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Nintendo Age Is No More…
The site that once brought me to so many new friends and fellow collectors has been sold and re-purposed 😥. I honestly understand purchasing the site, but trying to change it to a new blog and killing all the collection tools has the fans and old members in an uproar!
I decided to go log in as it had been a few months to take a look, and unfortunately all my collection saves and NA photos where gone. Part of this is my bad for not saving them on my computer, but I also had no idea the site was going to be purged and put up somewhere else. Even though the old site was built on a special coding that only someone like Dain (the old owner) could handle and understand, it still had decent functionality. The new platform is…well…not as good in my opinion. The sad part is that the way it was transferred over also doesn’t help the new website. There are 404 errors galore! I know they saved the old threads, but it is very hard to get to them especially through Google search now.
From the looks of it there are some other forums popping up hoping to save some of the members and give them a place to go, so I commend these sites and people! It is not easy nor inexpensive to host a decent size forum platform that is well built with good functionality.
What Can Be Done Matt?
Good question, Having been a part of NintendoAge since 2008 (2 years after it started), I have nothing but good memories of it. I have gladly represented them at 10 years of gaming expos and helped when asked. Can it still be saved? I believe so. Maybe the new owners will hear the dismay of others and figure something out. If not, maybe a replacement is necessary.
It may take some time to figure out the details and my blog here is not the place to do it, that is for sure (this is my private place to share my thoughts 😜). With everything said, I understand from the new owners point of view what they are trying to do as well so I’m not bashing anyone by any means, just stating what has happened. The new owner is actually a really nice guy.
Why Was NA So Special?
Community. It always trumps everything else. NA had a great community of committed people who loved to have a place to go to talk about and share Nintendo. So much fun, laughter, and sharing was had over the last 13 years. There were special “Campouts”, gatherings, and meetups all over the US because of it. Not to mention, the level of knowledge and information the community had as a whole was some of, if not, the best in the world on Nintendo. I can remember visiting Nintendo of America in Redding Washington, and getting a full tour of the entire facility. Along the way, talking to people and realizing that I knew more about their history than most of them. It was crazy really. I got so much of my knowledge from the community.
So with that said, we will need a new place to gather. A place where it is open to both sides of opinions and as little biased as possible. Maybe one of the new pop up forums will be that…or…maybe there will be a new place that will fill the void for all? Maybe Nintendoage.net might be that place, but it is still quite new.
We will see my friends, we will see…
