Games criticism, reviews, and SEO

For what it's worth, I read all the written reviews here, but I never listen to podcasts or watch video reviews anywhere. I am a fast reader, but podcasts and videos are too time-consuming and plod along at the pace of the spoken word. I also feel that the process of writing a review encourages a greater degree of reflection and analysis by the reviewer.

Erik Twice wrote: I also don't think there's anything wrong in covering mostly good games though the whole "i don't do negative reviews" thing is awful and sinks all your credibility a a critic.

Does it though? A bad movie wastes two hours of your time. A bad album an hour. A bad game? An hour or two learning the rules and setting up; anywhere from fifteen minutes to three hours to play; another three or four plays if you have integrity; and you have to drag friends into every play. That’s a huge investment of your week. If you’ve played enough games that you think the world needs to know your opinions, you probably have a good idea of what you like and don’t and can tell which camp a game is in by reading the rule book. Can you blame someone for not wanting to review something they know they probably enjoy? Which is part of what makes Dan Thurot a treasure. He plays everything: Rhino Hero Azul, Root, Meltwater, White Tribe, Planet Apocalypse, the latest from John Clowdus and Jim Felli.

I guess I’m separating no-negative reviewers caused by self-selection and caused by those who don’t want to ruffle feathers. I’m even compassionate to the latter because there’s always the chance you got a rule wrong that knocked everything askance and sapped all tension from the proceedings. There’s a credibility sinker there.

^Barnes has talked a lot about this issue and I sort of get it. You also have inflict it on *friends* in addition to wasting your own time.

Jackwraith wrote: I remember the whole "pivot to video" scam. The fact remains that the major critic figures in the industry don't do written work anymore. Why?

I think it's a combination of two factors: Most reviews from large critics include either comedy skits or have a large "showcase the game" element, often both. For example, SUSD are skit-heavy, down to dressing up as a "worm" for Dune and their latest review, for Eclipse, shows all the components and even how things fit in the box.

I really don't think the medium is as large of a factor as discoverability and the actual content.

Vysetron wrote: Erik's note on public codes of conduct scaring people is something I can corroborate. I don't mind that one bit, it's an easy way to tell who I should and shouldn't be working with.

The thing is, while this guy got upset, my audience loved it. I got a far greater level of support and even gained new readers because I published my code of conduct. My readers saw it as an excercise in integrity and were appreciated me taking the time to make it explicit.

DarthJoJo wrote: I guess I’m separating no-negative reviewers caused by self-selection and caused by those who don’t want to ruffle feathers. I’m even compassionate to the latter because there’s always the chance you got a rule wrong that knocked everything askance and sapped all tension from the proceedings. There’s a credibility sinker there.

Negative reviews are a vital part of criticism. I just can't imagine being a critic and not doing them because it's a large part of the job. And it's an interesting, valuable part, too. If revierws are worth writing, they are worth writing no matter if they are positive or negative.

Sure, I would rather play a good game than a bad one. I won't review trash or meaningless games in my blog. But I'll play games like Wingspan half a dozen times to write about it and be able to share my thoughts on it. And I actually enjoy criticism so much that playing a few boring hours of worker placement is worth it.

Personally, I try to keep a varied outlook. I don't post four contrarian reviews in a row or gush about ten economic games. It's not helpful for your audience. It's much better if they can get an get different perspectives on the same issue. To me a critic who avoids negative reviews sinks their credibility because it means refusing to do an important part of their job. How can I believe in their work if they don't believe in it themselves?

People have thanked me for writing negative reviews of Blood Rage, Deep Sea Adventure and other games because they could not find any reviews talking about their flaws. Was I the only one who noticed DSA was broken? Doubtful, the BGG forums are filled with people talking about the issue. I think people avoid negative criticism because they don't want to sound negative, be contrarian or face backlash. Which, ironically, only worsens those issues.

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Lastly, I just created a Patreon and I'm a nervous wreck because it's a huge responsability even if nobody gives a cent.

I recall someone on BGG saying that negative reviews were personal attacks against a game’s creators.

I don’t think many hold that point of view, but negative reviews tend to get negative responses. I try to remember to upvote negative reviews, even if I don’t agree with them, because they should be encouraged.

There are so many “just played this game, don’t own it, it was incredible” type reviews that garner lots of positive feedback and they are usually worthless as reviews.

Side note: did we lose 200-some-odd pages from this topic?

RobertB wrote: Side note: did we lose 200-some-odd pages from this topic?

No, this thread just needs to be re-titled.

Edit: looks like someone ninja'd it

Problem should be fixed, some topic weirdness and a setting I didn't click when I separated them out. The big long thread is still there.

n815e wrote: I recall someone on BGG saying that negative reviews were personal attacks against a game’s creators.

I don’t think many hold that point of view, but negative reviews tend to get negative responses. I try to remember to upvote negative reviews, even if I don’t agree with them, because they should be encouraged.

This is IMO a symptom of BGG’s sprawling size. It’s too big to keep tabs on everything, so people use subscriptions to avoid the firehose. And you don’t subscribe to games you don’t like.

So, as a long-time lurker around here (much less so lately as Covid has reduced my desire to indulge in BG media, plus starting a new job a couple of months ago didn't help), let me ask a question: has the site TWBG thought about getting on Patreon? Because, as everyone has already stated, getting paid by the publishers is fraught with conflicts of interest, the answer is for a "media" company that gets it money from a different source (IE. advertising or crowd funding) to hire creators. The issue is that "Board Games" doesn't have the NY Post or IGN with large viewerships to make this happen. Clearly as BGs move more into the mainstream, there might be a few established media sites that branch out (Ars Technica comes to mind), but that's going to be few and far between. The closest "media conglomerate" out there is the Dice Tower Network, which probably brings in a few hundred thousand bucks a year, enough to pay salaries for a half-dozen folks or so (don't have any specifics, but clearly Tom and a few of his cohorts are getting paid enough to make it their full time jobs). While I have no idea what their conventions net for them, they probably still get over half their money via crowd funding (IE. their annual Kickstarter). While I don't think Kickstarter is a good fit for TWBG (I can hear the "hypocrite" cries already), a Patreon for the site seems like it could fit the mission. Rather then me hand out a few bucks a month to the different reviewers I respect, this would be a way to consolidate a donation and effect more writers (albeit less net for each). While I typically throw some bucks at the site at the end of every year, I'd probably have no issue throwing $5 a month at it instead. And yes, I could already do this with PayPal, but I like the fact that Patreon provides a way for the site to "push" things at me, rather then me seeking it out (and no, I don't like RSS if it's available). You can also throw in any gimmicks you want, special forum access, badges, gold stars, whatever. Seems, at least, you have a message/platform you can sell. I'm not saying that this will succeed, but maybe it will result in a few bucks going to contributors that wouldn't happen otherwise. I feel like nothing's going to change with this sites current model.

Also, if you're not cross-posting articles over on TOS, you really should (unless there's some objectionable content in it). More eye balls, even if you don't get a "click" from it, still raises brand awareness.

dysjunct wrote:

n815e wrote: I recall someone on BGG saying that negative reviews were personal attacks against a game’s creators.

I don’t think many hold that point of view, but negative reviews tend to get negative responses. I try to remember to upvote negative reviews, even if I don’t agree with them, because they should be encouraged.

This is IMO a symptom of BGG’s sprawling size. It’s too big to keep tabs on everything, so people use subscriptions to avoid the firehose. And you don’t subscribe to games you don’t like.

Subscriptions are the only way I consume content there now. The old front page was too scattered across a thousand titles to make it particularly useful for finding new titles.

fwiw, individual authors are on patreon, I believe if they do so most of them have links in their author profiles below each article, so I would go support them. Some of our authors have spread their stuff onto BGG and submitted, iirc, and the general ethos behind people submitting here is that it does not tie their hands to put their stuff up on youtube, other sites, have a patreon, etc.

Ubarose can speak to the rest or if I'm wrong with the above. She really does handle all of the actual business of the site behind the scenes, and extremely heroically I might add.

First off, signed up to the newsletter (didn't realizer there was one, or forgot about it), will see if that's what I'm looking for. But otherwise, I'm old school and pretty much live on the "Recent Topics" page.

Secondly, I understand it's more work, and thought if more money was coming in, it could go towards managing the increased workload (IE. delegate to someone with more free time that would appreciate a few extra bucks). But this thread was a bunch of complaints about a lack of paid independent board game critics, and there's not really much of a facility to make that happen. It seemed like the goal of the site encompasses written part with the exception of the "paid" bit, was just seeing if there was interest in trying to move into that space. Odds are you would ultimately fail, honestly, but nothing ever changes if someone doesn't try. But clearly I'm not willing to put my free time where my mouth is, so I fully respect the work done by the folks at this site without much, if any, compensation. I will continue to support those folks piecemeal as I already do (I'm do for a re-evaluation of my Patreon, honestly, and need to move some money around), but that's not going to champion any movement for greater crowdfunding of independent content. But really, it's turning this site into more of a business, and maybe that's not really what anybody wants....