Honestly? Yahtzee and habit. I still have the escapist open as one of my starting tabs but now I use reddit instead if I want to find some news or entertainment apart from the fine Croshaw. Even the forums are either dreadfully boring or just covering old ground.
I guess habit is part of the fact I recognize most members. It's like playing Siege in Australia, I start to recognize players after so many games
I really think that since the escapist starting bleeding talent and the forums dried up, I sort of realized that I can have the same thing but more targeted in subreddits and the like, but I still can't force myself to just drop the Escapist. It was my first actual "community" of sorts, the first forum I frequented for the actual forum and I enjoyed all the content on the front page. I don't think Gamer Gate killed these forums, they weathered it only to die when people realized that there is nothing here to watch apart from month old episodes of shows that are already on YouTube and Yahtzee.
Ah man. Now I'm sad.
EDIT: Also, I guess all the chat groups that a lot of people just disappeared to. I never really got into that but apparently a lot of people disappeared into those groups whenever things went down or just stopped posting in forums instead. I'm still part of the bunker though, I guess, but that was just sort of someone telling everyone the cats were coming every six months.
EDIT: AHHH FUCK I got more to say. I really think one of the big issues/sort of advantages is the Escapist strict rules on attacking other members. This is really why a lot of the debates around here are so passive aggressive you could cut it with a cleaver. While it is intended for debates to be factual arguments, some people don't want to debate and often just straight piss you off, so since you can't be directly mean to them people just started being super passive aggressive. I liked the concept of the rule but it just makes the forums feel shitty now. People need some rage against some form of robotic contraption every now and then.