Personally I hardly ever play the games on here. I made an account to get saved status on online games but now that I've invested myself in the community I'd have to say it's better than the games.
An intrinsic problem I see is there's not much to bind a bunch of gamers, as such. Other than strictly gaming topics.
There's just not many a philosophical/sociological etc. question naturally arising from the act of gaming (well, there's always the gender issues raised by Mrs. Pacman and such ), so there seems little very natural or pressing about most wider discussion threads: Let's discuss X, but why, just for the heck of it, and when one might as well not? What do you make of racism, well, personally I tend to make Play-Doh out of it. There's something inherently frivolous and at the same time wilfully forced about it. (Whereas with some other interests, the wider questions might indeed arise somewhat naturally.)
Mind you, it's not a critique so much, and it seems like a largely pleasant community, it's just more of a pretty obvious observation. What, indeed, does bind people here. (And of course it may well get problematic inasmuch as many of such wider discussions-for-the-sake-of-it may and will be contentious by nature, so now you have your flame wars to nip in the bud, etc. Although I must then commend the apparent general restraint among members, I've not seen much getting really out of hand. Yet )
