BGA yesterday, now and tomorrow

[Lithanial]

I feel like the dynamics of this site will be changed forever. It was enjoying watching this site grow into something like the sibling of Boardgamegeek. Unfortunately, I can't see this trend continuing. I feel like there was other ways for this site to generate revenue and continue to grow without the purchase.

[pchallinor]

The only reason for Asmodee to invest is to make money. They certainly didn't do it 'because they "love board games". The only way they make money is to collect money from someone.

So either they collect money from players (boo hiss)
Or they collect money from advertisers (oh, god, please no)
Or they collect money from Game Owners/Publishers (but why would another Game publisher want to give money to Asmodee?)
Or there's a money fairy that nobody told me about?

Hopefully if they concentrate on player subscriptions funding and they can scale this large enough so that individual subscriptions are still a good value. I guess time will tell...

No matter what it's hard to see this continuing to be a thriving community for small game developers/publishers and 'niche' game properties. I suspect those days are over.

[marcnelsonjr]

You need to find a way to cut developers and non-Asmodee publishers in on the money. I can't imagine people are going to be willing to donate their time, labor, or intellectual property to make a few more bucks for a billion-dollar company.

[hsta]

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.

You need to find a way to cut developers and non-Asmodee publishers in on the money. I can't imagine people are going to be willing to donate their time, labor, or intellectual property to make a few more bucks for a billion-dollar company.

I hope all the developers and smaller publishers will move to a new, independent site. I'll happily follow and pay for a subscription.

[Le Prince dé Fourmi]

Congrats et merci les gars. Vous meritez un gros bonus, j'imagine que pour porter BGA jusque la vous avez fait des sacrifices! On compte sur vous pour que le beau message d'aujourd'hui soit plus que de la com, un veritable engagement pour nous permettre de profiter ce votre fantastique outil le plus longtpems et a prix raisonnable! le jour ou vous vous quitterez l'equipe, restez en force sur le board.
enjoy the champagne et a bientot sur BGA
on est tous des animaux du desert!

best

Antoine

[preindividual]

Love all the language about "joining forces" rather than being explicit and talking about a sale. A sale where all the volunteers that helped grow the site got nothing. Real classy.

[fafa-fr]

I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'll be very happy to play terraforming mars here for a while, if it's not too expensive, and above all if it has less bugs than what the (Asmodee Digital) steam / android / iOs version seems to have.

On the other hand, I'm not convinced at all that nothing will change in the long run. I don't know what does "Board Game Arena is joining now the Asmodee group" exactly means, in terms of contract, advantages, obligations and independance (I don't know much about big finance and big corporations). What I know is that "focused on board games" or "absolute board game fans" doesn't necessarily mean that satisfying users will always be the most important thing (even if it will certainly not change tomorrow), and that the main goal of Asmodee is not to satisfy users, it is to make big money. And I also know that the fairy tales saying that the best way to make money is to satisfy all users are just lies. It's an over-simplified view, because sometimes satisfying users is not valuable. Two examples come to my mind (maybe not the two most relevant I could have found with more time): the Asmodee Digital steam / android /iOs version of terraforming mars (see this topic on VideoGameGeek), and when trictrac.net ruined their forum maybe five or six years ago because "the forum was not their priority".

This is why I'm pretty reluctant to continue to invest time on BGA in the long run. Of course I'll finish the work on the game I'm working on (very close to being finished ), and I'll try to maintain it for as long as possible. And I'll enjoy playing here (at last I will have time for this after the release of the game I'm coding!), and I hope that BGA will continue to be run by people who care more about users than about money (I thank you for this Greg and Emmanuel ), who knows, it may continue even when being in Asmodee group. But I will not bet dozens (or hundreds ...) of working hours of my time on it.

[ufm]

You need to find a way to cut developers and non-Asmodee publishers in on the money. I can't imagine people are going to be willing to donate their time, labor, or intellectual property to make a few more bucks for a billion-dollar company.

This. I'll probably stay away from translation process, since Asmodee has recently established Korea branch.

[intelekt]

You need to find a way to cut developers and non-Asmodee publishers in on the money. I can't imagine people are going to be willing to donate their time, labor, or intellectual property to make a few more bucks for a billion-dollar company.

I suggested exactly this in emails to Greg this morning and was told they won't be paying us anything. If this stance does not change I'm not sure we can allow our games to remain on the platform. I cannot condone this level of exploitation. Please listen to your community and figure something out quickly.

[Tisaac]

You need to find a way to cut developers and non-Asmodee publishers in on the money. I can't imagine people are going to be willing to donate their time, labor, or intellectual property to make a few more bucks for a billion-dollar company.

I suggested exactly this in emails to Greg this morning and was told they won't be paying us anything. If this stance does not change I'm not sure we can allow our games to remain on the platform. I cannot condone this level of exploitation. Please listen to your community and figure something out quickly.

Have you read the dev license before developping a game ?

Code: Select all

Developers producing software and associated documentation files 
(the "Software") to create a game adaptation on the BGA studio platform agree 
that the Software:
 - can be used on Board Game Arena (BGA) to run the game, with no limitations 
 whatsoever;
 - can be modified by BGA site administrators to fit the purpose of the site, to
 fix bugs or in the purpose of re-factoring;
 - can be freely reused and adapted by developers for other games on the BGA 
studio platform.

You probably shouldn't have produced the code in the first place if you were not ok with such use.