Supplemental Survey Feedback re: Service

[MattTheLesser]

I have rarely (if ever?) posted in these forums but I received and filled out the recent user survey. There was one topic - reliability and speed of the service - that was not included nor was there any free response ability to comment on it. So I wanted to add that here in the (maybe unlikely?) chance that it could be seen by the team and considered. And starting a thread so that if others feel similarly, they can add their thoughts - based on my discussions with others this is a widespread point of dissatisfaction.

I've been premium and a mostly daily player for years now, and the only major complaint I have about BGA is the high frequency with which the service goes down. It has been getting worse to the point that it feels like there is something almost daily now, and it is endlessly frustrating when I literally can't use the thing I am paying for.

I would much rather have no new games or features at all (most of these nowadays are marginal / niche and irrelevant to me anyways) and see BGA put its resources towards improving the reliability of the site. And this needs to be done before adding ads, or the ads are just going to make these issues worse.

I feel like BGA is great value for the price of premium, even with the recent price hikes. I would probably pay more. But when I pay for something, I want to be able to use it without interruptions. Continued degradation of the service is the one thing that would make me cancel my premium membership.

[FrankJones]

Well said. If premium membership were raised to $20 a month tomorrow, I would pay without hesitation. But I wish the server stability issues would be addressed.

I'm not sure what the solution is. Are resources insufficient? Maybe the price needs to be raised. Or, are resource being allocated to new games and features instead of server stability improvements? Who knows?

In the long run, I think the site would benefit from:

1) Continuing to have an option for a free membership as we currently do. Premium members benefit greatly from the vast number of players available to play games. Eliminating free memberships would be a bad idea. More members equals more games played, more interaction, more forum participation, etc.

2) Raising the price of premium memberships while promising to use the extra funds to improve server stability.

3) Adding another tier of membership: "Premium-gold" or something. $15 a month, or $10 a month, or whatever. Figure out some way to make it appealing. Twice as many time jokers. Priority response to reports/messages expressing concerns with regard to the website, game functionality, cheating issues, etc. Find some combination of things to make to worthwhile to those who are able and willing to support the site.

4) Better response to long-standing site-wide suggestions in that forum. Some have 1000+ upvotes and yet have not bene implemented. That makes no sense to me. Far too often I see a post in a game-specific forum to which people reply, "This is a BGA issue, you should post in the general BGA suggestion forum". But when people see dozens of suggestions with 1000+ upvotes that are 4 years old without being implemented, why would anyone bother? Most people do not.

5) More incentive for people to volunteer. I and a friend are both volunteers for Terraforming Mars, one of the more popular games. We spend a lot of time assisting the lead developer. What do we get? Nothing. The more popular a game is, the more activity the bug/suggestion report forum receives for that game. All popular games would benefit from having a team of 1 or 2 extra volunteers helping to manage the bug reports and contribute. But, give some incentive. 6 Months of Premium for free, or something.

Thoughts?

[peaceful-gorilla914]

I like 3 and 5
Dont understand was translation is rewarded and not volunteering