SultanOfSuave: Perhaps you could clarify a couple of things for me. What sort of community were you hoping to find, and why is it that you feel it is a requirement? As a loner without any need for friends I find this particular thing hard to grasp. Thanks!
saladmode: Umm, gaming forums. You know like where you go on Steam to have discourse and exchange ideas, tips and insights on any given game.
It is not a hard requirement for me personally. But that functionality as it exists on GoG is extremely disappointing. That might actually go a ways to explaining why the game forums over here are completely dead. Nobody wants to use a far crappier forum when Steam exists. Thus no game specific communities can grow here purely from a technical/QOL standpoint.
The obvious relevance of having active game forums over here is that they would be specific to GoG versions, which would consolidate relative information, not to mention garner more support for the platform.
OP, have you considered that the lack of forum activity is a much more widespread phenomenon that's been happening across the internet for at least the last decade+? That is, a large number of people simply don't care for (I would argue "were nefariously programmed to think they dislike") the style of discussion forums at all? I personally find forums/messageboards far superior to things like Discord, Youtube videos, livestreams, social media, etc. But those are the places where most people are discussing games, if not offline entirely as another user mentioned.
Are you familiar with the concept of "opportunity cost"? Because it is plain to me that people moving away from discussion forums en masse has affected not just GOG forums but, yes, even your (apparently) beloved Steam forums.
In other words, if so many people hadn't moved their discussions to the places mentioned above, imagine how much more populated and full of discussion the Steam forums could be. You and everyone else have been robbed of this experience due to enough people making crappy choices. Though I admit I do not have much sympathy in your case, as Steam's existence has robbed us of GOG releases and robbed us of DRM-free gaming in general in the sense Steam DRM was established as "the default", setting back DRM-free gaming and user control of products for decades.
I have anecdotally observed the opportunity cost phenomenon in reference to the GameFAQs site, which was huge in its heyday and is still a well-known site. You used to be able to look up guides, cheats, reviews, etc for any given game and it seemed there would be at least one or two entries. Not so much nowadays, other than with AAAs I guess, and that's without even going into the individual game forums where many front pages, even wading past the useless "s-posting" topics, have topics locked years ago, and with minimal quality discussion (per my own standards).
Point being: it's not necessarily GOG's size, it's not necessarily GOG's forum technology; it's more likely just that people don't use discussion forums like they used to do in the past. If anything, I would imagine that, out of its userbase, GOG has a greater percentage of users who are interested in forumposting than most other places, possibly even Steam, because those of us who care about DRM-free tend to be an older (or older-minded/souled) kind of crowd. My advice? Be the change you wish to see and post on the individual game forums here yourself.
