Great discussion on negative reviews and impartiality.

I love derailing.

SuperflyTNT wrote: I love derailing.

I tried to leave a small comment on negative reviews too... but yeah, I'm guilty. Throw the book at me.

An interesting read. I have noticed that over the years, I've pretty much stopped reading reviews on bgg, simply because they seem to largely be pretty dull. Although I think it's important to remember, as I often need to remind myself, that bgg is primarily board game collector's database and not a game player's website. The commenter culture there largely reflect this, with most discussions returning to the question of whether a game is worth buying or backing. Since I don't really buy games that much anymore, this isn't nearly as interesting as whether a game is worth playing. A strong reviews conveys a sense of how the game plays, beyond the rules or component break downs. As a reader, I want to know what it's like to play the game, and could care less about how thick the reference sheets are, unless it's an impediment to game play.

What I would like to see is more emphasis put on the experience of individual players in each game, and the potentially changing opinion over time. Obviously this is logistically extremely difficult. The best case scenario would like something like this:

- A profile of each player, explaining what they like in games, what are their favorites, what this dislike in others, and what games they just can't bring themselves to play. This can really be helpful, since obviously everyone games for different reasons.
- The group meets regularly to play review games, with each player responsible for submitting some content for a review.
- Players trade off responsibility for the actual reviewer, who records not only their own experiences, but the others in the group.
- If possible, the group plays a few times, preferably over the course of several weeks.
- The designated reviewer tries to faithfully represent the group reaction and reactions of individual players.
- The review would not be scored by the reviewer, but would present an aggregate of player's reactions over the course of the games. Something like the "thumbs-up" system from Ebert, but from the entire group. The only score would be something along the lines of "strongly recommend", "mixed", or "not recommended".
- Final thoughts would ask players whether they would play the game again.

Obviously, this would be difficult, but I think would give you the best reviews. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that post-game conversation you have with your group, where some players bitch, some gush, and others are simply indifferent. To get around the nonsense with review copies of games, sell them off to pay for site maintenance.

Another question I have, is how best should the reviewer separate individual sessions with overall impressions of the game? I've played a hell of a lot of Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, and while probably my favorite game, I definitely have sessions where I loathe it. Admittedly, it has worn on my overall outlook on the game, albeit after a few hundred games.

Legomancer wrote:

As I said in a drive-by comment in that thread, you're not going to find a tasty beer by asking an alcoholic, and that's my view of most people there.

I'm going to steal that. But bear in mind that you're not going to find a tasty beer by asking a teetotaler, either.

The "how to play" videos that have decent production have completely replaced BGG reviews. That's all the vast majority of BGG reviews do, and who can blame them since you know they'll take endless shit from people if they do anything but rules summary or praise.

boardgamers, in general, are autistic cunts. That answers a lot of questions in general when it comes to "gaming".

This soggy ass fucking cunt just said that my reviews are dishonest because I said that many reviewers get into it for free games, and that there's compensation in the form of free games.

If I ever meet this dude in person, I hope I have bail money. This is why I stopped going to BGG. I really should've stayed away.

Seems plain to see that a lot of reviewers are getting into the game for free copies. I have the "Reviews' module on my BGG Front Page and there are more and more reviews popping up that have some sort of branding to them in the title. More often than not those "branded" reviews are pushing quantity over quality.

Exactly. But somehow, this cunt (who does reviews) is pushing the "there's no substantial money in reviewing games", to which I responded that if you do 30 games a year at 50$, that you didn't have to buy, it's a savings of $1500.00 per year, and if you had to come out of pocket on it, at 23% tax you'd end up having to make an additional $1850.00 to pay for them.

That's 4% of the median US household income. In other words, pretty fucking substantial.

The guy's just trying to obfuscate the fact that I'm right, and that he does videos to get free games.

It's worth a read, it's actually pretty funny the arguments he makes. I love my responses, too, but I'm biased.

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1149799/are...l-or-am-i-hy/page/13

Yeah, it's hilarious. Pete comes in, makes wild accusations about reviewers in general, holding himself up on a pedestal. When he gets called on it, rather than debate logically why he's "right", he screams that the other person "has to be right" (a study in irony), then declares he's done with the conversation. You told 'em, Pete!