Great discussion on negative reviews and impartiality.

Here's how it is, Tommy boy: I never said anything about being better than anyone else. I'd love to see you show me where I said that I was.

That clown said that there's no compensation involved in reviewing games. Then when I pointed out that there was compensation, which I provided factual accounts of, he went off on a tangent about how I needed to calculate "gathering my thoughts" and "playing the game" in my calculation of compensation, among other insipid things such as "use of my personal computer and replacement cost", "shelf space", et C....all of which were as easily dispelled as telling a child that ghosts aren't real.

The fact of the matter is that I wasn't saying anything other than that there IS compensation to review, that SOME people take that into consideration (and that was being generous) and that his assertion that people do it "solely for love of games" is a noble but incredibly naive belief. Anyone that would go through that much trouble to calculate the shit he was adding into the equation, especially for a WRITER, indicates that he is the kind of person that can't stand to be wrong.

I don't know about this pedestal shit, especially since I'm no better than anyone nor do I claim to be; but I can guarantee that at least I'm a more honorable person than you:

2:22, you ass wipe. The difference between you and I is that I don't make a living (or even a modest income) making insipid videos that serve solely to enrich myself and promote people's products (read: salesperson)

Try reading something other than rules once in a while, you Billy Mays fuck. Of course you'd agree with his assessment, seeing as you've made a considerable living from receiving free merchandise from publishers.

TL;DR: Eat a steaming bag of dicks, you fat bastard. Fuck you and your ilk.

I like Tom, he seems like a nice guy.
I like Pete, he seems like a nice guy.
I don't like this and will gladly de-rail (see what happened to my nighttime thread - Man Alive!!)


My ex-girlfriend owned a parakeet…oh my god, that f**king thing would never shut up.

But the bird was cool.

Parakeets are awesome. My buddy was a car salesman and had a parakeet named "Closer". He trained it to say "It's a deal! It's a deal!" and he kept the cage at work.

Guy was epic.

Well, I don't want to get into an all out war, Pete, especially as I can't outswear or insult you. I've explained the Crokinole thing very clearly to you in the past, you choose to believe I'm a liar. You choose to believe that I give positive reviews just to "get free games", even though I give away almost every game I get. You choose to believe whatever you want - because whenever one person gives you a reasoned response, you scream as loud as you can, calling them names, until they give up.

It's a futile task, and I don't mind that you take swipes at me (including, ironically, quite a few passive agressive ones, something I thought you were opposed to).

But when you come after my friends - and Trent is a friend - then I have no problem calling you out. You are, sadly, a bully and a jerk online. Perhaps in real life you are nicer, but you push people around and call them names to get your point across (see your post above to prove this). What does this do for you? Why do you do it? I just don't get it. Curse me out, criticize me, lie about me publicly. Do it to me, rather than others.

No war needed, Tom. I am who I am and you are who you are, and we're both comfortable with that. What more is there to say?

Here's the rub on the Crokinole thing, you might like it: You said that you thought your kid did it, so you covered it up. But we both know that doing your videos requires editing, and had you simply asked your kids if they did it, which I believe we both know is very unlikely, that you mentioned or pointed it out in an added clip that would've taken 5 minutes, maybe to add in? The more I thought about it, the more I have difficulty believing it. It's neither here nor there, but that's how I see things.

This was my first post on the subject with Trent. We had a simple disagreement, and it was civil.
boardgamegeek.com/article/15465835#15465835

He took this as an insult...
boardgamegeek.com/article/15465962#15465962
...which is clearly not, but it was an observation that anyone who thinks there's no compensation or quid pro quo in board game marketing is utterly naive to the realities of what goes on behind the scenes. Still, no insult.

The only thing that people MISCONSTRUED as an insult was asking him if he was an accountant, because only an accountant (in my opinion) could possibly consider the things he listed as "cost", and very few were relevant.

*sigh*

You're not in the accounting field, are you...?

But alas, he threw his hook at me, and that's what fucked me off:

I can only conclude from this that your reviews are dishonest. Let me explain why.

So, fuck him.

Now about this little "coming after my friends", fuck off. You made this about you, so that's why you're now catching my ire. This is like fighting a Mexican back when I was a kid...it's never one on one, it's one on three. If you can't see that this is none of your fucking business, you'd better get some LASIK.

In real life...this is real life. "A bully and a jerk online"...because I'm not a fake ass, and because I have some conviction? So be it.

You're not even on my radar, Tom. In fact, other than the fact that I quite admire what you've got going on, despite disagreeing with how you do it - you've made a name for yourself doing something that you love. Who doesn't want that? I have no beef with you other than the fact that I think you're a slick-ass Billy Mays type character who makes money selling people things with little value through a name and clever marketing. God bless you. That's what I do for a living in my career, but the difference between us is that I don't pretend to be unbiased. I do it to make money, but I'm up front about it and I offer my services to my clients in a mutually beneficial way.

I guess you do the same thing, except that your clients are publishers. Anyhow, I digress. Back on track...

You chose to come here and run your little dickbeaters on the keyboard to get involved, and that's why you've become involved. I never would've mentioned you or, really, given two shits about you, had you not chosen to entangle yourself in this. So, this is on you.

Your friend is a cunt who apparently believes that the world exists the way he sees it, and all I did was point out that he doesn't lay claim to stating other people's motivations for why they do what they do. All I did, and if you really want to take the time to actually read something, you'd see that I was not the aggressor inasmuch as I responded to your buddy's ridiculous assertions by stating that "all reviewers do it for X". Nobody knows why EVERYBODY does something, and he was stating that he did.

Have a great day, Tom. I appreciate your efforts at throwing yourself on the sword for your friend, but what you need to realize is that IT WAS HIS FUCKING SWORD.

tomvasel wrote: You choose to believe that I give positive reviews just to "get free games", even though I give away almost every game I get.

I tend to think that you give positive reviews because you are generally a positive person. I am similar in that regard, where it is very very difficult for me to find a game I don't like something about (although they exist).

Out of curiosity, why do you do board game reviews? Sounds like a silly question, but I have been asking that about myself and what I do a lot recently. Even if you give away the games that you get, is the chance to get to try new games a value-added experience that you enjoy? I would think that it would be, but I have no idea how high volume reviewers are able to do it week after week -- seems to me like it would be exhausting and I would need bigger motivation to keep on trucking.

That is an interesting question. Obviously I could say that it's to promote the hobby and because I love games so much. But I also do get a kick out of seeing people enjoy the reviews (I can't imagine who doesn't). I do it now because it's my job, I guess, but if I disliked it, I would do something else. I love reviewing games, whether I hate them or like them. In fact, the bad ones are just as much fun to review as the good ones (unless I know the person involved - then it's tough).

Lots of reasons, but mostly because it's fun. And yes, that fun comes from playing the game, seeing new ones show up in the mail, learning new rules systems, making the review (editing is NOT fun however) and seeing the reactions.

"You choose to believe that I give positive reviews just to "get free games", even though I give away almost every game I get."

I never said or implied that at all, Tom. Just to be clear.

Pete, I like you, man, but I think your numbers are ass. I would bet there are only a handful of folks that are getting anywhere near 30 review copies a year. Most people are probably grabbing a handful of shitty games that they didn't want in the first place. That's why Trent counts playing the games as work - if I wasn't interested in the game, but I have a commitment to review it, so I have to play it several times, that's work. Ultimately, that's why I stopped doing it - it was more work than enjoyment, and the meager compensation of getting a free copy of a shitty game I didn't want and a handful of thumbs on BGG really wasn't worth it, even taking into account the two or three great games that I discovered because someone sent me a review copy.

Damn it Pete! Can't you keep your flame-wars isolated? Or do you have to spread it everywhere like it's The Herp?