Gearbox simply introduced that the corporate will quickly be closing down its dialogue boards, and inspiring all customers to as a substitute migrate to utilizing particular person recreation Discords for their neighborhood wants. I’m as soon as once more right here to say this can be a very silly thought.
A discover on the boards—which have existed of their present type since 2015, and for lots longer earlier than that—explains that they’ve already been locked right down to read-only and can quickly be wiped fully, with customers having 30 days to “save any content material you wish to preserve”:
We’ve had many good years of conversations on the Gearbox Boards. This has been an incredible place to attach with all of you and a haven for wonderful discussions, builds, and assist. Through the previous yr, we seen a lot of our neighborhood members want to have interaction on our different social platforms—and that’s nice. We love speaking to y’all and protecting the neighborhood going there.
Taking a look at the place the conversations are going down and suggestions is expressed, we wish to proceed that dialog on our social channels the place a lot of the neighborhood is getting their data. Our Help crew will proceed to obtain your suggestions and issues by means of assist.gearbox.com.
As of July 19, 2022, we’ll flip classes to Learn-Solely. This implies members will now not have the ability to create posts on the boards, however people will have the ability to learn earlier posts. This can present 30 days to avoid wasting any content material you wish to preserve earlier than it’s closed. Later this summer season, you’ll discover a brand new Gearbox web site and the boards will disappear fully.
Thanks for years of chats, guides, assist, and for making this an incredible neighborhood. We stay up for persevering with the dialog with you.
This was, is and can without end be the dumbest fucking development in online game neighborhood administration. I perceive boards have gotten much less common, and that their glacial tendencies current a variety of challenges. The will to shut boards down when confronted with declining use and perceived advances in expertise is pure and completely comprehensible.
However shifting that performance to Discord isn’t the reply! Discord and boards are, as I’ve defined in depth beforehand on this web site, fully completely different websites with fully completely different functionalities!
Discord is nice for speaking within the second. It’s a spot for real-time conversations (or at lease these a couple of hours previous in the event that they’re not as busy), a flowery solution to handle a number of chat rooms and voice comms, and if that’s what you need—and tens of millions of individuals world wide do, for a great deal of wants and needs—then nice!
Boards aren’t the identical although. They’re nothing prefer it. Boards are extra deliberate, extra thought of, and whereas they’re removed from good—I’m certain you’ll be able to put up a billion examples of individuals being neither deliberate nor thought of on boards—the purpose is that they’re extra everlasting.
Boards create a file, an archive we will search by means of, in order that at any time when we wish to revisit points, or discover assist with an issue, or see what was taking place throughout a sure time, we will try this. There’s a paper path, and whereas typically that results in embarrassing takes on television exhibits and recreation reveals, different occasions it’s offering an infinite assist with technical points or components of a recreation you’re caught on.
G/O Media could get a fee
Online game publishers and studios, I’m begging you, for those who actually should discover a solution to migrate your communities and their legacy to a brand new platform or service, please discover (or make!) one that’s extra appropriate to the duty.
