Board Game Arena

Ask your boss to become Premium

It might be a good idea to communicate to your members when you restrict access for free users. Finding out the hard way just leads to disappointment, which in turn reduces your chances of capitalizing on this restriction by recruiting more premium members. How about a nice, well-written "we need money to keep this server going and fund development, you know the drill etc.etc." news where the restriction is actually explained. Contrast to the current ad trying to sell it as a 'new' 'feature' (which really is neither new nor a feature).

If only one player has to be premium to do this I am not sure what all the fuss is about.

If I were using this site with other friends instead of buying an actual physical copy of a game, I for one would feel pretty guilty for not supporting the game's creators. And if one of us does own the game, then we can play the physical copy when we are in the same place.

If your group plays from the same IP regularly, and you don't like the service enough to even pony up half of the cost of a membership (at most) for your whole group to play, why should BGA cater to your needs?

I mean, if you play against your local pre-arranged group, you are not improving the experience for members in general by being present on the site. If your group plays together from the same IP regularly and none of you has a membership, and the ability to continue playing in this way is important enough to you to make you complain, but still does not motivate you to buy even a share of a membership: in what scenario would one of you pay for a membership?

From an economic perspective, BGA should pretty much ignore the opinions of any player who is unwilling to ever purchase a membership, unless the player improves the service for paying members - and playing against your local friend group does not improve the experience for other members.

I criticize the administrative decisions and policies here all the time, but making this a pay feature seems like a very logical choice from the perspective of the publishers, the BGA owners/admins, and the premium members. The only thing this restriction limits is the ability of you and your buddies to straight up mooch the games while contributing nothing to the community.

veme wrote:If I were using this site with other friends instead of buying an actual physical copy of a game, I for one would feel pretty guilty for not supporting the game's creators. And if one of us does own the game, then we can play the physical copy when we are in the same place.

From what I understand, only premium games gain royalties.

only premium games gain royalties

Not sure what this has to do with feeling guilty about not buying a physical copy for use with friends... I never said or meant to imply that buying a membership here supports creators of games directly. It is just that when you play here with local friends in lieu of buying a copy of the game, you are in essence depriving the creator of a sale of a copy of the game. Personally, this would make me feel like a thief.

Your point is true though - if you buy a membership and then play a game here with local friends you still may not be supporting the game's creator. So we should be very thankful that they even allow it at all, right?

veme wrote:If I were using this site with other friends instead of buying an actual physical copy of a game, I for one would feel pretty guilty for not supporting the game's creators. And if one of us does own the game, then we can play the physical copy when we are in the same place.

First of, just because you want to play online does not mean that you don't have a physical copy of the game. You could have the game (and a friend), and still have various reasons why you would like to play on BGA:
1.) You are not at a location where you have your physical copy with you.
2.) You simply prefer the digital version (i.e. reduced bookkeeping for Through the Ages)
3.) And most importantly - because it invalidates your other points - you want to play with your local friend(s) AND the BGA community. By doing so, you are in fact:

veme wrote:[...]improving the experience of members in general by being present on the site.

Personally, I play a lot of 4-5 player hanabi games with 1 (one) local friend of mine. Why would BGA be better of if we only play alone (or find a different joint activity for us altogether)?

That said, don't get me wrong, I understand why it might be a profitable decision for the site owners to do so and I get that it's ultimately a number's game for them, they need to make a profit jadda jadda. But first of: In their own interest they should communicate their changes clearly. Secondly they should watch the numbers closely to see how many players they lose vs how many premium members they gain by doing so (which they will, as souris stated, so that's good). And third of: I still don't have to like a change that impacts me negatively.

I agree with Isdariel on one point: changing the rules during the game isn't fair.
I support the site because I have seen so many free stuff simply disappeared or becomed really expensive.
Maybe the waiting screen should show what the free users have access and what they could do with premium.

I find this to be Perfect idea: more info, manage expectations. When I became Premium, I somehow expected cards in Hearts will be dealt by dancing unicorns and masson secret Forum will appear available now. Actually the only feature I got was preferred color choice which works on a few games only. And, of course, FEELING, that I am a nice person.

First of, just because you want to play online does not mean that you don't have a physical copy of the game.

I agree, which is why I never made that claim. I said only that if I did it for that reason, I would feel guilty. There is no way for BGA to tell if you have a copy or not though, so the basic logic is sound: if you don't have a copy, BGA need not provide one and possibly deprive the creator of revenue; if you do have a copy you can play that, or pay for the privilege of faster set up and/or insurance against forgetting your game or whatever, in the interest of essentially not giving out free copies to everyone in the world.

Your point about playing with a mix of local and random BGA players is interesting though, I admittedly was not thinking about that possibility. This would in fact deprive paying members of possible opponents, provided that the players sharing an IP would not otherwise play a game here.

Personally, I play a lot of 4-5 player hanabi games with 1 (one) local friend of mine. Why would BGA be better of if we only play alone (or find a different joint activity for us altogether)?

BGA would at least be no worse off if you played separately, this scenario only deprives members of opponents if the local players refuse to play at all unless they are at the same table.

With that in mind, first of all, I doubt that there are many players that would refuse to play outright if they couldn't do it with their friend. As you say though, this is information they will just have to glean from paying attention to the impacts of the change, which I agree they should monitor.

Second, I personally wouldn't want to play at a table with two players I didn't already know with the same IP anyway. They could easily be cheating (or even controlled by the same person), and I believe it also prevents playing for ELO.

Third, Hanabi is pretty much the worst game ever, so BGA would be slightly better off because some Hanabi players might try an actual game instead. This argument is purely based on personal opinion though.

In their own interest they should communicate their changes clearly.

Total agreement here, they should communicate more frequently and more clearly about everything. But I interpreted this thread as being about the policy change itself rather than the manner of its announcement/application, so that's what I was commenting on.

I still don't have to like a change that impacts me negatively.

Of course you don't. And I can still think your opinion about it is selfish and short-sighted.

I play on BGA primarily with my friends who are scattered across the country (and other countries). I play with strangers about 10% of the time, and don't enjoy it nearly as much. Since several of my gaming friends are couples, what used to be a free game night, suddenly becomes more complicated. And I can't invite new friends to play and try it out, if they are a couple.

I'm sad to stop supporting BGA and playing with friends here, but this change takes away most of the appeal of the service.

-(a former subscribing member)