back in the day, forums in a lot of games received more attention from developers in all games.

personally, from my experience, the forums do not speak for much more than a small portion of any player base. while some seem to devote their lives to it, the reality is that, even being generous in the estimate, less than 25% of players have likely even visited the forums, far fewer ever post. So there is little benefit for developers to spend time here, since really, listening to a vocal minority on either side of an issue is just asking for trouble.

Add to that the obvious, that anonymous people online tend towards... massive hyperbole and over reaction, especially on forums. over the last 6 months I have gotten 3 different survey requests from SE, so its not like they arent still looking for answers to questions, just seems like they are not using the forums for it. its not a huge shock and I doubt its a sign the world is ending...