BGA yesterday, now and tomorrow

[Charlemagne]

Can't say I'm positive about this. Asmodee ruins everything it touches. We're talking about the company that recently eliminated the ability to replace broken games, and removed their forums so they wouldn't have to directly support their games. It will be business as usual for a short time, until it is not.

And we can start taking bets on how soon the free membership option is taken away.

[Charlemagne]

Would really like to discuss what this means for smaller publishers and creators who have offered games freely in the past. You all were a small start up that we offered games to for free. Asmodee is a 1.3 billion dollar entity that doesn't traditionally "play nice" with their competitors (which a large majority of other publishers on the platform are considered by them). They can most certainly afford to pay for the ongoing use of our mods and game properties, and they should. This is an investment firm, they bought this site because they see potential for financial gain, if that is the case, the contributors should be compensated.

Quite frankly, asking extremely small publishers and individual to continue to support a 1.3 billion dollar entity without pay is unethical, and quite frankly, illegal based on Asmodee being HQ'ed in the U.S.

Finding out that our properties have been sold to another company after the fact is also incredibly unprofessional. Each publisher with a game on your platform should've been contacted prior to this sale. I'm really furious with the ownership of BGA right now, this is absolutely not the right way to have gone about this. Please find a time to have a meeting with developers and publishers so we can find a solution, I can see here I'm not the only one with massive concerns about this move.

THIS.

[Jupaoqq]

Here's a sneak peek about some exciting changes Asmodee would bring: (just kidding)

[frgm]

a team of just 4 people!

And dozens of volunteer developers + hundreds of volunteer playtesters, right?

None of whom were paid, and as I understand it - BGA+Asmodee do not intend to pay going forward... You don't get a valuation of 1.3 billion dollars while being altruistic, I guess.

This is something that has never quite sat right with me. That for the most part, the development of games on BGA has been a volunteer activity. I've accepted it, as it's allowed me to play a lot of great games in this pandemic year, and, as long as BGA premium memberships were mostly devoted to keeping the lights on, as it were, it didn't seem too egregious. But with BGA becoming a subsidiary of a private equity-owned multi-billion dollar media conglomerate…

[Michielos]

Meh not a fan of this. I read the horror stories of Asmodee all over the geek. Time will tell

[Stroom]

I definitely will cancel my subscription now. Not only did the Hanabi UI get a downgrade, being bought by a company that has horrible customer-hostile business practices is the last nail on this coffin.

[ozcygt]

First off, this needs to be plastered all over the front page, you have fundamentally changed the nature of this website and people deserve to know that.

Secondly, it is terribly exploitative of the previous owners of BGA to sell the site to a capitalist corporation while so much of this site is the result of volunteer work. It is incredible incompetence if not staggering malice that must have led you to decide this without consulting the volunteers that make this site what it is.

I am quite disappointed in the old leadership (I expect little but the worst of the new).

I have talked my two friends, with whom we played hundreds of games here over the last year, into leaving the site, and I will no longer support the site financially.

[ufm]

First off, this needs to be plastered all over the front page, you have fundamentally changed the nature of this website and people deserve to know that.

I couldn't agree more.

[Ben Ritter]

It's not all bad. By the time Asmodee wrecks it, the pandemic will be over and we can go back to playing games in person.

[WillBePlayin]

First off, this needs to be plastered all over the front page, you have fundamentally changed the nature of this website and people deserve to know that.

I couldn't agree more.

This should be the highlighted news story for weeks to come. It has changed the site forever and there's no going back.