They reason they gave in their statement is that there’s not enough activity here on the forums to justify keeping it open.
If you ask me, this just isn’t true; sure, there’s not new posts and replies every second of the day, but there is still many of us who hop on to catch up on the latest news and get story-related help from the community. They actually had plenty of other options to boost the activity here: notify app users of the forums with some built-in feature, post about the forums on Instagram or TikTok, ask big Episode creators to talk about the forums, etc. Instead, they made, arguably, the most drastic decision they could have possibly made.
Fortunately, the closing date has been pushed back by a month (from June 28th to the end of August). A small win, and certainly not what anyone wanted, but at least we have a bit more time to save posts and appreciate the forums while they’re still here.
Some have speculated if there’s more to why the Episode team is closing the forums. (Sharing some of their thoughts here…) Take these theories with a grain of salt, as we’ll likely never know the real reason, or if what they’ve stated is the truth.
- Costs to maintain the website: Like @/Hairycane stated in their reply, some think that it’s costly to keep the forums running.
- This hasn’t been confirmed, but some people here on the forums did some digging. Its a pretty small amount to keep the site running, and considering the cash flow Episode has been getting since 2018, they shouldn’t really need to worry about money.
- Higher-ups running Episode into the ground: it’s actually a business practice to run certain companies into the grounds, then file for bankruptcy. (Not even joking.) This is especially common when it comes to creative businesses.
- Episode wants to censor a large part of the community that is open with the things they’re not happy about. By closing and deleting the forums, a lot of the controversies Episode has gotten themselves into will be nearly impossible to read and know about if you weren’t there when they happened.
If you want to read up on the forum community’s response, check these links.
Reddit has also been pretty unhappy with this choice, and many comments replying to Episode’s Insta posts have also expressed their distaste for this situation.
IMO, this choice definitely feels like it was determined by what would make the most money, regardless of the specifics. : /