Faiz Ali wrote: ↑19 May 2022, 19:30
What does freelance, open for community, and shared model mean? Does it mean that the game should not be listed in BGA Studio? I don't think the publisher cares how the game is developed, their only statement was that the game should not be on any site but BGA.
Do you know what is required to list a game on BGA Studio? I checked the profile for Jurica, but they have not been online since 2020, is there someone else to ask?
Jurica is one of the admins, joezg is this username. He is the one in charge of the community of developpers.
https://boardgamearena.com/team
Here is what is the typical process when a publisher grants a license for BGA :
- if the game is not going to be premium, then probably the license will be open for volonteer community to dev, since in that case the publisher won't receive anything so is likely to not want to pay a developper, and BGA is not going to invest money in it either, because it won't make more people premium, which is their main source of revenue
- if the game is going to be premium (which means the publisher with have some share) :
* either the publisher wants to invest money to hire a developper (which means the share will be a bit bigger, but it takes the risk in this case), and in this case either the publisher finds someone directly, or ask BGA to find someone, which in this case usually mean it's going to be listed on the license page with the "money" logo (unless Jurica has someone in mind and will propose the contract to that person first)
* either the publisher does not want to invest money but BGA is willing to (which means the share will be bigger for BGA, but again they take the risk in this case), and in this situation BGA will try to minimize risk/issue and often propose freelance contract to specific developpers according to the project size/complexity. So in that case the license will not be listed in the license page.
* lastly, if no one is really to invest, then developpers can take the risk and in which case they will get some part of the share (since they are the ones taking the risk now). Depending on the complexity/fame of the game, the game can either be listed on the license page with the premium logo (but without the money logo since it's not a freelance contract), or BGA will directly propose it to some specific developpers.
There are of course way more possible scenarios, not even speaking of licenses for which IT is a complete mess.
So in this case, I would say the fame of the game is big enough so that BGA wants to have a word about the dev, weither it's going to be a freelance contract or a shared revenue developpement.
