BGA yesterday, now and tomorrow

[ozcygt]

What’s to respond to? I’ve told the truth about their exploitation and they’ve decided to remove our game. It should be noted that we’ve said we would remove the game if they plan on continuing to exploit free labor while owned by a 1.3 billion dollar entity.

I think it’s pretty clear they don’t like us pointing out that this behavior is unethical. Our emails are a string of deflection and they refuse to admit this is wrong.

I’m not surprised to see this, as our game is only a very small part of BGA, and they’ve already taken their money (and meantioned they plan to leave in the future in their announcement).

Sad to see this community abused in this way. It’s been a good 4 years.

Thank you for posting this. I appreciate your response.

[WillBePlayin]

That's just horrible. Should we expecting massive bans now for anyone who speaks ill about this recent decision?

[T72on1]

I am in the 'wait and see' camp. Up till now I have had nothing but positive experiences on BGA. I do agree that this should be on the news section.

[jegharenplan]

They write:

Dear all,

For the first time in 11 years, we are unfortunately forced to removed a game (temporarily) at our own initiative.

We totally understand that some people may disagree with BGA decisions, and especially the last one concerning the alliance with Asmodee group. We don't ask every publisher to be happy or to support our decision: this is how businesses work, and sometimes you just have to conclude that you disagree as a gentleman.

Unfortunately, the publisher of Stir Fry 18 decided to attack our persons and to spread lies about our exchanges. We offer him to move the game to Premium so he can get money from it, and he agreed to do it, but continue to attack us and to lie about what we offer.

In such condition, we took the sad decision to temporarily hold our partnership. We hope that this situation will be sorted out quickly so we can make this wonderful game available again.

I hope you understand that we've no choice here.

If intelekt lied, then they need to say what they are accusing intelekt lied about at the very least, and ideally provide some kind of evidence. Intelekt has been direct and clear about the unethical actions they are attributing to the BGA owners. Vague accusations about 'spreading lies' in response, on top of the other failures of transparency already noted, do not give me any more reason to trust the owners of BGA.

I canceled my subscription when I learned about the sale, in part because the owners of BGA seem to have exploited a great deal of voluntary labor. Everything I have seen so far gives me reason to trust folks like intelekt over the owners of BGA.

[thebosz]

This is the email I received from Greg after I made my intentions clear by removing my developer account:

Hello Nathan,

I'm Greg, BGA founder.

Just a few words to say that I totally understand that you don't want to contribute anymore to the Studio, and I respect this.

As you were working on Eminent Domain, I just would like to add something. Eminent Domain, or Microcosm is typically the online adaptation that cannot exist without volunteer developers. It is played less than 100 times each day: there is no economic model that can generate enough money to pay a developer decently for this adaptation.

So.... we could have built a website for "big best selling" games only. Actually it would have been easier for us. However, we are board games players, and it makes no sense for us to have a board games portal with only "Carcassonne" or "7 Wonders". Thus, we built something that combines premium / paid developers / commercial domain on one hand, and free / volunteers / non-commercial domain on the other hand.

I know this is hard to conceive that these 2 domains can co-exist, but they are! Tomorrow, we will continue to need volunteer developers for a lot of adaptations that are "non-profitable" from an economic perspective and then ignored by the other commercial platforms. The choice is not between paying developers and not paying developers: the choice is between making these adaptations possible or not.

Anyway, I understood that your decision has been made, and my intention is not to change your mind. I just wanted to take some time to explain how BGA works, and how it will continue to work.

Best
Greg

And here is my response:

Look, I'm not upset that you sold out but don't try to make it seem like everything's still hunky dory.

There's only two possibilities here:

1. You didn't know that Asmodee is despised in the board game community. In which case, you don't actually care about the board game community or have no idea about how it feels.

Or

2. You just wanted to get paid and hoped that people wouldn't jump ship. Which is fine. If I was looking at a large payout, it would be tough to say "no".

Regardless of which case it is, don't try to pretend that volunteering time for a small-time community is in any way, shape or form the same as volunteering time for a billion dollar gelatinous cube, hellbent on swallowing everything of value in one of my favorite hobbies.

I'm not going to remove my code, but I will definitely never pay for your service again, much less volunteer my time. If you want to pay me, I make over $100k a year doing web development. We can discuss terms.

I will make sure my gaming group knows what you've done and how you treat your community of volunteers.

I will also make sure to contact as many publishers as I can to let them know that giving a license to a behemoth like Asmodee isn't worth their time.

Goodbye forever, unless of course you want to hire me at my going rate.

[intelekt]

They write:

Dear all,

For the first time in 11 years, we are unfortunately forced to removed a game (temporarily) at our own initiative.

We totally understand that some people may disagree with BGA decisions, and especially the last one concerning the alliance with Asmodee group. We don't ask every publisher to be happy or to support our decision: this is how businesses work, and sometimes you just have to conclude that you disagree as a gentleman.

Unfortunately, the publisher of Stir Fry 18 decided to attack our persons and to spread lies about our exchanges. We offer him to move the game to Premium so he can get money from it, and he agreed to do it, but continue to attack us and to lie about what we offer.

In such condition, we took the sad decision to temporarily hold our partnership. We hope that this situation will be sorted out quickly so we can make this wonderful game available again.

I hope you understand that we've no choice here.

If intelekt lied, then they need to say what they are accusing intelekt lied about at the very least, and ideally provide some kind of evidence. Intelekt has been direct and clear about the unethical actions they are attributing to the BGA owners. Vague accusations about 'spreading lies' in response, on top of the other failures of transparency already noted, do not give me any more reason to trust the owners of BGA.

I canceled my subscription when I learned about the sale, in part because the owners of BGA seem to have exploited a great deal of voluntary labor. Everything I have seen so far gives me reason to trust folks like intelekt over the owners of BGA.

Quite frankly I've been asking them publicly and privately what part is a lie and have gotten no response. I'm advocating for those who have volunteered their time to this site. They should not be asked to continue developing games for free, when a 1.3 billion dollar investment firm is the recipient. They've tried to frame this as "me wanting money", and either completely misunderstood me, or are intentionally gaslighting. I will of course not freely give my game (from a company worth maybe $200K total) to a 1.3 billion dollar entity if they intend to rely on free labor, that would be consent to this sort of inequity. I simply cannot support this action. For speaking up about this, they removed the game and posted the above on their site to all of our users.

[tchobello]

What’s to respond to? I’ve told the truth about their exploitation and they’ve decided to remove our game. It should be noted that we’ve said we would remove the game if they plan on continuing to exploit free labor while owned by a 1.3 billion dollar entity.

I think it’s pretty clear they don’t like us pointing out that this behavior is unethical. Our emails are a string of deflection and they refuse to admit this is wrong.

I’m not surprised to see this, as our game is only a very small part of BGA, and they’ve already taken their money (and meantioned they plan to leave in the future in their announcement).

Sad to see this community abused in this way. It’s been a good 4 years.

well, it's quite surprising to read so many aggressive, harsh comments from "Co-founder and Creative Director for Yanaguana Games in the USA. Creator of Stir Fry Eighteen & Shipload o' Gold."
you may have a problem with Asmodee (and other people's money) but what is the point in losing temper like this ?

Sorry to remind you, but I think you have sold a lot more of your products since a volunteer has freely developed an adaptation on BGA.
Did anyone bother you with what you have given, paid, offer, sent to DrKarotte ?

Some people build castles with matches as a hobby.
Others develop games as a hobby because they like that.
I used to adapt some games on my PC while learning ASM68000, Pascal, Actionscript, Python but nobody witnessed it...
I'm a huge fan of Dungeon Twister and BGA gave me the opportunity to add expansions and, most of all, play with DT community I've met several times at conventions.
They are very grateful and some have sent me some rare goodies (and no bloody money) especially since Chris Boelinger (a really kind game designer) have sent me hi-res graphics.
you know nothing about the motivation of people developing here.

good luck with your products without BGA.

[DomitienAW]

The best analogy I see is Android.
Some apps are created by Google, and Google rightfuly earn money for it.
Some apps are created by other who are not necessarily paid and Google earn money from them too (at least in increasing the interest for the platform).
Is Google taking advantage of it: YES.
Should the developer stop creating app: NO.
Should Google pay from the develpment of those third party apps: NO
Should those developer be allowed to be paid: YES

Some great people volonteer to create games here and that’s cool (thank you all for this!)
However, they never needed to bother about servers, about log-in, about the lobby, about the pairing system…
And they didn’t work either on building the community to ensure there is always opponent availiable or on the link with the right owners…
(okay they probably do it, but not to the point they should have if BGA didn’t exist)
And all those elements should vastly be improved and I think Asmodee money will be of good use here for the benefit of both paid and unpaid games.

(Precision: My point is that volonteering to develop indy / small / old games on BGA shouldn’t be considered evil.
if Asmodee decide to not pay developper for their games it is definitly greedy)

[intelekt]

What’s to respond to? I’ve told the truth about their exploitation and they’ve decided to remove our game. It should be noted that we’ve said we would remove the game if they plan on continuing to exploit free labor while owned by a 1.3 billion dollar entity.

I think it’s pretty clear they don’t like us pointing out that this behavior is unethical. Our emails are a string of deflection and they refuse to admit this is wrong.

I’m not surprised to see this, as our game is only a very small part of BGA, and they’ve already taken their money (and meantioned they plan to leave in the future in their announcement).

Sad to see this community abused in this way. It’s been a good 4 years.

well, it's quite surprising to read so many aggressive, harsh comments from "Co-founder and Creative Director for Yanaguana Games in the USA. Creator of Stir Fry Eighteen & Shipload o' Gold."
you may have a problem with Asmodee (and other people's money) but what is the point in losing temper like this ?

Sorry to remind you, but I think you have sold a lot more of your products since a volunteer has freely developed an adaptation on BGA.
Did anyone bother you with what you have given, paid, offer, sent to DrKarotte ?

Some people build castles with matches as a hobby.
Others develop games as a hobby because they like that.
I used to adapt some games on my PC while learning ASM68000, Pascal, Actionscript, Python but nobody witnessed it...
I'm a huge fan of Dungeon Twister and BGA gave me the opportunity to add expansions and, most of all, play with DT community I've met several times at conventions.
They are very grateful and some have sent me some rare goodies (and no bloody money) especially since Chris Boelinger (a really kind game designer) have sent me hi-res graphics.
you know nothing about the motivation of people developing here.

good luck with your products without BGA.

Please explain what part of my statement was uncivil or untrue? I've tried my best to be quite clear and relatively polite considering what the owners of BGA have done in the past 48 hours..

BGA was pitched to us as a small start up that could not afford royalties, then they moved to a premium service claiming "we quit our jobs", and now they've sold to a giant corporation. None of that is the issue, free labor going forward is.

To assume our relationship with our developer is really quite silly, of course we've sent him product and other compensation. To assume that we've sold substantially more of our game due to BGA is also ridiculous, our game has sold very well since 2014, and became available here in 2017.

You are literally here defending folks working for a 1.3 billion dollar investment firm... for free? If so, that is your prerogative. I am advocating for those who do not feel this is ethical, such as myself and a great many voices in this thread.

[Ben Ritter]

I don't want to overstate my contributions to this site. As an alpha tester, I've written a few bug reports/feature requests. However, I used to do this same type of work for a living (as a video game tester), so I know there's value in it and large corporations are willing to pay for it.

I've edited (for free) rulebooks for a few independent game designers, and I write (for free) a newsletter for a local nonprofit, even though I get paid to edit and write in other contexts.

The notion that someone who gave their time and expertise to a small hobbyist site would necessarily agree to give their time and expertise to a billion-dollar venture capital firm is patently absurd.

I don't know what kind of handshake agreements BGA was operating under, but morally, the right thing is to re-obtain consent from each designer and publisher to keep their games on the site. I don't doubt that Asmodee could create a site (which fairly compensates developers and publishers) that I would be willing to subscribe to, even at an increased cost. But I turned off my subscription auto-renewal until this situation is resolved.

I have tons of respect and gratitude for the developers who donated their time and the publishers who donated their intellectual property. You made 2020 a lot more bearable for a lot of gamers.