I'm a casual mid-life gamer and I fully expect any game of any noticeable size to have an official forum in addition to Steam or other forums as those can go sideways and the devs have little control. No different than many other products that have an official forum so they can monitor the chatter to their standards and directly interact with their customers as they see fit. This is especially popular and expected with software. There are forums for my recording studio software, various computer operating systems, video editing software, etc. Most people in my demographic of life are aware of this. When my nephew and niece (both in college) look for video game data they go right to the official forums for their games, whether Nintendo, PC, or mobile. I had to point out to several family members that Steam even has a forum for each game.
In life, we tend to gravitate to people like us. I can't think of any gamers in my family, friends, or co-workers that are not aware of official gaming forums. Clearly others come from a different place in life. Nothing wrong with either background, but let's be careful about casting a wide net supporting ignorance to the existence of official gaming forums.