Critical Faculties

Firstly I'd like to thank everyone so far for contributing in such a mature manner. It's really given me a lot to think about.

One of the topics I was trying to drive at with this article is that context is king when it comes to a review. I wanted to address the idea that negative reviews weren't useful to you as critic or a site and how much I disagreed with that. I think putting out those kind of reviews helps readers understand the kind of critic you are, even if they disagree with you.

I've never been a AAA site and probably never will be. I don't get sent a lot of the new releases so I have chosen to concentrate on the smaller publishers where I can, lifting up games in my own way as best I can. I would always encourage any reader to sample a few different critics, reading only 1 will lead to a bit of a bubble where you just get your opinions confirmed rather than questioned.

What a great piece.

The longer I do this, the more I feel like I can either do quick reviews, or I can do good reviews. I don't know if I can do both. So much of how games sit revolves around life WITH that game. That's why quick turnaround takes on enormous product lines are so disingenuous (not that people mean to be that way, mind). I mean, learning a new system in any game is a little like learning a new language. You have to make room for it, practice it, and utilize it as a conscious choice. It's not just another title you can throw in the pile.

Even smaller games require time to mature. I rewrite reviews about games quite a bit. Part of that was the drive during the MM days to get content on back catalog games, but I think the big appeal to me is that it's just more interesting to think about the long-term appeal of a game. Games are more interesting to me when I stop discussing them as an immediate reaction, and more about what they mean years after the fact. In fact, the reviews I wish I could get back most of all were those rapturous ones for games I liked immediately, but that didn't stick with me in the long-term. We need to revisit our favorite games, because it's a way we get to know ourselves.

I really don't want to denigrate people like Charlie who do amazing work on new releases. But I have had to realize that for my part I can't maintain that clip and continue to enjoy the hobby. It's just not in the cards.

Yeah it is a tricky issue that all reviewers will filter which games they review leading to what looks like a bias towards positive reviews. That's because there is bias, there kind of has to be.

3000+ games released this year. Assuming you aren't churning out back of the box style reviews and actually taking the time to write something decent you are maybe putting out a review a week? Perhaps a little bit more often. Even if you put out 100 reviews in a year you are basically only scratching the surface of available games.

I see reviewers newer than even me asking how they keep up with the churn of games, stay on top of the new. Although that content will undoubtedly get you more clicks on your site, keeping up with the Joneses is just going to make you unhappy. I think we will see a lot more specialist reviewers emerge in the next few years who have chosen to filter down to a particular subset of games: wargames, solo, party etc. I also think we will start to see more opportunities for full time reviewers independent from the need for crowdfunding, or at least I hope we will.

Just a short response on my way back in from New Orleans:

I find that negative reviews are also easier to write. However, I don't tend to write them because I don't play many things that I don't like or I can pretty casually dismiss them on a first- (and usually only-) time play because I just don't want to take up my time playing stuff that I don't like. I get few enough opportunities to play. That's why most of the "deep dive" stuff that I do or that I do with Wade is overwhelmingly positive, because they're about things that I/we really enjoy.

The issue of there being too much for any set of eyes/lifetime is pertinent. TV and film reviewers also have this issue. It also leads to them covering just what's popular and/or what they truly enjoy because that's what attracts eyeballs and what they're willing to put real time into, respectively. But that's also a corollary of that other issue: money. For all of their increasing popularity, boardgames remain something of a niche and until there are more people willing to pay for the courtesy of being both informed and entertained by someone like Vasel, it's going to be difficult to have more voices in said niche that are more than just "This is cool!" (Due credit to people like Charlie, who are making it work as they are.)