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Whats interesting is you basically foretold this exact situation. We have saw somewhat recently a content creator trying to get paid for positive reviews and it got found out and leaked. It exploded over the internet and now that channel isnt doing as well and isnt trusted anymore. Its sad but the reality is that people will be found out if they try to pull shady practices.
Views complaining about this is so dumb.
Like regardless of if a reviewer says a game is good or not you need to come to your own conclusions when deciding if a game is good for you.
When a NEW boardgame is praised by virtually every single reviewer, this merely indicates that the game in question speaks to a great many people superficially. It does not indicate much about how strategic the game will be, or the exact longevity. And one should also ask themselves the question: 'Am I looking for something that appeals to the general public in such a way?' There exists no definitive answer, just personal opinion on this matter.
There's a case to be made that, when many reviewers know the designers and producers of games, they may exhibit unconscious bias and be more favourable towards games than they otherwise might.
it is well known that products reviews/opinions can be bought. might not be directly but for example: you will get free copies to review earlier for free from a producer. Why would that matter? first: it's a free copy. second: you got it early so you can review it early and upload video early, which means more views. I mean, comon don't pretend you are stupid enough to not get it. try to have bad review about apple product. do you think they will invite you to their conference next time? forget about. so here we are, board games. this is a product like any other. nothing changes and rules are the same. producers might not pay you directly but for their "cooperation" you might give a higher score. that's it.
You might be suggesting that "Some One is Buying Negative Reviews" and well 30k and 2M in KS campaign funding, Flamecraft sailed past 3 x 3.5 ratings by y'all. Generally speaking since y'all suggest backing 4+, I would consider this more of a negative review than a positive one. You might say it was neutral but if you only back 4+ ratings to try to keep your collection within a reasonable size… Sure not as bad as a 1-3 but still a far cry from a rousing endorsement. Yet they blasted it out of the park with folks who backed it anyway.
From building a digital movie collection and participating in "Ultimate Movie Rankings" online database (Contributor Hall of Fame 2022), I can assure you that the opinions of experts aka "movie critics" are often at odds with the "madness of crowds" – box office results as well as IMDB ratings and Rotten Tomatoe's "Audience Ratings" speak to this chasm. I've actually grown to trust the crowd opinion quite frequently if not far more than critics with an eye on separating gender ratings on IMDB to find the "Chick Flicks" that get obscured by a general meh from the guys and vs versa for action films. I do look for histgraphic evidence of rating "games" being played by biased reviewers. We see this quite often in terms of certain themes of movies or certain actresses or actors that are "hated" for some political reason. Otherwise known as "rating bombing". Bias can be detected on typical battle grounds in the movie ratings arena – religion, race, gender, LGBTQ, etc. Also the manipulation of ratings can be detected early on when there is less than 500 ratings where the folks involved in the production and their friends and family could be rating the movie – ie skewing it higher.
The anology between movie ratings and board games isn't that far off in some respects but vastly different in a major one. We see BGG try to deal with early rating skews with some sort of magic formula. IMDB actually tries to tackle manipulation with its overall rating and toss out some manipulation. Little is known how either BGG or IMDB conduct these attempts. There are some attempts by influencers at unmasking BGG's early skew Constant and whether or not that number is too low or too high. Perhaps the best decision for BGG is to simply not allow ratings until the game is in mass production and being fulfilled or they an provide a separate rating regarding the Publisher over all in terms of their reputation which folks can submit ratings on to provide feedback on things like communication, delays, shipping costs fiascos and so forth during a campaign. Unlike movies though, the crowdfunding experience has flipped the supply chain upside down by pushing demand in front of supply and folks have to make a decision to buy a game before it exists. There is a dramatic supply limit on those who have access to preview or demo the game before demand deisions are required. Thus about the only choice a crowdfunding backer has is to watch the influencers who have had their hands on the precious few demo copies. The other signal of course is the actual backing comittment by the crowd during the campaign itself. Do you want to follow the crowd into the campaign despite either no reviews or limited reviews based upon marketing info alone? Is a game that hits it out of the park in campaign backiing based upon backers seeing IP from a recognized external brand like Horizon Zero Dawn, Stellaris, Fallout, Frostpunk, Resident Evil, etc. deserve special consideration to ignore board game influencers? How does one way for example recognize the review by a computer game influencer covering the board game of the same IP vs a board game influencer who has never played the computer game? I saw this in Stellaris where one of the most recognized computer game influencers of Stellaris was given a much more substantial preview of the game and gave it essentially 2 thumbs up while the board game influencers (rightfully so) were beweildered and confused by what they were able to see in the preview and did not have access to the same discussions as the computer game influencer crowd. Its anyones guess whether board gamers will ever appreciate Paradox's attempt at recreating this computer game. The computer gamers may in fact turn out to not care if its a bad board game as long as its a reasonable representation of the computer game experience/IP/Brand. I generally place these into a class of their own in attempting to figure if I want to back them. I might have backed Horizon Zero Dawn if they had actually demo'd a boss battle before they closed the PM. They were leading up to it but fell short. Was it intentional or coincidental? Hard to say. Inept at the very least. It was an all or nothing decision for me. I was willing to go all-in if they were more transparent. I think many felt the same about Stellaris but the problem with Stellaris is it is essentially a "Legacy" game ala Pandemic Legacy Seasons 0-2. There are game events that they simply wouldn't want to spoil too much. Its very much a choose your own adventure with 4x built on top of it. You can only go so far in your demo without spoilers.
Lastly, folks still love their movie critics even if they ignore them. Siskel and Ebert were/are famous ones. Movie critics tend to be on major newspaper staff or at least on contract to share their opinions. When for example will we start to see board game influencer rise to traditional big media outlets. Or was Will Wheaton's Tabletop already speaking to this years ago – I doubt it? I'm starting to see more and more articles from traditional newspapers about board games and RPG's…someties they are not so positive – see "Board games are terrible. Please don't make me play them" by Kishor Napier-Raman on The Sydney Morning Herald – a somewhat hilarious read.
I can't get the filter to work anymore on your review page. I see a tiny sliver of a thing appear but when it was working I remember being able to select different ratings etc.
This issue is not "paid for good review" it's that most of you are financially compromised because you want to increase your subscribers (understandable) and have to basically team up with publishers to get advance review copies to get views and you won't get those if you are too negative. Shut up and Sit Down is the gold standard when it comes to integrity and everyone else looks very different from them in what they review (always cult of the new, too much KS trash masquerading as a completed product). It's obvious the current industry is bloated by a lot of bad/copy cat games and games that are not as good as older ones. But yet most reviews are positive. So there is mistrust. You guys are good for general info, but not for making purchasing decisions. Playthroughs and straight rule videos are the only real source of unbiased info, but those take up a lot more time than someone rubber stamping a bad game.
A lot of these arguments could apply to other fields.
You can't just lobby (buy off) a senator to vote your way on an upcoming bill. Surly you can't keep something like that secret.
How short-sighted would you need to be as a scientist to write a paper saying climate change is nonsense for a fee.
Now, do I think reviewers are frequently payed of to lie on camera. Of course not. Not to the frequency people like to claim or of the size of groups like the dice tower.
But I do feel like the arguments presented here are not sufficient to say that absolutely 100% it has not happened.
My issue isn’t that there’s potential that an opinion is brought, As long as they make it clear that a game was given free as a sponsor and paid to review it… you just need some common sense to filter out some of the rhetoric, which makes it easier when you can visually see something looks boring.
My issue is that a I’m finding lot of reviews/reviewers tend to butter up a lot of things- the negatives and positives. To the point the reviewer is painting a beautiful picture about a negative aspect about a game.
Of course you might like the game overall and you don’t want to accidentally put someone off from buying the game but it’s important to be clear to the viewer
I wish you would do a video with KoA about this. Could be an interessting Diskussion. With Quack you do too often agree 🙂
Took me a while to understand the topic of the discussion… I agree with you but I’m sure that Capitan America bought your positive review on Marvel United…
They do tho.
Well said
I think as a recent example, it was hard to find a bad word said about Ares Expedition, until AFTER the payment was due. Now there are many content creators saying, 'ya know what, it's actually not that great'.
Hmm, I don't think people are saying it's as blatant and overt as what you're describing. I think what happens is more of an evolution of paying for positive reviews. Companies only give copies/money to content creators they think will give good reviews prior to release. Leading to content creators being more generous to get deals with game manufacturers. Also, the content creators that give more negative reviews than positive will then naturally be chosen less for paid reviews of upcoming games, because game manufacturers see them as less likely to provide a positive review. I think people are seeing game price rise faster than college tuition, and are frustrated in their search for the few best to spend their limited resources on, finding virtually nothing but glowing reveiws for most games. Then after Ares Expedition is already paid for, THEN the videos saying it's not so great come out. Seems fairly straightforward what people are frustrated about.
There is one major flaw with your argument. It is getting harder to find bad games. If most games, particularly popular ones, are good games, or even mediocre, someone will love that game. If you are getting paid for a review, you can afford to praise almost every game because most games are good, not all, but most. And you can do so without be suspect because most games are good.
I don't think it need so much to be "secret", it's actually very opened, it's called sponsored content. From this point, the content is manipulated to a certain point. First, you didn't choose it out of interest, it was brought to your attention. Then, even if you're not praising it like the next God, you won't commit to your normal opinion, you are paid for it so you'll give it a chance. Even if we know it is sponsored content, we still trust your opinion… which got manipulated. That's the "influencer" game, welcome to Maketing tricks 101.
But your video is more about a position opinion black market, and I'm not sure common large scale conspiracy debunk techniques work as well. In large scale, many share one secret that isn't theirs. In this idea of opinion for sale, each individual hold on their secret if they did so, which is much easier to keep. I don't think it's real either, it would just be pointless. A sponsored content would fair just as good and be cheaper. I think it's just an exaggeration of sponsored content, we love large scale fantasy.
I think your interpretation of the notion of "buying opinions" is a bit too direct and outdated.
Look at the history of commerce and political communication: the act of "buying opinion" is more of a low-key, almost passive, long term mutually benefitial relation between participants where pointing out the actual act of open promotion and direct payment is impossible. Criticts and reviewers get review copies, or prototypes, or the designer asks them for their opinion, while they can make content out of it, sometimes even without deep and intense consideration.
This ishow the "soft-review" or "preview" was born. A review lacking the intention of really getting into it, really analyzing the product, becoming soft, skin-deep, lacking and full with praisings and ambiguous expressions. Look at Rahdo's work in the last 1-2 years, or look at what Quackalope does: "The company would like it if I say nice things, the buyers migth love this because everyone has different taste in games so all games have a place on someone's shelf, and also I don't want to make enemies, I want to be nice with everyone, so I will tell generally nice things about the product and stay on the surface, and try to avoid aspects of the game that might be mediocre or even bad, or if I mention something that is not great I will use the classic evasive not-for-me or for-my-taste-but-you-might-love-it card."
Hhm like I Said, still learning about this subculture: In the meantime it seem King of average, proofed u wrong, by admitting, he still gets offers to buy reviews. And where are offers, there must be someone who takes it. What leaves me wondering, you must have known such offers, and didn’t mention them in this video, why? Link: https://youtu.be/qCTN_vugJtc
Good video. If I say 'you' here I'm referring to content creators in general 😊
My only issue with YT content creators (across the board) is something that they can't really talk about, due to the amount of content they need to produce. And that's value for money. If someone receives a game for free then how can value for money be judged? Whether a game is good can be determined, whether you would play it in future… OK, you probably have an idea. But whether the viewer should put down £$€100 on a luxury item that the review may have received gratis? That's where I have the grey area. Maybe some thoughts on that would be good. Would you spend your money on this?
Another thing is the amount of content. You have a channel to keep going, so you probably have a lot of churn. Learn rules, play game, edit video, release, repeat. We probably buy a game a month. So how do you determine that a game will get the 10+ plays that a home viewer would require for value?
Again, the 'you' is a generalisation. And it was a good video.
Took the words out of my mouth Alex !
I just have 3 subscription for board games Chan’s. Yours, quack and watch bit played.
Best regards from Germany!
You keep saying Dice Tower… They're big enough to exempt from this whole problem.
I can name several channels whose opinions I do not trust. Don't assume because you have morals that everyone else does.
No, they're effectively paying you not to review their bad games.
I feel like it's the sort of thing that people WANT to be true or assume is true to the degree that it becomes something "everyone knows". I always assume the most likely answer is correct and it seems like games don't succeed or fail much at all based on reviews. It doesn't make sense that anyone would bother paying for them unless there was a decent return and it doesn't seem that there is
Firstly it's not that much about the cold hard cash, it's mostly about access and connections, which you know very well. If you bomb a game, that publisher, and others, will most certainly be very wary of ever giving you a preview again. You're out of the good company. If you don't have the previews for the games people want to see, your viewership drops. Your viewership drops and you do YouTube (at least partially) for a living, that's a whole lot more cash long-term than those 900$ that might have changed hands once.
This is why, in healthy democracies, politicians are limited as to how they can be offered e.g high-paying leadership positions at companies they lobbied for in government. It's why journalists are given access to things, even if everyone knows their coverage will not be in a positive light. These things cause an inherently corrupt system even without any direct payments taking place.
Of course being very negative or critical on everything isn't any more truthful in and of itself, but it's absolutely lacking on YouTube. Anyone daring to actually state straight-up negative things are, _rightfully_, seen as more honest than the run-of-the-mill, because of what I said above. Not mainly because "ooooooh, so much drama" but because almost every big review channel is more or less castrated at this point. If you're unwilling to go into actual negatives you do find because you're scared to lose connections or access, that is inherently less honest than telling it like you personally see it.
Most people watch reviews to make up their minds. That's a lot harder if all you're fed is the positive aspects of every game or maaaaybe sometimes some veiled hint at something not being "perfect". I'd give my right arm for a channel that solely focused on straight up condemning every little bad or negative thing in a game, because no one else is doing it at the moment as far as I know. They'd probably never get a preview, but it'd sure be helpful.
Definitely see your point, but KoA has really solid arguments as well. What I can say as a consumer: If 95% of the games you are reviewing are rated at least a 4 out of 5, this does not help at all. And as a viewer, if there's a channel that's producing predominantly positive reviews, I am eventually going to ask myself where that comes from.
I disagree and your opening 15s statement appears to me objectively wrong.
Patreons watching Unfair & Unbalanced are someone buying game reviews. Your potentially unfiltered ones. The ones that if you would publicly acknowledge, would burn you with publishers. Nothing wrong with the patreon model, the video thou feels hypocritical to me.
Not a patreon myself, so I can only take from what you said yourself on a recent video.
There have been some cases. BGB and Overturn rising sands for example.
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2027499/kind-request-clarificarions-review-overturn-rising
One thing only – there are somewhere 3k to 4k board games released every year. Are you sure most of then are good? :/
I appreciate that you are willing to consistently have the real talks about real issues. So much of the internet is hate bombing with no facts because it's easier to hide behind the digital walls than have a real discussion about it.
I do think bias is common in professional board gamers. If your friend is putting out a game, you are going to see it through rose colored classes. When you are a professional content creator you have the companies on speed dial. You aren’t going to say their $300 games are too expensive.
Hey Alex,
Really interesting topic and it’s compelled me to comment which nicely reinforces your point that negative (or maybe ‘controversial’ is more accurate in this case) content gets more traffic and engagement.
I agree that the assumption positive reviews have been bought isn’t well thought out for all the reasons you set out in your video. However, I suspect this is to some extent being fuelled by a greater level of cynicism in our culture at the moment. Cynicism that’s not unjustified given the bullish messaging coming from figures of authority around some of the issues of the day, that have then turned out to be inaccurate. I think the most important commodity that any content creator can gain is the trust of their audience (with the second probably being the size/quality of that audience), which again highlights your point on why any non-disclosed paid for content would be such a short-sighted move. I will say the approach you take to your review's, particularly including a section for ‘things you can see others not liking’ and talking about the bias’s you may have helps build that trust for me.
Personally, I think the bigger danger is losing sight of the intended audience and instead having opinions and content swayed entirely by other creator’s feedback rather than the ‘mainstream?’ audience feedback. This is something that seems to have had a significant influence in the video game review sphere and contributed to the transitioning of that medium to Youtube creators instead. Would like to hear your opinions on this potential problem when you do your video on bias in the future!
P.S. reading this back before posting may sound like I’m discouraging collaboration with other content creators. Please don’t take that away from this comment, your videos with Jesse (and Jeremy when you can get him) have been some of the most enjoyable to watch. Would love to see you do one with King of Average at some point in the future if that’s a possibility.
I don’t think most people believe there is literally a 1:1 transaction between board game maker and content creator. Sure, some may articulate it that way because a lot of people oversimplify their criticism. But look at Jeff Gerstmann, Gamespot, and Kayne and Lynch for an example of how money attempts to influence reviews. Most of the time, it’s indirect and a growing concern in a growing board game market.
I view reviews as data points, not authoritative decision makers. For instance, I know you loved Destinies, but watching your review, I knew that it wasn't going to be a game for me. That's OK. That doesn't mean your review got anything wrong about the game or that someone paid you to say that you loved it.
What about unspoken bias? For example, some publishers provide prototypes to certain youtube reviewers instead of others, based on the past reviews done on the channel about their positive or negative opinion of the game.
Have a look at the article on this boardgames website – a lot of these guys commenting think they are the oracles of what happens in boardgame review circles and that you (me in this case) must be naive if you think that 'paid previews' are not honest because they are being paid to make the content, they are pretty arrogant over there. Even the consideration that a 'Preview' is an (early) viewing of a product while a 'Review' is the actual critical analysis of the product was just scoffed at or ignored.
I accept that some consumers out there will not understand that a preview is different to a review but, as long as content is labelled up front correctly, that is unfortunately a case of buyer beware.
I am not buying this… ^^
I agree with a lot of things you mentioned. Opinions can be different, and it is not a problem. Also, negative reviews are not always honest, that is a big truth. That said I still like reviews that are not "5/5 this game is great", but where they mention the problems the game has (even if it is a great game). I find that I can select what game I will like based of the negative points of it rather than the positives. Because as you mentioned most games work, but me liking it will depend on how much I can bear with the negative parts.
One thing that I have a big problem however is campaign games. I don't think they should be reviewed after just some scenarios. I would go as far as most of them should be reviewed after finishing at least one run of a campaign. Destinies was wonderful for the first 2 scenarios for us. I saw a ton of videos and reviews where reviewers said its the best thing after 1 scenario. Probably there were a lot of reviews after 2-3 scenarios as well. But as we played further we found that the game has a ton of problems and almost no one talked about it in their early reviews. It was the same with Sleeping gods. It starts out great, but then you realize that you just repeat the same 2 things over and over for eternity, that the main story is barely attached and told quite badly, and that the game can fall apart with certain combination of items, etc. And it got glowing reviews as well. So I think this is one reason why people who played a game to the end can't comprehend the glowing reviews that are based only on some plays.
I also don't love, that some of the newer board game content creators act more like instagram influencers than reviewers, and I can't be sure if they are advertising things to me or they are doing is a honest video.
I didn't click on this one thinking it would talk about negative things, actually. I misunderstood the title and thought it would be something along the line of A: "Hey, this game is good." B: "I'm not buying it!" LOL (Well, I would've clicked on this video anyway, as I watch almost every video you do …)
Well said, Alex. The risks of being exposed if you did take money for glowing reviews is probably nowadays even bigger then a couple of years ago. With all the social media around it only takes one disgruntled person from a games company to let something slip on Twitter or FB, and the damage is done.
(I just had a big comment here and clicked refresh by accident… arrg… gonna try to resume it)
I remember to hear Tom talking about this and also the episode where Rodney Smith touched the "honest reviews" subject. I also liked some of the new inputs you brought to the table today. I find amazing how people want to bend stuff to fit their perspective over reality. I think it shows more about them than the reviewers.
I also have the idea this comes a bit from the latest growth the hobby has been having. Personal view here: I get the idea some folks "wanted" the hobby to go in the direction they saw better and, then, realized that is not happening. So their idea is that all, or most of, games nowadays are going to be bad or worst. With that bias preconception, once they find a negative review about these games, it will mean validation on this view of things. If this validations doesn't exist, means everyone else is corrupted (by taste or money)
As someone who's just started creating content and speaking as someone who's pretty new to the hobby, I haven't really played anything that I haven't found some enjoyment from – including 'awful' games like Jumanji, Mousetrap, etc can be fun in the right environment so I haven't really given a terrible review yet.
Maybe that's why my subscriber numbers so low! lol
Getting paid to do reviews (either by free games or monetarily) is not being paid for a positive opinion! Your video addressed that,but still so many comments on that!
I would love to see a video by you on bias! I think two biases that really contribute to the perception of 'paid opinion' are the form of media creator content and the content chosen. I personally live reviewer content that speaks to pros and cons (Zee Garcia does that in such a nicely organized fashion with his TARGET system). Rahdo has certainly opened the curtain on his content saying that he screens his content, only taking a prototype if he thinks he'll like it and doesn't even air content for all prototypes he receives.
Perhaps the other thing us muggers don't remember is that content creators don't do board game content to make it rich… they do it for the love of board games! I love that you've made a bit out of one thing many of us do… browse KS! You externalise our inner monologs that we go through as we browse new KS listings. Why on earth would content creators do something they don't live… the compensation just isn't there!
Analogies to movie reviews are made as well. I think I've seen video content comparing that, maybe Rodney? Anyway, there's a finite number of movie theaters, each movie being shown in each city for a period of time. Point is, there are limitations on the number of movies released in a year. Further, the proportion of the population consuming that media is far greater, as are the budgets and potential profits. That volume of content and population of consumers is turned on its head for board games… there just isn't close to the level of revenue flow.
Other thoughts, but many I think are covered in other comments.
I don't know if I have ever thought that the opinion was directly 'bought' in regards to any review I have read…ever. I know they have happened Albeit, not necessarily monetarily but due to leaks, as you mention, the secret gets out.
The issue with games and movie journos is that 'access' to said material either in preview form or in freebies is tied to how 'positive' their previous interaction and reviews have been with specific companies. Even if it is 'air of tainted opinion' some people go off the handle at it, some are skeptical…and some are pragmatic and seek a range of opinions and seek to distill the objective from subjective to determine if the product is right for them rather than hanging off a reviewer's every whim. The latter is what I think is best, but others don't.
Hell, a good example of this is that Quackalope bought a game because SUSD said it was great and never played it (Example is broad and not directly an example of the SUSD being wrong, just that the game obviously wasn't really the right buy at the time).
Regarding the comment by Watch it Played, I think negativity every once in a while reinforces the sentiment that you are actually being critical. Because if you give everything a 7/10 or higher, basically you only have a 3 point scheme and your opinion doesn't give much information.
Another question could be what is "Payment"? This might be leaning toward bias like Alex was leading to. Is receiving a review copy payment? or continuing to get product weeks before the general public. Or getting the likes and the views because you give a favorable review to the the newest hot thing. Weather these things are "Payment" or are perceived as or feel like a transaction are not for me to decide and will be different for everyone. Just had a thought… (Walker)
Conspiracies are comfort food for those who are upset that reality refuses to conform to their worldview, regardless if it’s about board games or politics.
And as you aptly point out, buying reviews is a negative proposition to a creator. Your reputation would disintegrate as it would inevitably come out or become obvious.