The initial blog posting got a bigger responce than I had hoped. For the most part, it was all honest and constructive debate that easily surpassed any article posted so far that week in terms of discussion.
I'd like to clarify a few things that were mentioned within the comments as I was unfortunately unable to comment at the time due to a 7 day ban. It would also be worth seeing if we can take this conversation further beyond those points because clearly, this is a topic on the mind of many.
First and foremost, I do not believe in heavy censorship of the comments section. Its important for people to be able to express their opinion regardless of it being shared by the rest of the community. The issue for me personally is when individuals only choose to express negative opinions in a consistent manner with the sole intention being to stoke the flames, derailing conversation and inciting arguments. Debates are a different thing. A debate, or true conversation can be had when a comment has some substance to it regardless of it being negative or positive. This isn't about shutting down opposing opinion, its about harvesting better conversation alongside fairer moderation.
Some of the admins and a handful of the community may not regard this as trolling. By definition, they are. Somebody whose sole purpose is to incite hate, upset or anger. Now, as some pointed out, we could just ignore these people and you are right. On the flip side of that coin, those same people could just not do it which solves the issue at the source. The ones who like true conversation shouldn't be punished or told to suck it up because thats the easy option. For reference, I haven't been upset or angered by any "Troll". I'm on this path due to the admins unfair and seemingly sporadic treatment which resulted in my banning but remaining ability to blog as an outlet.
Secondly, if what seems to be the majority (correct me if I'm wrong here) agree with the sentiment and have also been voicing their own opinions regarding what they believe to be poor administration + loss of control in the comments. What is the path forward? How do we as a community continue to build and push N4G to be a more solid community whilst retaining its openess?
The bubble system of old was great. It has been pointed out that it was open to abuse, which I do agree with.
One of the admins alongside a few members of the community believe that removing the dislike button could help in some cases as it only serves to cloud judgment for others. Building on this same idea, what if the like and dislike tally was hidden until you added your count to it? No sway then.
What if there was a new system that encouraged people to be more constructive in their comments? A system that meant rather than be banned from commenting on the website, you were muted from the article and similar tagged articles for x amount of days?
Alas, I have no idea how much time and effort the owners want to put into this website or even who is in charge. Maybe this in itself is something that could be explored more so that the community have more of an insight as to who has what jurisdiction. By doing this, we could look to generate better gateways for all round improvements.
What I do know is that I love N4G which is why I have a passion to see it continue to flourish.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
The bubble system in the past was good, but this site leans heavily pro Sony and anyone who didn't tow that line had one bubble. Notorious troll posters also had one bubble, but you had to be extremely blatant and annoying to drop to one bubble.
The bubble system may be gone but the heavy handed bans are even worse, make a joke about a certain popular console and you're gone. Use certain terminology that a certain admin doesn't like, and you're gone. Admin responds to your post and your follow up isn't to his liking? You're gone.
In terms of solutions, there isn't going to be a one size fits all because any system is going to get abused both by trolls and by the admins.
When the writer asks for a real conversation the are 2 responses. When the writes posts something dramatic there are 220 responses. The interesting thing is that people do not understand what they actually like and their idea of what they like. This is kind of hilarious, if you think about it.
I pays to allow "trolling" and other controversy. This why they post console sales numbers and other like articles. They are both the problem and the solution. This also should be funny.
Lastly, The admins are more empirical than rational. I am not sure there is a way to fix this. It's completely normal and human.
This
The issue for me personally is when individuals only choose to express negative opinions in a consistent manner with the sole intention being to stoke the flames, derailing conversation and inciting arguments.
Especially the ones who rush to be the first comment on the articles for the opposite side. We ALL know who they are too, as much as they pretend to be unbiased. Click 10 articles and you will notice a trend w certain individuals. Those are the problems.