A SIGN UP SHEET ASKING TO KEEP THE FORUM ACTIVE

I'm sorry but I don't feel that is a good enough answer...find other venues?
The response to this announcement has been loud and clear. Don't close the forums.
Has anyone in your teams done the maths on the loss of business/revenue versus the cost of upgrading and maintaining the forums?
In my view you are shooting yourselves in the foot.
Like many here I am a long time member and buyer of your games.
Like many here the forums are what keeps me buying your games.
But perhaps us casual gamers are a dying breed. Much more money to be made in so called free to play games amiright?

bfgBeruna wrote:Hello Everybody,

I sincerely apologize for my last message. While the forums are no longer sustainable for Big Fish Games, you matter a great deal to us. As a moderator I've been welcomed into this community, and I've thoroughly enjoyed getting to know all of you. You're an incredible group of people, helpful and inquisitive and supportive, and I'm so sorry that we're unable to continue the forums.

Before joining you all in this pond, it was a dear ambition to become a moderator. I am passionately excited about the chance to read what excites our players and to get to know you as individuals. The Moderation Team also mourns the closure of the forums and the loss of these outlets.

We encourage players to reach out to one another and pursue venues where you can continue discussing our games. If you'd like to discuss deeper concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to me or another moderator. We want to do everything we can to make the forums' closure as easy as possible.

Thank you, as ever, for your patience.

bfgBeruna

With the forum being plagued with spam I can't blame them for closing it. It's a huge job keeping it clean for the members.

cottoncandy2 wrote:With the forum being plagued with spam I can't blame them for closing it. It's a huge job keeping it clean for the members.

I can live with the spam... you just ignore it. Or laugh at it :-)

Well, I'm getting my banner ready to wave outside BFG headquarters. Any takers? That's one way of getting to know one another. Oh, by the way I have to travel quite a long way, so just start without me and I'll try and catch up! Okay, right I've put 'SAVE OUR FORUM'.

Dudes, we've been through this before. And the last time they gave us a deadline, they cut it off before I could get everything my deceased Mom had written copied off! It didn't matter then what we thought and it won't matter now, so stop kidding yourselves. It's not the moderators choice, it's the "BigWigs", and once they make a decision, they don't backoff. And notice, how it's posted conveniently in a game review, where it can be missed by hundreds of of members?

I suggest you use this time to swap PM's with whatever info you want to share with whomever to stay in touch. But if you have looked about at all, you'll have noticed that all the other portals have shut down their forums, too. They've become too high maintenance and they consider moderators as "fluff", expendable bucks.

Since the buyout here, and by their own admission, the new owners are only interested in the Casino, things have seriously changed. The games are second and the forums are way down the list. I suggest that between now and April 30 you use all the coupons and credits you have and then cancel your membership. This isn't the only portal on the planet. Just use the most popular search engine and see what's out there. Like the moderator said, the existing forums will remain, with their existing knowledge intact. (But who knows for how long?)

Gaming doesn't begin or end here-trust me!

Ever the Gamer--Hespera

(edited for clarity)

I've read all the posts and posted myself, earlier today. It is clear that no amount of protest or posting is going to make the "Biggies" change their minds.

I certainly do not understand what the issue is - surely it can't be that difficult for BFG to upgrade the game forum software. With all the technology out there, it should be a "piece of cake" for a company the size of BFG to put in some upgrades.

NOPE, don't believe this for "a New York Minute". Almost guaranteed BFG will be completely off the web within the year and we won't even be able to get any of our earlier games that we've purchased.

Very sad. I have so much appreciated the time and effort that some people have put in to posting their comments and help and of course, to those of you who have taken the time to give us good insight on the games & previous games in a series. I particularly remember 1 member taking the time to PM me fairly recently because of a difficulty I had with 1 game. This person took the time to walk me through the problem I had and after re-doing this game from the start, I was able to get through it. and complete the game.

Everyone who has posted comments and opinions about the different games has been much appreciated (I am sure) by all of us. We all have our likes and dislikes of various games - I read them all - and have really appreciated them all.

katejoe999 wrote:

cottoncandy2 wrote:With the forum being plagued with spam I can't blame them for closing it. It's a huge job keeping it clean for the members.

I can live with the spam... you just ignore it. Or laugh at it :-)

I do the same - ignore and/or laugh. no big deal. no skin off my nose if some idiots want to post spam. that happens everywhere on all kinds of sites. I don't waste my time "reporting" these. some game forums have lots - others have minimal. I can't be bothered to waste my time getting tied in knots over these.

Get over it. and move on - so what if there are 2 pages or more of "spam". go to the last page of the topic you want to see "review" or "tech problems".

STILL - this is NOT a reason to close down the game forum area. C'mon you guys at BFG - get with the program. DON'T shut down a VALUABLE TOOL FOR YOUR MEMBERS !! otherwise you will find yourselves with NO members !

BFG - you are an awesome site and pretty much the ONLY site that I can access for new and good/great games. Please do NOT destroy/shut down one of the most valuable tools your site has.

And ending on this note - no amount of pleading or comments are going to make BFG change their minds. They have already decided to do this. So, this is going to be the end of the opportunities for us members to communicate with each other and help each other out.

I have been a loyal member of BFG for many years - hmmm - I have purchased games going back to 2008 (10 years).

Eliminating the Game Forum site will have a very big impact.

Considering how several gamers have started their own forums elsewhere so as to maintain the social aspect lost when BF retired the old CCC 5 years ago, I'm surprised that BF doesn't want to (re)start new forums with the newer platforms available. I can understand that the current forum software is outdated and has likely reached the end of its lifespan. This is why there's a never-ending flood of spam from bots every day. But since they're keeping these forums as "view only" like an archive, why not have new forums for new games coming out where gamers can still post tips or ask for help or read reviews? It doesn't have to be the same URL but a link back to this place for older game info could be put in for those who want to look up older games. Having new forums with new software would take care of a lot of the spam problems since newer sites have things like the "capcha" feature to prove you're not a robot.

I'm quite introverted in real life and socially awkward so don't use the forums for small talk, but I really have enjoyed using the forums here for sharing game tips and getting feedback on new games. Like many others, I'm on a budget and have a busy life, so can't play everything. And from my experience here over the past 8 years, I think there are many gamers out there who also use the forums for the same reasons I do. This place won't be the same without active forums.

THe name of the forum started a few years back when BFG closed CCC is Pond Friends. You can find it with the popular search engine.



(edited for typo - I gotta quit typing late at night! )

I just found out that the problem is the spam!

Seriously?

Did it ever occur to you, that you could reach out to your members to help getting rid of the spam, so your moderators can do their job, while setting up a new forum with software that can manage the problem?
I'm sure you could find people who would spare a few hours a week to help. I would.

I can't understand why you would think, ripping the heart out of your site would be the better way.

Just to make this clear. With "you", I don't mean the mods. I'm talking to the owners. I'm sorry if this came out differently. You mods are great and I hope there can be a solution.
simmi

BFGs was the best game site on the Internet. When I got my first computer I joined loads of game sites, but after a year BFGs was the only site I stayed an active member of. When the founder sold it, I just knew things would start to slide.
The games are no longer as fun and interesting as they were. Each day there was a new game, and mainly I bought them all.

More and more CEs creption, and so 3 CEs a week, 3 SEs of the CEs a week and a boring game on a Monday. The quality of the games has hit an all time low, with the themes being like ‘Groundhog Day’.

When the original forums were closed down, we lost the important BFGs community. It was this community that kept members coming to the site every day, and it was a lot of fun.

If this forum closes, then basically it’s just a site to buy games with no members community feel at all. I’ve been a member for almost ten years, but am seriously close to cancelling it.

I wouldn’t mind paying more a month for membership if it kept the forums going. Apart from help with games the technical issues part is all important. Without the forum the CS will be inundated with emails about tech issues, when quite often it’s not a glitch but something the players missed when playing the game.

Tablet/mobile games aren’t as good as playing on Mac or PC. I’ve tried BFGs CEs on the iPad, but really don’t enjoy them as much.

With sites like Steam offering so much and such a variety including VR, BFGs could so easily compete if they asked their devs to think ‘outside of the box’ and give us games that keep us buying them because we can’t wait to play them.

Another option to get rid of the spammers is to allow to post messages only to the members with an active subscription. The rest are read-only.
I'm sure that it will kill all spammers. And it will make fake reviews too costy.

What, what, WHAT??? WHHAAATTT???!! This has ALWAYS been the BEST thing about BF!! I know we've had our fights and the idiot spammers always seem to sneak in, but most of us are smart enough to not click on them, so I just don't get this. A whole community shut down. I remember fondly the absolutely outstanding forums for games like City of Fools and the early MCFs as well as singular stand-outs too many to mention. How can you shut this down? People reaching out across nations, political divides, doesn't matter, we are all one in gaming and having fun and making friends. One of the reasons I didn't stay with Steam was the community. I think a big mistake is being made here and I for one will have no reason to continue my membership.

pennmom36 wrote:Thank you bfgBeruna, for all you have done over the years, you will be missed

Are we all missing something here? I thought Big Fish games was the leader in gaming TECHNOLOGY The keyword is technology, are we really to believe that BF can't solve a forum software issue? That their servers can't handle the traffic? That makes no sense, not wanting to pay to fix the issue seems more likely.

I have spoken to several devs today, all of which say that all other sites are pouring money INTO their forums because that's where the money is generated...from loyal customers who wish to share their love of games. Word of mouth is everything!!!

You are absolutely right, it makes no sense whatsoever that the software and server can't be upgraded, it's that they don't want to spend the money to do it. I play Gummy Drop which is free to play and has it's own facebook page and the majority of people on that forum are NOT BF club members so are NOT paying anything for the use of the forum, so I completely agree that the forums should be for cash paying club members only, and I think it would reduce the amount of spam by a large amount, I can't see a spammer being willing to pay a monthly membership fee to post spam on the forums. And while I understand why people are trying to create new forums elsewhere we absolutely should not have to go outside of BF to carry on with a community of people playing BF games, and those forums are being set up and ran by unpaid volunteers so of course BF is going to encourage people to do the work for free that they are no longer willing to do.

I don't think it's just that the spammers (which are bots) are constantly getting in and taking up the mods' time in deleting all the spam, but the fact that they have to block the individual usernames (?) and constantly adding to a gigantic username file in order to delete all the spam is probably what's killing the forums along with the sheer size of all the information kept here. Whatever platform these forums are being run on probably just can't handle it anymore. I'd asked via PM some time ago as to why they couldn't implement anti-spamming features into the forum software to keep the bots from generating infinite combinations of "usernames" every day, but it's got something to do with the software not being compatible with current anti-spamming features. It's like listening to music on CDs - I still do, but hardly anyone else does and I'm pretty sure I'm eventually going to be forced to give up my 1000 CDs and convert to .mp3 as much as I hate to do so.

Still doesn't make sense why BF couldn't create a new URL with forums on new software for the new releases. As others have mentioned, sounds like a bad business decision to totally cut off something that makes this place unique and has potential to affect game sales. I personally don't need another Chit Chat Corner although I know that many were really mad when that went away here - there are other forums elsewhere where those who were into the social aspects of the old CCC hang out. Would just like a place to be able to discuss the gaming aspect of games I enjoy. Other places either seem to be more about games I wouldn't be that interested in, or more about socializing and not games.

"BFG is the only game site I use and I have been a member a long time. The first place I go before I even see what game is out is the forums. They tell me what I need to know about a game before I try it. I don't use the star reviews. They don't usually tell me much."

This is a quote from a friend of mine from long long ago and far away and I agree with everyone. I stay up late at night and about 3:30 my time, I am on BF forums to see who has said what and get help if I need it.

So sad Paul's brainchild has come to this.

Bye to all my friends I know and those I don't.

Closing the forum is a terrible decision. I did not realize non members were able to contribute to it. I have been a member for over 10 years and am sure I will stop my membership without the forum. I have not purchased a single game before consulting the forum. It has been the best part of my membership. I depend on all of you who give game tips and alert me to the content of the game. Often through your posts I have also found older games that I overlooked when they were first released. Doesn't BFG realize that you contributors to the forum have been better than any sales force they could ever afford. Thanks to all of you who have contributed all these years. I am not up on technology enough to seek other avenues of help so I am not sure if I will go to another game sight or just give up this particular recreation. But I will miss it!!!!

I've been a member here since 2007. I read the posts and sometimes write a review if the game deserves it. My daily ritual includes checking out the new game and reading any posts about it. What a bitter pill to swallow, losing the posts and missing out on some interesting discussions

The desktop PC is gradually going the way of the dinosaur. Tablets and smartphones are the offspring that have succeeded in outgrowing their parents. Why anyone would want to play games on either is beyond me, since neither has the capabilities that a desktop has. To that end my PC will remain the sole game playing device, whilst my tablet remains as a back-up (and occasional use for my elderly Dad!) and my mobile phone does what it was intended for; makes calls and sends texts. I don't have a laptop; 3 devices is enough for anyone.

Devs will eventually stop making games for PC's as they are becoming less popular. Those of us that use them will have less choice. Sites that solely depend on game sales will lose revenue from this source. Would we stay members if there are no new games for PC? No, of course not. So game sites will have to trim resources and I'm guessing the forums are one such resource. But what about technical issues? Will that remain or do we just contact CS? Not exactly an ideal solution since they can take days to respond and don't always have an answer.

Stop having so many sales; there's a way to save money. There are far too many of them in a week; it's not sustainable in today's market. Make the forums available to Game Club members only; for a start that may help to cut down the spam. Otherwise I suspect many will cancel their membership, resulting in even more loss of revenue for a company trying to save money. Hardly a wise decision

Oh dear another reason not to check in with BF and go to where I can comment!

BFG may regret discontinuing the forums by not opting to spend the money to do the necessary upgrades to keep it. I can only imagine how it will negatively impact Customer Service Rep's. The Customer Service department already has more responsibilities than they are epuipped to deal with as it is! I too am in favor of keeping the forums active.