So this morning I found out that the RPG Maker forums will be shutting down this year, and itโs really just another depressing thing to see.
If you read the link the company does of course say theyโre replacing the existing forums with new ones, and Iโm sure no one would say the old ones didnโt perhaps need a lil bit of a glow up, some tech debt fixingโฆ but thereโs a few key notes in there:
They are NOT carrying over any history, data messages etc. from the old forums
They are NOT archiving, retaining or in any way saving the existing forums in any way
They have NOT provided any reasoning past โas part of continued efforts to support developersโ
As an offhand, moderate read, this sounds to me like a desire for some change in the forums but deciding nuking everything is less expensive than rebuilding and carrying over info.
If Iโm cynical, and likely realistic? Probably to increase sales of their latest GameMaker software by making it inherently more difficult for someone getting the older software for cheap pushing it to its limits. The amount of institutional knowledge on those forums is absurd.
And even if it is a benign reason, itโs still terrible because what do you mean youโre doing this with no recourse or potential for change? You sell software that runs on community goodwill? In an era where people are pulling away to open source software?? Crazy.
There are yeeeaaars of answers, plugins, suggestion, community built up on those forums - Iโve used the em to learn and grow my own skillet!!! And soon it wonโt exist.
At the very least, they gave a โheads upโ - the deletion occurs mid December, so archiving by the community is possible from now. Itโs just absurd that it needs to happen in the first place.
Itโs just reflective of how the industry is right now - and why itโs so important for communities to grow and build up knowledge together, knowledge that is NOT reliant on a company that can pull the plug at any time in the very name of the very customers, users and supporters they are screwing over.
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