Forums continue to die off as the latest casualty this week is the Gearbox Forum, which has already become a read-only platform.
In an announcement it was revealed that the forum was set to read-only on 19th July effectively closing the space and leaving it as repository of information instead of a an active place users could talk.
Like many past communities activity usually meant for this dedicated space will move to Discord and social media.
“We’ve had many good years of conversations on the Gearbox Forums. This has been a great place to connect with all of you and a haven for amazing discussions, builds, and support. During the past year, we noticed many of our community members prefer to engage on our other social platforms—and that’s great. We love talking to y’all and keeping the community going there,’ reads the announcement.
For those who still have issues with games developed or published by Gearbox, the dedicated support site for Gearbox should still be live. We say “should” because the link provided spits out a “this site can’t be reached” error when accessed. Hopefully this is just a temporary issue as the change happens.
As for the other channels, the following are provided:
“Officially-supported Discord communities:
- Borderlands Discord: https://discord.gg/borderlands
- Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands Discord: Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
Godfall Discord: Discord - Homeworld Discord: Homeworld Universe
Official social media accounts
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/gearboxofficial
- Facebook: Gearbox
- Instagram: https://www.Instagram.com/Gearbox
- Twitch: Twitch
- Website: https://www.gearboxsoftware.com“
Reception to this change has been mixed with comments on places like Reddit mostly negative, pointing out faults with Discord such as difficulty searching for content and lack of search through Google.
On the other hand this change should, in theory, lower the barrier of entry to accessing information as it won’t require users to make an account on a forum they will likely only use once. That may sound like a small inconvenience but most people likely use one of the social media platforms listed above which should speed things along.
In truth we will have to wait to see how this all pans out and if it’s a good move for the consumers.
