Support NeoGAF

[Dr_Salt]

Paid email, past SJW agenda, the fact that you could get banned from this place for stating a perfectly valid and respectful opinion if the mods thought it was "hatespeech".

 

[hroerekr]

I never wanted to use my work email.
Policy change made me reconsider.

 

[ReBurn]

Back when I joined I waited like 3 months to be approved and then one day there was a message that there was an error and all pending accounts were deleted and people had to sign up again. Then it took another month after that to get approved.

 

[The Hamburglar]

I’ve been wondering why it took you
So long to join, now I know.

 

[Rillania]

I can't even remember the year I started lurking GAF, but it was early '00s era. Back then, I was more into the chatroom scene (RIP Top 50/100, AIM, and MSN messenger), MSN communities, and forums that were more centered around niche stuff like Hongfire and JAST. When chatrooms and messengers started to wane and slowly die out, I ended up just sticking to the communities I was already a part of and lurking in several places. I have taken on many forms during my internet life, lol.

Lurking here was satisfactory to me and I just never felt a drive to attempt to join, especially since I was already fairly involved in other corners of the internet through the decades. The reason I ended up finally deciding to join was spurred on by the whole Cyberpunk fiasco on Era (where I lurked too but stopped after that). Thought it was complete and utter bull so I decided to come out of the shadows to voice my support for Black Chamber. Glad I did, as I've met some pretty cool folks here so far in my short time.

 

[Jokerevo]

Covid boredom.

 

[clintar]

When I was finally allowed to join, it might have had something to do with my email, but I had no idea anything about why. I think I applied or whatever for like a year and a half before I got an account. That was a while ago. It seemed like some unknown thing you had to just know about somehow to get in. My friend kept asking me if I ever was allowed an account, and we'd just keep laughing about it trying to figure out why I couldn't get in.

 

[Shakka43]

Lurker since 06ish due to no paid email. Once I got one I used it to join early days Resetera, after a year or so there I asked mod to delete my account and officially joined here.

 

[KungFucius]

School, work, or ISP email is better way of phrasing I suppose.

I hated that too and it kept me off Resetera which basically copied everything from here. I guess that was a good thing.

 

[Kerlesly]

Been a lurker since 2008 joined last year.. Email policy i think was the reason tried now same email and it went thru

 

[Unknown?]

wat does everyone mean by paid email account? i simply use gmail

Enjoy Google scanning all of your mail for ads and profiling, I guess.

 

[AJUMP23]

Most message boards I posted on were not bastions of free thought. You had to tow a leftist slant or get harassed by posters and mods.

I lurked here and saw that diversity of thought was allowed even if a lot of it was foolish so I thought I would join the fray.

 

[Sota4077]

so it was basically pay to get membership

It was a fantastic way to keep absolute shitbags from joining the site though.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

No paid email. Eventually they allowed protonmail.

What are you hiding?

 

[BigBooper]

I tried to get approved a few times before the great schism, but I guess they didn't like my email address. I tried a couple of different paid ones.

 

[Bernkastel]

What are you hiding?

I dont have paid email(the one I have from office shows my real name). At one point they allowed protonmail but still blocked other public emails.

 

[DarkMage619]

There was nothing that was going to keep me from the most awesome gaming community!

 

[Grinchy]

I probably found out about the forum in 2005 or so. My first attempt at joining may have been 2007 or 2008. I'd see links posted for neogaf threads at the TeamXbox forum and the PS3Forums.

It took years to be rejected a couple times because of using bad email addresses before using a school-based one and getting in back in 2010.

 

[Closer]

so i was a lurker since 2004 and wanted to get an account on gaf,for games and shit but i thought u had to pay to get a membership.so wats ur reason for joining neogaf late?

SonyGAF is barely bearable these days. Way back before Wii days they were insufferable.

 

[HE1NZ]

I got another 3 day ban on 4chan, stumbled here and found out the retarded email requirement is no more. The place turned out to be chill too and they hate reeeEra here, so I stayed.

 

[Sander Cohen]

Ridiculous email thing and long confirmation process. I guess they wanted that just in case they can snitch to your boss or school if you say something unacceptable. Lurked there and used Gamefaqs and very popular Croatian gaming forum to post.

 

[kikii]

found out this site last year cause didnt know this kind of site exist been using finnish sites and n4g <<<

 

[TLZ]

I basically didn't know Neogaf existed until 2014 I think? I was only on PES forums before that PES Insight and Evoweb.

I think it was the Switch rumors that got me here. I applied with my work email and that took maybe 3,4,5 months? Til I was approved.

 

[Kev Kev]

I had no paid email account back in the day. So I lurked for years before joining.

i remember when i went back to school in 2011 and one day was suddenly like "oh shit i can get a neogaf account now!" id been lurking for years before that, dreaming of nerding out with stinkles, asking him all my halo related questions. *sigh* if only i could go back and explain a few things to that young, naive, sweet summer child... if only... lol

 

[NikuNashi]

Joined in 2013 just before evo. Posted a few thoughts and got dogpiled on by dicks calling me a junior and being derogatory. Lurked after that until said dicks migrated to the asylum and started being more active.

 

[Ailynn]

After many years of lurking, I was finally able to join in October 2017.

I'm happy to have found a place to call home here!

 

[kingwingin]

For years I was on cloudchaser/xenogamers and they would always just copy threads/news from here. Not sure why i never just came to gaf.

After cloud chaser I lurked here for years, never had access to a paid email. my girlfriend at the time opened up this account for my birthday.

 

[Superkewl]

I lurked for like 6 years. I cant remember what it was that compelled me to create an account, but glad I did because I don't think I could come here any more without the ignore features.

 

[Merkades]

I did not really care, still don't but whatever. Also, I have my cesspool gamefaqs I can read and still do, at times (12 years there and 1 topic made). I am not sure how long I was lurking before joining I probably joined more out of spite to Era and even then I was slow to do it.

 

[fran.fernandez]

Even with paid account they won’t let me in.

Racist

 

[EdKeen]

Initially it was the paid email but then it became the overly sensitive, hyper politically correct community. Steered clear of it until the great shake up occurred and piqued my interest. Once I saw the trash took itself out, I was happy to join.

Ditto. Joined a long time ago, never posted due to the hyperpolitical atmosphere. Now that the exodus occurred, I feel like the discussion is more interesting and productive, and worth participating in. (Seeing screenshots on why some users are banned from ResetEra confirms this nearly every day.)

 

[Grumpy Toe Nail]

so i was a lurker since 2004 and wanted to get an account on gaf,for games and shit but i thought u had to pay to get a membership.so wats ur reason for joining neogaf late?

Didn't have an email i could use. Forget how many years i lurked for.

 

[ShirAhava]

To be honest I was spooked!

In those days members were being assaulted by red, blue and yellow wireframe men

The pictures were quite graphic!

 

[Wulfer]

My account was recently resurrected after a long slumber. I'm happy with the new changes, another location is too toxic. I'm really glad to be back!

 

[Intoxicate]

Had lost interest in gaming when I started to work. My job more or less became my hobby. With the Switch I got back. Some Nintendo rumors lead to Resetera where I joined but got in trouble due to their strange way of handling opinions and humor. When Neogaf got more active again I moved.

 

[Kerotan]

No paid email.

 

[Alex Anderson]

It didn't exist yet

 

[rofif]

It required paid email. Wtf was that

 

[Stiflers Mom]

I had no paid email account back in the day. So I lurked for years before joining.

This.. What a pain in the ass that was..

 

[TLZ]

Joined in 2013 just before evo. Posted a few thoughts and got dogpiled on by dicks calling me a junior and being derogatory. Lurked after that until said dicks migrated to the asylum and started being more active.

Yea that junior bs always got to me. I'd see it randomly dished out in the means of being dismissive of another's opinion, regardless if it's right or wrong.

 

[Dr.brain64]

I like reading, seldom do I leave a comment. Lurking is my strength

 

[Longcat]

Already been said several times, but needing fancy email, and my friend told me you literally had to wait for years to get approved. Couldn't be arsed.

 

[MayauMiao]

Paid email, it was a ridiculous requirement since my ISP don't provide such thing anymore.

 

[tusharngf]

i lurked the forum for 5 odd years and never got my account approved. After that i got 3yrs ago.

 

[Rayderism]

Honestly, I felt intimidated. GAF seemed like a forum for devs, programmers and the gaming elite (or something like that) to discuss stuff, not for "just some gamer" to simply talk about games. Even though I'm among the first generation of gamers, I didn't feel I was "important" enough to be accepted here. I guess that feeling might have come from when I tried to register here some years ago and it was seemingly just ignored. I thought that maybe I just wasn't worthy. (shrug)

I was desperate to find some gaming sites to hangout on. I don't do social media sites like Facebook or Twitter or any of those, only forums (I'm just very old-school that way). I even registered at that other site (though that place kinda disturbs me after seeing some of the ridiculous crap they get triggered over) and many other sites I found seemed like they had very little activity. Sites like GameFAQs, while having high activity, have degenerated quite a bit over the years and I was looking for sites that not only had high activity, but were more serious and less troll infested.

After the mass exodus that caused that other site to be created, I figured I'd try again. And here I am. Happy to be here. It's nice to be able to discuss games, get gaming news and have opposing viewpoints without things degenerating into hateful trolling or vicious personal attacks....well, at least not so often or as nasty anyway. I appreciate that and plan to be here for many years to come.

There's more stuff I could continue rambling on about, but no one likes a wall of text, so I'll stop here. Cheers!

 

[Mexen]

I had just never heard of it prior to joining.

Remember N4G? They kept posting GAF threads. This was peak GAF when you had to wait months or years to get in.
I applied. 8 months later, I was a junior.

 

[UnNamed]

My english. Back then it was pretty bad, I had lot of struggle to write a phrase. Even today I made some mistake.

 

[Salmon Snake]

I was a lurker somewhere around 2014 to 2019 when I finally made an account.
I was mostly looking for news about video games.

 

[Phobos Base]

I would never join any site where you needed a paid email. Why would I dox myself and run the risk of my relatives and employers being contacted if I made any"problematic" posts?

 

[turtlepowa]

At first reading only was enjoyable, but after some time i needed an ignore list badly for some die hard fanboy warriors.