Having not used MobyGames much, I'm not quite so emotionally invested in it as others. I'm not really familiar with how the story has unfolded either, I've just seen "passionate" used that way before.

MrFlibble wrote:

While it is true that some of the core members of MG have said harsh words about the whole situation, the attitude of "we did some mistakes but other people were rude about it so it makes us right" cannot be justified.

That's not the attitude I'm seeing there. The way I understood it was they're ignoring abusive comments. Which is fine, since most of the posts I've seen have been pretty reasonable.

MrFlibble wrote:

Your post above, however, seems to imply that the people who were outraged at the changes they did not ask for having been dropped onto them without their consent or advance knowledge, and then being entirely neglected by those who did it, are nothing but a bunch of abusive kids who cannot communicate their unjustified discontent in any way other than rude posts that any sane person should ignore. That is certainly not the case and I cannot agree with you.

🤣

I think you're reading waaayyy too much into what I said.

I just meant that (A) I've known people in the past to use "passionate" as a tactful way to say "abusive", and (B) if people are in fact being abusive, then it's fair enough that they're being ignored, because that's not on.

Nothing else is implied. Chill.

Malik wrote:

One of the worst parts is that Jim/Trixter is STILL writing as though he's an employee of Gamefly

No, I am not. I am simply calling for reason. I don't understand why people think abandoning the project less than a month after the redesign is sane. Obviously gamefly made a huge mistake, but they are a corporation and it takes corporations a long time to react.

I am not defending GF's actions. I think the redesign was a mistake, and I think not communicating with the community was a mistake.

MobyGamer wrote:

Malik wrote:

One of the worst parts is that Jim/Trixter is STILL writing as though he's an employee of Gamefly

No, I am not. I am simply calling for reason. I don't understand why people think abandoning the project less than a month after the redesign is sane. Obviously gamefly made a huge mistake, but they are a corporation and it takes corporations a long time to react.

I am not defending GF's actions. I think the redesign was a mistake, and I think not communicating with the community was a mistake.

What Jim said. An important thing some people don't realize is that these big corporations don't want to lose the people who enjoy their services, since in Gamefly's case with MobyGames, they make their money on the advertising they sell, but if their numbers aren't good then the advertisers won't be willing to pay top dollar for the ad space and thus the company doesn't get as much money as they want.

At the same time though, large companies are often highly disconnected from the people they provide products and services for since the people at the top of the chain rarely have contact with the consumers (especially when it comes to publically traded companies) and it takes a situation as is happening now, where hit counts plummet, to get these people to notice something's wrong and to take action.

Gamefly does not want to intentionally screw up MobyGames, I can assure everyone of this since the mistakes being made right now are going to cost them ad revenue and profitability in the long run. The community has spoken though and the hit counts are dropping. Now that they know they've screwed up, with a little luck, they'll take actions to remedy the situation. I don't think they'll bring the old design back but I wouldn't be surprised if they tweak the new design to function more like the old one did.

One way or another, because of what's going on right now, they're either going to fix the place up or shut it down, and since shutting it down would be incredibly difficult to do without REALLY (I mean, far more so than now) drawing in scorn from the gaming community (not to mention upsetting the advertisers who've paid money to run their ads on the place) I don't think they'll do that.

...yeah, I'm an optimist. :D

Gemini000 wrote:

What Jim said. An important thing some people don't realize is that these big corporations don't want to lose the people who enj […]
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MobyGamer wrote:

Malik wrote:

One of the worst parts is that Jim/Trixter is STILL writing as though he's an employee of Gamefly

No, I am not. I am simply calling for reason. I don't understand why people think abandoning the project less than a month after the redesign is sane. Obviously gamefly made a huge mistake, but they are a corporation and it takes corporations a long time to react.

I am not defending GF's actions. I think the redesign was a mistake, and I think not communicating with the community was a mistake.

What Jim said. An important thing some people don't realize is that these big corporations don't want to lose the people who enjoy their services, since in Gamefly's case with MobyGames, they make their money on the advertising they sell, but if their numbers aren't good then the advertisers won't be willing to pay top dollar for the ad space and thus the company doesn't get as much money as they want.

At the same time though, large companies are often highly disconnected from the people they provide products and services for since the people at the top of the chain rarely have contact with the consumers (especially when it comes to publically traded companies) and it takes a situation as is happening now, where hit counts plummet, to get these people to notice something's wrong and to take action.

Gamefly does not want to intentionally screw up MobyGames, I can assure everyone of this since the mistakes being made right now are going to cost them ad revenue and profitability in the long run. The community has spoken though and the hit counts are dropping. Now that they know they've screwed up, with a little luck, they'll take actions to remedy the situation. I don't think they'll bring the old design back but I wouldn't be surprised if they tweak the new design to function more like the old one did.

One way or another, because of what's going on right now, they're either going to fix the place up or shut it down, and since shutting it down would be incredibly difficult to do without REALLY (I mean, far more so than now) drawing in scorn from the gaming community (not to mention upsetting the advertisers who've paid money to run their ads on the place) I don't think they'll do that.

...yeah, I'm an optimist. 😁

With MS pushing so hard for everyone to accept the Windows 8 interface as the new normal, I can't see any website that is designed to look good when viewed within that interface to change any time soon. I think you are being overly optimistic in this case. The best way for community members to make their displeasure known is to move on to another vintage game related site and repost their material there. As you said, when ad revenues take a hit they will realize they screwed up big time but if people still continue to support the site like normal then they will have no incentive to change anything.

sliderider wrote:

With MS pushing so hard for everyone to accept the Windows 8 interface as the new normal, I can't see any website that is designed to look good when viewed within that interface to change any time soon.

Except it DOESN'T look good when viewed that way. ;D

Yes, I am on Windows 8. It looks just as ridiculous in a regular browser window as it does using IE10 in live tiles mode. :P