Top Requested Games

[Lalato]

Hi All,
I pulled together the top 50 requested games for BGA. You can see the thumbs score to the right of the name.

I was able to grab the licensing data so you can now see whether the game is good to go from a licensing perspective.

Finally, I have included two lists here. The top 50 overall with or without license. And the top 25 where licensing is good to go.
Top 50 Overall

1. Agricola - 2753 - License not available.
2. The Castles of Burgundy - 1742 - Good to go!
3. 7 Wonders Duel - 1370
4. Power Grid - 1268 - License not available.
5. Citadels - 1118
6. Le Havre - 1113
7. Small World - 1112
8. Alien Frontiers - 1036
9. Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small - 1031
10. Android: Netrunner - 965
11. King of Tokyo - 956
12. Lords of Waterdeep - 935
13. Alhambra - 931 - License not available.
14. Dungeon Lords - 876 - Good to go!
15. Caverna: The Cave Farmers - 872
16. Arkham Horror - 855
17. Dominant Species - 809
18. A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) - 777
19. Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery - 777
20. El Grande - 774 - Good to go!
21. Pandemic - 765
22. Catan - 765 - License not available.
23. Alchemists - 757 - Good to go!
24. Dungeon Petz - 743 - Good to go!
25. Cyclades - 738 - License not available.
26. Eclipse - 729
27. Mage Knight Board Game - 719
28. Formula D - 703
29. Twilight Struggle - 703
30. Splendor - 698 - License not available.
31. Abyss - 690 - Good to go!
32. Village - 684
33. Bohnanza - 678 - License not available.
34. Biblios - 677
35. Airlines Europe - 671
36. Brass: Lancashire - 668
37. Dominion - 647 - License not available.
38. Ticket to Ride - 645
39. Azul - 620 - License not available.
40. Acquire - 617
41. Bora Bora - 614
42. Bruges - 614 - License not available.
43. Age of Steam - 611
44. Tigris & Euphrates - 592 - License not available.
45. Ora et Labora - 592
46. 1960: The Making of the President - 591
47. Suburbia - 587
48. Concordia - 584
49. Trajan - 578
50. Five Tribes - 573

Top 25 Ready to Go

1. The Castles of Burgundy - 1742 - Good to go! - Active
2. Dungeon Lords - 876 - Good to go! - Active
3. El Grande - 774 - Good to go! - Active
4. Alchemists - 757 - Good to go! - Active
5. Dungeon Petz - 743 - Good to go! - Inactive
6. Abyss - 690 - Good to go! - Active
7. Forbidden Island - 437 - Good to go! - Active
8. Vinhos - 393 - Good to go! - Inactive
9. Carson City - 378 - Good to go! - Inactive
10. Thurn and Taxis - 352 - Good to go! - Active
11. Last Will - 350 - Good to go! - Active
12. Saint Petersburg - 342 - Good to go! - Inactive
13. Ginkgopolis - 300 - Good to go! - Active
14. Myrmes - 287 - Good to go! - Active
15. Railways of the World - 259 - Good to go! - Inactive
16. Glass Road - 227 - Good to go! - Active
17. Yspahan - 196 - Good to go! - Active
18. Evolution - 189 - Good to go! - Active
19. Champions of Midgard - 188 - Good to go! - Active
20. Vasco da Gama - 178 - Good to go! - Inactive
21. Santorini - 172 - Good to go! - Active
22. Room 25 - 145 - Good to go! - Inactive
23. The Voyages of Marco Polo - 120 - Good to go! - Active
24. Teotihuacan: City of Gods - 116 - Good to go! - Active
25. Secret Hitler - 102 - Good to go! - Active

[zoobert]

Hi,

Many thanks for the creating that list. I would be very interested in having a proper online version of Age of Steam personnally.
What would be the next step to have it done ? Would you have somewhere some tips and info:
- Asking to the license owner
- Creating the game implementation, ....

Many thanks,
Guillaume

[Lalato]

I've only recently joined BGA, so I'm on shaky ground when it comes to how it's been done in the past.

That said, my understanding is that the first step is to ask the license owner. We, as players and members of the BGA community, are free to reach out to license owners to find out if this is something they are willing to consider. So, if you're looking for Age of Steam specifically, you can start that conversation now.

Ultimately, the license owner will need to contact BGA to start the next step of the process. Assuming they are willing to pursue this course of action, there are two options for the license owner...

1. The game is made freely available on BGA
2. The game is made only available as part of Premium

I'm not sure how Premium works for the license owners. That is a negotiation between the license owner and BGA. I have absolutely no insight into this, nor have I a sought out any information on this.

If the license owner agrees to the terms, then the next step is to find developers who will do the conversion. From what I can see, some games are done by volunteers, but I assume that some games might be done by paid developers? Not sure on that as again I haven't looked into it.

My hope is that by posting this list, we can see about coordinating effort to bring more games to BGA. There are over 2000 games listed in the BGA Proposed List on Board Game Geek. I think looking at the most requested games can help focus efforts.

[ViolentSilence]

That said, my understanding is that the first step is to ask the license owner. We, as players and members of the BGA community, are free to reach out to license owners to find out if this is something they are willing to consider. So, if you're looking for Age of Steam specifically, you can start that conversation now.

Ultimately, the license owner will need to contact BGA to start the next step of the process. Assuming they are willing to pursue this course of action, there are two options for the license owner...

I'm not sure if that is a good idea - I can imagine that a company like Stronghold could get quite tired of requests for Terraforming Mars for example, so it might be best if the approaches come from people who develop titles for here, not just people who want to see a particular game. It would keep the volume down to a less aggravating level.

I'd also be sceptical about games where it has an app - many of those have facilities for online play, so it seems like it's against a company's interests to offer a free to access online version. I don't think it would be worth pursuing Pandemic, Ticket To Ride or SmallWorld to have on here

From a BGA user point of view, what I'd really like to see is titles added that increase the variety of game types on here. There are very few co-ops, very few party games, very few war games, no deckbuilders(I think?)... I don't think they need to add more deep Euros, that's a problem I feel with Yucata is that the games from there are from quite a narrow band, and while I doubt that there is a huge demand for it among the hardcore audience, adding a title like Get Bit! or Tsuro would be very good additions for the wider user base.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if a game like Spyrium or Quantum got enough popularity to be republished because of popularity on BGA. With the number of titles released each year, increasingly good games will be failing to find an audience on first run, so could publishers use BGA as a way to build a games reputation?

[tchobello]

well, if you have access to :
https://studio.boardgamearena.com/licensing

there are still a lot of games to remove...

[Lalato]

That said, my understanding is that the first step is to ask the license owner. We, as players and members of the BGA community, are free to reach out to license owners to find out if this is something they are willing to consider. So, if you're looking for Age of Steam specifically, you can start that conversation now.

Ultimately, the license owner will need to contact BGA to start the next step of the process. Assuming they are willing to pursue this course of action, there are two options for the license owner...

I'm not sure if that is a good idea - I can imagine that a company like Stronghold could get quite tired of requests for Terraforming Mars for example, so it might be best if the approaches come from people who develop titles for here, not just people who want to see a particular game. It would keep the volume down to a less aggravating level.

I'd also be sceptical about games where it has an app - many of those have facilities for online play, so it seems like it's against a company's interests to offer a free to access online version. I don't think it would be worth pursuing Pandemic, Ticket To Ride or SmallWorld to have on here

From a BGA user point of view, what I'd really like to see is titles added that increase the variety of game types on here. There are very few co-ops, very few party games, very few war games, no deckbuilders(I think?)... I don't think they need to add more deep Euros, that's a problem I feel with Yucata is that the games from there are from quite a narrow band, and while I doubt that there is a huge demand for it among the hardcore audience, adding a title like Get Bit! or Tsuro would be very good additions for the wider user base.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if a game like Spyrium or Quantum got enough popularity to be republished because of popularity on BGA. With the number of titles released each year, increasingly good games will be failing to find an audience on first run, so could publishers use BGA as a way to build a games reputation?

I agree with a lot of what you're saying here. If a game already has a digital version, the likelihood is rather low that it would make it onto a platform like this. And yes, it would be better to coordinate asking a license holder with a developer.

This is exactly the type of discussion I was hoping for when I posted the list. Thanks for your insight.

[Lalato]

well, if you have access to :
https://studio.boardgamearena.com/licensing

there are still a lot of games to remove...

Excellent. Thanks for the link.

I didn't have access, but I signed up and can see it now.

[Lalato]

I have updated the list so it includes some extra details on licensing.

I had no idea there was such a backlog. Thanks again for the info.

[Lalato]

Added project status.

[fafa-fr]

Added project status.

For people reading implementation status (active or inactive) in the first post: don't expect too much meaning from this. A project can be labeled as "Active" because someone created a project for this game less than 3 weeks ago, but quickly gave up. (And a project is labeled as "Inactive" as soon as no files have been uploaded in the last 3 weeks.)
Don't forget that most of the games are implemented by volunteers, so don't be too impatient.
But I can say that a few games on this list will be released soon, and some others will be released, well, sooner or later
(I think that the game I'm implementing will be ready in a few months.)