FFG No Longer Developing Star Wars Minis Games

No, I don't mean Gary run the Discord group, I mean FFG run the Discord group that is replacing their forums. A change of venue doesn't mean you have to relinquish control, just move its delivery.

You need to decide how much control you want over your message and persona, and owning the forum is an effective way of staying in a leadership position on that. If you farm that work out to others you save the money but you perhaps lose control over the public's perception of you. You end up in a Chuck Norris situation where you are what everyone else says you are.

It just feels like FFG is not faring well on the spreadsheet that determines how much they're allowed to spend on promotion and development.

ah, yes, I completely agree with you! I misunderstood. Fan discord is a weird side solution that smacks of 0ing out investment vs. a company paid for and moderated discord community.

Last February, I tried playing D&D in a Discord group. An old friend from Indiana was running a long-term D&D campaign, and had a camera pointed at his table with a big map and miniatures on it. His girlfriend and one other local player were in the room. Everybody else except me had a microphone, so I typed my messages to the group. I didn't mind that, but the audio would get confusing when too many people were talking at once. I missed two sessions because of trouble signing in, and dropped out after two more sessions. Part of the problem was that I am not very engaged in role-playing unless I am the DM or the session is moving quickly like in a limited convention time slot. The other problem was that the Discord interface made me feel even less engaged.