Board Game Arena

Has anyone else noticed a trend of people conceding near/at the end of games, rather than finishing them out? It almost never happened in the past, but this week it's probably occurred 4-5 times in more than one game.

Does conceding cause ELO/ranking to go down less? In some circumstances people have conceded on my literal last turn rather than just having it play out. They aren't really saving any time, so are they saving arena rank?

zippzip wrote: ↑21 March 2026, 19:46 Has anyone else noticed a trend of people conceding near/at the end of games, rather than finishing them out?

This is a topic that has been hotly debated many times in here. Here’s a couple:

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46157
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45585

zippzip wrote: ↑21 March 2026, 19:46 Does conceding cause ELO/ranking to go down less? In some circumstances people have conceded on my literal last turn rather than just having it play out. They aren't really saving any time, so are they saving arena rank?

It is treated identically in every respect to an end-of-game loss. A lot of people would say that, since it ends the game it is an end-of-game loss, but I think you know what I mean. And a lot of people would say conceding has its merit and place, and a lot of people would say that conceding on the literal last turn has no merit or place. The above groups are quite a tangled Venn diagram, however.

There is no bonus or penalty for conceding a 2 player game. It's exactly as if you finished the game normally.

If it's only a few moves, I usually just play it out but don't mind if my opponent concedes.

There are games where it can be a lot of moves between when it's obvious who's winning, and the actual end of game, like Quoridor. For games like that, there's nothing wrong with conceding.

For 3+ player games, you have to play out a lost position, because your moves can affect the placement of the other players.

BarnardsStar wrote: ↑21 March 2026, 20:02 This is a topic that has been hotly debated many times in here.

I think that indirectly answers my question...probably not a current trend, but rather just something I coincidentally hadn't seen much of previously.

zippzip wrote: ↑23 March 2026, 15:42

BarnardsStar wrote: ↑21 March 2026, 20:02 This is a topic that has been hotly debated many times in here.

I think that indirectly answers my question...probably not a current trend, but rather just something I coincidentally hadn't seen much of previously.

It depends on who your opponents are. My experience has been that I encounter one of two types of players: The vast majority finish the game, because for any number of various reasons, they (like me) prefer to see the end-game screen, position, scoring, stats, etc.

Some players fairly consistently concede once the outcome is obvious, which, unfortunately, nullifies most or all of those end-game features and displays a score of 1-0 without displaying stats or scoring summaries and such. I can't get inside people's heads to know exactly why this is done; sometimes probably to save time and move on to the next game. Other times, likely out of some petty desire to not have that end-game information shown (for example, when the game is going to end in one minute or less anyway, and/or by including some sort of snippy remark about the winner being undeserving because he or she just got lucky).

Sometimes a game can be in a "blocked" position (such as Splendor) and one player is stuck without any valid moves other than to uselessly swap tokens for other tokens.

Personally, I find it irritating when a game is conceded at or near the end of the game, so I try to avoid those players.

For me it depends a bit on the circumstances. I actually built my dice game website because of getting annoyed back in 2006 by people quitting early in games such as carom3d, FIFA 05, even Tribes 2 (FPS) etc. Cheating, quitting. Meh.

I think there is a time when it has a place. There are games where it can become almost impossible to win the game so I think it's reasonable to ask the opponent's position permission to quit. I have done it in draughts or what's it called, checkers? I chatted and told my opponent there is no way back in to the game, would he mind if I resigned? He said go ahead. I congratulated him on outclassing me, not much of a challenge I am afraid, and thanked him for the game. No problem. In chess, resigning is fine too.

Obviously sometimes things happen in real life and we have to abandon the game, also totally acceptable.

But any other circumstance, when there's even a one-in-a-million chance of winning, players should absolutely continue, or if it's a game where others are doing cool things and setting-up cool combos, let them try them out, finish the game, or if it's just a couple of minutes, play it out.

In real board games if it's a two-player game I'll often tell my opponent how I see the end of the game unfolding if it's an obvious loss and ask them what they think - if we agree, we can end the game, give them the win, then start another game. Anything else, you committed to spend the time and asked somebody else to do the same, so stick to that agreement.