What Are You Allowed to Say About Alpha Games?

[Meeplelowda]

Reminder for the alpha testers answering here, you can see this on the Reviewers page :
A game being available in this list does not warrant that it will go through the whole process and become available to the whole community.
Consequently, we kindly ask you to refrain from publicizing this list, in order not to create unfounded expectations.

I'm confused by what "this list" means given that THIS sub-forum is almost entirely announcements that games are in alpha. Why is that allowed if the point is "not to create unfounded expectations"? I'm not saying the "Alpha" games sub-forum should be shut down. To the contrary, I'm questioning what the point of that banner is on the BGA Reviewers page if the identity of alpha games is publicly shared here. It seems inconsistent, and there is no clarity on what the boundary is.

[KuWizard]

Reminder for the alpha testers answering here, you can see this on the Reviewers page :
A game being available in this list does not warrant that it will go through the whole process and become available to the whole community.
Consequently, we kindly ask you to refrain from publicizing this list, in order not to create unfounded expectations.

I'm confused by what "this list" means given that THIS sub-forum is almost entirely announcements that games are in alpha. Why is that allowed if the point is "not to create unfounded expectations"? I'm not saying the "Alpha" games sub-forum should be shut down. To the contrary, I'm questioning what the point of that banner is on the BGA Reviewers page if the identity of alpha games is publicly shared here. It seems inconsistent, and there is no clarity on what the boundary is.

Well, "this list" means the list of games in alpha on BGA.
Recently one of the games I developed was shown on a Twitch stream after being 5 or 6 days in alpha. I am pretty sure not every single person was seeing the banner saying "this is an alpha version, it might have bugs". So one or two people might watch the stream, see some bugs and think that the publisher allows games of such a low quality on BGA. Or a developer is shitty to allow games of such quality to be released. And they might share this at their social networks. So well, my game was moved back to private alpha and now nobody could test it anymore, thanks to this person.
Some games are in alpha for years because developer was a volunteer and they had no time to support it - that's fine. But a word of mouth could reach a lot of people mistakenly think that the game will soon be released and waiting for it.
So please just be careful about alpha games. If you invite somebody to playtest - clearly state that this is a playtest, not a released bugs-free game. And please invite people you know to playtest an alpha game.

[Meeplelowda]

Reminder for the alpha testers answering here, you can see this on the Reviewers page :
A game being available in this list does not warrant that it will go through the whole process and become available to the whole community.
Consequently, we kindly ask you to refrain from publicizing this list, in order not to create unfounded expectations.

I'm confused by what "this list" means given that THIS sub-forum is almost entirely announcements that games are in alpha. Why is that allowed if the point is "not to create unfounded expectations"? I'm not saying the "Alpha" games sub-forum should be shut down. To the contrary, I'm questioning what the point of that banner is on the BGA Reviewers page if the identity of alpha games is publicly shared here. It seems inconsistent, and there is no clarity on what the boundary is.

Well, "this list" means the list of games in alpha on BGA.
Recently one of the games I developed was shown on a Twitch stream after being 5 or 6 days in alpha.

It totally makes sense that sharing outside of BGA shouldn't be done. But the banner on the reviewer page I referred to isn't limited to that. If the intent is to say "we kindly ask you to refrain from publicizing this list outside of BGA," then it should say that IMO. Because THIS FORUM is in a sense a list of games in alpha on BGA, yet it's obviously OK to talk about them here.

There are things that are not supposed to be publicized inside BGA either, such as projects BGA Lab is working on, so I'm not just fabricating a distinction.

[cigma]

Because THIS FORUM is in a sense a list of games in alpha on BGA, yet it's obviously OK to talk about them here.

I haven't tested that, but I always thought this Alpha Games forum is only open to reviewers. At least before this bug(?), which now seems to show all games forums to everyone, even when they have never played that specific game.

[Meeplelowda]

Because THIS FORUM is in a sense a list of games in alpha on BGA, yet it's obviously OK to talk about them here.

I haven't tested that, but I always thought this Alpha Games forum is only open to reviewers. At least before this bug(?), which now seems to show all games forums to everyone, even when they have never played that specific game.

I only recently became a reviewer a couple months ago to test a friend's game. I thought I remember being able to see this forum before then. But that could be a false memory, as I've recently written about in another context.

But you're right. If I were to exit the reviewer's group to test if I could still see it we wouldn't be sure if it was the bug that is letting me see it.

[jegharenplan]

Your memory is correct. The Alpha Forum is publicly visible even to non-reviewers and has been for years. I know because I only very recently became a reviewer, but before that I'd always check every now and then in this forum to see if anything interesting had popped up as an Alpha Game.

[SiRan90]

Because THIS FORUM is in a sense a list of games in alpha on BGA, yet it's obviously OK to talk about them here.

I haven't tested that, but I always thought this Alpha Games forum is only open to reviewers. At least before this bug(?), which now seems to show all games forums to everyone, even when they have never played that specific game.

I only recently became a reviewer a couple months ago to test a friend's game. I thought I remember being able to see this forum before then. But that could be a false memory, as I've recently written about in another context.

But you're right. If I were to exit the reviewer's group to test if I could still see it we wouldn't be sure if it was the bug that is letting me see it.

If non reviewers couldn't see it then we wouldn't have games with lists of people asking to be invited to the group to be able to play the game in alpha

[cigma]

If non reviewers couldn't see it then we wouldn't have games with lists of people asking to be invited to the group to be able to play the game in alpha

Good point!

[KuWizard]

Another good related question: if the developer haven't yet posted anything about the alpha game at the alpha forums, is it ok to post anything about the game? Maybe the developer didn't want to announce it publicly yet...
Talking about this one https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=50209

[FSKFSK]

For some games, the license agreement falls apart before the game is released, and they have to pull the game. They don't want people publicizing games that may never be available.