Board Game Arena

I would LOVE to have BGA suggest games to me. They don't even have to be games based on the kind of games I've been playing, they can be totally random games!

There's even a section titled "Suggestions for you" that appears, at first glance, to be exactly that... but it's not. The "suggestions for you" section has had the same exact two games in it since I created my account. I looked at both games and decided I wasn't interested them, but now, months later, there they still sit... forever... mocking me.

So is this thing broken, or is BGA so invested in selling these two stupid games that they're the only ones that will ever appear there?

There's room for more than two games in there too, you know?

Change it up! Please! I'm begging you! I'm tired of looking at them!

AarynGo wrote: ↑20 December 2024, 23:34 I would LOVE to have BGA suggest games to me. They don't even have to be games based on the kind of games I've been playing, they can be totally random games!

There's even a section titled "Suggestions for you" that appears, at first glance, to be exactly that... but it's not. The "suggestions for you" section has had the same exact two games in it since I created my account. I looked at both games and decided I wasn't interested them, but now, months later, there they still sit... forever... mocking me.

So is this thing broken, or is BGA so invested in selling these two stupid games that they're the only ones that will ever appear there?

There's room for more than two games in there too, you know?

Change it up! Please! I'm begging you! I'm tired of looking at them!

My "Suggestions for you" space has four games. They have not been the same games for the entire time I've had my account, and two of them did not even exist on BGA when I first made an account. I'd say they are accurate. There's one game I've played before and liked, but I didn't play it on BGA, so they correctly guessed it would be up my alley. There's another game for which I've played the "sequel" a few times on BGA, so it reasonably is suggesting the game it's based on. One of the other two was also recommended to me by a friend who plays similar games as I do. +1 point for BGA again. The fourth one I haven't looked into yet, but with this track record it's probably a reasonable recommendation. So yes they change, and yes there can be more than two.

You have only played six different games on BGA. There are over 800 games to choose from. Read or watch reviews and if there's something that looks interesting to you try it on BGA if it's here. I imagine your suggestions will be adjusted with more data.

Btw, if you want to select a game randomly, click the search bar on the top left and roll dice.

It's more that it's unaccountably annoying to see the same two games I'm not interested in occupying that slot every day.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑21 December 2024, 00:54

AarynGo wrote: ↑20 December 2024, 23:34 I would LOVE to have BGA suggest games to me. They don't even have to be games based on the kind of games I've been playing, they can be totally random games!

There's even a section titled "Suggestions for you" that appears, at first glance, to be exactly that... but it's not. The "suggestions for you" section has had the same exact two games in it since I created my account. I looked at both games and decided I wasn't interested them, but now, months later, there they still sit... forever... mocking me.

So is this thing broken, or is BGA so invested in selling these two stupid games that they're the only ones that will ever appear there?

There's room for more than two games in there too, you know?

Change it up! Please! I'm begging you! I'm tired of looking at them!

My "Suggestions for you" space has four games. They have not been the same games for the entire time I've had my account, and two of them did not even exist on BGA when I first made an account. I'd say they are accurate. There's one game I've played before and liked, but I didn't play it on BGA, so they correctly guessed it would be up my alley. There's another game for which I've played the "sequel" a few times on BGA, so it reasonably is suggesting the game it's based on. One of the other two was also recommended to me by a friend who plays similar games as I do. +1 point for BGA again. The fourth one I haven't looked into yet, but with this track record it's probably a reasonable recommendation. So yes they change, and yes there can be more than two.

You have only played six different games on BGA. There are over 800 games to choose from. Read or watch reviews and if there's something that looks interesting to you try it on BGA if it's here. I imagine your suggestions will be adjusted with more data.

Are you talking about the "Our selection for you" section in the "Games" tab or the "Suggestions for you" section in the "Play Now" tab? I'm talking about the latter one - it has had two games in it for months.

The "Our selection for you" does show four - the two I'm not interested in trying that are also the ones annoying me in the "Suggestions for you" section, one that I've favorited because I've played it IRL a bunch but haven't played a game on BGA yet, and a fourth one I haven't tried. I believe these also haven't changed though.

I don't think it should matter how many games I've played if, after several months of not trying those games, the options haven't changed. A decent algorithm wouldn't just keep showing the same ones month after month because the only reasonable conclusion at that point is that the user isn't interested and should be shown something else.

This is in the suggestion section, because I'm suggesting that if the functionality isn't bugged, it could be improved. I work in software QA/UX and I find this annoying on a professional level; it either is not working correctly or it's poorly designed.

This would be improved by either refreshing on a daily or weekly basis, and/or by adding the ability for users to indicate that they aren't interested, thereby providing more data for the algorithm even when users have only found a small selection of games they want to play.

AarynGo wrote: ↑26 December 2024, 00:07 Are you talking about the "Our selection for you" section in the "Games" tab or the "Suggestions for you" section in the "Play Now" tab? I'm talking about the latter one - it has had two games in it for months.

I'm talking about Suggestions for You (link to screenshot) on the Play Now page. As you can see from my signature, I'm a Play Now page zealot. And from that screenshot you can see that just since my last post it has been updated with Faraway replacing Gaia Project as a recommendation.

A year from this with a lot more games under my belt I still think the suggestions is either broken or horribly designed. It only replaces the games when you play one of them (not even do the tutorial) and only to fill the single slot that became unoccupied. This is *, it should refresh regularly or at minimum allow me to kick out games I'm not interested in. It would be more useful if it just pulled random games from the list of games I haven't played every time I access the page, that would probably actually be simpler code than whatever the hell is going on with it now. As it stands it's just a list of games I looked at and didn't want to play. Totally useless.

*Moderator edit: please refrain from swearing on BGA, this is a family-friendly platform.

AarynGo wrote: ↑13 December 2025, 22:50 A year from this with a lot more games under my belt I still think the suggestions is either broken or horribly designed. It only replaces the games when you play one of them (not even do the tutorial) and only to fill the single slot that became unoccupied. This is *, it should refresh regularly or at minimum allow me to kick out games I'm not interested in. It would be more useful if it just pulled random games from the list of games I haven't played every time I access the page, that would probably actually be simpler code than whatever the hell is going on with it now. As it stands it's just a list of games I looked at and didn't want to play. Totally useless.

Nice attitude. If there is something you don't like, you are free to read and follow the instructions in the pinned post in this very sub-forum that says "read this first."