I run a small, free browser-based persistent strategy RPG. We've had a forum for about a decade, and for a time, it was extremely popular. A few years ago, the

I run a small, free browser-based persistent strategy RPG. We've had a forum for about a decade, and for a time, it was extremely popular. A few years ago, the usage of the forum began declining significantly. In mid-2019, we created a Discord server for the game, and people started joining immediately. It's been nearly a year now since there was more than a single forum post per month. If you want to engage your community, you need to go where they are—or where they want to be. I'm not at all thrilled with the fact that the major out-of-game community hub for my game is now hosted on a proprietary platform still looking for proper monetization, but I am thrilled with how much people love interacting with each other on it. And more importantly, I don't have a realistic alternative to offer them.