A message from BGA founder, Greg Isabelli (aka Sourisdudesert):
Dear players,
13 years ago I got this crazy idea of launching Board Game Arena. Today, it is time for me to leave and let BGA stand on its own feet.
During the past 2 years 1/2, we set up all what is needed to prepare this transition and make sure it happens well. In particular, we recruited a wonderful team of 10 extraordinary people who manage BGA everyday and have now all the needed skills to make it better. I was lucky to have full trust from our mother company, Asmodee, when assembling and organizing this team.
Since January, Alexandre Schlecht (lordalx on BGA) is already managing BGA and I have been there only as a support and an adviser. Alex has been working with BGA for years, and developed a total of 13 games on BGA including hits like CATAN, Splendor or recently "Next Station: Tokyo". All the time I spent with him these last months made me absolutely convinced that he is the right person to lead BGA and continue to make this service better. I will not unveil anything about the next BGA updates, but you will not be disappointed 🙂
Each time there has been an important event on BGA we used to write a small "FAQ", so here is one !
What about Emmanuel Colin (Een) who co-founded BGA with you?
Emmanuel left the company a few months ago and announced it in this message . Our 2 departures are obviously linked by all what is explained in this FAQ.
Why now?
Founders departure is a major risk for any Internet services. My co-founder and I are perfectly aware of that, and this is the reason we would like to prepare and organize this transition. First, when selecting a buyer, we care about choosing a company for which BGA will always be important, so we are 100% sure they will care about it over the years. Then, we selected and trained a team ourselves, to make sure the service will not be affected by our departures. The complete process took 2 years and 1/2 and ends now.
We have seen too many bad situations where founders want to keep their positions while they do not have anything to bring to the service anymore, and are finally pushed away: we did not want that for BGA.
Are you leaving because of Asmodee?
Absolutely not. I have been very clear from the start with Asmodee: BGA buyout was part of a transition strategy to a new team to make it sustainable over time. They accepted and supported that all along the way.
What do you think about the latest BGA updates and price increase?
I support 100% the latest updates: I followed the development of almost all of them.
About prices: it is quite obvious that the "historic prices" we used to have were too low. The catch-up that has been done these 2 last years was welcome. Among other considerations, something that everyone should keep in mind is that the BGA revenues are shared with Premium games publishers as "royalties". Significant royalties means more money to create new future games, but also make it more probable to have them on BGA.
What are you going to do now?
I am lucky enough to be able to focus on non-profit projects.
I have always found fascinating the possibility of using technology to make new kinds of social interactions possible. It was a pleasure to see all what you created using BGA as a community of players all along these years.
A specific social organization is not going very well at the moment: representative democracy.
I have created a new mobile app, Baztille, which make it possible to infiltrate representative democracy to allow citizens to participate directly to decisions affecting them. Each week, you vote and take collectively a decision for your country, your area or your city. Then, at election time, "Baztille" candidates can be elected to apply decisions taken by citizens, week after week, using the app.
If you also want to make democracy enter in the XXIe century, you can register on this website to make sure you will be part of the very first to try the app in your country. And who knows, they may be future Baztille representative among you?
I want to know more about BGA history !
As I am leaving BGA, this is an occasion to talk about BGA history. This is a quite particular story since BGA was launched as an amateur service at first.
A very complete video about this is unfortunately only available in French by "Un Monde de Jeux" since this is the only media that asked us. If I have the occasion to do something similar in another language I will let you know!
What did you learn in this adventure? Which advice would you have for other entrepreneurs?
There is so much to say and this would not fit here. In 13 years, I had to acquire skills in domains as different as web development, distant team management, large community management, subscriptions based economic models, UX design, multilingual systems, development platforms, scalable application hosting, accountability, personal data protection, IT security, and many others ...
I thought about writing articles with a "blog" format to talk about some of these subjects in the context of BGA, but I have difficulty evaluating if this can interest you or not.
So let's make a simple thing: if you think about a subject that could make a good article, please write it down as a comment to this post. If I see that there are many interesting subjects I will select some of them to write articles on a "blog" and will see where it goes.
Any last word?
A huge thank you to everyone who make this service possible to exist and to grow: game publishers and game designers who believed in this project (there is nothing without you), Asmodée team, the BGA team: Ian, Jurica, Tof, Xate, Sunil, Cyril, Aurélien, Alex & Pietro - you are my Avengers, my co-founder Emmanuel who support me all along the way, and obviously YOU, all the players who made BGA what it is today, and especially the game developers, the testers, the moderators, the translators, the tutorial authors, and all those who at some point help us to go further.
For those who are interested by my future projects & publications, you can follow me on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gisabelli
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sourisdudesert/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisabelli/
During BGA's first years, we used to end our meeting with "To infinity and beyond". Well, see you for the next adventure, beyond infinity!
Greg
Update: I am not used to talk about BGA to entrepreneurs, but this little talk below is an exception 🙂
If you are interested by entrepreneurship or BGA in general, you should like it (Audio in French / English subtitles available).
Nasvidenje in dobre igre!
Sporočilo ustanovitelja BGA Grega Isabellija (aka Sourisdudesert ):
Dragi igralci,
Pred 13 leti sem dobil to noro idejo o ustanovitvi Board Game Arena.
Danes je čas, da odidem in pustim, da se BGA postavi na lastne noge.
V zadnjih 2 letih 1/2 smo postavili vse, kar je potrebno za pripravo tega prehoda in poskrbeli, da bo dobro potekal.
Zlasti smo zaposlili čudovito ekipo 10 izjemnih ljudi, ki vsakodnevno upravljajo BGA in imajo zdaj vsa potrebna znanja, da ga izboljšajo.
Imel sem srečo, da sem imel pri sestavljanju in organiziranju te ekipe popolno zaupanje našega matičnega podjetja Asmodee.
Od januarja Alexandre Schlecht ( lordalx na BGA) že vodi BGA, jaz pa sem tam samo kot podpora in svetovalec.
Alex že leta dela z BGA in je razvil skupno 13 iger na BGA, vključno z uspešnicami, kot so CATAN, Splendor ali nedavno "Next Station: Tokyo".
Ves čas, ki sem ga preživel z njim v zadnjih mesecih, me je popolnoma prepričal, da je on prava oseba za vodenje BGA in še naprej izboljšuje to storitev.
Ne bom razkril ničesar o naslednjih posodobitvah BGA, vendar ne boste razočarani
Vsakič, ko je bil na BGA pomemben dogodek, smo napisali majhna "FAQ", zato je tukaj eno!
Kaj pa Emmanuel Colin (Een), ki je skupaj z vami ustanovil BGA?
Emmanuel je pred nekaj meseci zapustil podjetje in to objavil v tem sporočilu.
Naša 2 odhoda sta očitno povezana z vsem, kar je razloženo v tem pogostem vprašanju.
Zakaj zdaj?
Odhod ustanoviteljev je veliko tveganje za vse internetne storitve.
Tega se s soustanoviteljem dobro zavedava in zato želiva pripraviti in organizirati ta prehod.
Prvič, pri izbiri kupca nam je pomembno, da izberemo podjetje, za katerega bo BGA vedno pomemben, zato smo 100% prepričani, da jim bo mar za to skozi leta.
Nato smo sami izbrali in usposobili ekipo, da zagotovimo, da naši odhodi ne bodo vplivali na storitev.
Celoten postopek je trajal 2 leti in 1/2 in se zdaj končuje.
Videli smo preveč slabih situacij, ko želijo ustanovitelji obdržati svoje položaje, medtem ko nimajo več ničesar za prinesti v storitev, in so na koncu odrinjeni: tega nismo želeli za BGA.
Odhajaš zaradi Asmodeeja?
Absolutno ne.
Z Asmodeejem sem bil že od samega začetka zelo jasen: odkup BGA je bil del strategije prehoda na novo ekipo, da bo sčasoma vzdržna.
To so ves čas sprejemali in podpirali.
Kaj menite o najnovejših posodobitvah BGA in zvišanju cen?
100% podpiram najnovejše posodobitve: spremljal sem razvoj skoraj vseh.
O cenah: očitno je, da so bile "zgodovinske cene", ki smo jih imeli, prenizke.
Dohitevanje, ki je bilo storjeno v zadnjih dveh letih, je bilo dobrodošlo.
Med drugim bi morali vsi upoštevati, da se prihodki od BGA delijo z založniki Premium iger kot "licenčnine".
Znatne licenčnine pomenijo več denarja za ustvarjanje novih prihodnjih iger, hkrati pa povečajo verjetnost, da bodo na BGA.
Kaj boš zdaj naredil?
Imam to srečo, da se lahko osredotočim na neprofitne projekte.
Vedno se mi je zdela zanimiva možnost uporabe tehnologije za omogočanje novih vrst družbenih interakcij.
Bilo je veselje videti vse, kar ste ustvarili z uporabo BGA kot skupnosti igralcev vsa ta leta.
Specifični družbeni ureditvi trenutno ne gre najbolje: predstavniški demokraciji.
Ustvaril sem novo mobilno aplikacijo, Baztille, ki omogoča infiltracijo v predstavniško demokracijo, da državljanom omogoči neposredno sodelovanje pri odločitvah, ki jih zadevajo.
Vsak teden glasujete in skupaj sprejmete odločitev za svojo državo, območje ali mesto.
Nato so lahko v času volitev izvoljeni kandidati »Baztille«, ki uporabljajo odločitve, ki jih državljani sprejemajo iz tedna v teden z uporabo aplikacije.
Če želite tudi vi spodbuditi demokracijo v XXIe stoletje, se lahko registrirate na tem spletnem mestu in zagotovite, da boste del prvih, ki bodo preizkusili aplikacijo v vaši državi.
In kdo ve, morda sta med vami bodoča predstavnika Baztille?
Želim izvedeti več o zgodovini BGA!
Ker zapuščam BGA, je to priložnost za pogovor o zgodovini BGA.
To je precej posebna zgodba, saj je bil BGA sprva predstavljen kot amaterska storitev.
Zelo popoln videoposnetek o tem je na žalost na voljo samo v francoščini pri "Un Monde de Jeux", saj je to edini medij, ki nas je vprašal.
Če bom imel priložnost narediti kaj podobnega v drugem jeziku, vas bom obvestil!
Kaj ste se naučili v tej pustolovščini?
Kaj bi svetovali drugim podjetnikom?
Toliko je za povedati in to ne bi sodilo sem.
V 13 letih sem moral pridobiti veščine na tako različnih področjih, kot so spletni razvoj, vodenje skupin na daljavo, upravljanje velikih skupnosti, ekonomski modeli, ki temeljijo na naročninah, oblikovanje UX, večjezični sistemi, razvojne platforme, razširljivo gostovanje aplikacij, odgovornost, varstvo osebnih podatkov, IT varnost in mnogi drugi ...
Razmišljal sem o pisanju člankov v obliki »blog«, da bi govoril o nekaterih od teh tem v kontekstu BGA, vendar težko ocenim, ali vas to lahko zanima ali ne.
Zato naredimo preprosto stvar: če razmišljate o temi, ki bi lahko bila dober članek, prosimo, da to zapišete kot komentar k tej objavi.
Če vidim, da je veliko zanimivih tem, bom nekaj izmed njih izbral za pisanje člankov na "blog" in videl bom, kam bo šlo.
Še zadnja beseda?
Velika hvala vsem, ki omogočajo obstoj in rast te storitve: založnikom iger in oblikovalcem iger, ki so verjeli v ta projekt (brez vas ni nič), ekipi Asmodée, ekipi BGA: Ian, Jurica, Tof, Xate, Sunil, Cyril, Aurélien, Alex & Pietro - vi ste moji Maščevalci, moj soustanovitelj Emmanuel, ki me podpirate na tej poti, in seveda VI, vsi igralci, ki so naredili BGA to, kar je danes, in še posebej razvijalci iger, preizkuševalci, moderatorji, prevajalci, avtorji vadnic in vsi tisti, ki nam kdaj pomagajo iti dlje.
Za tiste, ki jih zanimajo moji prihodnji projekti in objave, me lahko spremljate na:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gisabelli
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sourisdudesert/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisabelli/
V prvih letih BGA smo naše srečanje zaključili z "Do neskončnosti in naprej".
No, se vidimo na naslednji pustolovščini, onkraj neskončnosti!
Greg
