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I used to play Everquest on and off for more than 6 years. I have played several MMORPGS before. With Everquest I, there was basicly a website external to SOE that was member run for each server and there were also general forums too. The server forums were great because you could arrange event, chit chat, etc.

With Everquest II, SOE came with there own forums. These ended up washing out the server forums. World of Warcraft’s official forums are the only truely popular forums as well.

Now Microsoft’s Zune.net is the “Official Zune Forums”, so where does that leave the other great forum communities like Zune Thoughts, ZuneBoards, and Zunerama? Chances are that forum traffic will stay ok, but I fear that they may not grow much since new users are going to a) catch Zune.net #1 in search engines for Zune terms eventually, b) Microsoft has you go to Zune.net to sign up so new users are already there and c) the Zune Team Members are posting there.

I run forum communities as well and I have seen how things work with these type things.

I don’t think this will happen overnight and checking in on the Zune forums I read, the traffic has increased this week. What will it be like in 1 month, 3 months, etc…

I understand companies doing their own Forums, but I don’t like it at all. I guess I am being greedy, but I think 3rd party forums really help in more than one way, but I won’t get into my theories on the subject here.

I am wishing the great Zune Forum Communities all the best!