Hey @GamedevCala, I think one of the benefits might be that when members of the community are here they get to see how many others members of the community are here - at the same time - the increased sense of feeling like you are apart of something, and something so good that lots of people want to also be apart of it.
Sure, there could be comments like the ones you mention, absolutely, couldn’t disagree with you - the same could be said for the showcase sub-forums where I may post a link to a game I’ve spent hours on, feel proud of, put it out there for some constructive feedback and someone says “I think it’s cr*p”… from what I have seen of the awesome community here so far, and that of those on the Facebook groups also, that hasn’t been the case, instead people seem genuinely keen to be of help and as supportive as they can.
Who knows, maybe the ability to real time PM/chat someone may lead to the ability to PM/chat with a group of people, maybe that’s the small group of developers that have got together from a course and want to just run some ideas passed each other and agreed to “meet on the forum at 8pm” etc. For me it’s more about having the opportunities to build the community and to keep people coming back and supporting each other.
Fully appreciate your points though, those could be the risks of having something like that, and obviously there are many other platforms for real time interaction also.