About BGA + Asmodee

[intelekt]

Asmodee can afford to pay developers.

Not for "non-economically" viable games, just as BGA was not paying for developpers for these games.
On the other side, BGA started having freelance projects for major releases for more than a year now, and so will Asmodee in the future.

Asmodee is a 1.3 billion dollar investment firm. They can most certainly afford to pay for all of the content on the site and all the work that goes into making that happen. If they were willing to buy this site after doing their due diligence, then there is very likely enough profit here for payment of services. If the claim is that "the free labor is what makes this profitable", well then you've got a very different situation on your hands. Exposure is not compensation and claiming that is is in this situation is exploitive.

[DrKarotte]

Lets just keep this positive and be happy for Greg and Emmanuel, they really deserve this!

+1

[BrianLovesMarvel]

Best wishes, BGA! As a new developer and existing premium member, I have to say I really admire what you have done so far with so few for so little. To support translations and have world-wide access is incredible. Earth's board game community appreciates you!

Especially for your success in handling the massive growth due to the pandemic, you should be very proud! As a 40+ year professional veteran of supporting web servers, databases, and the related server/network technology, what you've done just by surviving is frankly amazing.

You certainly deserve some reward for all this effort - it is world-class work, no doubt about it. With this acquisition by Asmodee, I hear a lot of fear being expressed right now. Some misunderstandings are inevitable. We don't want to lose the good in what we have in BGA, and I know you are with us on that. No one does what you've done so far out of love of money. As the saying goes, you shall know the tree by its fruit. As long as you can maintain the culture you've grown, and the rich soil, those same critical enabling conditions you set, you'll always have fans like us.

As a developer, I thank you for letting us participate in your vision. We all want more board games implemented and available for us and our friends to play. The BGA studio is welcoming, supportive, and resource-filled. Nothing is perfect, but this is a great community and I'm happy to be part of it. A big part of the success is the openness and freedom we have, to choose to contribute an implementation, to self-publish your own game, or to have the opportunity for paid contracts. The experience is what's valuable. It's the journey for me. Thanks for letting me tag along.

Best wishes, Brian

[Tisaac]

Asmodee can afford to pay developers.

Not for "non-economically" viable games, just as BGA was not paying for developpers for these games.
On the other side, BGA started having freelance projects for major releases for more than a year now, and so will Asmodee in the future.

Asmodee is a 1.3 billion dollar investment firm. They can most certainly afford to pay for all of the content on the site and all the work that goes into making that happen. If they were willing to buy this site after doing their due diligence, then there is very likely enough profit here for payment of services. If the claim is that "the free labor is what makes this profitable", well then you've got a very different situation on your hands. Exposure is not compensation and claiming that is is in this situation is exploitive.

Have you read my answer ? Why would anyone pay for these games ? The choice is between not having these games at all, or take advantage of both the framework and the players pool to make them available here.

[fafa-fr]

Now that BGA is owned by venture capital, though, I feel less like I'm contributing to a community and more like I'm being taken advantage of. [...]

Does anyone else feel similarly?

I'm not sure I would word it "I feel like I'm being taken advantage of", but I don't like this change at all.

We are very often being taken advantage of somehow. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little bit. If I develop a game on BGA that is available for free, and that a lot of players enjoy, I think my work will benefit much more to players than to Asmodee. There will be a little benefit for Asmodee, because more players will come here, and some of them will go premium, and there are certainly other positive side-effects for Asmodee, but that's not something that could make me feel I'm being exploited.

My concern is not "if my work benefits a little bit to Asmodee, I don't want to do it if I'm not paid", it's more "paid or not, hours of work or just a quick word on a forum (or any other kind of support / advertisement), I don't like supporting the fact that BGA is now part of a big corporation"*. If you wonder why, I'll make it short: I think that when the main object of a project is to make money and not to "make users happy", then a lot of bad things can happen. That's why I try as much as possible to support non-profit projects.

I started developing on BGA even if it was not a nonprofit organization, because it was a small business, and that it seemed to me that building a great site and listening to users was more important than making big money. I wasn't naive, I wasn't absolutely sure that nothing would head for something that I wouldn't like. But I took a risk (that I estimated to be not too risky), because it is fun to code games, so it wouldn't have been a big loss if something had gone wrong.

But now that BGA is part of Asmodee, I don't want to stay involved. I will finish the game I'm currently working on, because it's almost finished, and I will try to maintain it as long as possible, and to (finally!) enjoy playing it, but I won't continue to work on the other game I worked on before (don't know if the other developer that joined later will do, but the original dev that started the project has already stated that he wouldn't), or work on new projects.

*Note : it doesn't mean that I will always strictly avoid to do anything that could benefit to Asmodee or big corporations, but that it will be an important decision criteria when I consider getting involved in something or not. That's why I worded it "I don't like supporting ..." and not "I will not support ..." or even "I don't want to support ...".

[DomitienAW]

Asmodee is a 1.3 billion dollar investment firm. They can most certainly afford to pay for all of the content on the site and all the work that goes into making that happen.

If you want your game on Android, will you ask Google to pay the development?