Forum Overview :: We Love Katamari :: This was a good write-up of what Tom must be thinking.

[quote name="A FRIEND"]<a href="http://brokenforum.com/index.php?threads/so-what-did-you-get-banned-for.320/page-8#post-6892">So what did you get banned for?</a> James Johnson wrote: Tom's decline is years in the making. Sure, there were some watershed moments like Hurt Locker, Avatars, and Elemental, but those are mostly symptoms of the problem in my opinion. Here's my take: Back in the Shoot Club days, everyone would gush and grovel at Tom's amazing writing because "above average" looks pretty damn good in the era of stupidly shitty gaming journalism. Those were basically his forums. Praise Tom when he updated the front page, discuss quietly amongst yourselves inbetween. Game Developers (with capital letters) showed up there because... well I don't really know why. Because Tom was one of the few not-idiots in journalism at the time and paid for a forum? I don't know the history that far back. Time passed and gaming journalism grew up. There were more options to choose from. Intelligent people started writing real things about games and Tom wasn't the shit anymore. His name was dropped alongside some of the rising stars at first, but they eclipsed him pretty damn fast. Don't get me wrong, Tom was ahead of his time, no doubt. But when that time actually came and Tom's gimmick -- the novelty of proto-New Games Journalism -- was rendered irrelevant, he was another face in the crowd. That had to hurt. I think that's the point he started to slip. He mostly fell back on reviews, which became increasingly infrequent and of poorer quality. Then he got Fidgit or whatever that miserable thing was. Then that fell apart, which must have been awful for him. Then he returned to reviews, but by this point they were largely troll articles. The internet gave him the reputation of the contrarian, so he played on that. Tom, once the only show in town, had been reduced to a single act on a side-stage. He started to take shit out on people from the forums. Bullying, trolling, whatever he could do to get you to flinch so everyone else kissed his ass in fear of collateral damage. Oh, and he kept score. If you had ever said something that pissed him off, he remembered it. Then there was the new front page which really wasn't all that more popular than the old front page. Little Big Planet 2. Every. Day. Bite sized chunks of who the fuck cares. Links to his reviews. The podcasts were cool enough (I don't care for podcasts in general but I listened to a few and thought they were well done) and the angrier posts from guest writers were great (I think Bill did a "this week in the forums" once that was funny), but the rest was essentially fluff. Finally we get to the Tompocalypse and the Three Month's Peace. Man, this had to hurt. Ditch your own forums in disgust because they're not about you anymore, but not before opening all the jail cells out of spite. That'll show those sociopathic nerds. Except... it didn't. The forums were the best they'd ever been. We were fine without him. We were better without him. That had to be the last straw. After he decided he was done taking notes on everyone in secret for months, he returned with a bang, rounding up all the dissidents and putting on a show trial that showed just how benevolent he could be. This was, of course, totally delusional. He lied about giving anyone fair warning, or a chance to discuss anything, or even the form letter he said he sent out. Essentially, the man saw his creation get older, turn into a rowdy teenager, but then prove it could be independent. At the same time, his career faltered and his significance to gaming journalism dried up. Like Blackadar said, this is a man that's got issues. As condescending as this will sound, I really do feel sorry for him. I think he'd be wise to re-evaluate his emotional state and get some help.[/quote]