Bug handling

[Ghor2Bey]

Hi there,

I'm here since 2020, and played a lot here. I didn't find any bug in games since recently, when I got on 2 different expert games, which, to be honest, ruin the game.

I've reported the bugs and used the bug report system. It seems they'll not be fixed anytime soon, which is really sad.

There are a lot of new games on BGA, which is great, but older games seem to be left on the side, maybe the initial developer don't work on it anymore, leaving the game with current bugs.

As the price of the subscription increase (50% increase since last year), how does BGA justify that their huge catalog has some games that are not maintained anymore, despite their state (not fully working)?

This is great to have so much choice, but if some of these choices are out of question (especially for expert games, which require some time to play) because there are frustrating bugs which can happen, it makes the choice more restricted.

Does BGA have (paid) developers in charge of fixing bug of existing game or do they only focus on extending the game catalog?

Don't misunderstand me, I love to play on BGA, but having some great games unplayable because of possible bugs which will apprently never be solved is really sad...

Ghorghor

[GTSchemer]

First off, it would be helpful to link the bug reports in question so any developers reading the forum can review.

For reference, Ark Nova (just to use an example) has gotten a MASSIVE amount of bug reports, and something like 90% of them were not bugs. If we have the bug link here, we can potentially check if the developer is still active etc.

[Ghor2Bey]

Well, I wasn't sure it would be a good idea to link bug report here. So here they are:

First one was on Amalfi, I've posted a question first here : https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35880
Then I've created a bug report here, since I didn't get any answer nor found any relevant explanation in the rules: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=122352

Second one was on Anachrony, for which I directly post a bug here, after checking the rules: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=122349

My question was a more indirect, as the game catalog grows more and more, how older games are supported, in case of initial developer quit supporting the game?
Does BGA allocate some resources reviewing and fixing found bugs in older games?

I know there's a lot of bug report, a lot of false positive, but how and when are they reviewed and eventually handled?

Ghorghor

[GTSchemer]

Thanks, I believe both developers are still active.

To follow up, the secondary problem is that most developers are volunteers, or at least volunteers past the initial development and bug-fixing stage. As you noticed, if a game has been released for 6+ months, the developer likely does not have time to investigate and maintain it for free, and BGA does not allocate resources for that to my knowledge.

I don't know the rule for Amalfi, but I did reach out to the developer.

[Ghor2Bey]

Great, thank you.

This is what I thought about games being developed for free.

I don't know the business model of BGA but they have to pay for hosting, some employees, maybe licences but they also could pay developers to improve the QoL and fix bugs on games. (I won't change the world here but it seems their business model is based on volunteers developers, which is a bit weird)

As you have developed some games (Thanks for Challengers! BTW), why did you do it, if I can ask?

Ghorghor

[GTSchemer]

Some for fun, some for experience, some for pay.

I think maintenance is a difficult problem in general. Even if BGA decided to pay certain developers for maintenance, there would be challenges involved -- e.g. is it hourly? Is it a fixed cost for a certain set of identified bugs? Also, it is far easier to maintain code you wrote than to try to learn a code base from a different developer.

[Tisaac]

Nothing is bug free. So it's not a mater of having bug-free games, but rather to have bug-free-enough-to-be-playable games.
So, as GTSchemer said, many games are made by volonteers and for these there is very little guarantee except from the fact that at some point the bug list was small enough that BGA considered it was ok to move to beta/to release the game.
For freelance work (Anachrony is one of them iirc), there is slightly more control : the usual freelance contract includes a delay of ~3months after the release for maintenance, so if a critical bug were to be found within that timeframe, then BGA could make the developper fix it.
After that timeline though, you are back to "no guarantee", and BGA is not investing money into this because it's just not worth it. You mentionned the increase of premium subscription, but I dont think you fully realize how much it would cost for debugging some games, especially complex ones, when you are not the one who made the code in the first place. You could pay a full time dev to do only this (you would need to find a dev crazy enough to do that first) and in a year it would only clear maybe 200 bugs ? And how many new bugs would be silently introduced in the meantime with the >100 new games ?...

[Ghor2Bey]

Nothing is bug free. So it's not a mater of having bug-free games, but rather to have bug-free-enough-to-be-playable games.
So, as GTSchemer said, many games are made by volonteers and for these there is very little guarantee except from the fact that at some point the bug list was small enough that BGA considered it was ok to move to beta/to release the game.
For freelance work (Anachrony is one of them iirc), there is slightly more control : the usual freelance contract includes a delay of ~3months after the release for maintenance, so if a critical bug were to be found within that timeframe, then BGA could make the developper fix it.
After that timeline though, you are back to "no guarantee", and BGA is not investing money into this because it's just not worth it. You mentionned the increase of premium subscription, but I dont think you fully realize how much it would cost for debugging some games, especially complex ones, when you are not the one who made the code in the first place. You could pay a full time dev to do only this (you would need to find a dev crazy enough to do that first) and in a year it would only clear maybe 200 bugs ? And how many new bugs would be silently introduced in the meantime with the >100 new games ?...

I clearly know the cost of finding and fixing bug in someone else codebase, as I'm a full stack developer myself and I know thatn othing is bug free. I don't speak about QoL bugs, temporary bugs, or bugs which have a workaround but about blocking/critical bugs which force an abandon, for example.

But as a company which make money, BGA has, imho, 2 main objectives regarding their customers : bringing new games (They do it a lot, it's fine) and fix blocking bugs in existing games.

In both bugs I've reported, these were blocking - if they really are bugs, of course, maybe I've missed some rules somewhere, even though I've checked the rulebook in both cases.
Finding the cause (and confirming the bug in first place) is time consuming, I clearly agree on that but I won't play Anachrony or Amalfi anymore, as this can happen again and be frustrating. When I play a boardgame IRL, we can forget or misunderstand a rule, and we can correct it or be more careful in the future. In BGA, if for some reason actions aren't available but they should be, you're stuck, game is over, especially with expert games which require 45+ minutes of play.

Let's say it otherwise, I pay to play (even though I owe most board games I play on BGA), the main advantages - for me - here are the auto-setup, the application of rules (restrict choices based on rules), and the score computation, but if some bugs ruin my game, I got frustrated (I don't care about winning or losing, but mainly having fun playing, mostly with my wife), and if I got frustrated, I certainly won't play this game anymore and lose my time on games with potential issue. Therefore, I can't play games I love, even if I've paid as part of what BGA catalog.

This means, if I get it well, that games released from more than 3 months are LTS and bugs are fixed only if the developer spend his time for free to fix it. (Which is a shame, imo)

As for now, the bug system looks (to me) more like a pile of junk that are mostly unreviewed and left to rot, which is a really bad practice and experience. (I've checked some other bugs to get an idea about how they're handled, the voting system doesn't seem to be working and I presume that if a bug isn't upvoted, it'll be at the bottom of the pile of issues to be addressed)

As I've said, I'm not here to change the world but it would be good for BGA to do something about it, and listen to its users. Both to pay developers for their work and to have fully working games in their catalog.

Ghorghor
PS : I didn't encounter any issue which the games you developed, which were very nicely adapted. (Ark Nova, Welcome, Planet Unknown, The Crew, Nidavellir, Ancient Knowledge, Federation, Rauha and certainly others, and I really thank you for these)

[Ghor2Bey]

Some for fun, some for experience, some for pay.

I think maintenance is a difficult problem in general. Even if BGA decided to pay certain developers for maintenance, there would be challenges involved -- e.g. is it hourly? Is it a fixed cost for a certain set of identified bugs? Also, it is far easier to maintain code you wrote than to try to learn a code base from a different developer.

I know but it's BGA responsability to ensure there's a solution to this issue, isn't it? It's part of their business model, or at least it should be...

I'm curious to know their opinion on this matter.

Ghorghor

[teallite]

Anachrony definitely has some critical bugs and QoL issues. I don't think that it is maintained. I haven't seen any reaction to bug reports in the last six months.