How can BGA improve Real-Time matchmaking?

[Perduicitte]

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiceeeeeeeeeeee!
Thank you, love the discussion.

In my perspective, what matters is Can I play the 154 games I listed as favourite in Real-Time?
I don't care about historical totals or total gameplay, Real-Time or Turn-Based. I am currently sampling that https://en.boardgamearena.com/gameinprogress data to try and:
a. Make sure my impressions are not delusions. I like to know when I'm correct or incorrect.
b. Troubleshoot the issue, by elimination of factors.
c. Generate community awareness & discussion based on real information.

So far, these are my 3 samples (I took one now, as I'm awake & interested), times are EST, and in an earlier post I thought Wednesday was Thursday, which was really a bummer 'cause it threw weekend one day further . Pardon the poor attempt at posting data. Presumably for all RT games "Play Now" & Arena combined:

Code: Select all

# RT tables	10/5/2023 @ 8h28		11/5/2023 @ 14h53		12/05/2023 @ 5h55
> 100 tables		4				5				2
> 50 tables		6				5				3
> 25 tables		13				19				8
> 10 tables		24				26				22
> 5 tables		33				32				22
> 1 table		126				166				124
0 table, no play.	409				374				444

From this, we see that a. my impressions are not delusions. A few games receive much more attention by players. Is that so in Turn-Based as well, I hear you ask? Here we go, keeping the same relations for tables-counts (100%, 50%, 25%, 10%, 5%, at least 1, none), also "Regular" + Arena, presumably:

Code: Select all

# TB tables	11/5/2023 @ 14h53		12/05/2023 @ 5h55
> 5000 tables		3				3
> 2500 tables		7				7
> 1250 tables		25				24
> 50 tables		297				298
> 25 tables		81				80
> 1 table		210				211
0 table, no play.	4				2

So, for b. Troubleshoot by elimination, I think that the RT vs TB data is very different! There is interest in a much wider variety of games in Turn-Based. These 409, 374, and 444 games that receive no attention in Real-Time do receive attention in Turn-Based. They are not niche as too many people have suggested. There may be a variety of factors that influence this, mainly that my sampling is skewed: Weekday availability is not the same as Weekend availability for Real-Time play. That argument is somewhat compensated by the use of proportions in my data-buckets: it underlines interest, not availability... but that may be also explained by Weekday: less available time = choosing lighter vs heavier games. I wanted to wait until a Saturday morning sample to post this data, but I got too enthusiastic. And someone may come up with an easier way to get that data than my back-of-the-napkin stuff.

Let's also keep in mind that the current lobby system pits Real-Time players in direct competition between "Play Now" and Arena. That's why I argue (like others) for the elimination of Arena, or the possibility to amalgamate the matchmaking waitlists.

For marketing, and budget allocation in general, I wrote elsewhere that I do think there is a lack from leadership in that respect: be it effective action (yes, it's a complex issue!), interest (also known as prioritization and decision-making), or communication with players (customer relations). I don't sit at the leadership table, nor want to, so I can only do c. Generate community awareness & discussion based on real information.

Thanks for picking up the discussion, it gets very interesting!
Cheers,

me

[dschingis27]

There may be a variety of factors that influence this, mainly that my sampling is skewed:

Yes, exactly. As was pointed out by ufm already, the number of games in progress is not a good number to compare RT and TB. RT games finish fast, so less games in progress are there at a given time, that doesn't mean they haven't happened. The correct number to look at is the number of games finished in a given time duration, say, a month. This number is not publicly available but it is to developers.

The more unpopular a game, the more unlikely it is that random people who want to play it meet at the same time online. It's only natural that TB is then a good option for fans of these unpopular games. That doesn't speak for an inherent flaw in the way RT is set up or advertised, the point you seem to want to make. BTW the matchmaking system for RT is pretty simple. As soon as enough players for a game are requesting said game at the same time, the players get matched and the game starts. And yes, that means for unpopular games that just no one is there when no game starts. I don't know where you got the idea from that not finding opponents is a problem of the matchmaking. I also don't know why you got the idea that you somehow unlock more opponents when you have premium. Yes, the new lobby doesn't promote to search for several games at the same time, that's one fair critic (that the BGA team is already aware of).

That all been said, I do think that improvements to RT are possible like scheduled play, or promoting unpopular games weekly on the main site. However, it's really unclear how much effect these measures bring at the end. And I am sure a lot of ideas are there behind the scenes in the BGA team, but you have to assess what you bring to life and what not. Don't forget they have all the numbers and statistics on how people use BGA. We users, on the other hand, only have a tiny snapshot and diluted perception on how people use BGA.

[Perduicitte]

The correct number to look at is the number of games finished in a given time duration, say, a month.

Thank you for the thoughtful answer, but I disagree: I want to play "now", whenever "now" is. I'm interested in more than just Azul, Wingspan, Catan, Ticket to Ride, and a handful more of highly-played games. I'm not interested in popularity of RT vs TB. I'm not interested by totals during a period. I'm interested in RT plays at any given point in time, hence the sampling methodology.

BGA has 636 games on offer!!! 636! I suspect the vicious circle of difficulty to play other games than top-played games in RT = less players try = more difficulty = less players = more = less ... And that vicious circle for the 409, 374, and 444 games with no play is a virtuous circle for the top-played! I want to play something else than Azul or Wingspan & top-played, but only those are feasible in the time that I have = more plays from me are really happening = more feasibility to all = more tables opened = more feasible = more = more ... but that's NOT where my interest lies.

So I respectfully disagree, until convinced otherwise.
Cheers,

me

PS: Underlining and all-caps added for clarity, for no other reason.

[dschingis27]

Ok, so but where does your assumption come from that there is a big pool of players outside of BGA just waiting to be catched by some marketing? Or that whatever change in matchmaking could make less popular games more appealing compared to more popular games?
You are some random guy on the internet saying that the people running this site for a decade do a poor job. If you could give us some kind of evidence or a good reason that there is a big pool of players waiting that just needs to be harvested by BGA, then it's a different story. At the moment it's just you saying that. in order to make progress we have to assess the ideas in this thread based on the real world, based on what is possible, and not based on what we want the world to be.

I do see that you want to induce positive change with this thread. I can only recommend you to not combine your posts with personal criticism of the site owners when you cannot easily justify the assumptions your criticism is based on. This loses you a lot of credibility.

[Perduicitte]

You are some random guy on the internet saying that the people running this site for a decade do a poor job.

Guilty as charged. Point well taken.
That said, I have been a player for 3.5 years, and my experience with RT has remained the same over that period, even before the new lobby. I have been premium, alpha testing, submitting bugs, ... but not following the forums so I do recognize I have less awareness of what is being addressed, or not, than others. And it's not just me saying that, I have heard it from many other players.

More importantly, I created this thread to answer that!
This is my attempt at finding out information, determining what is true in my impressions and involving the community in a discussion on the topic.

where does your assumption come from that there is a big pool of players outside of BGA just waiting to be catched by some marketing?

Feedback from fellow players, and gameboard enthusiasts I know in real life who avoid BGA for the same reasons that I am getting disinterested. Also, market expansion, in depth or width, is possible. The bottom line is, again, that this thread is here to answer that question. See: c. Generate community awareness & discussion based on real information.

Leadership does whatever leadership does, but customers do what they do too!
Somehow, I still care about BGA, and you putting my approach on trial is not helpful, however opinionated I can be. I have not a care in the world for my credibility from internet strangers. All I know is that Real-Time play is not happening for most games. And I'm doing something about it.

I'll try to ignore further personal criticism, in order to focus on the topic at hand, but I do recognize that you are certainly not alone in your perspective. How did that other guy put it? Oh yeah: Dogs that bark usually do not bite. Well, I'm barking and I try to bite what I can, because I want positive change for people with the same needs that I'm expressing. So I build arguments, based on the information that I have, and that which I find. Address that, please. Don't address whatever you think of me, it diminishes the arguments and the topic at hand, for those who are interested. Please contribute to the arguments with facts and information.

Cheers,

me

[mturton]

Some practical ways:

1. Put GENERAL MESSAGES permanently on top somewhere, so people constantly see messages of people looking for games.

2. Remove public ELO, simply keep it as an internal measure for matching purposes. I suspect from my own experience as ELO goes up, reluctance to play matches rises. When I suck, I risk no ELO, but now that I am above 200 in a couple of games (only 200!) I have to forcibly remind myself that nobody cares about it except me. The psychological effects of stats are absurd.

3. Perhaps a reward system for players w/o premium: play 5 realtime matches that take at least 25 minutes (so people can't spam Yahtzee, etc) and then you can host a premium match, or something similar.

4. Host premium events in which new BGA members can temporarily host premium games. Yeah, I can see how that can be abused, but...

5. A space where a player can go to find people who are online and have favorited game X. Or right at the game itself: for example, I should be able to open the page for setting up a game of my current favorite game, Beyond the Sun, and find on the sidebar a list of members who have (a) favorited that game and (b) who are online and available. Then I could invite them...

[Jellby]

Or right at the game itself: for example, I should be able to open the page for setting up a game of my current favorite game, Beyond the Sun, and find on the sidebar a list of members who have (a) favorited that game and (b) who are online and available. Then I could invite them...

You can already do that, at least in the "old" lobby (the "PLAY NOW" link). But I think they said they'd be removing that some years ago, because it caused a heavy server load...

[Perduicitte]

I've finished my samples of RT, times for EST (Eastern provinces of Canada):

Code: Select all

# tables	10/5/2023 @ 8h28	11/5/2023 @ 14h53	12/05/2023 @ 5h55	12/05/2023 @ 16h18	13/05/2023 @ 8:48
> 100 tables			4			5		2				5		4
> 50 tables			6			5		3				6		6
> 25 tables			13			19		8				18		9
> 10 tables			24			26		22				28		30
> 5 tables			33			32		22				40		27
>1 table			126			166		124				153		146
0 table, no play.		409			374		446				379		405

From this, I am now convinced that my impressions are correct: Only a handful of games are played in RT, on any given day. The sample includes Friday evening (not too late, to include European players) and Saturday morning (not too early, to include North-American players) and Friday evening + Saturday morning are when I'm more likely to seek playing "now". I can't talk for anyone else's habits, but I suspect they are similar, over the whole population of BGA players, but I'm not sure.

Data spoke. I'm not delusional.

So... time to address the other factors:

Here, I'll just sum up the suggestions. I do that to make sure that we remain on topic and that information is clearly available without ready 4 pages of comments. Hope it's useful. So:

Marketing, as a means to increase the population of players playing Real-Time game.

- I wonder if it'd be worth having one or two different games highlighted each week. Maybe choosing from games that are a little older. Maybe giving folk an achievement if they play the game of the week, and another if you manage to win it?
- Stuff that is newly released on BGA will get more folk playing. Stuff that is more popular IRL will get more folk playing here.
- There's probably a lot of older games that could use a little help to be recognised as a game worth playing.
- I'd also suggest that some games should maybe go back to alpha/beta. I've played most of the games here, but "I remember...." is still on my unplayed list despite having started maybe 5 games of it. Because it's bugged out every time.
- By having slightly shoddy games like this on the list of 'released' games, it discourages folk from trying a game they don't know. Maybe the implementation will have issues.
- I honestly wish that there was a UX person employed at BGA. As an example, I hate the way that there are at least 5 totally different ways of placing stones in very similar abstract games. Do you get confirmation? Do you have to click at the top, or again on the piece? Do you get a short time limit? Whilst the time limit is going, do you click to confirm, or cancel? By having such different systems across similar games, it's again another small barrier for folk who might be happy to try a new game if it had a similar UI but the change of game rules and UI is a step too far.
- This probably encourages folk to stick to the games they know even more than they otherwise would.

Some practical ways:
1. Put GENERAL MESSAGES permanently on top somewhere, so people constantly see messages of people looking for games.
2. Remove public ELO, simply keep it as an internal measure for matching purposes. I suspect from my own experience as ELO goes up, reluctance to play matches rises. When I suck, I risk no ELO, but now that I am above 200 in a couple of games (only 200!) I have to forcibly remind myself that nobody cares about it except me. The psychological effects of stats are absurd.
3. Perhaps a reward system for players w/o premium: play 5 realtime matches that take at least 25 minutes (so people can't spam Yahtzee, etc) and then you can host a premium match, or something similar.
4. Host premium events in which new BGA members can temporarily host premium games. Yeah, I can see how that can be abused, but...
5. A space where a player can go to find people who are online and have favorited game X. Or right at the game itself: for example, I should be able to open the page for setting up a game of my current favorite game, Beyond the Sun, and find on the sidebar a list of members who have (a) favorited that game and (b) who are online and available. Then I could invite them...

• This forum is marketing. (Customer relations)

• Relevant subreddits are marketing. (Viral marketing)

• Using Asmodée's publisher & distributors & retailer's networks (channels) to create hype for BGA is marketing.

• Relevant Discord channels are marketing. (Viral marketing)

• If market depth within western countries' target population is pretty saturated, you diversify georaphically. And linguistically. (Market expansion)

• Social media, if people still pay attention to that, is marketing.

Those are the lists of ideas proposed by the community so far, in this thread. I may have missed some, apologies in advance. Some have already been discussed & commented, see the original posts.

Other questions I raised are below, Please, pretty please, address these, players (or leadership, but I doubt they'd do that here in a forum thread):

Review their algorithms. There, I'm awfully ignorant how that works. I can't suggest how, but at least they should test if that's the issue.

Do away with the Arena system. Discussed properly so far, players like/dislike Arena, but the subject is not exhausted. Let's focus on the fact that Arena RT is in direct competition with "Play Now" RT.

Do away with the fancy/obscure match-making of the new lobby. Now folded into the Arena factor, as the solution may be to merge Arena & "Play Now" waiting cues for increased matchmaking. I wanted to include the link to an improvement suggestion (bug report), but didn't find it there... anybody has a link, so we can communicate our interest for that merger? If not, I'll create one. For everything else about the new lobby, it's being discussed elsewhere, let's keep our focus here.

Prioritization / Decision-making by leadership: This is an avenue to discuss what forum-followers know about leadership's priorities and decisions in respect to RT plays difficulty. I'm not following forums myself, so I don't know. Any information is welcome! It will indicate the level of interest from leadership into this issue.

That's what I have this morning, thanks for all the thoughtful comments! This is what community is about!
Cheers,

me
PS: Don't forget Mother's day tomorrow, if it's the same day as here

[Fuchur]

I've finished my samples of RT, times for EST (Eastern provinces of Canada):

Code: Select all

# tables	10/5/2023 @ 8h28	11/5/2023 @ 14h53	12/05/2023 @ 5h55	12/05/2023 @ 16h18	13/05/2023 @ 8:48
> 100 tables			4			5		2				5		4
> 50 tables			6			5		3				6		6
> 25 tables			13			19		8				18		9
> 10 tables			24			26		22				28		30
> 5 tables			33			32		22				40		27
>1 table			126			166		124				153		146
0 table, no play.		409			374		446				379		405

From this, I am now convinced that my impressions are correct: Only a handful of games are played in RT, on any given day.
8<

Hi,

i don't agree with your conclusion : The data only shows that at any given moment about two-thirds of all available games aren't played. That doesn't mean that they are never played. I have no idea how long an everage RT-game takes (I do only TB) but lets say, for simplicity, that it takes half an hour and that the number of games played at any moment doesn't vary "much" (whatever this might mean).
Under these assumptions a game which is played less then 48 times a day will necessarily show every now and then 0 tables. With 24 tables a day this will happen at least half of the time and with 16 tables a day a least 2/3 of all tries. (I'm sure one could give more precise results but my lectures about statistics have left my brain without leaving much trace ...).

So the data shown only means (under the asumptions above) that most games are played less than 16 times a day and that you might need to wait for several hours to find an open table for this specific game.

Personnally i only play TB games and it happens regularly that tables need hours or even days to be started or never get filled at all, being cancelled after two (?) days.

What could you do to play more often ?
-> Invite real-world friends to this (or any other) site, agree on a date and play your favorite game like you would at home, only on distance.
-> Try to find persons on this site, via the forum, to play regularly your favorite game.
-> Propose some teaching to increase the player base.

[Jellby]

Also, the fact that no tables are currently being played for a game does not mean there are no tables open. There could be hundreds of tables open, all waiting for that last player to join