Almost 7 years ago I was at work looking for a way to kill time. Loving video games, I decided to type videogames.com into the web browser and thus I ended up here on GameSpot. I stumbled upon the forums looking for information about a game, (don't ask me which one because I'll be damned if I can remember) instead I found a great community of people.

Patrick, N3MO, Mete, and JonathanL welcomed me with open arms and thus my times on the GS boards began. Starting out as humble JMravlja_Basic with a crapload of numbers after the "basic," I started getting the hang of the boards. I spent much of my time in GGD where it was common to see the moderators and admin interact with the forum population and get into some great game discussion.. As the site grew the boards changed, each iteration becoming better, allowing us to do more things, be a little more individualistic and really getting to know the people we spent the majority of time with.

Eventually I was given the honor of becoming a moderator and while the site had taken a downturn, in my opinion, in regards to user/mod/admin interaction I couldn't help but think that I could make a difference in trying to rekindle the interactions that had been lost. My first order of business was to find a board that had been pretty much neglected. That didn't take long as I noticed OT was in need of some intervention.

OT was and is a great board, maybe not as great as it once was, but there are some great people still there. It's always been seen as the bastard child of GS but there are some great conversations to be had and more importantly some great friends to be made. I made probably what will be the closest friend I'll ever have there, *Looks at Ms Sands and then kicks her* along with so many great people that I'd get tired just trying to name you all. But you all know who you are. I loved joking, talking and getting to each and every one of you. Anyway....it all comes down to this simple thing.

I'm leaving. GameSpot just isn't the site that I fell in love with long ago. While there are still some great people to meet, it just isn't the same. More and more the site spirals into becoming an overbearing bland shell of it's former self. Great users are suspended; banned for making jokes that are easily recognizable as jokes if the mod team would bother reading the context of what is said. But therein lies the issue. The Mods and Admin just don't care about the users anymore. Less and less do they bother to take the time to get to know anyone instead they prefer to spend their time moderating out of a queue that does nothing but pop up an infraction if someone reads something that they don't agree with and reports it. Admin are more rare than a copy of Nintendo World Championships: Gold Edition and when they do appear it's usually in a superficial "Hi" and "bye" manner.

The last straw came with the firing of Jeff and now the subsequent departures of the last few respectable reviewers GameSpot had. Sorry GS....I know it's not your fault but CNet screwed you, and not even in the good way. In my eyes your credibility is shot and now without a stable community, a mod team that is sub par (there are some good ones left so don't think that this is to everyone) and Admin that doesn't show it's face on the boards. I just have nothing to stay here for.

If any of you want to talk to me please feel free to join me on my own site http://www.gamersperspective.com/ and it's forums it's just starting out....it doesn't have all the bells and whistles that GS has (yet) but it has an Admin team that will never be out of reach, a solid bunch of users on our boards and a dedication to always being there for their users. And to everyone that voted for me and will vote for me on the OTcars....thank you. It's always been an honor to be respected amongst my fellow users. I will stop back in to read the results. But it wont be as a logged in user.

Good luck to everyone and I hope to see you on my site......