Board Game Arena

Let's say an expansion to an extremely popular game (hypothetically, the #4 on BGG) is licensed to BGA, what's the likely travel time from "Studio" to "Alpha", and then from "Alpha" to "Beta". I doubt I'd be selected for the "Alpha" testing because I've never played the expansion and only around 30 games of the original. And there will be about a million people volunteering. E.g. A month in studio from licensing to alpha, then two months in alpha testing before beta?

Also, I assume from the FAQ that "Beta" is open to everyone, it's just that there may be bugs that need ironing out, and presumably it's unranked.

How long do expansions normally stay in Beta?

I'm new to BGA so wanted an idea about how all this played out.

Beta phase is not 'unranked'. Beta games cannot create tournaments or Arena mode tables, but they can create regular ranked tables.

Also, your question cannot be answered easily: it purely depends on the publisher's and the developer's status. Average time has no meaning at all.

CharlesRDarwin wrote: ↑16 July 2024, 02:02 what's the likely travel time from "Studio" to "Alpha"

Totally depends on a developer, their time, experience, are they a person who developed a base game or do they need to understand what's going on.
It also depends on the complexity of the expansion, is it just a couple of cards of already existing type added or is it adding 5 new mechanics and changing the whole game? Is it a modular expansion which could be used one module at a time in one game? And so on and so forth. This could be from 1 month to 1 year

CharlesRDarwin wrote: ↑16 July 2024, 02:02 then from "Alpha" to "Beta"

Same parameters plus how the code was structured. Sometimes after getting tons of bugs developer can realise it requires a significant refactoring because the original architectural decision doesn't fit the project. Some games are in alpha for years, some spend a month.

Also, it is largely depends on the compensation agreed. Should a developer quit their current job (I would say a significant amount of devs do this in their personal time) and spend all their time on this expansion? It totally depends on the compensation for this project.