As a site GBAtemp has been around for more than 20 years. Starting as a place to share the latest GBA ROMs and later evolving into the forums we know today, we’re a site that lives and dies by its community, and it’s the larger community I’m hoping to reach out to today.

What I’m wanting from this is to see the general thoughts and feelings of the folks that log into the site daily, especially when it comes to reviews, news, and editorial content. The aim of this is to use the feedback we get to better focus our content and hopefully write things people enjoy both reading and engaging with, as well as covering more topics people are genuinely interested in. I'm really wanting this to be an ongoing effort to have the front page better reflect the unique nature of the site, and that starts with this. If you've got any thoughts, you can either reply to this topic, or if you're happy to provide some more guided feedback, @shaunj66 has put together a short feedback form that you can find below. Anybody filling this out will receive 100 XP on the site for their participation, so please do check this out.

Feedback Form

Please note XP is awarded manually and may take a few days to appear on your account.

I will take a moment to clear the air on a few topics I’ve seen come up over time on the forum, if only to save people asking and speculating going forwards. As an editorial team we aren’t compensated for our contributions to the site, be it posting news, bespoke editorial content, or reviews. While we are usually able to keep the things we’ve reviewed, we aren’t paid anything from those providing the items or game codes, nor are we incentivised to score things highly. Each reviewer tackles a game or hardware review as they see fit, with the score being their own decision. The only time I’m aware of where this hasn’t been the case was with our Tears of the Kingdom review, which Costello summarised here for those curious about that.

In terms of revenue streams for the site, GBAtemp is funded by a mixture of account upgrades and advertisements (these provided via Playwire). Sponsored posts have been run in the past, but where they were posted they were clearly marked as such. As things stand today we don’t run sponsored content, nor to we use affiliate links with items we review or cover more generally.

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I also want to thank everybody above who supports the site monetarily, but also those that just keep coming back and contributing. Whether you financially support the site or not, you are an important part of what keeps things running, and I do want to acknowledge that.

If anybody has any questions about the things I’ve said above or about how things run behind the scenes in general, by all means post them too. I’ve always tried to be transparent where people have asked questions, and I’m happy to answer anything to the extent of my knowledge.

 

[Scarlet]

Now beyond the scope of the main post, I wanted to weigh in with my own personal opinions and ideas.

Chief among these would be something of a post rounding up, organising, and summarising press releases for a given week. In my mind this could include AAA updates, upcoming indie games, interesting tech, and even be a place that emulation handhelds could be brought up in a somewhat peaceful way. Where topics garner a lot of attention, future updates on the subject could be revisited as individual posts separate from the roundup. That way relevant topics stay on top, and the roundup-style posting would remain meaningful for not duplicating information. This is something I’ve started to put together, so I’m eager to see if it pans out beyond sounding like a reasonable idea.

Next, I feel like something of a review and editorial content suggestion box could be a nice idea. If there’s a bit of tech or a game you’re particularly curious about, it’s useful for us to know. It’s easy for a lot of interesting stuff to fly under the radar in terms of reviews, and as a team it can sometimes be difficult to see good content beyond our own usual interests. Outside perspectives are always useful. The same goes for editorial content really. If for example you’ve seen me review a handheld and think it’d be good to see a separate post going further in depth on a topic not touched upon as heavily in the review, it’d be great to hear about it. Nobody on the editorial team is paid for their contributions here, and we all have jobs and obligations outside of the site, so we might not be able to cover everything that would be suggested. Having said that, there being direction of what people are actually interested in genuinely helps so much.

My last point will probably be the most controversial, but I really think people need to lay off with the DMCA posts. To me it kills a lot of the spirit for a site like this. It feels like people don’t care about the homebrew projects anymore, or those ROM hacks that people have put copious amounts of effort into. When more than half of the discussion devolves into “inb4 DMCA” instead of actually talking about the topic at hand, I just feel a little defeated. I’m not saying Nintendo or other companies aren’t going to take down fan games, hacks, whatever in the future. When they do there’ll probably be a news post from us saying so; I guess I just want people to actually enjoy these things again. Could we just make a DMCA thread in the General Gaming forum, or even EOF that people can contain this to? I don’t want to be a person to stifle discussion on a forum of all places, but surely people must see they’re already doing this themselves after a certain point?

But yeah, that’s me. I’ve been writing here for the past seven years at this point and I’ve still got a lot to learn. I really like GBAtemp, and I want to write things people are interested in. As I said in the main post I’m happy to answer any questions people might have about how things are run, or how I write my posts. I’m really hoping we can get some good feedback and ideas that we can run with to make the front page something everybody can get onboard with.

 

[linuxares]

@Scarlet I think it would be a good idea to ask what people want to see from reviews. When I look at numbers, it feels like people really don't care for a office chair while a game draws a lot of attention.

 

[CoolMe]

Chief among these would be something of a post rounding up, organising, and summarising press releases for a given week. In my mind this could include AAA updates, upcoming indie games, interesting tech..

This sounds like a good idea.. Though it'd be nice if new tech/hardware releases could be separated in some way from game related announcements/ releases etc. As many don't care about them too much, and would rather see just the news about video games.

Next, I feel like something of a review and editorial content suggestion box could be a nice idea. If there’s a bit of tech or a game you’re particularly curious about, it’s useful for us to know. It’s easy for a lot of interesting stuff to fly under the radar in terms of reviews,

Yea, sure. A sticky thread in "user submitted news" section should do it.

Could we just make a DMCA thread in the General Gaming forum, or even EOF that people can contain this to?

I see your point.. having them posted in the "General Gaming" section isn't a bad idea, but they def shouldn't be in the EoF (imho).

 

[linuxares]

Addium for people that really hate the political section. This is your chance to voice your concern about it now!

 

[Scarlet]

Addium for people that really hate the political section. This is your chance to voice your concern about it now!

Addendum to that to say that people can hide the politics section altogether from their "What's New" feed using the below link:
https://gbatemp.net/account/new-content

 

[CoolMe]

Addium for people that really hate the political section. This is your chance to voice your concern about it now!

I would but, if something happens to the Politics section as result, like getting deleted, those crowd will just migrate elsewhere mainly the EoF, and we (i) can't have that.

 

[linuxares]

I would but, if something happens to the Politics section as result, like getting deleted, those crowd will just migrate elsewhere mainly the EoF, and we (i) can't have that.

I'm ready with a hammer if so *evil laugh*

 

[Hunter]

I mostly lurk these days, but it is still one of my daily refreshes for some console news and the random read of some forum posts and such.

<3 GBAtemp

 

[Captain-Z]

I'd really like it if I wasn't locked out of threads for stating a fact, thanks.

 

[Chellarina]

I just like have something to read sometimes and the news and reviews are great for that.

 

[SecureBoot]

I'm good Scarlet, thanks for asking. how are you?

Oh, you meant the site...

Been checking in almost daily, definitely weekly for nearly 10 (!?) years now. How active I am depends on how interested I am in recent developments but I've been here the whole time. It's comforting to my overstimulated brain that GBATemp maintains the same atmosphere and values since I was 12 (yikes). I swear a lot more now. I probably should chill out with that.

I don't know if it's a new development or something that I've just noticed as I've gotten older, but it seems like there are a lot of cranky people recently. There's the obvious trolls (we all know who I'm talking about), but even on a piece that is highlighting some cool project, or fan game or whatever, I feel like 30% of the comments are negative. Even if there is nothing specifically wrong with it, people will default to it being "pointless" which in the grand scheme of things, this all is. It's video games, not water.

I agree with the sentiment on DMCA jokes. It kills fun discussion about cool projects, but I understand if you don't want to ban them outright. I've never known GBATemp be really strict on what kind of discussion is held, which is why I stick around.

Still, I haven't found a better place to keep me updated on the world of homebrew and hacking. Gbatemp.net was the second link on a long chain that led to my passion of computing, tech, security, and eventually my job now that I've finally graduated college. Thanks for all the fun GBAtemp. Can't wait to follow the Switch 2 exploit scene. Maybe now that I'm not an idiot (mostly), I can follow the technical side a lot closer.

 

[Cranesbill]

Pretty great month actually

 

[SecureBoot]

Addendum to that to say that people can hide the politics section altogether from their "What's New" feed using the below link:
https://gbatemp.net/account/new-content

Forgot to mention this. This was a game changer for me. I have been significantly happier on this site when I could hide that cess pit

 

[Sir Tortoise]

I'd really like it if I wasn't locked out of threads for stating a fact, thanks.

I feel like there must be some context missing here, at least, I've stated facts several times and the cops haven't caught me yet. Maybe it was due to something else, rather than it being a fact?

 

[SecureBoot]

I feel like there must be some context missing here, at least, I've stated facts several times and the cops haven't caught me yet. Maybe it was due to something else, rather than it being a fact?

I thought that this was odd too. Looking into it, he seems really passionate about politics. I'll just leave it there

 

[AlexMCS]

I come here for the memes first. XD
But when the hacking scene is more active, I like to come here for info.

As for gaming news, I usually find them elsewhere first, here's not exactly the fastest when it comes to that, but, at least when it's Nintendo related, the conversations around the posted subject tend to be more interesting.

And I like how the mod team here is not draconian over non-offensive opinions that do not follow the status quo.
Kudos to you all for actually being sensible on moderation, unlike the complete unhinged staff of a certain site that offers FAQs from games.

I also personally like the reviews, whether it's for an inane gadget I'll never use, the latest POCO phone or the newest Ayaneo's Portable PC-of-the-month.

post rounding up,

Now that would be just SWELL.

 

[Maximumbeans]

I don't know if it's a new development or something that I've just noticed as I've gotten older, but it seems like there are a lot of cranky people recently. There's the obvious trolls (we all know who I'm talking about), but even on a piece that is highlighting some cool project, or fan game or whatever, I feel like 30% of the comments are negative. Even if there is nothing specifically wrong with it, people will default to it being "pointless" which in the grand scheme of things, this all is. It's video games, not water.

I came to the comments specifically to say something along these lines. There are certain users who seem to come to news and reviews purely to say ‘I don’t care’ or ‘Boring’.

I know moderation here is very much not heavy handed and I’ve grown to love that about GBAT, but I do think comments like these just need removing. Similar to the DMCA remarks, they just put a downer over everything.

 

[ILuvGames]

@Scarlet I can't go past step 10 on the form. Don't you mean row?

 

[linuxares]

@Scarlet I can't go past step 10 on the form. Don't you mean row?

Is it the multiple balls where you choose which you like most?
I think it might be wrongly made so you need to choose one unique for each.