Gamergate caused rifts sure, but the sheer amount of BANS dealt out to many of an account because they just couldn't seem to grasp the Code of Conduct when it came to that cursed thread and it's subsequent spawn was staggering. A lot of regular posters either left to user groups or off the site entirely because of the toxicity, behind the scenes sabatoge and rumor mills, bans, etc.JohnnyDelRay said:Because GamerGate. Yes, I'm pulling that card. Now, I know there's a lot of eye-rolling going on because of the first 2 words of my post. But ever since that huge rift caused the traffic and number of members to dwindle, there's less people on the forum. Less people means less sharing, joking, arguing, and simply less people reading your posts. Which means you aren't as inclined to put as much effort into them, or even write. Plus all that other shit about getting older. Heck, I'm getting close to 35, I post about as much as I ever have, probably not as much as I would if I was in my teens and had more time, but I been pretty consisted ever since I properly joined and didn't just lurk around.
So whatever it was, I'd say that's why this website and even all the subforums except for Gaming and Off-Topic are all but dead. Hell, the Tech forum seems to be just Gorfias and me trading feedback on builds every few days.
Afterwards those who were new to the site and didn't quite get how serious Escapist is about forum civility then went on to cry about how 'authoritarian' we were on other sites because they couldn't run discussions and throw insults at others like the average comments cancer pit discussions under a Kotaku article.
It didn't help that the Escapist was for a long time woefully behind when it came to gaming news.