Lords of Waterdeep
Posted: 04 February 2016, 18:49
Lords of Waterdeep is a great game. Is there a reason why it is not on BGA?
As with any game, there are one of two reasons that it is not on BGA:
Reason 1 -- the entity who holds the rights to the game has not allowed it to be on BGA. BGA cannot simply put a game up on the site because they want to; a horde of copyright laws would shut it down. Now, with this, it is not up to the users to pester the rights owner to let it be allowed. BGA does work with publishers and distributors to get the rights to implement it. Having users randomly enter the negotiations can cause problems.
Also, there is a wide variety of opinions by rights owners about on-line play. Some say "hey, the more people playing our game, the more exposure, and the more copies we will sell." Others are "hey, we only make money off our games by people buying physical copies, so no way are we allowing people to play our games without a physical set." I've heard rumor that this last one is done on another site to the extent that they are allowed to have virtual games going, but for *every* simultaneous virtual game that is running, they have to have purchased a physical copy.
Reason 2 -- BGA holds the rights, but nobody has completed the coding necessary to implement it. BGA does not hire a programming staff. A game gets implemented when someone with the talent and the time volunteers to write it. For more information on this, check out the Developer's forum. I believe there is information there about how to volunteer.
