Board Game Arena Reviews | Read Customer Service Reviews of boardgamearena.com

Paradise for Cyberbullies

Board Game Arena bans you when you are the one getting bullied. Simply because you are reporting them, yet they don’t use the “banned” words. Other users are allowed to question your intelligence, to mock and laugh at you, to manipulate you, all as long as they don’t outright use negative words to demean you. Board Game Arena is highly toxic and there are more bullies than good people. The moderators allow the instigator free rein so long as “negative” words are not used, and it really is about the negative connotation of specific words. They couldn’t care less about the bullying that occurs when people don’t use the words with negative connotation. They also will penalize you if you dispute a moderation, so you can only accept their penalties.

The site is not well maintained, in that you frequently need to use the refresh button, so that you know when to play.

The reward system, and the skill level system also is terrible, particularly for cooperative games. People abandon when a perfect score is no longer obtainable, so their elo never drops, which is widely regarded as someone’s skill level in any particular game. Thus, you really don’t know what the skills and knowledge of any particular user is, since it’s accepted and expected to abandon any game where a perfect score is no longer available.

Karma (supposedly how often you quit games, but also if you get moderated, your Karma also is taken away by 50/100. With the above mentioned problems of being unfairly moderated, it also makes Karma unreliable. Bullies are skilled at using demeaning, cruel language that bypasses the moderation team’s decisions to silence people.

This all contributes to painful experiences and an unfriendly atmosphere for new and experienced gamers alike. It’s the perfect atmosphere for cyberbullying, and very friendly towards those types of people.

Date of experience : June 11, 2022