Board Game Arena

Why is it not, which seem fairly rare?

If it's still in Beta, charging for it seems a bit unreasonable.

But if it needs more plays to test to get out of Beta, limiting it to Premium seems to reduce the number of plays.

It's not that rare. Currently, apart from 51st State, they're also Premium+Beta: Verdant, Parks, Welcome to the Moon, Tower Up, Arboretum, Pacifica, Bear & Bread, Resist!, Strawberry Sunset, Inside Job, Golfie, Scythe, Undergrove, Botanik, Morocco, The Mother Road, I'm the Boss, Samarkand (and maybe something else I missed). Ultimately, it's up to the publisher to decide if a game is premium or not (and also when to release it, at least to some extent, I believe).

As I said, I'm not on enough to know how rare the pairing is.

Regardless, I can only speak to games I'm familiar with, and I'm not familia with any of those except Scythe.

How does a game get out of Beta if Premium (presumably) limits the amount of plays/testing it can have? It seems like the two statuses would, at best, cancel the other out. It affects my decision as to going to premium.

Thanks for raising this. I will double check the premium status with the publisher before the release.

Thanks for addressing it!

I don't pretend to understand the ins-and-outs of Beta, or Premium, or both. I would only note that game-play overall has gone down since it went Premium. But that observation is purely anecdotal on my part.

I'm sure BGA has its reasons, and it's their site so their reasons rule.

There just doesn't seem to be any _point_ to it being on BGA. Even, Scythe, which as noted has a similar B+P status, gets some plays. I'm sure there are other games on BGA don't get any plays, either.

The publisher asked us to make the New Era and other (potential) expansions premium. The base set would be free to play.

Today went "live" as neither Beta or Premium (even or New Era). Which is good, although I suppose it will be corrected.

Although how you can have a BGA game Premium for one Expansion/setting, but not another, is beyond me.

Gislef wrote: ↑06 May 2025, 04:55 Today went "live" as neither Beta or Premium (even or New Era). Which is good, although I suppose it will be corrected.

Please check before making such statements. I was sweating before we double checked with my friends.
Evrerything works as I said previously: base set is free, New Era is premium.
"Live" is the next stage after Beta so you cannot go live being in beta obviously

I did double-check, and played New Era for free before posting. Twice.

To us the game was live while in Beta. And not live when it was in development but not in alpha/beta. Essentially not displayed.