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Brainwaves Podcast: Honest Barrage

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Brainwaves Podcast

Podcast/Video Details

Channel Name
Episode #
31
There Will Be Games

This episode Iain and Jamie are joined by guest reporter and actual journalist Owen Duffy. Together they dive into this cast's news including new Kickstarter guidelines, review bombing on BGG, Cyberpunk 2077 coming to tabletop and much more! In our Brainstorm discussion we pick Owen's brains about the state of boardgame Journalism.

There Will Be Games
Iain McAllister  (He/Him)
Associate Writer and Podcaster

Iain McAllister lives in Dalkeith, Scotland with his wife Cath and their two dogs, Maddie and Gypsy. He has been a keen member of the local gaming scene for many years setting up and participating in many of the clubs that are part of Edinburgh's vibrant gaming scene.

You can find more of his work on The Giant Brain which publishes a wide range of articles about the hobby including reviews, previews, convention reports and critique. The Giant Brain is also the home of the Brainwaves podcast, a fortnightly podcast covering industry news that Iain hosts with his friend Jamie Adams.

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Articles & Podcasts by Iain McAllister

 

Iain McAllister
Associate Writer and Podcaster

Articles & Podcasts by Iain

 

 

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Vysetron's Avatar
Vysetron replied the topic: #299450 09 Jul 2019 11:53
Great episode all the way through. Well timed on the last bit too, given recent events.

Review bombing is a strange topic. I have trouble feeling bad for publishers if their customer base is being let down somehow and lacks another way to directly interact. See Unbroken for an extreme example. I understand that it compromises BGG's data, but as it's a user aggregate and people don't hold themselves to the scale that's always been the case.

Let it burn, basically. The only people who seem really bothered by it are the people who directly benefit from said high ratings.
ubarose's Avatar
ubarose replied the topic: #299466 09 Jul 2019 14:29
They open with talking about The Board Game Book. Our own Matt Thrower is one of the authors. Listen closely and you can hear him get a mention.
thegiantbrain's Avatar
thegiantbrain replied the topic: #299467 09 Jul 2019 14:51
The brainstorm subject was totally coincidental as we actual recorded on the Tuesday before everything happened. We will be covering it as a news item in our next cast.

Whilst I don't mind people expressing themselves through BGG ratings, I think the only thing we need to be careful of is if publishers start to see BGG as the only tastemaker in the hobby.
Frohike's Avatar
Frohike replied the topic: #299480 09 Jul 2019 18:21
Then they're subjecting themselves to the same risks that the "metacritic score" culture has introduced into the AAA video game arena, with the added perk that the only available aggregate doesn't have a split between "metascore" (critic industry average) and "user score," which is the entirety of BGG's data.
thegiantbrain's Avatar
thegiantbrain replied the topic: #299481 09 Jul 2019 18:30
Yeah totally agree. We discuss on the cast that some computer game companies would give bonuses based on metacritic scores which is just horrible. I hope we never see anything like that in boardgames.
engineer Al's Avatar
engineer Al replied the topic: #299493 09 Jul 2019 23:38
Very enjoyable podcast. Informative and entertaining, I'm looking forward to the next one. Welcome to TWBG!
thegiantbrain's Avatar
thegiantbrain replied the topic: #299495 10 Jul 2019 01:25
Thank you very much. Glad you enjoyed it!