Not to defend Ubisoft, but the primary purpose of a developper's/publisher's forum is to help sell its games. Posters have no rights or freedom and can only post with the permission of the forum owner. He always has to walk the fine line between allowing unfettered discussions or cracking down on users, posts or threads which give an unfairly negative view of their game.
It's a catch-22 situation, if you have too little moderation, you risk having a large number of negative posts, since users usually post to complain, which would give an unfavorable view of the game to potential buyers and hurt sales of the game. On the other hand, if you have too much moderation, close threads and ban posters, you risk creating a backlash among more moderate posters,which would give an unfavorable view of the game to potential buyers and also hurt sales of the game.
You will always have more free and open discussions on a board like this one which is not affiliated with any developper/publisher.
I presume that since SH5 is being launched next week, Ubisoft decided to "purge" their forum in anticipation of the influx of potential customers.
__________________
|