Effective August 26th, video game developer BioWare will shut down its official forums.
It “wasn’t an easy decision,” but the acclaimed RPG heavyweight is finally closing the doors on its forums. As more and more electronic entertainment companies turn to Reddit and other major social media outlets for their consumer interaction, the traditional “bulletin board” style community forum is going the way of the dinosaurs. Or MySpace.
Lead Community Manager Conal Pierse highlighted Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram as better alternatives with which to interact with fans, pointing out user-driven content including Tumblr and fan-maintained wikis. While once the forums were a virtually exclusive channel to have a conversation or deliver feedback, BioWare’s focus has shifted to these other platforms. In the process, the forum community has dried up.
After August 26th, the forums “will exist in a read-only state until October 25, 2016.” Those hoping to make connections with fellow members of the official forum community will want to be sure to do so in the next few weeks.
BioWare won’t abandon the forum structure entirely. They may utilize it in the future for very specific projects, such as centralizing beta feedback. Most of the industry have already left official forum systems behind, excluding those fostering an active massively multiplayer community. For that reason, the official Star Wars: The Old Republic forums will continue to operate as normal.
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