Following a series of highly publicized and embarrassing follies for Wargaming on the matter of World of Warships, including almost their entire community leaving their Community Contributor program, WG subsequently promised to address their “miscommunication” issues. WG promised to communicate better with their player base to avoid such mistakes in the future. They even announced this on the official World of Warships forum for emphasis. You know, because it’s their best tool for communicating with their player base? And now they’ve decided to shut down those very forums. In order to make everyone use Discord. What?
World of Warships Forums Shutdown: Details
On July 25, 2023; Wargaming (WG) suddenly announced on the World of Warships official website that they would be shutting down their official forums. Permanently. According to WG: they will begin the shutdown process for all regional forums by “removing the ability to post” starting on July 28, 2023. Note that this is literally 3 days after the announcement. This gives forum users literally 3 days to reply to this announcement. These posts and all other posts will continue to be accessible until October 31, 2023. On that date, WG will shut down the forums entirely. Thus, it gives forum users just 3 months in order to archive everything before WG deletes everything on the forums.
So is Wargaming going to replace their official World of Warships forums in any capacity? Well, according to WG again: the forums shutdown is to “enhance” user experience by forcing the entire player base to use the World of Warships Discord channel. You can find instructions on how to join that Discord channel directly in the same article. You can find the full text of the entire surprise announcement from WG below.
Full Text:
Dear Captains,
For a long time now we’ve been following different behavioral trends in our game community and the games industry in general. One of the most notable is in the ways players interface with various platforms, communicate with each other and with game publishers or studios. This was exemplified particularly by a general migration from the forums to Discord and similar community channels. In addition to the above, our forum infrastructure has also aged quite significantly over the years, so we have decided to lay this particular platform to rest. Starting on July 28, 2023, we will begin the process of closing the regional forums by removing the ability to post. Your posts and the posts of others will remain accessible until October 31st, 2023, at which time the forums will be fully shut down.
We understand that it can be hard to adapt to new community platforms; however, this end only signals a new beginning, as we’re now transitioning our communication and activities to our dedicated Discord servers. Discord may seem daunting if you prefer a more structured environment, however rest assured we feel that the Forums features in discord can be utilized to accommodate that form of discussion and our Community Managers will strive to deliver that experience to the best of our abilities.
We believe this move will enhance your experience and bring our community closer together. Now, we’re here to guide you through this transition.
Source: World of Warships official website
