We answer YOUR questions!
Posted: 28 April 2015, 14:57
A few days ago, we invited you to ask us questions. We picked the most interesting/popular ones and here are our answers.
If you liked this Q&A, don't hesitate to say it and we will do it again in the future.
How do we select games that are on BGA? Why the game XXX is not on BGA?
To have a game published on BGA we need 2 things:
_ The authorization of the rights owner (most of the time: original publisher of the game).
_ A software developer who develop the adaptation (ie: has some time available to develop it).
We (= BGA team) are trying a lot of board games ourselves. Sometimes we are lucky enough to play prototypes too. And of course we receive a lot of game suggestions through the BGA forum, the BoardGameGeek "most wanted games" list, or by any other means.
Based on this we are asking game publishers for authorizations, and sometimes we also receive requests directly from game publishers - there is no rule.
As it is today, BGA has a very good reputation and very productive relationships with almost all major board game publishers, but this is not enough: each situation is specific, and there can be various reasons why a game publisher can refuse to see a game adaptions on BGA (for example: board games with a third party licence, like "Star Wars", is practically impossible to negotiate).
On the other hand, we got some authorizations for some very good games but no developers volunteering to develop them, or sometimes some of them don't manage to finish the job. Developers of adaptations are volunteers, and we don't blame them for this.
Finally, some games are authorized and being developed, but the time frame is not good. For example, it happened that we had too many games to release and we decided to delay some of them. It also frequently happens that we must synchronize the release of a game with a publisher event, so the game adaptation can stay "on hold" for some months.
So if you are asking yourself: why game XXX is not on BGA, it could be for various reasons:
_ Maybe we never asked the authorization for this game. Note that usually we ask authorizations for every popular games (ex: "Most wanted games"). So if the game is popular, the reason is probably not this one.
_ The publisher refused.
_ The publisher accepted, but we didn't find a developer until now for this game.
_ The game adaptation is ready, but we are waiting for a specific event to release it.
To conclude: yes we are taking into account your suggestions, but as you can see there are many factors than can influence the fact that a game is (or is not) on BGA. In addition, as a rule of thumb, we don't communicate about "why" this game is not on BGA. If we already get the authorization, we want to keep the "surprise", and if we didn't get the authorization, the game publisher may not want to explain the reasons.
Are you taking into account the "Most wanted games" list? When will these games be on BGA?
So the answer is:
_ Yes, we are taking this list into account.
_ For most of these games we already asked for authorizations.
_ Some of these games won't be on BGA (authorization refused), some may be, some are in an "intermediate" step.
_ We don't communicate about future game releases anyway.
Why do some games have expansions on BGA and some don't?
Game expansion follows the same steps than games. There can be various reasons why a game publisher doesn't want the expansion online, and sometimes we don't find a developer that has the time to develop it.
Will there be improvement for the turn-based mode ?
Yes. By the way, thank you for all your suggestions (ex: email invitations, vacation mode, faster turn-based ...).
We will do a major update of the turn-based mode in the following months, but we don't know exactly when.
Why is it not possible to create my own tournament on BGA ?
Tournaments is a BETA feature of BGA (has been for a long time).
Tournament management is very complex. We'd like to open tournament creation to everyone at some time in the future but it needs a lot of work and until then we always had something more urgent to do.
How you guys make money? Do you make a living of it?
Yes we still work aside, and yes there is a huge work to be done here everyday.
There is essentially Club membership, but it is not enough. What we'd like to do is basically continue like this because we think this "community based" approach is the best for BGA.
What we are trying to do, in addition, is to find a way to create a commercial activity in game portal development, distinct from BGA. This way we could have a flexible work with a source of revenue, distinct from BGA, that allows us to finance the time we spent on BGA.
Why is BGA slow? Why do I have bad connections performances on BGA?
We are constantly monitoring server responsiveness. Some incidents occurs, but most of the time BGA is responsive.
We designed our game servers (ie: servers used when you are inside a game) to be very responsive. Usually, less than 2% of the game moves take more than 200 milliseconds to process, and less than 0.2% take more than 1 second.
BGA servers are located in Europe (France), but we bought servers all across the world (19 locations) so that the big files (ex: images) are loaded fast even if you are far from us.
Most of bad performances come from your internet connection or your system. Try to connect with a different browser / computer / internet connection to troubleshoot the issue.
As a rule of thumb, if BGA is not responsive enough, you shouldn't engage yourself into a game because there is a risk for you to get clock penalties.
I play on smartphone / tablet / touch device and I have some difficulties: what can I do?
As a rule of thumb, BGA does not support tablet/smartphones. There are tons of board game adaptations for tablet/smartphones, and some BGA adaptations are not well designed for small screens. Thus, we don't have plans to do a mobile / tablet version at the moment.
So if you want to use BGA from a smartphone / tablet you can, but we don't promise to fix all bugs so it's at your own risk
I'm a game publisher: how can I get my game on Board Game Arena?
At first, you just have to write us an email (contact (at) boardgamearena.com) with a description of your game(s).
Then, we add this game to the list of "available licences" on our website dedicated to game developers (BGA Studio).
The most difficult part is to find a developer among our community. Our only requirement is that the developer must love the game. Of course, the most popular the game is, the easiest it is to find a volunteer developer. Sometimes this is very fast, sometimes it takes months, sometimes it never happens. We can't say in advance.
It is also possible to find your own developer: of course it accelerates the process a lot!
If you liked this Q&A, don't hesitate to say it and we will do it again in the future.
How do we select games that are on BGA? Why the game XXX is not on BGA?
To have a game published on BGA we need 2 things:
_ The authorization of the rights owner (most of the time: original publisher of the game).
_ A software developer who develop the adaptation (ie: has some time available to develop it).
We (= BGA team) are trying a lot of board games ourselves. Sometimes we are lucky enough to play prototypes too. And of course we receive a lot of game suggestions through the BGA forum, the BoardGameGeek "most wanted games" list, or by any other means.
Based on this we are asking game publishers for authorizations, and sometimes we also receive requests directly from game publishers - there is no rule.
As it is today, BGA has a very good reputation and very productive relationships with almost all major board game publishers, but this is not enough: each situation is specific, and there can be various reasons why a game publisher can refuse to see a game adaptions on BGA (for example: board games with a third party licence, like "Star Wars", is practically impossible to negotiate).
On the other hand, we got some authorizations for some very good games but no developers volunteering to develop them, or sometimes some of them don't manage to finish the job. Developers of adaptations are volunteers, and we don't blame them for this.
Finally, some games are authorized and being developed, but the time frame is not good. For example, it happened that we had too many games to release and we decided to delay some of them. It also frequently happens that we must synchronize the release of a game with a publisher event, so the game adaptation can stay "on hold" for some months.
So if you are asking yourself: why game XXX is not on BGA, it could be for various reasons:
_ Maybe we never asked the authorization for this game. Note that usually we ask authorizations for every popular games (ex: "Most wanted games"). So if the game is popular, the reason is probably not this one.
_ The publisher refused.
_ The publisher accepted, but we didn't find a developer until now for this game.
_ The game adaptation is ready, but we are waiting for a specific event to release it.
To conclude: yes we are taking into account your suggestions, but as you can see there are many factors than can influence the fact that a game is (or is not) on BGA. In addition, as a rule of thumb, we don't communicate about "why" this game is not on BGA. If we already get the authorization, we want to keep the "surprise", and if we didn't get the authorization, the game publisher may not want to explain the reasons.
Are you taking into account the "Most wanted games" list? When will these games be on BGA?
So the answer is:
_ Yes, we are taking this list into account.
_ For most of these games we already asked for authorizations.
_ Some of these games won't be on BGA (authorization refused), some may be, some are in an "intermediate" step.
_ We don't communicate about future game releases anyway.
Why do some games have expansions on BGA and some don't?
Game expansion follows the same steps than games. There can be various reasons why a game publisher doesn't want the expansion online, and sometimes we don't find a developer that has the time to develop it.
Will there be improvement for the turn-based mode ?
Yes. By the way, thank you for all your suggestions (ex: email invitations, vacation mode, faster turn-based ...).
We will do a major update of the turn-based mode in the following months, but we don't know exactly when.
Why is it not possible to create my own tournament on BGA ?
Tournaments is a BETA feature of BGA (has been for a long time).
Tournament management is very complex. We'd like to open tournament creation to everyone at some time in the future but it needs a lot of work and until then we always had something more urgent to do.
How you guys make money? Do you make a living of it?
Yes we still work aside, and yes there is a huge work to be done here everyday.
There is essentially Club membership, but it is not enough. What we'd like to do is basically continue like this because we think this "community based" approach is the best for BGA.
What we are trying to do, in addition, is to find a way to create a commercial activity in game portal development, distinct from BGA. This way we could have a flexible work with a source of revenue, distinct from BGA, that allows us to finance the time we spent on BGA.
Why is BGA slow? Why do I have bad connections performances on BGA?
We are constantly monitoring server responsiveness. Some incidents occurs, but most of the time BGA is responsive.
We designed our game servers (ie: servers used when you are inside a game) to be very responsive. Usually, less than 2% of the game moves take more than 200 milliseconds to process, and less than 0.2% take more than 1 second.
BGA servers are located in Europe (France), but we bought servers all across the world (19 locations) so that the big files (ex: images) are loaded fast even if you are far from us.
Most of bad performances come from your internet connection or your system. Try to connect with a different browser / computer / internet connection to troubleshoot the issue.
As a rule of thumb, if BGA is not responsive enough, you shouldn't engage yourself into a game because there is a risk for you to get clock penalties.
I play on smartphone / tablet / touch device and I have some difficulties: what can I do?
As a rule of thumb, BGA does not support tablet/smartphones. There are tons of board game adaptations for tablet/smartphones, and some BGA adaptations are not well designed for small screens. Thus, we don't have plans to do a mobile / tablet version at the moment.
So if you want to use BGA from a smartphone / tablet you can, but we don't promise to fix all bugs so it's at your own risk
I'm a game publisher: how can I get my game on Board Game Arena?
At first, you just have to write us an email (contact (at) boardgamearena.com) with a description of your game(s).
Then, we add this game to the list of "available licences" on our website dedicated to game developers (BGA Studio).
The most difficult part is to find a developer among our community. Our only requirement is that the developer must love the game. Of course, the most popular the game is, the easiest it is to find a volunteer developer. Sometimes this is very fast, sometimes it takes months, sometimes it never happens. We can't say in advance.
It is also possible to find your own developer: of course it accelerates the process a lot!