Suggestions for additional tournament setup options :

1. Option to disable the "skip" player function.
This should be clearly stated in the tournament page, so that players who like the "skip" function, do not enter the tournament.
By having this option, the game can continue until completion, even if a player's time allocation expires.
If the total game duration is exceeded, then the current rules will apply.

2. Disassociate the total game duration from the player time allocation.
In the current options, the total game duration = player time allocation x number of players.
But this results in VERY long games, which can be even worse than "skipping" players.
An option to make each player allocation independent of the game duration could be added.

In all the above scenarios, the player(s) who exceeded their time allocation, will still lose reputation points etc.

Without the skip option, there might as well be no time limit for games.

"If the total game duration is exceeded, then the current rules will apply" is a terrible result though.
Common scenario:
Player A takes 5 mins to take first move.
Player B takes 10 mins to take first move.
Player C takes 15 mins to take first move.
Player D never plays at all.
Currently, if players are sensible, someone will skip D.

Otherwise, game ends 2 weeks later. Result: A wins, followed by B, C and D.
A huge amount of time is wasted, A gets full points for no particularly good reason and C's tournament standing is ruined by D not playing.

What really needs to happen is for D to be skipped and the other players to continue playing and for their actual results to be recorded, not voided.

In reply to ExpendableEnsign :
If a solution is implemented correctly, there would be no need to have tournaments with a 2 week game duration, as you suggest in your example. For the majority of tournaments, a 1 week game duration would be more than sufficient.

And the example you provide is not the main issue (someone who does not start their game) : in this case, no one has really started playing, so there is no frustration in terms of time investment. Sure, this slows down a tournament, but this has always been an "issue" with BGA tournaments.

The issue is with a game with significant progress (ie 75%) : the majority of players have invested considerable time in a game, only to have someone use the "skip" function, and cancels all the investment players have made in the game (It's not just one player, it's many players who are impacted).
And an important point : often a player use the "skip" function immediately after someone's allocated time has expired, which is abusing the fair use of the "skip" function.

And I think you will find that your final suggestion will be extremely difficult to implement for BGA (allow other players to continue playing). This will require a major change to game mechanics.
My suggestions do not require a change the game mechanics (it only restricts how a game can end).

This is especially a problem with simultaneous play. It is one thing is turn-by-turn play like Carcasonne where a player is playing much too slow, it is another in a game like 7 Wonders were clocks all run at the same time, it means that the total of time left for all players will always sum to less that the total time allowed for the tournament game. I have a suggestion about this here: boardgamearena.com/bug?id=41933

I was in first place in a 5 player game, and the last place player skipped the (out of time) 4th place player AFTER 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finished, invalidating the game and corrupting the resulting tournament standings. Instead of receiving full 1st place standing, I received the average penalty standing despite having already won the game.

Tournaments right now have a pretty severe problem with absent players and severely slow players (players who only make 1-2 moves a day for a game that would take 40+ moves to finish).

My recommendations:

- Tournaments should use a Fisher clock system like regular turn-based games, something like +8 hours per move with a 1-2 day limit or other options for move frequency.
- If a player timeouts in a tournament, the game just ends rather than letting other people abuse the timeout system. (A player who is doing well in the game would want the game to finish, a player who is doing poorly in the game would want the game to be abandoned.)
- If it's a swiss tournament, a player who timeouts is kicked from the tournament, and the other players get points as if they had a bye. Those players can be paired together again if a tournament is configured for "don't pair the same players twice".
- If it's a multiplayer elimination tournament, everyone else advances even if the tournament was not configured that way. (I.e., if the tournament was "6 play 3 advance" and someone runs out of time, then the other 5 players advance.)
- If a player has too many tournament timeouts, they're banned from entering tournaments for awhile.

Please fix tournaments to allow organizers more options with time settings and ability to disable skipping.

Skipping currently has no consideration on whether a game will reasonably be completed on time or if it's a truly AFK player with no chance of a game finishing. Please just allow us to disable skip in tournaments and let maximum game duration take care of it.

Skipping rarely makes the tournament advance faster anyways. Players are usually waiting for another table to finish anyways.

Especially in tournaments with 24h playtime (which is the most fair setting), a matchup of players from different regions can be hugely advantagious in terms of clock for one or the other. E.g. take an EU player who mostly plays in the afternoon and evening vs. an Asian player. It is not unlikely, that the EU player looses around 16h of clock time every day of the match. And the same applies the other way around for EU vs. NA. The maximum game time should be the hard limit on the game without any need for an option to skip on another player which offers potential abuse and impacts competitive integrity.