Asmodee Acquires Board Game Arena

Blech.

This makes sense. I can only hope they make it better, I guess.

Expect a lot more aggressive tabletop simulator pirate mod enforcement, I'm sure.

Over or under two months for Asmodee to entirely alienate the BGA user base?

That sucks.

As if there isn't enough bad news these days, you had to show us this?

Gary Sax wrote: This makes sense. I can only hope they make it better, I guess.

Expect a lot more aggressive tabletop simulator pirate mod enforcement, I'm sure.

I've always been shocked at how much they've gotten away with as it is given some of the IPs like Star Wars and Tolkien that are on there.

If this acquisition means more Asmodee stuff gets on BGA I'm for it.

Maybe they could also playtest some of their games more easily using that interface.

There are some interesting posts on reddit concerning this.

intelekt
1h
Designer and Publisher of a game on BGA here - I have some real issues with how this was communicated and implemented. As publishers, we were given no warning about this. I woke up this morning to see a royalty-free license I'd extended to a small start-up of 2 people is now being transferred to a 1.3 billion dollar entity without any negotiation period or right of refusal.

I'm in email chats with BGA ownership now asking about how this is going to be remedied. I certainly don't intend to extend the courtesy of a "free" license to a 1.3 billion dollar entity (my small publishing company is worth 200K, at best). I have to assume other publishers also aren't thrilled about giving one of the largest competitors in the industry, free content. As of right now, the optics seem to me to be, "we sourced lots of volunteer work and free royalties, sold it to Asmodee, and will now solely be paid, we didn't even consider those of you whose content we/they make money off of".

I've asked that the BGA ownership come up with a reasonable royalty structure for all games on the platform in light of this purchase. If they are unwilling to do so, there are a number of options and other platforms we'd consider.

intelekt

9m

So far the ownership of BGA has responded with "We can remove your games from the platform but we won't even attempt to pay royalties nor ask Asmodee to pay them".

Sad to see they've already adopted the corporate demeanor after getting paid. Very likely moving my titles to Yucata unless they change their tune. I urge other publishers to remove their titles, we shouldn't be driving money into the pocket of a 1.3 billion dollar investment firm when most of us are small publishing houses with real cashflow concerns.

thebosz
Running
1h
As someone who has voluntarily developed a game for BGA (Eminent Domain: Microcosm), I can tell you one thing: there's no way I would ever freely give my time and skills to Asmodee.

Oh YIKES, thanks for that context.

It already felt bad but those posts really drive it home. I would have to assume BGA will become an asmodee exclusive shop pretty quickly.

Trying to wrap my head around designing something for BGA for free and then having that transfer to Asmodee to make money. Really, really bad.

I imagine Asmodee is aware of the possibility of some companies yanking their games off the BGA platform. To them, the existing userbase is probably more valuable an asset than the actual game files on the site. Some games they might even pay some royalties on, who knows. I am sure they now have access to data that shows exactly what titles bring in the most traffic. In perusing the BGA library, the vast majority of the titles seem to be of the light Euro variety . How many are existing Asmodee brands I am not sure, I can't keep up with who they own these days. But the userbase is just as valuable an asset I'd bet .

When Silicon Magazine was sold,
They bought the mailing list/database and threw out the actual Magazine. Sure, this was pre full on Facebook era of data mining but it seems to fit the same thought process at first glance.

WadeMonnig wrote: When Silicon Magazine was sold,
They bought the mailing list/database and threw out the actual Magazine. Sure, this was pre full on Facebook era of data mining but it seems to fit the same thought process at first glance.

This is why Verizon bought Yahoo as well.

When I read the title of this thread my first thought was "all the games I play on it are going to be gone in a couple of weeks."

Asmodee is the 300 pound bully that shows up at every party shortly after you arrive.