Board Game Arena

From 2026 onward, all new games should be open-source.

There are multiple game implementations that have a little something hard-coded that makes them *. For example, the giant innecessary pegging board in Cribbage or the one point per bag in Spades.

These kinds of flaws are often the result of a single developer hardcoding their personal design choices, with no way for the community to fix or improve them. Because the game code is not open-source, nobody can patch in a fix, offer an alternative UI, or make a community version—even if the original dev is inactive or unresponsive.

BGA markets itself as a community platform, but in practice, once a game is claimed and implemented, it becomes the personal fiefdom of a single dev. This blocks innovation and hurts the user experience. We end up with games that are functionally correct, but deeply frustrating to play.

To ensure that future games benefit the entire community—not just the person who coded them—I propose that from January 1st, 2026, all new game implementations on BGA must:
- Be open-source, under a permissive license (e.g. MIT or GPL)
- Allow community forks, patches, or UI variants
- Be stored in a public repository (e.g. GitHub) or accessible via BGA dev tools

Thanks.

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

Friendly game developer here. Hopefully my response comes off in the spirit of education and enlightenment with which it is intended. There's a lot of misinformation here leading to the bad conclusion that open source will magically fix everything.

DulcineaFN wrote: ↑16 July 2025, 13:27 no way for the community to fix or improve them. Because the game code is not open-source, nobody can patch in a fix, offer an alternative UI

This is completely false. Not only are abandoned projects open for any developer to pick up and use, but BGA actively encourages anyone to fix the most-voted bugs. They even offer large gift point bounties for anyone to do so!

https://studio.boardgamearena.com/bounties

DulcineaFN wrote: ↑16 July 2025, 13:27 BGA markets itself as a community platform, but in practice, once a game is claimed and implemented, it becomes the personal fiefdom of a single dev.

This is kind of true for games where a single developer is actively maintaining it, which isn't what you're complaining about. Beyond that, anyone is free to contribute to development on games. Right now, you personally could visit BGA Studio, fix bugs on games, and even earn gift points for doing so! It's definitely a community platform with many developers contributing overall.

Even if everything were open source, it wouldn't solve your concerns.

DulcineaFN wrote: ↑16 July 2025, 13:27 These kinds of flaws are often the result of a single developer hardcoding their personal design choices

Nothing about open source will guarantee different coding styles.

DulcineaFN wrote: ↑16 July 2025, 13:27 Allow community forks, patches, or UI variants

As established, community patches are already available. Community forks and variants would result in several duplicate entries of the same game, which publishers won't approve. BGA is subject to publisher approvals on each and every game.


I hope these insights help somewhat. Open source is a great system when lots of people want to contribute to a single project, but not a particularly good fit for BGA games for several reasons, not just what I've listed here. There's certainly room for improvement on game implementations, but a lot of the system you're hoping for is already in place to fix it. Ultimately, developing for BGA is difficult and there aren't as many volunteer developers as everyone would like, but you can improve the situation by volunteering your talents towards fixing games.