there are a few reasons really

- people lost interest in rpgmaker and game development
- there was a long period of time when all the active admins were all admins who had never really been that interested in the site (and we were hired to maintain forums, back then bart was still developing gw6 and at some point we had site admins as well but that didn't work out), and none of us really knew what we should do with the site or have the motivation to do it. even after we had to start working on it, nothing was really organized so things didn't work out
- lack of motivation/activity by other staffers as well, though with the activity we have and the fact we hardly get any new members, this isn't surprising
- community kind of split in two, though this isn't really an issue anymore. there were those who visited gw just for g&d forums and those who didn't give a shit about it and thought it was horrible. there were lots of arguments and people often got pretty vocal and i'm sure many felt like that they don't feel that welcome on gw anymore
- gw used to be nicer, and it's a fact. i'm not surprised that a lot of outsiders wouldn't feel at home here. bart was pretty adamant about people not swearing on the site, staff and mods were generally nicer and there were less flaming and sarcasm etc.
- y2dazz stopped posting.. this is the biggest reason

GW was actually the first really community I stuck with when I first got an internet connection.  I think I joined back in 2002 I think, so it's kind of weird to think back then and see where things have come in the past six to seven years.  I slowly grew from RPG Maker and pretty much drifted around the forum until my horizons expanded elsewhere, though I could never leave this place entirely.  It just sucks to see how many people have come and gone since I don't ever see a lot of the older people anymore.  Erave, Tenchu, Jumar, Phatradeph, RG, Pyrate, Omniferce, Legacy001, Senior Behemoth and so many more.  Seeing all the fads come and go, the music circles, GW plushies, GW cards, Lith's Jizzy Riblets prank (so awesome back in the day), the controversy over that FF0 game that was being praised as the second coming.

Ah, well.

RG really was nice, I know my first project sucked back in the day but she always had encouraging words.  Then again back then a lot of people were far more encouraging.  I think this was way back when she was doing that Tales of Muiragi: Side Story game.

i actually completely forgot we still had a game making section (i've had it collapsed for a year or two now)