Board Game Arena

CaptainTrekkie wrote: ↑15 October 2026, 17:26 I've read all the above posts, and every person who has said or echoed or typed "Pay2Win" obviously does not know how Twilight works. This is a unique game, massive in scope. FF Games really knocked themselves out (Thank you Christian T. Petersen!!) and the game is 100% fully playable, and the ability to 'win' the game is not diminished because some of the content is put behind the paywall. 100% of the game is available, you are just limited on the kinds of aliens you get to pretend to be, but NOTHING is making the game harder because you aren't behind the paywall. In fact.. speaking as someone who has been playing Twilight Imperium since 2007 (yes... I still remember the entire TI3 Tech tree, it haunts me... I don't want to talk about it) I would even say that if you don't know what you're doing? BGA gave you a GIANT SOLID by taking away the ability to play the other 11 factions. in Base game, all the factions are NOT equal, and of the top 5 strongest factions, my 'extremely informed' opinion is that 3 of the top 5 factions are in the 'free to play' factions. but again.. this is all things you choose *BEFORE* starting teh game, there is *NO IMPACT* in actually playing the game...

Also... and I don't want to rag on people too hard, because BGA has really done backflips to make sure that people can play board games here without having to pay money... but to all the people that say "I play boardgames here... but I don't see the value of kicking BGA a few bucks a year for their services..." I mean I get it... what's the cost... 50 bucks a year? that's not nothing... but if you like playing board games... and you like playin *ALL* the board games... what's a few bucks to play *ALL* the boardgames anytime you want? BGA is really something special, and they really do cater to people who want all the benefits with none of the costs... they decided to do the best board game ever... and they did it in a creative excellent way... can't we all just be grateful that BGA did the thing, and give them their nickel so we can get Prophesy of Kings?

Cold_Hands wrote: ↑14 October 2026, 17:38 I just read that free users can only pick from one of six factions (Sol, Hacan, Xxcha, Jolnar, Baron, Sardakk) while Premium users can select from any. If this is true, I will never play this as I won't support paywalling game content. I say this as a person who has been a premium user for years.

Premium users get the ability to start premium games and get some QoL upgrades like auto-color preference selection, stat tracking, and custom avater usage. That's been the business model for years. Free users could always join the full version of premium games, albeit with longer queue times since they couldn't start the game.

Paywalling actual in-game content is a major deviation from the business model BGA has established from the very beginning of the website and it seems to only apply to this one game. This should be sounding the alarm bells for all free users as to what to expect going forward.

Locking free users out of content HURTS the paid subscribers. Fewer free users queueing up results in longer queue times for the paid subs. In this game, it also creates an imbalance of possible faction opponents when you're in a game with free subs. You're not going to get as much of a game variety if you get matched with 4-5 free users every time. That makes for a worse product.

If this is true, it an AWFUL move in all aspects.

5golden wrote: ↑16 October 2026, 16:08 To anyone seriously thinking BGA is some small scrappy team that is desperate for cash to keep things afloat, remember they've been owned by Asmodee, a billion-dollar company, for years now.