I recieved an e-mail from WoTC with this text body, which I guess is old news already:
Choosing to retire a former foundation of our community was not an easy decision, but we feel that we must adjust our communications structure to reflect where conversations about Wizards of the Coast games are taking place.
Social media has changed significantly over the last ten years, and discussions about games aren’t exclusive to company-hosted forums. The majority of community conversation takes place on third-party websites (such as Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and many other fantastic community-run websites), and it is up to us to evolve alongside our players.
We encourage past and current users to retrieve any information you want to retain from the Community Forums for both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. The shutdown will occur on October 29, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. PT. We want to provide enough time for our forum members to move their content, and we recognize that given our forum’s vibrant user base and extensive history, this may take time. Any information still on the forums on the cut-off date will be deleted.
Thank you to all of our past and current forum users. You helped build our community into what it is now, and we look forward to continuing to interact with you on our many active social platforms.
There’s also a footer in the e-mail with links to temporary emergency backup files & forums if I wanted to grab any content before it vanishes forever into the void.
So… what does this really mean? Is this an indicator that Wizards isn’t making Hasbro the kind of money it wants? Is this just another example of a global company (like McDonald’s did recently with thier China deal) outsourcing most of its product/content development to third parties, slashing staff, & relying on their name to simply generate income? Posters at Quora.com seem to think it’s a budget thing, such as the tech needing updates that are too costly. I wonder how successful 5e has really been, or if the profit they generate really has anything to do with it (regardless of how much money they are making, not spending any money on their community is still more money for the suits).
I rarely used the forums except to find an answer to an obscure FAQ, or once in a blue moon to check out build ideas for classes that I was unfamiliar with. Even when I did the responses were typical RPG community garbage (dozens of “well in my campaign…”), maybe getting 1 or 2 legit moderator or regular user posts to clarify anything. We’ve been a Pathfinder troupe for years now, so I can’t say I’ll be affected by this, but it is troubling to hear about major players in the industry cutting off one of their most prominent player resources.
This basically means reddit.com and various fan-run wiki’s will be the only places for long-format or downloadable resources… I mean, can you imagine what kind of format mess trying to use Facebook to talk about anything game related would look like? Or Twitter? or Tumblr? And if it is fan run, powered not by money and obligation-to-accuracy (aka someone’s job), but powered by love and rainbows and gingerbread, then you’re going to see a thousand answers to your question, “What racial modifiers do Lizardfolk get as a PC race?” that all start with, “Well, in my campaign…”
Undoubtedly, this is a Hasbro decision. I just can’t see anyone at Wizards, as lame or greedy as they have become, thinking this is a progressive move.