Board Game Arena

I mean I'm not in any game, just having BGA open for a while and it will ask that

Because it costs BGA money to keep connected to players and send them updates. Subscription fees are low and most players don't pay them to begin with, so they need to be smart about how they spend their resources. They want to make sure you're actually there if they're going to keep sending updates. (This might make for a good premium feature.)

Kayvon wrote: ↑18 June 2026, 14:06 Because it costs BGA money to keep connected to players and send them updates.

Thanks for the reminder that just because someone doesn't personally see the cost of something that doesn't mean everything is "free."

This reminds me of a gripe from a seasoned software developer (probably old like me) that people often don't think about memory management when coding anymore because memory is so cheap and abundant that it seems limitless. Whereas if you were coding in the 90s or earlier you were painfully aware of its limits.

As a microcontroller engineer, this strongly resonates with me. On the smaller controllers, you care about every byte and every cycle.