Apparently responding to concerns that its industry discussion boards allowed public access, GAMA has taken steps to resolve this issue by requiring users wishing to access its trade discussion boards to identify a business with which they are associated before allowing them to participate in discussions.  A verification process of some kind is apparently also used, because access is not immediate -- it requires human intervention.  GAMA has also announced the launch of consumer boards at its Originsgames.com site, which promotes the Origins game convention now being run by GAMA.  GAMA has also created an area which appears in both boards, for communication between consumers and industry types.  As we noted in our in-depth analysis when the GAMA trade boards were initially launched (see 'GAMA Launches Game Industry Discussion Boards'), the value of discussion boards is directly (or perhaps exponentially) proportional to the number of users, and both the trade and consumer discussion boards set up by GAMA have entrenched competition.  The Origins site, in particular, seems like a difficult place from which to run discussions, since it will primarily be used as a source of information about the convention by consumers that visit the site in search of that information, not in search of general information about games.  Regardless, for those that are looking for a GAMA-sponsored area to discuss the games business, it now exists at multiple levels.