Board Game Arena

Did you know that board game adaptations are maintained by volunteer developers, not BGA employees?

Every now and then, we get a report like this one that (a) openly insults us and (b) insists that we need to do what they say or they'll cancel their membership.
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=130915

Both are poor approaches to requesting change. Cancelling your membership doesn't affect voluteers at all. Insulting anyone makes them less inclined to work with you. And doing both just makes developers hope you'll follow through on your promise to cancel your membership.

Kayvon wrote: ↑26 January 2025, 01:47 Did you know that board game adaptations are maintained by volunteer developers, not BGA employees?

Every now and then, we get a report like this one that (a) openly insults us and (b) insists that we need to do what they say or they'll cancel their membership.
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=130915

Both are poor approaches to requesting change. Cancelling your membership doesn't affect voluteers at all. Insulting anyone makes them less inclined to work with you. And doing both just makes developers hope you'll follow through on your promise to cancel your membership.

This report seems incredibly immature. If this is an adult, they should be embarrassed.

Forward these abusive complaints to the paid employees of BGA.

Yeah, this is a poor show, they should be given a warning for sure. BUT, I do think that BGA as a whole are missing the general feeling of frustration that is growing.
Lots of us are paying for a service here and the amount of bugs and server issues is a problem.

For example, there's a cub in Cribbage that makes it almost unplayable at times. It's been raised for over a year and there are no replies.

There a an increasing number of "server not responding" issues, but that just gets glossed over in the forums.

the Forums themselves are creaking.

As you say, a lot of the devs are volunteers, and we love that you do this for free, but the paid BGA team should be investing our subs into maintainign the site. Adding new games is all well and good, but please can we have some fixes as well?

If you want less than 10 employees to maintain >1000 games on BGA, it's simply implausible.
Besides, each publisher is responsible for their games. (e.g. Steam employees do not fix bugs in individual games)
However, public domain games don't have one, obviously.

Instead, if you want to fix Cribbage bugs, you can always visit the BGA studio and learn the ropes.
Actually, I started BGA development for this reason - Fixing some bugs in public domain games.

Also, they are aware of site issues and are trying to deal with those nasty problems.
You might not notice, but there were many significant improvements on underlying framework and system.

ufm wrote: ↑27 January 2025, 08:40 You might not notice, but there were many significant improvements on underlying framework and system.

Part of the problem is if it is a fix that you "might not notice," then it leads to the perception that nothing is being done. If a description of improvements to the backend infrastructure was given somewhere in BGA Release Notes, then there would be a visual record of progress (for those of us who actually read that sub-forum).

I realize there is going to be a limit to how transparent they want to be about what problems they're having, but there are ways to word things without going into specifics to describe what is being improved.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑27 January 2025, 08:56

ufm wrote: ↑27 January 2025, 08:40 You might not notice, but there were many significant improvements on underlying framework and system.

Part of the problem is if it is a fix that you "might not notice," then it leads to the perception that nothing is being done. If a description of improvements to the backend infrastructure was given somewhere in BGA Release Notes, then there would be a visual record of progress (for those of us who actually read that sub-forum).

I realize there is going to be a limit to how transparent they want to be about what problems they're having, but there are ways to word things without going into specifics to describe what is being improved.

I agree. They should use it more frequently: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=5

ufm wrote: ↑27 January 2025, 08:40
Instead, if you want to fix Cribbage bugs, you can always visit the BGA studio and learn the ropes.
Actually, I started BGA development for this reason - Fixing some bugs in public domain games.

Also, they are aware of site issues and are trying to deal with those nasty problems.
You might not notice, but there were many significant improvements on underlying framework and system.

"I have an issue with a paid service" and your answer is "Fix it yourself"? I mean, really? That's quite a defensive reply to legitimate question. I appreciate people are busy, but simply ignoring a bug for a year isn't a good look - even if only to say "This ain't getting fixed."

If they are aware of and dealing with site wide issues and people are still frustrated then maybe someone needs to look at the comms, as it's not at all apparent to us as users/customers.

StrikingCobra wrote: ↑27 January 2025, 09:09 "I have an issue with a paid service" and your answer is "Fix it yourself"?

To be fair, you don't pay for the service. You pay for: https://boardgamearena.com/premium

Jellby wrote: ↑27 January 2025, 09:27

StrikingCobra wrote: ↑27 January 2025, 09:09 "I have an issue with a paid service" and your answer is "Fix it yourself"?

To be fair, you don't pay for the service. You pay for: https://boardgamearena.com/premium

Which according to BGA covers...

"However, to sustain our operations and ensure fair compensation for game creators and publishers, we rely on the support of our Premium members. By subscribing, you directly contribute to the platform's growth, enabling us to expand our game library, improve our services, and continue to promote the wonderful world of board games."

I've not come to argue semantics, just to say that there is more than adding lots of games, the core service needs to be maintained as a service not just as a fix on fail operation.