 Alright, we're gonna talk about NeoGaF gaming forums a little controversy If this isn't really what you come to this channel for I totally understand So feel free to move on to our next video or any other videos we've done in the past but I wanted to talk about this because NeoGaF is near and dear to my heart and For those who don't know what NeoGaF is NeoGaF was a video game forum that gathered game developers Video game media people and just gaming fans together now It was a gated community not anyone could join you would essentially create an account and Pray that a moderator from NeoGaF would approve you and as a gated community There really wasn't any necessarily requirements when it came to be Accepted to the community obviously if you were a game developer or a media member you were more likely to be accepted It took me actually multiple attempts before I got it accepted and I got accepted back when I worked at Zelda Informer and I was accepted on the premise that I'm a member of the media and I went to E3 and yada yada yada so I've been a member of NeoGaF for years and The forum itself started back in 2006 now it actually broke away from another Website and community that was falling down and was founded by a guy who goes by the name evil law His real name is Tyler And we'll get into him in a bit here and for the past 11 years It's been the leading video game forum on the internet now you might think oh what about reddit What about this sort of all that none of it was necessarily as prevalent as NeoGaF in fact because of NeoGaF's unique ability to combine media members fans and actual game developers together on one forum It has often become a source of news for us here at Nintendo Prime a lot of videos I've done I have sourced to NeoGaF either because NeoGaF found out the news first or because NeoGaF had additional information about the news such as translations or Game developer input that wasn't present at the original source So we would often put NeoGaF threads as a source in our news source link on some of our videos Because I felt like it provided greater context than the original source of say the interview or the quote or whatever the news might be now This gets back to a larger point of whether or not I should have been doing that But I felt like I wanted to give you the most informative link I could and NeoGaF was always kind of the place for that now That doesn't mean that there hasn't been controversy at NeoGaF over the years in fact We know there's been controversy with just gaming in general over the years whether it was Gamergate or All the PC and SJW stuff that's gone out there. There's been issues accepting You know transgender and gay people and we all know about the issues accepting women in the video game industry and treating them as equals It's been an ongoing controversy For in gaming in really the world. I mean these controversies aren't exclusive to gaming, but also the Gamergate But yeah, it's it's been issues that NeoGaF has always tackled in a way that I guess a lot of people viewed as highly progressive There definitely were more of a progressive website for better or for worse and Sometimes extremely so in fact if you were someone like me and I tend to ride the fence on a lot of issues because I saw Merits for Gamergate and I saw merits against Gamergate so I kind of just sat in the middle and that actually got me banned at one point because Apparently if you didn't take a strong stance against Gamergate or a strong stance for Gamergate If you took a strong stance for Gamergate, you were banned anyways um You were not Necessarily allowed to have a voice there. You weren't allowed to make an argument for both sides of the fence because you just like in politics sometimes it's really hard when you're involved in political viewpoints where you're trying to take a Stance that sees some merits in what like say Donald Trump is doing and some merits and what people are saying against Donald Trump It's very hard in a community like NeoGaF that is highly progressive Just like it would be how really hard in a community that was how the regressive To sit in the middle So it was always a very hard community for me But I kind of learned over the years to step away from some of the controversial stuff and just focus on what I came to NeoGaF or in the first place and that was just to talk about video games Threads on fire and the Warriors there were just making me smile There were so many official threads and gaming threads and actual news beyond the drama That was just well worth talking about one of my favorite groups actually actually two of my favorite groups kind of funny and Easy allies not gonna focus more than easy allies because the kind of funny crew came from IGN And they've already had like millions of followers through other places like Twitter, but easy allies They were essentially able to become what they did because of largely because of NeoGaF now This isn't to take any credit away from them They are fantastic people that did an amazing job over a game trailers But NeoGaF was the place that had the big Draw of support of thousands upon thousands of people for what they were doing after the closure of game trailers And so easy allies a lot of their backers were you know NeoGaF members or now former NeoGaF members So what happened over this weekend over this past weekend? When I went to find some news on Sunday and you know Sunday is my day of prime comments and stuff One of the first news places I always checked was NeoGaF because they generally would get on top of news Faster than a lot of other outlets out there In fact, it was a very common thing out there for a website to report on something from NeoGaF And then a second thread to show up at NeoGaF about that websites report that actually came from NeoGaF So it was like NeoGaF well report NeoGaF in terms of sourcing it was always always fun times and it actually happened quite often but so they were always one of the first places I went to for news even if I wasn't openly conversing with the community and That was always an interesting thing in that of itself But over the weekend as I went to check news on Sunday the site was offline had a 503 arrow Which is with a 503 error, which is a server error. It basically means that The servers up, but they're not getting a response from say the data the database or something Basically means that someone took down the forums and there was a message up that said it's temporarily down for maintenance And I didn't think much of it at the time. I just figured okay cool I mean NeoGaF is a massive forum one of the biggest forums in the world It's gonna need maintenance once in a while Maybe they decided to upgrade the forum to a newer version and in doing that obviously It's gonna take the place down because there's gonna be bugs and issues that need to work out Well, that's not as the site stayed down throughout the day And I started I started getting into the night of Sunday I Just decided to say NeoGaF into Google and see you know I actually typed in NeoGaF is down and that's when I discovered some allegations that were made against the site's owner the aforementioned Evil Lord and The allegations are pretty bad. They come from a woman who basically claimed that that she was sexually harassed by him And in a pretty bad way not necessarily like he forced himself on her and did anything like that But it got pretty close a kind of the allegation stems that She was at his hotel room and taken a shower and he decided to get naked and get in the shower with her and make advances on her and She kept saying I am not comfortable with this. I have a boyfriend. I don't want you in here Yada yada yada and then after that incident he proceeded to basically treat her like crap and It This is like apparently the second or third or fourth allegation at this point against him It was the second made public. I think a couple more have come out since and I want to make it clear. These are allegations, right? We don't know any facts of the situation and this is why I didn't want to talk about it because It was stated that Evil Lord was going to give a public response at some point today That hasn't happened yet. It might not happen and maybe he's getting sued now or something I have no idea. I don't know what's going on But he decided to take out neo-gaff because neo-gaff was kind of going after him After this allegation came out a bunch of moderators quit like just outright quit they wanted nothing to do with neo-gaff and a lot of members in neo-gaff started pointing out and chastising Evil Lord over this and Well, I didn't personally see this this all happened on Saturday night and I was actually on neo-gaff Saturday night I didn't notice this but a lot of it wasn't happening in the gaming forums It was happening in the community forums if you didn't know a lot of times forums have different sections and gaming was the most prevalent That's why people were there. Then there was like a community section where you could talk about politics or You know your life or in general, right more of a community aspect of things beyond just talking about games And that's where he's getting chastised a lot now a thread did end up popping up with a fake Nintendo direct announcement that was basically aimed at Drawing attention to it in the gaming forum because there's a lot of people like me who visited the gaming forum that did not visit the community forum so might not have it any idea these allegations were even going on as I didn't and In the wake of this It's been just a very interesting thing to me There's like another forum trying to pop up called reset era or something like that supposed to launch today Who knows if that's gonna work out? Honestly, this feels like the death of neo-gap. I don't think regardless of what happens with how progressive Neo-gap was and how progressive even evil or himself has been on Twitter and stuff in the past To have these allegations looming over your head, you know true or not I tend to lead lean towards the true personally because I don't feel like there's any reason that people that I just don't think women are out There to lie and get people When especially when they're in like positions of power like this if they were out to get him and like for money reasons They would be filing a sexual harassment lawsuit and actually go after his money But just bringing the allegations forward and drawing attention to it I think it's just a means of Of finally having the strength to come forward now. Obviously she could be lying I don't know her personally. I have no reason to vouch for her But these allegations in the past have kind of tended towards being true and this is happening now You know, we all know about what's happening with Weinstein and and just a lot of stuff happening out there in terms of these Allegations and a lot of facts coming out proving their truth. So I'm gonna lean towards the truth side here So it's hard for me to say I'm sad to see the neo-gap go Since it was feeding his pocket neo-gap had a very small amount of ads on it But those ads were enough to make it so evil Lord didn't have to work Right and not just didn't have to work You could travel the world and was making lots of money off of neo-gap, which most people didn't mind right like it's okay to make Money off as something that you run but To make money on a place that prides itself and be a progressive while the owner is definitely not acting in the correct light in respect to women is Obviously counter-intuitive and a lot of neo-gap members are never gonna go back to neo-gap Even if he finds a way to bring the forums back They're probably never gonna be what they were a lot of game developers and games media people are gonna distance themselves from neo-gap in a hurry Myself probably included. I might check it out just to see what happens in the aftermath But I doubt I'm going to be sourcing anything from neo-gap anymore even if I end up finding news there first I'm not gonna give them any extra press beyond this video. It's Not until we know what happened if it turns out that she lied and that this is all made-up stuff and You know, he's a victim then okay, but until proven otherwise We're gonna go to safe route and just leave neo-gap out of future discussions, but I Don't know what's gonna happen with reset era. I don't think reset era is gonna do anything. I think at this point My dream has always been to have a gaming forum that brought developers publishers and gamers together and unfortunately Well as neo-gap got worse and worse over the years and drove away a lot of content creators You know, we'll be at youtubers for having different opinions For a place that prided itself on open discussion and willing to accept many different opinions that ended up generally not being true and I I'm almost sad in a way to see neo-gap go to because neo-gap represented the only true chance to bring game developers Game makers and Games media and fans together even in a gated way. It was like the only place to do that so regardless of what happens with this supposedly You know disc reset era thing that was founded by the discord group for neo-gap I don't think anything is gonna rebuild that. I don't think there's any way to make another neo-gap in 2017 I think that with neo-gap gone my dream of having an all-encompassing forum like that is Done and it sucks and it sucks because I've always liked forums I don't not many of you know this we actually have nintendo prime forums. They are not skinned right now We have someone working on a skim behind the scenes But if you go to forums dot nintendo prime net you'll see an envision pro board community that I own I actually have a lifetime license for the envision power Software and it's not skinned but we have a nintendo discussion board and I in wake of this I decide you know what I want to encourage people to go there because often times I see people in our comments even on our discord at times be like hey, Nate. Have you seen this news? Hey, have you seen this? Hey, have you seen that? Let's do that at our forums. Let's let's make our forum community and our community at nintendo prime Be all about bringing that news to attention because well, yes we had internal problem that that has news posts, but without me Sometimes those news posts don't go live because I approve of everything So what I want to make these forums be is I want to kind of make them our little own nintendo I hate seeing neo-gap at this point, but nintendo neo-gap kind of forum I want all of you guys to go there. They are open. I don't I do not privatize them You do not need manual approval to be part of the community. We currently don't have any rules But the general rules that I would say for the forums the same ones I kind of hold here You know, don't be a dick. It's pretty simple. Just don't be a dick You can have different opinions and very you've seen in our comment section. I'll have varying opinions with different people That's fine, but don't attack people is essentially the general rule there. Don't be a dick and don't attack people But let's make that the nintendo discussion board a place where we gather news as a community and talk about it And then lo and behold, maybe I'll start being able to source your guys's very own post and give you personally credit for finding that news In the videos we make here on YouTube. I would like to make that a nintendo gaff and we As a community can make that happen now. There's gonna be other more popular outlets There's gonna be a lot of people trying to take advantage of the fat neo gaff is gone And I don't really maybe that's what I'm doing here. I guess but I view it more as I miss having a forum That has a place to discuss this stuff and I've checked out several other Gaming forums and nintendo forums over the last 24 hours. None of them provide to me what I felt neo gaff did And while we might not ever get game developers or games media on our forums Who knows I could see some indie developers and such if our forums get popular enough that are gonna want to come There and check out and talk to us about their games I know some indie developers. Maybe we can make a push to be like Hey, look if you've thought about posting about your game on our forums And getting some feedback on it more directly there instead of waiting for us to make a youtube video on it Or whatever the case may be so I hope that all of you guys consider going to forums not nintendo prime net and Trying to make it a bit of a nintendo gaff as I said Reporting on news that you haven't seen us talk about yet in regards to Nintendo and each news you find like is worthy of a new thread If this starts to work out I'll probably flush out the rule set a little bit just in terms of how we want to present the news How you know what kind of news is worthy of a new thread? But for now, let's just head on over there and have a good time I'm gonna miss neo gaff for what its promise was not necessarily what it ultimately was at the end of the day I'm going to miss it. It's sad that it's gone, but you know if these allegations are true It probably the site probably should have never been around in the first place And it sucks because we my whole life and wanting a community like that Every community I've been a part of seems to fall apart because the people running it just turn out not to be very good people and Whatever you might hear on the internet about me And some people who dislike me. I think in general I've turned over a leaf I've been honest. I recently did a live stream where I went over some of you know Not some of basically my entire dark history and some of the bad things I've done in the past and Surprisingly a lot of the people watching were we're understanding We all make mistakes. We all do things for various reasons And as long as you know, you're willing to accept that it was a mistake and that you would do do You know do things differently if you could do it again I think that that's a big sign that I've changed So I'm hoping that you guys check out forums at and center find on that And start, you know treating it like our little version our little corner of the internet our little Nintendo gaff Getting the threads going getting the conversations going bringing the conversations off of even YouTube and extending them there because YouTube after like a day or two the conversation kind of dies out whereas like on a forum We can keep that conversation like a Super Mario odyssey We could have a launch thread for Super Mario odyssey and just keep that conversation going for months on end instead of having it Vanish after like one video here on the channel Anyways folks, I am Nathaniel Ruffalo Jans from Nintendo Prime if you like this video You know what to do and if you dislike the video hit that dislike button again a bit of an oddball Video today, but they I'd thank you for anyone who's made it here to the end and you know what folks I'll catch you in the next one