Board Game Arena was first started up in 2010, but its popularity was a bit of a slow crawl and it wasn't until the early 2020s where it really took off. In spring 2020, when the quarantines from the COVID-19 pandemic made in-person board gaming much more difficult, this site became a viable alternative for existing gaming groups to meet virtually. The industry took notice, and the site was acquired by Asmodee, one of the biggest gaming publishers, which in turn meant a lot of other popular games could now be licensed for the site. Likely as a result of these two things, the site has remained not only popular with users, but with game publishers and designers - some have pushed for simultaneous releases here and with their physical version, while others have used it to generate play data in order to rebalance it.
User accounts on Board Game Arena can be classified as either free or premium. Premium users have access to all games on the site and can start games of anything at any time (no guarantees anyone else will be up to play, of course), along with a few other perks like being able to choose a preferred player color or play in hotseat mode (i.e. two players switching off the same device). Free users can't start or set up premium games, but they can still play them if a premium user sets it up.
Visit the site and play games at https://boardgamearena.com/
Games supported on Board Game Arena with their own trope pages (or popular enough to have one) include...
- Agricola
- Ark Nova
- Azul (and the Master Chocolatier, Summer Pavilion, and Duel variants)
- Backgammon
- Bandido
- Bang!
- Battleship
- Burgle Bros.
- Carcassonne
- The Castles Of Burgundy
- Cartographers
- Catan (and the New Energies spinoff)
- Century (Spice Road only)
- Checkers
- Chess
- Citadels
- Cribbage
- Earth
- Exploding Kittens
- Fluxx (and the Star Fluxx spinoff)
- Forbidden Island
- Forest Shuffle
- Great Western Trail (and the El Paso spinoff)
- Go
- Hanabi
- Harmonies
- Hive
- Innovation
- The Isle Of Cats
- Its A Wonderful World (and the It's A Wonderful Kingdom spinoff)
- Just One
- Kingdomino
- King of Tokyo
- Lost Ruins of Arnak
- Love Letter
- Pandemic
- Papayoo
- Puerto Rico
- Race For The Galaxy (and spinoffs Roll for the Galaxy, New Frontiers, and Jump Drive)
- Res Arcana
- Saboteur
- 7 Wonders (and spinoffs 7 Wonders Duel and 7 Wonders Architects)
- Shōgi
- Small World (2009)
- Sky Team
- Space Base
- Spades
- Splendor (and spinoff Splendor Duel)
- Stone Age
- Survive The Island
- Sushi Go! (and the Sushi Go Party spinoff)
- Terraforming Mars
- Terra Mystica (and spinoffs Gaia Project, Age of Innovation, and Terra Nova)
- Ticket to Ride (and the Ticket to Ride: Europe spinoff)
- Tranquility
- Welcome To (and spinoffs Welcome to New Las Vegas and Welcome to the Moon)
- The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow
- Wingspan (2019)
- Xiangqi
- Yahtzee
Tropes associated with Board Game Arena not specifically tied to one of its games include...
- Achievement System: Applies to both the site itself and individual games, though usually of the "play/win this game X times" type and not anything specific to each game's rules.
- Anti-Rage Quitting: Players are assigned karma which goes up when players complete games within a time limit, but goes down if they quit or are ejected due to inactivity. This rating is known to all players up front, and there are settings to avoid matching with players below a few specific values.
- Digital Tabletop Game Adaptation: Probably the biggest and most well-known of its class.
- Extrinsic Go-First Rule: Averted across the board. While most game rules are followed to the letter, this one's left out for practical reasons, instead just randomly determining who goes first.
- Official Game Variant: If it exists, it's probably a selectable option when setting up a game.
Popular Game Variants are less common than the above, but usually also included. - Running Gag: Overlapping with Hidden Object Game, but in an unofficial sense. When new games are released, the splash image for the picture will usually have a hidden picture of Ned Flanders.