Sony and Riot Games have announced the closure of the official forums. The popularity of this discussion method has significantly declined. Have Reddit and Discord killed forums?
What has Sony announced? Community Manager Groovy_Matthew explains that the forums for PS4 were closed on February 27. Fans are redirected to alternatives like the PlayStation.Blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
What does Riot Games mean? The official forums of League of Legends will be shut down on March 9. The popularity of the forum has declined according to Riot, and other platforms are significantly more frequently used for discussions. The statement reads:
Looking at how many of you used the boards, it is clear that the popularity of the platform has significantly decreased. Both players and Riot employees have migrated to other community discussion platforms like Reddit and Discord, leaving the boards underpopulated.
Statement from Riot Games
Even developers avoid forums
What is interesting about this? As Riot Games explains, not only players are using other discussion platforms, but the employees themselves are becoming increasingly less active in the official forums.
What is behind this? Bioware started this in 2016 and closed their own forums. Now we see that more companies are following suit.
For example, if you look at the forum of Fallout 76, you will see that posts are made only every few days. In contrast, lively discussions are happening on Reddit. There, even developers post, and you get new information faster through Reddit than through the official forum.
Forums seem to no longer be a contemporary way to interact with each other and also with developers. Social media offers so many other and faster ways, such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
The future lies with other platforms
What does this mean for the future? It is only logical that a company discusses with customers where customers are present. And that is currently Reddit and also Discord.
Discord is a very quick way for developers to get in direct contact with the community. You can quickly start a brief discussion or bring one up. There is a lively exchange happening, which is simply harder in a forum.
Reddit is extremely well-frequented. Discussions take place around the clock. Developers can be sure: if they announce something, the community knows it immediately and spreads the info.
How do the communities react to the closure of the forums? There is hardly any talk about it. This seems to prove how unattractive forums have become and how few players are actually affected by this decision.
What do you think about the fact that more and more forums are being closed and that discussions are shifting to platforms like Reddit or Discord? Do you still use forums at all?
