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BioWare Shutting Down Official Forums, Cites Social Media as Alternative

A

Alpha Phoenix

Member
Posted today:
After great consideration, we are closing down the BioWare forums, effective August 26, 2016. The Star Wars: The Old Republic forums will continue to operate; however, our public boards for Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and legacy BioWare titles will no longer be available.

This wasn’t an easy decision.

Our players are important to us. Your feedback, stories, and love for our games drive and inspire us.

In the past, our forums were the only way we could speak to you directly. They allowed our developers to talk with fans, and gave our players the opportunity to talk with each other about our games. But with the rise of social media and geek culture, there have never been more ways for us to connect.

Now we can travel around the world, meeting with you face-to-face at events like PAX, SDCC, and even shows in our own backyard. We can share stories with you on the go, giving you a look behind the scenes on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

In turn, you’ve built your own fantastic communities in places like Tumblr and Reddit. You’ve created comprehensive Wikis and countless pieces of fantastic art, fiction, and cosplay.

With so many great things so widely available, our developers today find themselves spending more time on other sites, and less time in our own forums. And to our fans and players who came to those boards looking to talk to us, it was a great disservice.

So it is with a heavy heart that we will close our public forums on August 26, 2016. We will maintain some private boards, and may use these in future for beta feedback or other special projects.

Because we know there is a lot of information on there you may want to keep, the public boards will remain in a read-only state until October 25, 2016. After that date, they will be taken down.

While we are saying goodbye to this venue, we remain committed to our community and will always be here to listen, share, and support you. Online and in person, we will continue to seek out opportunities to interact and share in our combined love of games.
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So.. uh, as someone who has been there for a good while, I guess that's to be expected.

Source

Shut down the thread if old (figuratively and literally).
 
P

psyfi

Banned
Man, I haven't been active on a game specific forum in a long, long time. I posted on Bungie.net back before Halo 2, and on Halo Waypoint a handful of times.

I hope the Bioware fans find a suitable new home.
 
R

Ralemont

not me
The BSN was mostly a net negative for discussion of BioWare games so this isn't entirely surprising, though it was a good place to talk about ME3 MP or ask seriously obscure lore questions.
 
Liamario

Liamario

Banned
I've never gone to a game specific forum except to vent about problems with the game or see if anyone else is having the same problem. They're redundant.
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
pizzacat said:
Salty after being shut down out of the blue like that. But really it was about time how many threads can you have talking about how awful me3 was really
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It was a reference to the Tali's sweat taste post on those forums.

sweat.jpg
 
C

chaobreaker

Member
It sucks to an online community you participate in get shut down. I still fondly remember my brief time on the Nintendo Nsider Forums to this day.
 
T

Toxi

Banned
Not surprising. Same thing happened to the Magic the Gathering forums a little while ago.

Forums are redundant as marketing tools.
 
A

Azzanadra

Member
I remember going on the Bioware social Network between 2010 and 2013, but I just casually browsed and posted. Can someone tell em what was so bad about it? I know that forums in particular got a LOT of hate from other communities.
 
R

Ralemont

not me
Azzanadra said:
I remember going on the Bioware social Network between 2010 and 2013, but I just casually browsed and posted. Can someone tell em what was so bad about it? I know that forums in particular got a LOT of hate from other communities.
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It started with Dragon Age 2 and the terrible harrassment BioWare employees suffered from misguided, mean-spirited fans (the most infamous example being to call a female employee "Hamburger Helper" and ridiculing her looks).

Mass Effect 3's ending was that x5, with death threats, calling for jobs, general mean-spirited posting, dumb posts, everything you can think of.

Since then the forum's been plagued with neurotic jilted ex-lovers who can't move on from whatever BioWare game they happen to have hated lately and insist on posting their hatred in every single thread regardless of the OP content, even years after the fact.
 
H

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Azzanadra said:
I remember going on the Bioware social Network between 2010 and 2013, but I just casually browsed and posted. Can someone tell em what was so bad about it? I know that forums in particular got a LOT of hate from other communities.
Click to expand...

Creepy fanboying of characters is probably the main reason they get made fun of.
 
T

TLS Lex

Member
I tried to maintain a presence there at one point, and I do still pop in from time to time to see what kind of discussions are going on, but honestly I think this is a good decision. 90% of the posts for the past five years have been a mixture of "everything that isn't DA:O is watered down pandering trash and I'll never buy another Bioware game again", "Bioware are [insert expletive]", or "Bioware are sjw trash". It's a horrible, toxic place and gives both the Dragon Age and Mass Effect fandoms a bad name. Most people I know who are really into either series steer clear of it altogether, and I can't blame them.

I'm a bit concerned about the removal though. I wish they'd archive it, if only for some of the great modding threads that are on there.
 
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