Back in the good old days of gaming of 2011, back when BioWare was blowing people’s minds with the Mass Effect trilogy, they had community forums. A place where fans of Dragon Age and Mass Effect could gather and speculate about what happens next. Or, pester the developers for whatever romance they believed should be in the next game.

And then, after the release of Mass Effect 3, they promptly erased their forums and moved all discussions to Twitter. This effectively silenced many discussions, because by nature, Twitter is an algorithmic beast that prioritizes only certain things.

With the collapse of web2, Twitter especially, I wonder if they might bring those forums back.

BioWare, if you’re reading this, bring back the forums!

  • ono
    5·
    1 year ago

    What bothers me most about such decisions is that I am denied access to the official discussions (and sometimes even the tech support) of the product I paid for, unless I’m willing to maintain yet another online account and accept the third-party platform’s terms of service. And those terms are always invasive, designed for that third party to get away with collecting as much information about me as possible.

    Discord is another common one. It’s a sure-fire way to lose me as a customer.

    If businesses don’t want to host their own community-facing tools, they should put them on an open platform that respects users’ privacy.

    • Crotaro@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      Honest question. Where do you draw the line and why? Because I do not believe that you can make full use of almost anything you paid for in this age without relying on / utilizing a third party.

      • Want to get tech support for a game? You might have to use Twitter/reddit/Discord

      • Want to have your hardware repaired? You’re very likely to have to use some post service unless there’s a repair shop you can drive to.

      • Want to get tech support via phone? You definitely have to use a phone carrier as third party middle-man.

      • Want to use the internet on your phone? Definitely need to use the infrastructure of some big corporation.

      So I must ask, if you draw the line at “requires a third party service to receive support”, is it because of the third party in question specifically?

  • veganzombeh@beehaw.org
    3·
    1 year ago

    I think it movement to some sort of social media is pretty much inevitable. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game where the forums are more active than reddit/twitter.

    Paradox still maintains their forum and advertises them but lots of their players still congregate in the game subreddits instead.

  • Thanovir@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    BSN is the unofficial fan forum for BioWare related content these days. I quite like it. Rarely, someone from BioWare drops in and leaves a comment so BioWare does monitor what fans are saying.

  • bashfluff@lemmynsfw.com
    1·
    1 year ago

    No way. Forums should never be run by the people the forum is discussing, for the same reason that newspapers should never be government-owned.

    • bipmi@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      I do agree with your general point but there are some niche use cases, like how Paradox uses their forums for posting long-format updates and patch notes. That being said, the only use the paradox forums get at all is pretty much restricted to those long ass patch notes, and they could just as easily post them anywhere else

    • DaSaw@midwest.social
      0·
      1 year ago

      Right. Instead they should be run by someone like u/spez or Elon Musk. That’s so much better.

      • bashfluff@lemmynsfw.com
        1·
        1 year ago

        Do you understand the difference between owning a forum and running it? u/spez isn’t moderating /r/bioware. This isn’t about who should own these forums, but how they should be run.

  • dawt@beehaw.org
    0·
    1 year ago

    I don’t have much of an opinion on the bioware forums, but man - it’s crazy to think about this period as the collapse of web2. I mean, I’m aware of it, but somehow, giving it that title seems so real.

    The online spaces I’ve spent most of my time in are collapsing, and all that’ll be left is the shambling, soulless husks of bankrupt cryptocurrencies. I guess we can just go ahead and skip straight to web4?

  • thingsiplay@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    If they are dumb, they bring the forums back in form of Subreddits. If they are smart, they bring them back in the Fediverse. Using Twitter as a discussion platform is a dumb idea. The most likely thing that would probably happen is, they bring discussions to Discord…

    Oh boy, the odds are not good. Too many shiny alternatives to fail and only one way to make it right.