This is on par with them switching forum engines, that created such backlash they were forced to restore everything how it was (yeah i remember that).
Now they are killing the best place to seek for jobs, to promote their barely usable service, good job people, you clearly think about your userbase as always.
I have to agree with this. At least for a good while itās going to have a negative impact, and whether it eventually succeeds is questionable. They should have taken an incentive approach so as not to do more harm then necessary.
Iāve always found the forums a pretty poor format for looking for work. I donāt see connect as being any worse.
It got so bad at one point that moderators were just letting any old crap through. We didnāt care in the last year or so. It used to be quality content but now its scam laced garbage with no way to tell and no way to have honesty.
With connect, you can check out the credentials of a person, or ask about that person, itās way better overall for rooting out scammers, by far. Thereās realtime chat, and a whole community springing up.
I prefer forums butā¦ for jobs related stuff, I can see a clear benefit to a managed place like connect.
The issue is that Iāll bet money traffic drops like a rock for a good while. You canāt take something people are used to and just do a sudden change like this without directing it better. And Iām pretty sure the proof of that will show in the numbers, not that we will ever see them:)
Donāt be silly.
Murphyās law.
What money traffic, though? Unity werenāt getting a thing from the job forums, as far as I know.
Forums are staying and are more important than Unity connect as its a totally different format of data to realtime chat channels, listings etcā¦ theyāre complimentary things.
I meant job section on unity forums specifically.
Iām not. Iāve been involved in about half a dozen similar transitions from forums to a specialized tool like this. And you always take a hit, and you outright lose a good chunk of people if itās not managed carefully.
The first mistake IMO was having the forums and connect both at the same time for this long. It split the traffic which dilutes the value. What I would have done is have a very short transition time, and linked the job forum to connect in some way during that time to get people used to it, and to not lose people still going to the forums. Like post new connect listings and updates in the forum, with direct links. Something like that.
Unity Connect didnāt just spring up outta nowhere. It was in BETA in November last year and that gave a while for users to get used to it and adapt to it.
Closing those forums are a good thing because, as @hippocoder said, it roots out scam and low-effort posts like āMaking an MMORPG with 50/50 revenue shareā.
Unity Connect is not perfect, but I say this is a good change.
Thatās assuming the collab forums had value to begin with. From my POV as a moderator it was mostly just a garbage dump with a few decent people here and there so Iām not sure what value it ever had.
This is in no way meant to insult anyone who did find success with it, just talking in the most general case.
It kept the rest of the forums clear of the āHi, I want to build the next big [genre] game and I have $5 to do soā threads. 
Now we just tell them to use Unity Connect. Not a huge difference. Honestly, the forums did not stay clear of those posts. The Design forum seemed to be the place many of them landed and since that is the only forum on my watch list, I sent them elsewhere when I could.
If I were hiring, I would prefer to use Unity Connect. At least I can get some info about the developer, see what games he or she has developed, where they are from, their background, etc. And more than likely, these are serious people who are not afraid to use their real name. 
Seems a lot smarter and safer than just choosing someone from a forum post.
And lets not forget how often we copped the āsomeone in the commercial forums ripped me offā threads.
I honestly donāt think the change will have any effect on how many of those random threads get created. If anything we will now get more, as its going to take a couple more steps to set up with connect.
I doubt we will get less. Often those looking for free collaborators admitted they posted in the Design forum because they did not think anyone would notice them in the collaborator forum. lol
Now we will get āHow do I used Unity Connectā more often but that is not really a bad thing.
This is nowhere near the level of the attempted Lithium switch. That affected everybody and was a clear downgrade. This affects relatively few people, and given some of the points above, Iām not sure itās a downgrade.
āEric
Just recently signed up for this. Actually seems far better than the current solution, though I doubt the quality of postings has gone up. Iād like to see a feature that lets you know if somebodyās actually read your bid, as the vast majority do not respond, and it makes you wonder if they ever got it. I like being able to show work directly, though many postings donāt use text boxes to make a pitch of any sort. I canāt write a cover letter on-site either, so itās pretty irritating having to upload them manually. Also like the use of real names in a work based environment.
The picture implies that nested prefabs existed in the first place.
