I never really liked the
GIA, although I have to admit that I started to read it more often when it began to broaden its net beyond the sparse, inconsequential
backwater of franchise console RPGs. Even towards the end though it was still too caught up in
fanboyish received opinion ("The
SNES and the
PSX are the only consoles worth a damn, because
Square made some games for them"; "Square are the somehow hugely artistically worthy because they spend loads of money and were briefly 'phenomenonized' by the sheep-like Japanese game-buying public", etc.) and spent too long explaining in great detail what the box of
Dance Squirrel Saga Gaiden III was going to smell like instead of
talking about games.
Gameforms is the successor to GIA, opened after the GIA eventually collapsed under its complete lack of revenue or business model. Early indications are not good. Gameforms seems to carry over (and extend) the GIA's elitist pretentiousness while coupling it with a truly hideous site design. Without the archives of information and media on hundreds of games (albeit skewed to certain specialisations), and in fact very little content at all that hasn't been beaten to death elsewhere, it is difficult to see how GameForms will attract readers. At least their bandwidth bills won't bankrupt them though.