"Do Games Workshop-owned forums exist?" Topic

Greetings all!
Excuse my ignorance but does Games Workshop have forums that they run or sponsor? There are lots of fan-run forums like Dakka Dakka and Bell of Lost Souls but how about GW? I seem to recall they did have forums in the past. It seems strange that such a big company would not have forums while almost every other company does. Thanks in advance!

I think they shut them down in an effort to muzzle criticism, which they consider a liability.

yup, OW has it right,

they used to, but were a bit over sensitive about negative posts on their forums,

regards

jim

Yeah they didn't like negative criticism. One of their forum rules was no talking about GW prices!

For some reason people used the GW forums to complain about pricing, ever changing army lists, closure of the bits service, pricing, model availability at independent retailers, pricing, infact all those things GW would rather you didn't discuss.
So they decided not to let you any more and closed the forums down.

The easiest way to get a permanent ban on their forums was to mention Squats.

I expect that the moderation would have cost them quite a bit, not only given how GW decisions have tended to polarize people, but also due to some players' or posters' confrontational "my 'tribe'" / "my team" / "my way" mentalities.

I don't ever remember reading anything worthwhile on the GW forums when they existed. No matter the actual reason they closed, nobody's missing anything.

I have to agree with Andrew Paul. I dipped in a few times and didn't quite get it.

When I want a helping of GW I go over and visit Warseer or BoLS.

There's also Dakkadakka, Eastern Fringe and The Bolter and Chainsword, among others.

Better use them now before GW shuts them all down with C&D letters. They've been pretty good at poking their fans in the eye.

Thanks for all the answers and comments as well. IMHO, it is a perfect indicator of a company's value to have shut down their own forums.

I don't know about a company's value, but more of an effort to pretend the problem doesn't exist. I was offered a moderator position several years ago (before I realized it wasn't about gaming it was all about making as much money as possible and screwing your customers and retailers in the process). The position paid nothing, you had a fancy name and some privileges (a GW email address as I recall. I declined as I moderated on Druchii.net.

Overall, those boards were horribly moderated and was the equivalent of the North Korean Free Press pretending to be unbiased. They will not be missed and I wish the worst for GW.

They still have forums for Specialist Games.

Quite useful really.

I don't believe so. The SG forums were shut down and essentially transferred to the Tactical Command forums, under all-volunteer moderation and control. They're not the Official SG Forums, just an attempt by SG fans not to let SG die, despite GW's best efforts.