Premium subscription price update (June 1st)

[JeanCroft]

Guys, a suggestion is that you give us the opportunity to renew our subscription earlier, I believe it would be good for both parties. It's possible?

I'm also on for this. The website was very well developed, and you do a great job with the games. It's an awesome way to test games before going for them on stores. But even considering BGA is a business, a 20% raise is too much. If it was something around 10% I doubt there would be so many people complaining here.

Besides, allowing current premium users to renew before the change in price would be a win-win scenario for both BGA and all of those users, as I believe most of them (very probably me included) will not renew the premium subscription after that. Plus, it'd be a good sign of respect to all those who have been supporting you so far.

[PlanBee]

I currently pay £22.90, so an increase to £33 represents a 50% increase. How can you justify this? There is no way your costs have increased this much

If you want to manage your costs better remove some of the games that nearly no one plays, it will make the site easier to use too!

[_Kex_]

I agree that the price is still very good, but this is from your previous FAQ about the last raise:

You will subscribe with the current price (24$ annually, or 4$ each month), and you will keep these prices after the November 1st price update, as long as you do not cancel your membership.

as long as you do not cancel your membership

seconded! While I understand that all prices are going up, and that the new price is not too bad - that was not the deal we agreed upon.
I'm keeping my subscription active less because I use premium features and more as a support to an awesome site that is constantly updated. But if the price goes up for us who accepted the constant annual price - I'd consider it to be highly unfair and would cancel my subscription.

[cmdrmarc]

This is a terrible way to handle a price increase - like others, I currently pay £22.80 a year, so sending me an email saying my price is going from £27 to £33 is extremely misleading. I also can't see how you can justify such a price hike?

[Epideme]

I agree that the price is still very good, but this is from your previous FAQ about the last raise:

You will subscribe with the current price (24$ annually, or 4$ each month), and you will keep these prices after the November 1st price update, as long as you do not cancel your membership.

as long as you do not cancel your membership

seconded! While I understand that all prices are going up, and that the new price is not too bad - that was not the deal we agreed upon.
I'm keeping my subscription active less because I use premium features and more as a support to an awesome site that is constantly updated. But if the price goes up for us who accepted the constant annual price - I'd consider it to be highly unfair and would cancel my subscription.

This is a terrible way to handle a price increase - like others, I currently pay £22.80 a year, so sending me an email saying my price is going from £27 to £33 is extremely misleading. I also can't see how you can justify such a price hike?

Likewise - I logged in for the first time last night since 22/03/2022 (earning the "living dead" badge) and typed a longer post last night that the forum ate rather than posting, but in a nutshell:

• The email to me was wrong (it didn't reflect how much I currently pay annually or monthly yet presented it as though it did and the link to support didn't work) and I do hope it wasn't the "dedicated email" that those who were locked in will be receiving.

• The "offer price" as you refer to it was set out in October 2021 on https://en.boardgamearena.com/forum/vie ... hp?p=97268, when most of those paying for Premium were doing so simply to support the site; most of - if not all - the site content was at the time we started supporting entirely free.

• - Existing Monthly/Yearly Premium players will keep the current prices (= nothing changes for you as long as you keep your Premium Subscription going).

  As someone who wasn't even using the service for the last 15 months, I was happy to continue supporting at the level of support which I'd agreed to.

This represents a 150% price increase and frankly, if it goes ahead for those who were locked in, I will instead cancel - and probably not end up even using the site as a free user.


Unlike the generic and incorrect email, below is what my account shows.

Premium membership
Thanks for supporting this service!

Your current plan: Yearly (£ 1.9 / month - Billed £22.8 yearly).

Next invoicing: Jul 26th 2023.

2022-07-26: 12 months of membership
Display invoice
Bought 2022-07-26

2021-07-26: 12 months of membership
Display invoice
Bought 2021-07-26

2020-07-26: 12 months of membership
Display invoice
Bought 2020-07-26

[simonproctor]

I originally had locked in the price update but needed to change my card, so ended up on the new price even though I'd been a member for ages.

Whilst I support this site and this new price is still reasonable. Any offer of locking in prices in the future should take the above issue into account. Any kind of deal on membership needs to be tied to the account not the card. It should also come with a better support model for the customer.

So I would find this price change annoying as I'd locked in the price - but then I couldn't keep that lock in for the reasons above. And I never saw the reply from support (if it was sent I didn't receive it).

[NateMB]

Seemingly no reason to keep auto renew on at this point.

[Jamesnmca]

Seems very misleading when I was told: "You will subscribe with the current price (24$ annually, or 4$ each month), and you will keep these prices after the November 1st price update, as long as you do not cancel your membership." I have not canceled my membership, yet the price is going up. There was no confusion on my part, it appears to have been on your part. At least be honest and just say what is really happening.

[Tisaac]

Seems very misleading when I was told: "You will subscribe with the current price (24$ annually, or 4$ each month), and you will keep these prices after the November 1st price update, as long as you do not cancel your membership." I have not canceled my membership, yet the price is going up. There was no confusion on my part, it appears to have been on your part. At least be honest and just say what is really happening.

Where is the confusion ? You havent got the previous increased price because you didnt cancel your membership. And now you are getting the new increase because everyone is.

This is a terrible way to handle a price increase - like others, I currently pay £22.80 a year, so sending me an email saying my price is going from £27 to £33 is extremely misleading. I also can't see how you can justify such a price hike?

Page 1 of this thread : "Over the past year, we have added more than 100 new games to the platform, including some of the most popular titles like Wingspan, Ticket to Ride, and Catan, as well as highly anticipated releases including Earth, Ark Nova, Gizmos, Obsession, Living Forest, and Just One… to name a few.
We made several updates to the platform and new staff members have also joined us to strengthen the team, help implement further changes, and allow us to better maintain the site.
The price change will help us to support the authors and publishers of the games we feature on our platform, ensuring that they are fairly compensated for their work. We are committed to helping both small and large publishers, and we appreciate your ongoing support in this mission."

I agree that the price is still very good, but this is from your previous FAQ about the last raise:

You will subscribe with the current price (24$ annually, or 4$ each month), and you will keep these prices after the November 1st price update, as long as you do not cancel your membership.

as long as you do not cancel your membership

seconded! While I understand that all prices are going up, and that the new price is not too bad - that was not the deal we agreed upon.
I'm keeping my subscription active less because I use premium features and more as a support to an awesome site that is constantly updated. But if the price goes up for us who accepted the constant annual price - I'd consider it to be highly unfair and would cancel my subscription.

There are no such thing as a deal here, no contractual obligation from BGA. You kept the old price until a new increase went up, as they announced.
You can criticize the fact the this increase is arriving very soon after the previous one for sure, or the fact that the previous one was really poorly handled with the change of payment issue, but no point of talking about some kind of deal for this one.

Guys, a suggestion is that you give us the opportunity to renew our subscription earlier, I believe it would be good for both parties. It's possible?

I'm also on for this. The website was very well developed, and you do a great job with the games. It's an awesome way to test games before going for them on stores. But even considering BGA is a business, a 20% raise is too much. If it was something around 10% I doubt there would be so many people complaining here.

But it's harder to consider BGA as a business since the vast majority of money that they are getting from premium is just given to publishers.

[Windrisen]

I have to wonder if the reason for this price increase has anything to do with the number of premium subscribers who have cancelled their membership because of the decision to end "No Time Limit, Turn Based, Friends Only" games. One of the most active threads on this site has been asking the site admins to change this back, so that we can play NTL-TB-FO games, and the few responses we've seen from the site admins have been thoroughly debated on this discussion forum:

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... &start=240

250 replies and counting, thousands of views, and almost no response from the site admins.

Please bring back No Time Limit, Turn Based, Friends Only games and I'll be happy to renew, even at the increased price. But without that feature, which was turned off without discussion, I really don't feel good about the customer service or community we find at this site.