Every time I make a lobby and create a spawner set to pre-game, the game timer starts when I spawn.
use a spawn pad that only activates pre game
This might be because you are testing it in the editor. Make sure that the spawn pad is set to pre game, and make a publish link (settings → save and publish → publish) and see if it works there.
I Hope that helps!
The pre-game lobby is the place where players enter the game (after entering the game’s code and selecting a username). Setting a spawner to ‘pre-game’ means that players in that stage of the game will start at the location determined by that spawn point, and setting a spawner to ‘game’ means that players will spawn at that location once the game has started.
To create a pre-game lobby, you need to create the lobby area and then place a spawner in that area that is set to ‘pre-game’ only. Once the game starts, you can have players automatically spawn at a different area (designated with another spawning device with ‘game’ assigned to it), but players will be sent to the first spawner’s location upon first entering a code and joining that game.