Will you take the No Paid Reviews Pledge?
#dnd #ttrpg #osr
Yeah, you give pretty good reasons not to trust paid reviews, much less compromise integrity and the broader rating systems by giving them. I'm never gonna be in a position to give a paid review, since I'm not on par with professional critics and influencers and the like, but even if I were I'd like to think I would decline the money. Glad to hear you yourself have never taken money, and have always been aboveboard with letting folks know your potential biases whilst still trying to remain unbiased.
You also make a good point about objectivity and comprehensiveness and considering who would and wouldn't like the product specifically, and how it could be used in play. As well as needing understanding and experience to pull off an effective review. All too often folks do indeed look at things without context and within their own subjective preferences, and that's not as informative, admittedly the latter being a hard trap to escape.
Anyway, good luck on your guest star appearance. 8)
I promise not to take money for a review. ;D
I think a lot of people don't realize how much pay to play occurs in RPGs and in gaming. It isn't everywhere but it definitely happens. I don't pay for reviews (it just doesn't seem like a good expense for me and marketing is already a pretty thin margin). I do send out review copies (not that many, usually a few physical books and a bunch of PDFs). Some reviewers consider that sponsored. I think in that case of just giving someone the book to review it is different from paying but it is good for people to mention they received a copy from the publisher. I don't mind if people want to charge and want to pay but I do think that sort of arrangement ought to be clearly stated in a very visible and obvious way.
I don't have a problem with giving away a book for review. That's fair. It's one thing to get paid to do reviews of products for periodicals, but for the publisher of the product to pay for it -- that's just shady.
What sucks is magazines like Dragon and Space Gamer no longer exist so all I can go by is either blogs, forums, or Youtube videos to get any sort of information. People can say whatever they want about printed periodicals, but those were not only fantastic toilet reading material, but usually written by guys who didn't give one fuck if they pissed anyone off. Modern reviews seem to be chasing social media clout and not really trying to provide any sort of objective analysis. Yeah, I disagreed with Allen Varney more than once, but I could also figure out what he liked/disliked and read his reviews and determine if I would like a game. I cannot say that about any reviews I see anymore.
I wrote a bunch of reviews for my old blog and I was sent plenty of messages by people who thought I was too harsh...maybe write better stuff?
Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2023, 02:06:04 PM
I think a lot of people don't realize how much pay to play occurs in RPGs and in gaming. It isn't everywhere but it definitely happens. I don't pay for reviews (it just doesn't seem like a good expense for me and marketing is already a pretty thin margin). I do send out review copies (not that many, usually a few physical books and a bunch of PDFs). Some reviewers consider that sponsored. I think in that case of just giving someone the book to review it is different from paying but it is good for people to mention they received a copy from the publisher. I don't mind if people want to charge and want to pay but I do think that sort of arrangement ought to be clearly stated in a very visible and obvious way.
Oh its been rampant in board gaming for at least a decade. Some just demand a free copy of the game. Others want a free copy AND be paid as well.
It has been known for years that these sorts of reviewers that demand some sort of kickback to do a review are not as trustworthy as they will skew their review to keep getting free games and cash.
I've done one review on my channel and that was because I was very impressed with it. The fuck I'd do it for money. For me, that whole concept is very unethical and ikky.
Paid reviews or insertion of product, disclosed openly, is arguably ethical. But is it really? You could make a case that advertising as a whole is extremely damaging, because it inserts relationships that don't exist. If you see an advertisement for some toy or car, and then a nephew or friend expresses an interest in that, you now have a basis of familiarity because you've seen the ad- the fact that this alien thing doesn't feel alien will change your reaction to them discussing or purchasing the thing, which in turn encourages more of that behavior. This doesn't even assume that you, the advertised-to, are interested by the ad or even in the market for the thing- it has the power to sand the edges of society down for its own benefit, open a path for it.
Now, there's no real way to stop advertisements whilst still having free speech (that I've been able to think of, at least), but the critique of advertisements applies in full to fully disclosed paid reviews, and it's not a trivial critique. But there's another side to it- if you assume two similar reviewing groups or people, A and B, and A does paid reviews and B refuses morally, B will have more honest (and generally better) reviews. But fast forward a year and A has been able to pay for promotion, may have a larger staff, and will likely have better writing and editing and special effects- production value in general. Because the audiences of such reviews will often be seeking entertainment, A will become dominant over B in marketshare and influence. So the mere existence of fully disclosed, paid reviews will eventually have the result of shrinking legitimate, honest, and non-sellout voices about whatever is being discussed.
Paid reviews that are not disclosed- basically payola- are more universally decried as bad. They are also less common, but there's still plenty of that going around. And because it's agreed to be unethical, it's handled under the table and extremely hard to prove. Generally speaking, if two parties stand to gain by conspiring together in a fashion that is fully legal, regardless of ethics, they will be much more likely to do so, and if your examination case is economic, then there exist some parties doing that right now. This is why actual payola on radios had to be banned- otherwise it would be fully ubiquitous. How common is this in the tiny corner RPG stuff? Probably not very, but it being so small means that there's no government agency poking their head around, no New York Times reporter gathering all the data and doing an expose. We really don't know how common undisclosed paid reviews are in any areas of the RPG hobby, TTRPG and otherwise.
Quote from: Venka on June 15, 2023, 11:27:41 AMWe really don't know how common undisclosed paid reviews are in any areas of the RPG hobby, TTRPG and otherwise.
Can give you one data point - in 22-odd years, I don't think I have even heard of somewhere doing paid reviews for RPGs, let alone been actually approached.
Typically, if we see someone do a review of one of our books and they make a good job of it, we send them a bunch of stuff to do with as they will (this is what happened with Seth Skorkowsky, for example, after we saw him do his Paranoia review off his own back).
Don't think it is all that common.
Quote from: MongooseMatt on June 15, 2023, 11:51:10 AM
Quote from: Venka on June 15, 2023, 11:27:41 AMWe really don't know how common undisclosed paid reviews are in any areas of the RPG hobby, TTRPG and otherwise.
Can give you one data point - in 22-odd years, I don't think I have even heard of somewhere doing paid reviews for RPGs, let alone been actually approached.
Typically, if we see someone do a review of one of our books and they make a good job of it, we send them a bunch of stuff to do with as they will (this is what happened with Seth Skorkowsky, for example, after we saw him do his Paranoia review off his own back).
Don't think it is all that common.
For another point, Kelsey from Shadowdark has said Questing Beast's youibe channel only does paid reviews.
Quote from: Slambo on June 15, 2023, 12:15:21 PM
For another point, Kelsey from Shadowdark has said Questing Beast's youibe channel only does paid reviews.
Disappointing if true, but it would explain a few things. I'm starting to think that there has been a lot more pay to play going on over the years than I suspected.
Quote from: brettmb on June 15, 2023, 12:17:36 PM
Quote from: Slambo on June 15, 2023, 12:15:21 PM
For another point, Kelsey from Shadowdark has said Questing Beast's youibe channel only does paid reviews.
Disappointing if true, but it would explain a few things. I'm starting to think that there has been a lot more pay to play going on over the years than I suspected.
Questing Beast explicitly discloses the fact that it's a paid review (aka an advertisement) whenever he does one, so it should be easy to see if it's only paid reviews, mostly paid reviews, etc. But Kelsey would have no reason to lie about that, and the two are on friendly terms, so it's likely accurate. But again, I believe you'll actually find the statement in each relevant video.
I was disappointed when I heard Questing Beast engages in such a practice.
Quote from: Brad on June 14, 2023, 10:06:03 PM
What sucks is magazines like Dragon and Space Gamer no longer exist so all I can go by is either blogs, forums, or Youtube videos to get any sort of information. People can say whatever they want about printed periodicals, but those were not only fantastic toilet reading material, but usually written by guys who didn't give one fuck if they pissed anyone off. Modern reviews seem to be chasing social media clout and not really trying to provide any sort of objective analysis. Yeah, I disagreed with Allen Varney more than once, but I could also figure out what he liked/disliked and read his reviews and determine if I would like a game. I cannot say that about any reviews I see anymore.
I wrote a bunch of reviews for my old blog and I was sent plenty of messages by people who thought I was too harsh...maybe write better stuff?
Well, Mad Scribe games has recently started a gaming magazine. Called "Mad Scribe Magazine". I contributed an article to issue #1, and to issue #2 also which I think is coming out any time now.
Are paid reviews scummy? Yeah.
Am I surprised they're a thing? No.
At the end of the day, it is easy to create a bad roleplaying game, so the RPG space is filled with a whole lot of wannabes and vanity projects made by people who want to be a game designer more than they want to make a game. A paid review is basically the same as advertisement. Standard vanity press nonsense.
Personally, I would prefer a loosely critical review over a positive one. Positive reviews don't necessarily mean that the reviewer understood the game, but a critical review typically means that they did (and gives proper consumer warnings.)
And while we're on the subject, can I tangentially say how frustrated I am that whenever I search for reviews for RPGs, unless it's a super-popular game, I immediately get taken to The Big Purple?
I've said this before and I will say it again here. There should be NO relationship between a developer and a reviewer. That always leads to compromised reviews. At best, a publisher should send a review copy of a product UNCONDITIONALLY, provided the reviewer can prove they are a legitimate critic with a minimum reach. No knowing the PR people, no "I have friends at this company", no free tat that is only ever designed to buy a critic's favor and especially no reviewing of games directly made by friends. You are not going to be objective about that. Review games as fairly as possible with as few external influences as possible.
I don't understand why people would be pissed off about that unless the current situation suited them. You can either choose to be a trusted consumer advocate or a paid shill who's word means less than an American election. If journalists across all mediums didn't prove they're untrustworthy and duplicitous clout chasers I wouldn't be so strict with my demands. But everything I've seen over the past two decades has told me we need stricter and more ethical standards not just for RPGs but across the board.
I love how some people refuse to understand how Capitalism works. As if, money doesn't completely make its own magic.
And who TF wants objective, unbiased reviews of their stuff? I mean while there is no such thing as bad publicity, there really is bad publicity. Who wouldn't pay people for positive reviews if they could? Ever heard of Marketing? Hasbro has.
I mean what do you really care if someone pays for ads/reviews? This looks like so much veiled envy :'(
Another word for a paid review is advertisement, and they should be labeled as such.
Sadly, this is a tricky thing. Who's review can I trust? No one is unbiased. Very few are honest.
My preference on getting a good look at what I might want to buy is an aggregate of reviews. (I like honest critical reviews best because I can see if I can live with the pitfalls or not.) There's only a handful of reviewers in the TTRPG community at large. I dismiss 3/4 of reviews/reviewers simply because they don't even talk about things I want to know about. I'm left with 3-4 reviewers to try to make a decision with. It's not a very big sample size.
Take all that away, had any of the reviewers for Shadow Dark even actually had a single session with the system before they made a video? Seth Skorkowski, love him or hate him, runs a few sessions before doing a review. I wish there were several reviewers for RPGs that were like Clint's Reptiles. https://www.youtube.com/@ClintsReptiles/videos
The best way to go would be to have a group of paid reviewers that would independently buy the core book, run the game for 3-5 sessions, and the each member does an independent review.
I'm not against paid advertising but damn, please just say that's what it is.
Often, the only way to really get an idea if it will work at the table is to get the book and read it. Often, they aren't available at the library. That means I have to buy them. I now have somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000 in RPG books I will never use beyond the first ready through. >:(
I think the important thing is transparency. I assume that a reviewer is trying to be fair, objective, and unbiased unless otherwise noted. Because that's what a reviewer should be. It's not really honest to present oneself as an unbiased reviewer if there's been a bribe of some sort. If someone has been paid for a review and discloses that, I think it's perfectly fine - I'll listen to what they have to say with the understanding that it's more of an advertisement than a review and probably still learn a lot of things I want to know. It's all good.
Quote from: King Tyranno on June 16, 2023, 10:59:19 AM
I don't understand why people would be pissed off about that unless the current situation suited them. You can either choose to be a trusted consumer advocate or a paid shill who's word means less than an American election. If journalists across all mediums didn't prove they're untrustworthy and duplicitous clout chasers I wouldn't be so strict with my demands. But everything I've seen over the past two decades has told me we need stricter and more ethical standards not just for RPGs but across the board.
You can not even trust the reviewers who do it for free games because theres an increasing number who just do it for free games. We've known for a decade or more these reviewers were compromised.
Quote from: brettmb on June 16, 2023, 01:07:27 PM
Another word for a paid review is advertisement, and they should be labeled as such.
They always just claim they arent biased when called out.
Quote from: brettmb on June 16, 2023, 01:07:27 PM
Another word for a paid review is advertisement, and they should be labeled as such.
It's more of an infomercial. That is advertising, but usually an advertisment is going to be more a kind of 'and now a message from our sponsor'.
Quote from: Omega on June 18, 2023, 12:16:24 AM
Quote from: King Tyranno on June 16, 2023, 10:59:19 AM
I don't understand why people would be pissed off about that unless the current situation suited them. You can either choose to be a trusted consumer advocate or a paid shill who's word means less than an American election. If journalists across all mediums didn't prove they're untrustworthy and duplicitous clout chasers I wouldn't be so strict with my demands. But everything I've seen over the past two decades has told me we need stricter and more ethical standards not just for RPGs but across the board.
You can not even trust the reviewers who do it for free games because theres an increasing number who just do it for free games. We've known for a decade or more these reviewers were compromised.
In all book review processes, it's typically considered standard for people to send review copies to reviewers. Now, there could be some circumstances where this could be compromised: for example, if someone promised a positive review in exchange for books. But in publishing the standard is typically that anyone sending a review product can not expect the review to be positive.
I'll also note that in my own case almost all the reviews I receive are unsolicited; what that means is that the publisher contacts me and asks me if he can send me a book. I might very rarely suggest someone send me a review copy, but I certainly never promise anything about the content of my review in exchange.
From the point of view of the publisher, its actually in some ways irrelevant. I think most books I review end up getting a bump in sales, regardless of how positive or negative my reviews are. My reviews are almost never 100% positive or 100% negative, but some tend more to one end than the other, but regardless of this the book will still get attention and thus a boost in sales. That's certainly a motivation for publishers to send review copies; now of course, getting a really positive review is usually more effective, but regardless any smart publisher should realize that the coverage itself is worth it to them regardless, so that if they're paying for positive reviews it's actually a needless cost. And will be more so if we as a community create a risk involved of public disapproval of paid reviews.
Quote from: RPGPundit on June 19, 2023, 02:33:38 AM
Quote from: Omega on June 18, 2023, 12:16:24 AM
Quote from: King Tyranno on June 16, 2023, 10:59:19 AM
I don't understand why people would be pissed off about that unless the current situation suited them. You can either choose to be a trusted consumer advocate or a paid shill who's word means less than an American election. If journalists across all mediums didn't prove they're untrustworthy and duplicitous clout chasers I wouldn't be so strict with my demands. But everything I've seen over the past two decades has told me we need stricter and more ethical standards not just for RPGs but across the board.
You can not even trust the reviewers who do it for free games because theres an increasing number who just do it for free games. We've known for a decade or more these reviewers were compromised.
In all book review processes, it's typically considered standard for people to send review copies to reviewers. Now, there could be some circumstances where this could be compromised: for example, if someone promised a positive review in exchange for books. But in publishing the standard is typically that anyone sending a review product can not expect the review to be positive.
I'll also note that in my own case almost all the reviews I receive are unsolicited; what that means is that the publisher contacts me and asks me if he can send me a book. I might very rarely suggest someone send me a review copy, but I certainly never promise anything about the content of my review in exchange.
From the point of view of the publisher, its actually in some ways irrelevant. I think most books I review end up getting a bump in sales, regardless of how positive or negative my reviews are. My reviews are almost never 100% positive or 100% negative, but some tend more to one end than the other, but regardless of this the book will still get attention and thus a boost in sales. That's certainly a motivation for publishers to send review copies; now of course, getting a really positive review is usually more effective, but regardless any smart publisher should realize that the coverage itself is worth it to them regardless, so that if they're paying for positive reviews it's actually a needless cost. And will be more so if we as a community create a risk involved of public disapproval of paid reviews.
RPGs can probably get a pass. Board games though crossed the lone long ago as the prices of board games started to exceed the costs of RPGs. You have reviewers demanding that a publisher send them free a 50 to 100$ game. And people started calling them out on it because the reviews were slanting more and more to suspiciously positive every time. Give a bad review and published might stop sending you free games.
I think of RPGs got more costly we'd start to see more bias. Maybe we are already but it doesnt seem as rampant as in board gaming.