Back in the good old days of gaming of 2011, back when BioWare was blowing people’s minds with the Mass Effect trilogy, they had community forums. A place where fans of Dragon Age and Mass Effect could gather and speculate about what happens next. Or, pester the developers for whatever romance they believed should be in the next game.
And then, after the release of Mass Effect 3, they promptly erased their forums and moved all discussions to Twitter. This effectively silenced many discussions, because by nature, Twitter is an algorithmic beast that prioritizes only certain things.
With the collapse of web2, Twitter especially, I wonder if they might bring those forums back.
BioWare, if you’re reading this, bring back the forums!
What bothers me most about such decisions is that I am denied access to the official discussions (and sometimes even the tech support) of the product I paid for, unless I’m willing to accept the third-party platform’s terms of service. Discord is another common one. It’s a sure-fire way to lose me as a customer.
Honest question. Where do you draw the line and why? Because I do not believe that you can make full use of almost anything you paid for in this age without relying on / utilizing a third party.
Want to get tech support for a game? You might have to use Twitter/reddit/Discord
Want to have your hardware repaired? You’re very likely to have to use some post service unless there’s a repair shop you can drive to.
Want to get tech support via phone? You definitely have to use a phone carrier as third party middle-man.
Want to use the internet on your phone? Definitely need to use the infrastructure of some big corporation.
So I must ask, if you draw the line at “requires a third party service to receive support”, is it because of the third party in question specifically?