ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑24 January 2024, 02:20You took it upon yourself to check the op game history. They had no mention of chess and simply made a statement that has been frequent on the message board. You are a frequent poster so I know you've seen them before and these type of threads will keep arising. Now let's look at why these people have these unrealistic expectations for bga. When you first come to the site what does it say? There are 9.8 million players to challenge and 780 games. It doesn't say there are more like 10,000 users at any given time. 85% of those players are only playing 7%-10% of the games we offer. Then of the 15% left x amount are only playing w/ friends and family and x amount are only playing arena. There are also other factors like playing only on your strength level etc. So this is why you have users puzzled as to why they are waiting in lobby for 30 mins for a game.Ceaseless wrote: ↑24 January 2024, 00:03The OP complained about not having enough users, Meeple replied that there were plenty of users, countering the OP's statement. People are here, just not playing the specific game the OP wants them to be playing. It just so happens their main game (Chess) is probably more popular than something like Azul, just not on BGA of course. So it's not even a matter of a fringe game not getting the attention they want.ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑23 January 2024, 20:01
What good is showing the number of players playing if it is understood that these aren't players that the op can play with. The majority of players are all playing the same popular games. For example there are more games played every 5 min of azul than there are of one of my fav games (caravan) in a week. On top of that several of these players are only playing within their small groups. If you aren't playing these select popular titles or you don't have friends to play with this site may seem inactive. I see a lot of these types of threads and I think bga attempted to get people to play outside of their groups more with the new changes like hiding elo for coops and the power leveling.
Bga could grow the user bases for more games but from post made on the summer games thread it sounds like they must promote certain games thus leaving all of the others on the back burner. I see some games that I had been playing for a long time get a slight push when they finally get their day of fame in the summer and winter challenges. But it isn't the same as getting a week in the spotlight. Also by the next day there is a new game being announced.
Though on the topic of fringe games, there's only so much for BGA to do there. They have too many games to effectively advertise them all. They announce some of their new stuff, etc. but they more or less leave it to the games/players themselves to attract attention.
I am not arguing if bga is wrong for how they're conducting business. They must promote certain games. But like a song on the radio that gets played 1000x a day that song is more likely to become popular than one that no one has ever heard.
this is an odd take in this thread... but it has nothing do with OP and his problem that he cant find players for a game that hes better off playing on other sites dedicated to that.
OP is free to do whatever he wants, of course, but BGA will never be the #1 site where Chess players come to. I usually have zero problems finding games I want to play.
Real time sometimes is a struggle, but you can usually get a game via Turn Based.
