The community forum has since been repurposed.
It's all to keep the gaming forum flowing as it should, to be able to read it at any given moment and get something out of it. Megathreads generally work counter to this, but they're a necessary evil when it comes to our game official threads. However, once people get their initial discussion over with and it is relegated to a small hardcore following of people who stick with the game long-term, the official thread can stay on page 1 indefinitely with just a niche segment caring about what is going on in it, and that is not healthy for the gaming forum.
Thus, the Community Forum is essentially the destination for all the subcommunities that form on NeoGAF, whether they be around a particular game or around a particular area of interest (see: PonyGAF et al). You subscribe to the thread, and then can continue checking it as normal without the Gaming Forum or Off-Topic forum being clogged up with subcommunity discussions, and without needing to remember to click on the Community Forum (since no one will remember to). Use subscriptions and you'll get the best of both worlds, megathread subcommunities for your NeoGAF buddies, and fast-paced up-to-the-minute general interest discussions on Gaming and Off-Topic.