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.