Digital Domains - Playing Games Online

 Digital Delights

With the advent of the addition of digital platforms and more and more games getting added to them as time goes by, I thought that I would have a short discussion about the various options that are available to play games digitally. I think that there are benefits (and negatives) to playing digitally on any of the listed platforms here and I thought that I would go over both the pros and cons of some potential ways to play. I will say that I'm partial to playing games physically rather than digitally, although I will try to be as impartial as possible when reviewing each of these options to play games.

I am not in any way affiliated with any of these websites or providers, so please take all of these opinions with a grain of salt. There are so many ways to play games and I just want to give an impartial view on the best way to play any of these games.

Board Game Arena

Website - https://boardgamearena.com

Way to Play - Online in your browser
Premium/Cost? - Yes, $36/year or $5/month
Game Selection Sample - Ark Nova, Wingspan, Azul, CATAN, Ticket to Ride

Board Game Arena represents a fairly decent way to play games online with friends. With their large selection of more modern games and some classic games (such as Yahtzee, Rummy, or Hearts) for individuals to play, there certainly is a large amount of games to play for potential fun.

The good: The large selection of games available to play on the website. Additionally, the games on Board Game Arena have automation that helps with upkeep on the games and keeps track of score for the players using the games. Because of this automation, player's requirement of knowledge in regards to setup and play is significantly lower and presents a lower barrier of entry to new players. There are also ways to join games with other individuals across the world, including friends and family, representing an easy way to get into your favorite games with others.

The bad: Much of Board Game Arena's collection is gated behind a paid membership, especially some of the more popular board games, including major games like CATAN, Wingspan, and Ticket to Ride. While a paid member can invite others to join the premium games, they are locked behind a paid membership and non-premium members will have to wait for an available game. It's not a large price, but it does present a little bit of a caveat to playing on Board Game Arena, especially if (like me) you tend to like newer and heavier board games.

Tabletopia

Website - https://tabletopia.com/
Way to Play - Online in your browser
Premium/Cost? - Yes, $99/year for silver membership or $150/year for gold
Game Selection Sample - Brass: Birmingham, Too Many Bones, Scythe, Terra Mystica, Wingspan

The good: Tabletopia houses an absolutely gigantic library of games (2500+ at the time of writing) with more added every week. Quite a few kickstarter games can also be found on Tabletopia, allowing potential backers to try out the game before backing the game on Kickstarter. The overall look of the website feels more premium and has a significant number of categories that allow players to choose from and scroll through. There are also significantly more options available for non-paying members to play and many of the games are available to play an introductory game before having to pay for the premium membership, allowing players to try a game before paying the premium cost.

The bad: The cost of the yearly subscription is significantly steeper than Board Game Arena. While the $100 a year membership does allow for significantly more games to be played, it does represent a higher level of entry that not all might be able to afford. Additionally, all games on Tabletopia require players to be familiar with the gameplay as very little might be automated with the games (some games have preprogrammed card locations/flipping mechanics) and requires players to manipulate and update the game as it's played. There are also a few bugs here and there on the platform that often result in the game being played being unable to be finished.

Tabletop Simulator

Website - https://www.tabletopsimulator.com/
Way to Play - Via Download onto PC
Premium/Cost? - Yes, one time $20 payment (or $10 if on sale) and potential additional cost per game DLC
Game Selection Sample - Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Tiny Epic Galaxies, Superfight,
Rise of Tribes

The good: Tabletop Simulator represents the granddaddy of all tabletop simulators and is easily purchased for a one-time fee through the Steam webpage. It usually has some sort of sale going on that allows users to pick up a copy for around $10 (or a set of four games for $30 to share with friends). There are numerous community mods that have been made for Tabletop Simulator that are created almost daily that offer unofficial (and some official) mods for the game for your favorite game. You name it and it's probably on Tabletop Simulator. Often times Kickstarters will often have a mod for their game available to play on Tabletop Simulator as well to play for backers.

The bad: Additional DLC for games can often come at an additional price. While a small fee of $3 or $4 doesn't seem that much for a new game, it can add up quickly. At the time of writing, all DLC for the game (41 separate games) totals a whopping $146.59 and that's at 50% off. Additionally, if you want to play with other friends, you do need to each have a separate copy of the game if you wish to play online together. Since the game is run directly from your PC, it does require decent hardware and anyone running a Chrome OS might not be able to play the game. Many of the games are also not scripted to run automation for games and again require players to have knowledge of how to play the game in order to run it.

Game Applications

Website - Various websites (depends on the publisher/game)
Way to Play - Via Download onto PC, Phone, or Tablet
Premium/Cost? - Sometimes, depends on the game
Game Selection Sample - Everdell, Evolution, Cartographers, Dominion

The good: Many publishers offer a digital version of their game, often with an introductory price of $0. Games like Onirim, Dominion, and Evolution offer an introductory game (or base game) for players to be able to download and play a game virtually on their phone, tablet, or PC. Usually games like this are updated with the most recent rule changes and are often presented with beautiful visuals that perform the game automation on behalf of the player. These usually are published directly by the game publisher, or another developer on behalf of the game publisher, and present a significantly lower cost of entry to play games rather than purchasing a board game version.

The bad: Many times the game included in the application is the base game and any additional expansions are contained within the game as additional DLC that can be purchased (usually at a decent cost). There often can be games that do not receive any updates to their game after publishing and while the physical game might have expansions, the application only contains the base game (one example is the app for Everdell which only contains the base game and no expansions). Often games also will not come with a "back" or "undo" button, resulting in mistakes being made during the game being permanent, much to the chagrin of the player.

Final Thoughts

There are quite a few more options to play digitally, but I thought that I would highlight some of the arenas that I was most familiar to play games with. While I have preferred to play with Tabletopia recently because of the cost (free) for many of their games, I do find myself leaning towards getting a subscription for Board Game Arena or getting a copy of Tabletop Simulator to play games on my PC. I haven't done either, but with how often I find myself playing games lately, I think that it might be beneficial for me to invest in either options (or potentially both).

My hope is that with this post, I can offer a few options that you haven't been aware of, and potentially provide a new option to play games. I'm not trying to push you into any specific platform and just wanted to have a quick discussion about what is available out on the market.

Give me your thoughts:

-What is your preferred method to play board games digitally, if any?
-Were there any platforms that I missed with this blog post that you could recommend playing digitally with?
-How would you like to have games integrated into a digital platform, if available?

As always, thank you for your comments and likes on this blog. Each and every interaction that I get here is important to me and I appreciate each and every one of you.

Have a great rest of your week and keep playing those games!

*Edit* - I've added a few more websites below that were posted in the comments (along with who commented) for ease of visibility. Thanks everyone who commented below!

SaltyHorse wrote:

A few other websites to play games (with the approval of the publishers):
https://www.yucata.de/en
https://triqqy.com/ - Mostly Knizia titles.
https://18xx.games/ - 18xx games.
https://rally-the-troops.com/ - focused on war games.
http://play.boardgamecore.net/ - mostly Splotter titles.
http://boardspace.net/ - mostly abstracts (Gipf, Hive), but has some Euros like Viticulture, Euphoria and Tammany Hall.
https://www.brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/ - Mostly German-speaking player community. Very confusing interface IMO.

qwertymartin wrote:

I'm a big fan of playingcards.io and the open source version virtualtabletop.io. They're 2-d environments in which you can create and drag around cards and other components and it's very easy to make your own modules even with no coding skills. They're well-suited to the kind of simple games I enjoy most, which really don't benefit from a processor-hungry 3-d rendered environment.

I started this geeklist 4 years ago and there are now over 500 user-created modules on it: Games implemented on playingcards.io and virtualtabletop.io

Arcturian wrote:

No one has mentioned Vassal, which is free and has thousands of games in its library, including a lot of wargames that you won't find online anywhere else.

Thanks for the recommendations all! It really helps open up some additional options for all of us to play!

*Originally posted on BoardGameGeek on 20/3/2024*