Game lifespan when empty

I've left two games this weekend for less than 2-3 minutes to make a trade in a separate game. Both times when I returned my game didn't exist anymore. In both games I had reached the Terror lvl Herald, and in the 2nd I had just used a shard, so it's pretty frustrating.

I used to transfer stuff all the time before the shared stash was implemented, and this was never an issue.

Can someone please explain the rules about when a game is erased?

Did you trade on the same region?
If so, that's why.

If you leave your game empty and create or join any other game on the same region, your old game is closed. Immediately.

If you leave your game empty and create or join another game on a different region however to do your trade there, your game stays up for a few minutes. I keep forgetting for how long exactly but it should be more than 2-3 minutes. I wanna say around 5 but don't quote me on that.

It’s 5 minutes. I’ve tested this multiple times, last time after RotW release.

Like Schnorki said, making/joining a different game in the same region instantly closes the empty game no matter if it’s been 5 minutes or less. The servers only track one game per account per region.

If you were two people/accounts in the same game, both left, then both would need to make/join a different game to kill the game instance before the 5 minutes were up. If only one made/joined a different game and the other one simply went back to the menus (or closed the game), then the game would remain up for the full 5 minutes.

Thank you both for the explanation. It was on the same server.