[Kay O'Hara]

So is this a dying medium for discussion being overtaken by... what, Twitter? Facebook? Something else?

Why have Sony and Microsoft and Bethesda moved away from standard game discussion forums in favor of their current formats?

Maybe I'm showing my age (my join date probably is) but are these types of Forums that we're in now legitimately dead, or are the Publishers trying to steer our focus and discussions towards their own preferences?

[Alan Whiston]

While Bethesda.net isn't designed in the best way possible, it acts in pretty much the same way as this forum just with a different design. So, I wouldn't say they abandoned forums... It quite literally has the same sub sections that this forum had aswell in terms of their games.

[^_^]

Except, you know, it has a fraction of the viewers this forum had and it doesn't seem to be looking up. People still post here more than there and this forum is on its way out.

[Alan Whiston]

That's understandable. The Bethesda.net forums are not officially open yet. They're still in beta. When we move there officially you will see a huge jump in population.

[Charlotte X]

Some devs don't bother making a forum, so people usually make their own on Reddit. I've seen some really successful forums appear there for franchises.

These are usually for games that the devs never made forums for to begin with. (So the absence of an official forum is not a "moving away" from anything.)


But many devs still have active forums, including Bethesda... So I am not really sure what OP is talking about.

[Josh Sabatini]

But no Community Discussion

Thats true of a lot of other games forums though and its not surprising

Except during the feeding frenzy around when a new game is released this section is probably more work for the mods than the rest of the forums put together

Paradox are the only games company I know of that not only have an off-topic discussion section it also includes history and politics subforums

[*Chloe*]

Well, Beth is a big outfit now with lots of franchises. Many of the older members like the OP (and me) are really thinking about Morrowind, maybe Oblivion; games the company probably doesn't care too much about these days. The MW subreddit is already more active than the official forums, or at least close. The structure of this forum is much easier to navigate and search than reddit's IMHO. Anyway I haven't been over to the new forum since the reboot and probably won't try again. When this forum closes I'll be done. Maybe the OpenMW forum will be a new home for MW fans.

[trisha punch]

Except you need a bethesda net account to download mods for the skyrim special edition on the consoles. To me that seems like they're open for business. Seems weird they'd still be in a beta stage when their newest release requires an account there to use the main selling feature of their game.

Unless you mean the forum itself, which is just one small piece of bethesda.net. Which yeah it was supposed to be open officially a long time ago but they're having to change a bunch because the community blowback in how crappy the new forums are. It wasn't planned for it to still be in beta now.

[Johanna Van Drunick]

Gearbox, BioWare and Blizzard still have Off Topic forums.

If the Morrowind forums here are dead (which they aren't,) that would be because the fans have moved on. It wouldn't have anything to do with Bethesda ignoring MW.

Bethesda is still supporting a full Morrowind forum, so I'm not sure what else people would want them to do to show they care about having a Morrowind forum.

[Jade Payton]

The Beth.net forum is a travesty. Functionally it looks a lot better now, like an actual forum should. But the fact that there are now 3 separate official forums for Fallout 4, the one here, which is read-only, the one on the Jive Beth.net forum, which is read-only, and the actual working one on the new Beth.net forum...

Well, try googling the official Fallout 4 forums if you don't know the URL off the top of your head. It's kind of hard to find. Small wonder people just use reddit.

By way of example, after 3 months, the archive for the cheats and spoilers section is still only 2 pages long.

Compare that to what these forums were like a year after Oblivion, Fallout 3 and even SKyrim came out. They were much more active forums back then.

[Scott Clemmons]

But did they have 3 official forums in the same time frame.

Fallout 4 was her first for the first few months. Then it went over to the first edition of the new forums and now the 2nd version which is Beta. With that movement it is easy to get people lost.

[Terry]

Bioware closed their off topic long ago. Then shut down all their forums totally, just recently. Caused a big move of all the fans to private forums.

The devs seem to live in their own little world, where they actually think most gamers want or even have Twitter.

That might be popular with Trump and Miley Cyrus fans, but gamers... I think it's iffy.

[Mrs Pooh]

Reddit is just easier I guess. One account for everything you'd like to discuss, instead of different boards for different games with all their different setups.

[KU Fint]

I find Reddit pretty useful when searching info on Skyrim (and mods)..

But I don't even have an account. Kind of afraid to, tbh.

[maya papps]

I have added the word "the" and the word "forums" just for you.

[Matt Bee]

I wouldn't call official game forums dead, but they are losing in popularity and seem to be a fair bit less active than a decade ago. Not just here, but on other forums too like the Sega forums, 2K forums and so on. And some companies given up do them, like Lionhead did years before the studio was closed and Bioware shut down their forums half a year ago.

And moving forums can be a bit dangerous, I mean, when Square-Enix bought Eidos they eventually shut down the Eidos forums but very few regulars from there moved on to the Square-Enix forums (and talking of which, http://forums.eu.square-enix.com/showthread.php?t=253804 seem to be about how the forums are dead).

To be honest, I'm not quite sure what it's being replaced with, I never felt the urge to discuss games with strangers on Facebook (and it's a mess with basically each official Facebook post being a general game discussion thread where anything goes), and I'm not a twitter/reddit/whatever person

[Mistress trades Melissa]

Pretty much Facebook and Reddit. Twitter may be inn there, too, but that hits me as more of a "Look what I'm doing now!" kind of vibe.

I feel that message boards are on the way out. Many companies are dropping forums and pickingmn up Facebook pages. I think forums will be around for quite awhile yet, but just old fogies will be using them. This is the way we grew up with our gaming. Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter is how the newer generations are being brought up. That's what they're used to.

I prefer the more laid back, slower communication message boards follow, which is why many other video game players want the more "instant comminque" the other methods offer

The old AOL boards brought me into the Internet, back in the late 90s. I have a feeling e-mail may be on the way out, too. Possibly a decade or two.

[darnell waddington]

To me, forums are the equivalent of "parlor talk" circa 100 years ago. You can't exactly replace it with other digital/posting mediums. And there will always be some group of people who want to engage in a discussion this way.

Err.... I hope.

[T. tacks Rims]

I love Reddit and use it all the time for game discussion, but it doesn't have the same... I don't know how to explain it. Forums to me have always seemed more personal than something like Reddit. You get to know lots of people and you recognize them by their name or profile pic. With Reddit, the names are pretty small, and there are are no profile pictures. Also, there are so many people you can't keep track of everyone. It just generally feels less like a community.

On a side note, I'm new here! Hopefully what I said about forums applies here as well.

[P PoLlo]

Welcome to these boards! Have a complimentary http://images.uesp.net/c/c4/Fishystick.jpg, if not already offered one

I agree about reddit. It is just too huge to feel "comfy" for me. I visit there (a handful of topics) a little, but have started going there more often with the slow movement of this board ot Bethesda.net.

Reddit also takes some getting used to, layout-wise. Sometimes, comments get a bunch of replies and I get lost looking for the "next comment."

[Nick Swan]

Once again I find myself in Quirky's courtyard.

As impatient as I can be, I do enjoy a slower moving forum where you don't have to refresh every second in order to stay updated.

[Laura Hicks]

:0 My very own fishystick... Today is truly a blessed day. Thank you, kind sir!