The Bane Of Peer Marketing, As It Relates To The Hobby Board Game Industry

I was involved in a conversation at Board Game Geek, and the subject was game criticism and the hesitance of people to do negative reviews. Up until the end, it was an interesting and compelling conversation, and it brought all kinds of people into it. As it turns out, some reviewers are trying with a straight face to somehow obfuscate the fact that compensation is received for the articles, videos, podcasts, et cetera, and that it influences them even a tiny bit. I'm sorry, but in my opinion, any sane, reasonable person would have to conclude that at some point, a motivation for doing serial reviews of games, and I mean more than a handful, has got to be access to review copies. I'm not saying the sole motivation, but I am saying that it's certainly one of them, and not a small one. And I'm not saying that people are in it for the money, either, but rather in the preponderance of reasons, access to review product is one of the motivators for people to begin reviewing games.

One participant of the conversation had concluded that receiving review copies is not compensation, or not nearly enough alone to want to do game reviews. I cannot envision how he could possibly come to that conclusion. Access to review copies is absolutely a factor into why many people I know have started doing reviews. It's common sense, and I don't understand why there's such hand wringing and soft-shoeing about it. Why deny it? Just say, yes, having access to review copies is one factor of me starting this blog/podcast/website. I know it was with the Circus...after all, I'm not interested in spending thousands of dollars per year on games, but I wanted to get my voice out there because I didn't see any "groupthink" reviews out there other than Opinionated Gamers, and I didn't particularly care for their style of writing or the games they review, in general. But you can't start a well-followed blog without a large collection of newer games, and unless you review new games when they come out, you will lack a great deal of relevance, because what you say has likely been said before, and a thousand times at that. So, access to new games upon release is a huge deal for a person wanting to do reviews, because it allows them to be on the forefront of people who are writing or talking about new games as they release.

Anyhow, this same participant who said that serial reviewers do it for "love of games alone" also said that when calculating compensation in the form of free games, you need to calculate the time you spent playing. Well, in my opinion, if you count playing the games you get as "work", then you're probably not doing it for love of games. I mean, some games, like Crossroads at Darklion Pass, or Halo Interactive Board Game can be work, no doubt, but the comments and guffaws at the game make it far more of a conversation about a bad B movie than work. Playing games is a hobby, and a joyous one; it's not work, unless you do it for a living or gain substantial money from it. Guys like Vasel put out such a huge volume of high-quality, edited, and professional content that I would ~dread~ doing that, and unless the compensation was so overwhelming that I could clear a hundred grand doing it and quit my job, forever. Even then, I'd probably take a pass, because I simply am not that invested in the hobby.

In that discussion, I did a little math to determine just how much "payola" someone like me could make, not counting advertising money on their site, access to paid previews, et cetera. I reckon that if a reasonably popular reviewer got 30 review copies in a year, which is 2.5 reviews per month, and the value of the average game at retail is $50.00, that person received $1500.00 per year in free product to review. Furthermore, if you consider an average effective tax of 23%, that person would've had to gross $1845.00 to pay for those games if they didn't have access to the review copies. If the average US household median income is $51,017.00, then they saved 3.6% of their annual household income by getting those review copies. That's $1500.00 in arguments with the wife about "your game addiction" that you didn't have to have. On top of that, there's free GenCon, Origins, ConnConn and other con passes you didn't have to buy, and of course, advertising revenue if your site has it.

I also figured that a review, soup to nuts, takes me two hours. It takes an hour to think about the article, review notes, and so on, and it's an hour of editing, uploading, photography if none was taken during the games while they were being played. You could even slide in 30 minutes for ten minutes of polling and discussion for each of the three games played (at least that's how we review things here) in order to get the scores and some of the key ideas that the Circus members wanted to get across. If that game is $50.00, and it takes you two hours, the savings rate is $25.00 an hour to write and "research" a review. I don't know about you, but that's not insignificant. It's a simple, reasonable argument that publishers pay me $50.00 to spend two hours of my time talking about their game. Now, if they don't like what I write, well, they hired me, so it's their own fault. But again, it's not about the money, although this was a good example of the kind of compensation that is available to a reviewer who wishes to get free product and wants to justify the benefit/liability matrix in their own mind.

So, as I can show, game reviewers are paid, and as I showed above, it's not insignificant. Some people write for that. There's also the "celebrity" factor, because some people have a need to be liked, and in writing about games a lot in our little niche hobby is the fastest way to get recognized. I think this is an even more pervasive reason in our world, because many people that are gamers are social outcasts, or socially inept, and this helps them break through the wall and be part of something larger than they ever were before; to be the popular kid. I've talked with some people whose biggest reason for getting into the gig is this one, and I can respect that. At least it's an honest answer, and it's not seeking payola for payola's sake.Some people have that need, and for whatever reason, gravity or fate, they found themselves doing this review thing because it made them feel special and liked. No matter why this is, I'm just happy that they found peace in something positive.

I'm not saying I'm any better, or any less flawed, or any less biased. This is why I set the Circus up the way I did: I have unbreakable rules, I reviewed and continue to review every review copy I was ever sent or will ever be sent, and I sought out people outside the board game hobby who had never played anything beyond the old GameMaster series, Monopoly, or similar games, because they would be the least likely to have preconceived notions. I also set up the rules for review copies being given away because that way I had no vested interest in them; the words I use, the rape jokes, the utterly vulgar language, all of these things pretty much ensure that I was not going to get a lot of review copies, and I am 100% fine with that. All these things I did because I didn't want to have the possibility of being biased, personally, and because I know I'm flawed. Again, I'm no better than anyone else, nor more principled, but I did things at this site solely to guard against the fact that I am indeed human, indeed flawed, and prone to weaknesses as others are.

Another factor in setting the Circus up as it was has to do with "personal relationship bias". I like a lot of industry guys, because they're smart, savvy, and game dudes that are just cool. Colby Dauch is a cool ass guy. Jerry Hawthorne is an even cooler guy, one of the coolest people I've ever met. James Mathe is a great guy, and I really, truly like and admire him. That said, not a single person at the Circus besides myself have ever met any of them, will ever meet any of them, and couldn't identify them in a lineup if they were the only ones in it. I did this because this insulates my review process from bias; my Circus brothers and sisters are loud, obnoxious fucks just like me, and we don't pull punches. There's no bullying them into anything, and there's no persuading them unless the argument is sound. I've got a great group here, and this is why the Circus is so effective at what it does, which is being a champion of the consumer.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with getting review copies on its face - it's not indicative of bias simply because you've gotten review copies from one vendor or another, provided you review all that you get. It's only indicative that you are human, and that you feel you produce good enough quality work that you deserve to receive them, and that you'd be a good news source for people. As long as you are explicit about receiving a review copy when you write or record a review, then the buyer has the relevant information and can then make a value judgement to determine if you are, to them, a credible witness, so to speak. This isn't even about individual reviewers, it's about how publishers rely on reviewers' fear of losing access in order to skew the entire industry to the positive. I mean, we used to get some review copies, but I stopped actively soliciting review games for the most part, doing so only if a reader specifically asked us to get a game, or if the game is from an unknown or smaller publisher and the game looked so cool that I felt an obligation to get it out there, in the hopes that a larger reviewer would follow suit. Again, that's our choice and we've suffered from it; we were up to 4,000 page reads a week and now we're down to 200, and I reckon it has a lot to do with my refusal to post to Board Game Geek and not being as relevant due to not reviewing "hot games" when they come out as we once did.

But in the end, my point in writing this article is that there's something not often talked about, or rather goes unnoticed, and it has everything to do with "industry bias", and marketing people's understanding of human nature. It has to little to do with "an individual reviewer's bias". The main point is really about major reviewers not reviewing games that they don't like, after receiving them. You see, many reviewers, and especially the big name ones, are not keen on doing negative reviews, for a variety of reasons. Joel Eddy, a major reviewer, has publicly said that he does not do many negative reviews because they're not worth his time, among other things, which is his decision and I think it is probably a valid one considering the costs involved with producing a video. Others have said they don't do it because they don't want to deal with public backlash from the fanboys of any given product. Others have said that they simply don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, such as a designer, or a friend that is a publisher. All totally legitimate reasons not to do something, with the latter being a form of misplaced nobility, I believe. 

But here's the catch: publishers know this about reviewers. They know that people don't want to waste their time on a game they don't like, that they don't want drama, and they don't want to hurt feelings. In fact, they count on this very human factor in order to ensure that they sell their products. The "review sales channel" is entrenched in "reprisal fear" to the extent that they have strong  evidence that their risk of receiving a bad review from a major reviewer is very slim, and even minor but vocal reviewers are even more at risk from this kind of thing. To them, it's a $20.00 bet; if no review comes out because the reviewer doesn't like it, they're out $20.00 and get a marketing write off. If a good one comes out, all of the sudden, you spent $20.00 and got $200.00 in sales, or $2000.00, or if you're big enough, $20,000. I mean, I might be wrong here, but I've been researching this subject for five years now, and thanks to my "day job" I can smell a marketing plan a mile away just like a 20 year Army veteran can smell an enemy soldier around a corner. It gets worse though, and more insidiously damaging to the industry, when all major reviewers are in the position that their ability to produce content is in jeopardy simply by doing negative, but factual and honest, reviews, without pulling punches.

Because of the incestuous relationship with publishers providing review copies, it's the publisher who benefits, not the consumer, because the publisher is fairly secure in the belief that they hold most of the cards. It's not their fault, after all, because it's their job to sell games, and if the public isn't getting pissed about the fact that so many mediocre games are being made but rated highly, why shouldn't they continue doing what's working? Until the stick is removed from their hands, we will all remain prisoners in this trap.

For example, look at what happened to Michael Barnes, who was blacklisted from FFG's review corps for the grave and inexcusable sin of speaking plainly about the company's failings. If this is what journalism is about, only telling the good stories and burying the bad ones, we're all going to be walking to the game store with our rose colored glasses on, provided at no cost by YouTube, Board Game Geek, and reviewers who have the carrot and the stick to consider when telling you about a product. I read that Tom Vasel was blacklisted for simply giving a "not incredible" review, although that's hearsay and I can't verify that, although it came from a trusted friend who knows him personally. These are the lessons being taught by this sales channel to reviewers: "get in line or you lose access", which affects their ability to do reviews at all, or at least often enough to remain relevant in the eyes of the eager and ravenous public. 

Let me put it simply: If every major reviewer generally refused to produce reviews of games they received but didn't like, as they currently do, the logical result is that the most popular reviewers who produce the best, most accessible content on the most popular sites will publish an overwhelming majority of favorable reviews, skewing the entire game world greatly positive, thereby giving the false illusion that almost all games are good. Think about it: if Tom Vasel and Joel Eddy hated a game, but Undead Viking liked it, the one review that will come out from a major news source will be positive. There will be no balance. Let that sink in, and contemplate it a minute: If every reviewer didn't take the opportunity to produce negative reviews as often as basic statistics would lead you to believe are possible, what you end up with is the top 5 news outlets taking turns producing positive reviews, which makes all games seem like they're good, from the 10,000 foot perspective. And the publishers count on this, after all, they're not hugely popular reviewers for no reason...they carry weight, and they are convincing in their reasons to like a game. What's missing is the back-and-forth that you might see when looking at Tom Vasel's Top 10 Most Overrated Games video from a Dice Tower Con. This is honesty  in motion...three guys disagreeing honestly about games. Why is it that we don't see this very often in the form of reviews upon release? It's simple: reviewers can't afford to lose their access to free product because they would be crippled in their ability to produce relevant, current content, which is the death knell of any news source.

I can't believe that more people can't see this, or maybe I'm just crazy. That's possible. I already see this phenomenon in the hobby realm, and it's only worse with Kickstarter, since projects on that site use blurbs from reviewers that is not wholly representative of the article, and they pay great sums of money to popular bloggers and video reviewers to "preview" products. This is leveraging your trust in a reviewer's unbiased opinion and his name recognition against the consumer, which is a sales tactic used in everything from deodorant commercials to beer. It's irrelevant what the reviewer said, because if a celebrity spoke about the product, paid or not, you know it's going to be good, right?  It's sort of a conditioning that has set in the hobby world, and nobody seems to notice it: if a reviewer of good reputation is reviewing it, it's probably good. Why do we have these stereotypes, despite the fact that it's not entirely accurate? I mean Joel Eddy had to create his own "Negative Review Geeklist" just to point out that he's not all roses and cake! So why do these stereotypes exist? Probably because if you do 100 videos and 5 of them are negative, people will simply assume that if you review it, it's going to be positive. This kind of dialogue about "why don't you do negative reviews" is a clear indication that most of these guys' reviews are generally very positive, which gives credence to the notion that "if they reviewed it, it's probably good".

Also consider that the lifeblood of the "review gig" is content, as I noted, and if a website is to remain relevant, constant content must be released. Unless a reviewer is independently wealthy and can buy 100-150 games a year to feed the need to keep content flowing, they rely on publishers to feed their content engine, which feeds their subscriptions and page views, which then feeds their advertising revenue stream. So, it's in a reviewer's interests not to write too many bad reviews because if they piss off publishers, they lose a content feed source, which then limits their ability to remain relevant without great personal cost. It's a vicious little circle, and it goes on behind the scenes, and isn't often talked about in detail, so what you have is a reviewer who can't cut himself off at the knees by doing as many negative reviews as they might otherwise, and you have a publisher who knows this, and therefore is willing to take a small risk at a small price with a tremendous upside. Not long ago I was watching a Vasel "Top 10" video whose subject was essentially bashing older games, and at one point, Tom said something to the tune of "Hey, they're a sponsor of the Con!" This indicates to me that reviewers are cognizant of the fact that they can't be too critical, but I don't think anyone needs confirmation of that; it's common sense. This is not an attempt to impugn anyone, hopefully it's the beginning of an ongoing dialogue about how games are sold to us, and to tell publishers that they cannot blacklist a reviewer for a negative review if they want to continue to sell us games.

I'm not in any way saying that any given reviewer is a scumbag, a shill, a charlatan, or anything. Not remotely. What I am saying, however, is that because of this incestuous relationship between the publisher and the "review corps", what you have are loaded dice; a stacked deck against the consumer. The impression is given that almost all games are worthy of purchase, and perhaps many are, but the amount of buyer's remorse that you can find comments about on any given game tells me that people are buying a lot of games they hate. The question is what motivated them to do so, and I posit the idea that it's the stacked deck in an industry that is wholly bought and paid for by participants who are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to negative reviews. It's not one person shilling for a publisher, it's that the entire marketing system is set up under a structure that absolutely makes it deadly for reviewers to review bad games in a negative light. Worse, it ensures that all games get a good review by at least one major news source.

So, yes, I'm vocal, outspoken, argumentative, rude, and a loudmouthed bastard about it, but it's because I'm passionate and I was sold so many utterly shitty games by deceptive marketing and a "stacked deck against the consumer". I took it as a personal goal of making sure that everyone that I could reach understood the way that games are marketed and sold, so that they would know that the deck is stacked against the truth. 

In the end, I think the gaming industry would be better off, and higher quality product would be produced if reviewers as a whole would stop being afraid of the publishers. The reality is that it's not easy to become a Tom Vasel or Joel Eddy, and they carry an incredible weight with consumers. Publishers that blacklist them will have to accept that not every game they make is good, or fun, or even of high quality. They will have to accept criticism as it comes, without reprisal to the reviewer, or they will lose their cheap supply of marketing labor, some huge voices in the gaming world, and furthermore, its in their benefit to take the good with the bad. We hold the cards, as reviewers, not them, but only if we realize it.

Pete's Personal Philosophy On Game Ratings

One of my former (or current, maybe) readers had an issue with some statements I made regarding ratings at the Circus: http://gamerchris.com/2012/07/05/impartiality-in-writing-reviews.aspx

Anyhow, he noted that it's ridiculous that I should think a game that we rated a 7.5 is not shit hot. He said, in short, that if we were to give a 7.5 on a game, people should think it's pretty good. Well, yeah, it's pretty good, in the same sort of way that a Whopper is pretty good. It's just good enough to make you wish you were eating a better fucking burger. Me, I'd rather have a fat, juicy Carl's Jr. Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger. The kind of burger that can only be described as a mouthgasm, that leaves you satisfied all day. I mean, I eat one of them, I don't even want a burger for a couple of weeks, because it's just that awesome. And if I could have one of them or the Whopper, I'm going with Carl 100 times out of 100.

But, let's get back to the Circus for a second, because you see, first and foremost, I don't actually release my personal ratings, because they're irrelevant to the Circus. The final Circus rating is, in essence, the average of all the scores taken over the three review plays that are required before I write a review. So, for a five player game, played with 5 each time, that would be the average of those 15 unique scores, minus the single highest and lowest vote. So, really, I don't score shit myself, except the three votes that I always get, since I have to play it three times...after all, in almost all cases the game is mine.

Now this is how I, personally, characterize scores, in the frame of the ubiquitous "1-10" scale:

0-5: Don't play this. Don't look at this. For fuck's sake, DO NOT BUY THIS.This should be sent to a recycler and made into a cereal box, since cereal boxes are often entertaining, and sometimes, if you're lucky, come with something that someone will want to play with. If I bought it, it's probably because it was on clearance somewhere and I wanted the bits for a real game. Or, perhaps I was just fucking stupid.

5-6.75: Something went very, very wrong. It might be kind of fun or maybe has some merit, but there's a significant problem or problems with this. Maybe it's kind of fun but fugly, maybe it's fun only due to one facet or another, but in either case, it somehow fails to make the cut.

6.75-8: This had potential, but either failed in a substantial way, or had lots of little small issues that added up. Or maybe it's a niche game that serves a sole purpose and does it pretty well. It's definitely fun for some people. If I have this, it's because it's got a really bad ass theme that allows me to look past the flaws or maybe it just appealed to me for a unique reason.

8-9: This is an undoubtedly fun game. It's got some problems, but they're generally minor. In short, this is a game you should definitely seek out to play, because it's likely that all of the Circus really enjoyed a lot about this game. It's very possible that I own this, used to own this and replaced it with a game that does the same thing, but better.

9-10: This is the real cream of the crop. There is almost no reason not to own this game, unless you have some predisposition to not liking the setting or theme, or you simply don't like the style of game (ie. Euro V. Ameritrash) or some such thing. And really, if you don't like this game, there's probably some serious deficiency with you. I definitely own this game, or owned it and played it in excess of 20 times and can't get anyone to play with anymore. Short version: This is an epic game and you're a fun murdering sucker-ass if you don't have it, or want to have it.

THE SHORT VERSION:

My analogy is this: If you walk into the local whorehouse and there's ten women there, all eager to serve you, you're not going to even bother with any woman that doesn't rate at least a seven or eight. I mean, why the fuck would you even waste your time with anything less? To see if their personality will somehow make you overlook the fact that she's got an eye with a half-inch thick cataract on it or has a thick, black goatee on her face? You get one shot to take this chick in the back room, and there's no refunds, so are you going to grab the fugly ones or the ones who sound like Fran Drescher?

No, you're going to look at the eights through the dimes. And really, if they're all about the same price, why the hell are you not going to just shoot for the dimes? Sure, that "seven" girl with the stellar body could possibly be able to tie a cherry stem with her tongue, but you know for SURE that the dime can. I mean, that's her job, and that's why she's the dime. So, unless the seven does something for you so different than the other girls can, like perhaps Ms. Seven is black, and you really dig black chicks, well, you can overlook the pock marks that populate her ass and thighs because she has that extra "thing" that turns you on.

But me, I'm shooting for the dimes pretty much every time. Why settle for less than the total package? If you think I'm an idiot for rating something a seven and then saying that I'd probably never buy it, well, I guess I just have higher standards than you. That doesn't make me snooty or an elitist, it means that I have a limited amount of space and I'm really not trying to spend a shitload of my hard-earned money on a bunch of games that will never again see a table. I generally buy only the best in a genre or the game that best uses a certain mechanic, and if a better one comes along, well, the previous top dog is relegated to the trade pile. I mean, I'm NOT a collector, unless you owe me money, in which case I'll most certainly make house calls. I'm a player; a gamer. I want to play games, not just own them and read the rules on the shitter, or wax poetic on the elegance of the design. And I'm not saying it's wrong to do that if that's your thing...if you want to have a room with 500 games in it that never get played, hey, whatever floats your boat. It's just not my thing.

So, that's how I, personally, rate things, if you believe that it's important to know. Each person who plays a game with me, whether they know it's for review purposes or not, is asked the famous question that I always ask, "So, what'd ya think, scale of 1-10?" I have zero influence on how they vote, and therefore I can't control if someone believes a 7 to be a stunningly good game with some minor niggles that kept it from greatness. But, remember that none of my regulars know anything about BGG, anything about the "game culture", or have ever read a game review. Only one of all of them, my master-at-arms, has any interest in games above playing them, and I took him to GenCon just before he started cancer treatment. So, the ratings that we generate are all relative to the other games that we've played, since they have no experience whatsoever outside of the games that we've played together.

That's the whole shebang, and I'm glad we had this little talk.

July 4, 2012 - Independence Day

First, I'd like to thank every person who has ever served this country, be it a  mail carrier, soldier, sailor, policeman, teacher and senator (well, maybe not senators) as all of you have played a part in making the United States a beacon of hope for the world; one of the few places left on the planet where you do not need worry about being tortured by a dictator for dissenting,  not worry about being left to die on the street due to a lack of resources, and a place where, by and large, your children will be safe and have an unrivalled opportunity to become anything that they aspire to be.

And in the spirit of being truly independent, a servant of the public, and a champion of the consumer, Superfly Circus has changed its policies on requesting review copies from publishers.

We will no longer be requesting free copies of review games from publishers, because I have come to believe that the line between the publishers and the unpaid, unlicensed, untrained horde of amateur bloggers and pseudo-journalists has become far too thin. While the Circus has never been influenced by a publisher, and we have safeguards set up so that it is impossible for us to be influenced, it is on principle alone that I have made the decision to end the practice of seeking review copies. This may cut down on the number of my negative reviews because I'll be spending my own money on games for the most part, but that's the price I have to pay.

I have come to believe that with the consolidation of Board Game News and Board Game Geek, there is no substantial outside, neutral source of board game information on the scale and scope that Board Game Geek encompasses. They are the CNN, Fox News, BBC, SKY News, PBS, and MSNBC of board gaming. Unfortunately, they have become so powerful and so intertwined with the publishers that they serve and that serve them, that they are no longer what can be considered a neutral, free, information outlet.

With the board game marketing and review system set up so that people are being compensated to write reviews, either with "GeekGold" or with a constant stream of free product, invitations to publisher luncheons, and being given access to previews, I can no longer tolerate or be a party to the pay-for-play system.

It is my opinion that is that a culture of anti-dissent has been propagated in the gaming community, and can be evidenced by several factors:

• There is a wide imbalance of positive and negative reviews, even on middling-rated and lower-rated games
• Most reviews that are positive are overwhelmingly positive
• Negative reviews are almost universally met with disdain and ridicule
• Positive reviews are given more acclaim and search position based upon "thumbs" at BGG, which is a popularity gauge, not a gauge of the value of the content
• Negative reviews are "tipped" less with "GeekGold" on BGG

As I have stated in recent articles, and all across the internet, this imbalance and culture of anti-dissent creates the illusion that almost all products, irrespective of their actual merit, are good purchase choices for virtually everyone. In many cases, products are being reviewed and advertised by third parties before an actual product exists in its final form, such as Kickstarter "previews".  These practices are manipulative and allow mediocrity to flourish while not holding publishers accountable for creating mediocre products. I think that we, as a culture, can do better, and this is why I am unilaterally taking this stand.

My hope is that other review sites will stand with me to attempt to widen the line in the sand between publishers and independent review sites by refusing to ask for review copies. I am fully expectant that this will not happen, though, which I will take to confirm that the agenda of most reviewers, although not all, is solely to gain popularity and get free product. Not act as a champion and protector of the consumer, and not to actually inform, but rather to act as the advertising and marketing arm of publishers. If review copies didn't result in positive reviews and, ultimately, more sales, publishers would not do it.

I'm sure the argument will be made that if there are no review copies being sent, then the information flow will grind to a halt. My response is, "What's the rush?" Why is it imperative that every game be reviewed by the same twenty "reviewers" before ever being released to the public? Is selling the public on a product not the job of the sales team at the publishers rather than the job of a swarm of independent pseudo-journalists?

I cannot remember the last time I've seen a negative or, really, even a "not glowing" preview of a board game product. How often do we see a negative review of a just-released game? If the answer is "never", or "rarely",  then one can only surmise that the deck is stacked mightily against the consumer, and in reality, the truth.

Isn't the whole concept of a free, and independent, press to investigate and report the truth to the public?

Consumerism, Criticism, And The Bernays Effect On The Board Game Industry

There has been a great deal of hand-wringing about the lack of what people are calling "true criticism" in the board game industry, of late. What the hand-wringers are wringing wildly about is the idea that there aren't enough truly in-depth reviews on games, or games that speak from a level of experience; from the perspective of someone who has either mastered the game or has a trained enough eye to be able to spot the flaws in the gem that is a boardgame without actually having played it to death. I, personally, believe that games do not have this level of scrutiny because, for the most part, consumers don't want to be told anything about a game at that level, but in fact, what they really want is to be told whether a game can be played more than a few times, and is novel enough on some level to hold the attention. But I now believe that without it, we are simply lemmings, following the latest hot blogger or an old standard right off the cliffs of consumerist oblivion.

I had said that most people at major sites like BoardGameGeek are bottom feeders, and that was misconstrued as a criticism of their character. It was wholly misinterpreted as some sort of a condemnation of the site's inhabitants as lesser creatures, which was most certainly not the intent. What I meant is that most of the people on the site are driven solely to consume, and even the chaff that falls to the bottom is good enough because the goal is consumption, not quality. Now, I'm not looking to write a treatise on quality, and how it's subjective, because we all know that the "different strokes for different folks" argument can go on ad infinitum, with no side giving quarter. What I am saying is that the whole board game industry has become one giant smorgasbord of hype, propoganda, and greasy haired pitchmen selling the wide-eyed consumer every single game, irrespective of merit, based on the simple tactics of immersion advertising and the age old tactics of "creating demand" by "engineering consent" in the market.

"If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits." ~ Edward Bernays

There was once a man named Ed Bernays, who is the true father of modern Public Relations and social engineering. His techniques were unprecedented, and immediately recognized as an incredible methodology to shape public opinion without the public actually realizing they were being manipulated. Some of his techniques were used in advertising, such as his "Torches of Freedom" campaign that manipulated women into equating smoking cigarettes with standing up for equal rights. But, unfortunately, politicians took notice, and one man took his examples so well that he effectively manipulated a society into war and genocide. Dr. Paul Joeseph Goebbels was, in fact,

the man, and the techniques developed back in the 1930s are still in use in politics today by people who wish to manipulate public opinion for their own ends. Now I am not alluding that there is a parallel in the scope of convincing Germans to look the other way while people were being sent to the ovens and what is happening in the board game world other than the same techniques are being used.

"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." ~ George Orwell

If you look at the lexicon used by game reviewers, has it not occurred to you that amazingly nebulous and imprecise words such as "elegant", "innovative", "derivative", "immersive", "compelling", and the single worst offender, "interesting", are continually used. But why is that? Is it that these are the only words that are descriptive enough to use in board game reviews? No, it's because it's that people have been conditioned to use the same words repeatedly. In 2001, there were a reported 290,000 words in the English language and a total of almost 700,000 word derivatives, yet the entire board game community can only come up with what amounts to about a dozen adjectives to repeatedly use in their reporting? How is it that such a small handful of meaningless words has developed into what is now, essentially, the primary lexicon with which games are described?

My thoughts on the matter are that when a well known reviewer uses a word, that word slowly burrows into the minds of the group-think that it's a word with power, a word that means something. And to sound more academic or well-rounded, the next guy down the line will start using it. And 10 years later, you can look up virtually any board game review, at random, and will find at least one of these rather imprecise, nebulous words therein. And thus, the continual rattle of meaningless words being used in something written to influence people's behavior, in this case a buying decision, becomes the norm. And these words have come to invoke a conditioned response in the reader, which is the insidious part, since when a person sees a word such as "elegant", which by itself has little meaning, they immediately believe that if they like it, they, too, are smart enough to understand such an elegant product, thus making them elegant as well. Wouldn't you like to be smart and elegant? Of course you would, if you were smart, or elegant. Aren't you smart and elegant enough to understand that?

“It is possible to argue that the really influential book is not that which converts ten millions of casual readers, but rather that which converts the very few who, at any given moment, succeed in seizing power." ~ Aldous Huxley

The latest method in the saddling of humanity with unproven, untested, and otherwise unknown products is the latest Billy Mays of board games, Kickstarter. Gaining  notoriety around a year ago, and originally thought to be a crowdfunding site that allowed outsiders to afford to self-publish products that could compete with the large publishing houses, the publishing houses have taken advantage of the system and now use it as a multi-purpose tool to produce games. Kickstarter campiagns went from a person with an idea pleaing for help with developing a product of their passion to a way to gauge demand, pre-sell product, and get more margin from their initial sales push than going through distribution without pissing off their distributors.

The key technique that is used to shape opinion on a Kickstarter game is threefold. First, the pitchman convinces you that the product is a good idea, and is different and exciting. This is really shown well by Michael Mindes of Tasty Minstrel Games in their campaign for "Kings of Air and Steam". Everything about the video is integral in the pitch and the attempt to convince you that you have to have the game, and without you, they can't make it the way it "deserves" to be made. The words used and the use of the music to set a somber tone indicates that it's a serious matter, and it's crucial that you help them fund the game, because you wouldn't want a sub-par game. But what evidence is there that the game is good, different, or better than the other 100 games you already have?

At an initial buy price of $45.00 USD, is it really a value? The Kickstarter page even adds a note that at $45.00, the game is underpriced by 15%, which is an obvious attempt to use a sales technique called "instilling urgency", which means that if you don't act now, you'll have to pay more later. Note that virtually every Kickstarted game ends up in the hands of distributors, and they almost always are cheaper to buy later then paying a premium to buy in as an early adopter.  In some cases, people actually got Kickstarter-purchased games AFTER those who bought through distribution! So where's the value?

But regarding Air and Steam, it's a wooden cube game that is wholly derivative of other games, has nothing really novel other than the fact that it has a new theme on old mechanics, but is essentially the same as many other wooden cube games. Puerto Rico, Tikal, El Grande, and many others all have similar components, the same mechanics, were priced around the same amount upon release, are selling into the same core market, and none of them required Kickstarter to produce. So, why is it that established publishers use Kickstarter? It's to mitigate the risk to their own pocketbooks in case the game doesn't sell well.

The fact is that publishers want to pass the risk onto the consumer, and by selling you a game that doesn't yet exist and hasn't come under public scrutiny, they don't have to worry about producing a boring or subpar game and not having it sell because in most cases, the pre-sales cover the entire cost of the first edition print run, and since much of that goes direct to consumers, the publishers make far more money per unit sold than they would had they gone the traditional "publisher to distribution to retail" sales channel. For  consumers, it's a terrible deal, but for publishers, it's brilliant.

This is not to pick on TMG or Kings of Air and Steam, because all of the Kickstarters are the same. They plea to the consumer that they require large sums of their cash in order to produce a game that they promise will be spectacular, and they use age-old sales tactics to convince you that you "must act now" or will foolishly piss money away later, when in reality, pissing away money on something that doesn't exist on the promise of a person you've never met is the definition of a "confidence game" in the real world. And every good confidence man has a shill, who benefits in some way from aiding and abetting the confidence man.

The best con men, though, are the ones who can create a shill out of an honest person without the honest person ever knowing they've been used. This is what the internet hype machine lives on; people who attempt to be impartial being wooed into giving positive reviews. Let me ask you this if you doubt me: How many negative previews have you ever seen for a Kickstarted game? Me, I've never seen one, and I go looking. I suspect its because if you're sent a preview copy, you're already predisposed toward liking it as you've asked for it. And if you weren't, why would you be sent a copy in advance? So, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy; there is very, very little hope of getting an impartial game preview of a product that doesn't exist because of these factors.

When you then look to BGG and the internet, you can easily find a legion of reviews, articles about the game, and interviews which all feed into the hype machine that is screaming to you that you have to buy the game. The publishers are willing to take the small risk with spending advert money and marketing time selling the idea to people and raising public awareness, and the avenue which is most widely used these days is through the unregulated and underscrutinized blogisphere.  Bloggers have, largely, not undergone ethics or journalism classes, so you're trusting in the reviewer's good faith alone by taking their word for it.

But, these days, anyone with fingers or a video camera is entering the arena to start doing reviews, and those are the soft targets that are best utilized by the publishers, because they will be the most pliable to the end of selling games by horse trading. Further, the reviewers can always chalk any dissent up to "a matter of taste" or "its an opinion piece, and that's my opinion, " which universally garners them credibility for being so resolute and standing by their opinion even when they're being screamed down by the entire world. It's as if they think that if they simply repeat themselves enough, the people will eventually believe it.

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over” ~ Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels

What's worse is that Kickstarter itself has an agenda. This was proven out by the brilliant article by Samantha Murphy who had damning evidence that Kickstarter intentionally hides its failures from public scrutiny (http://mashable.com/2012/06/12/kickstarter-failures/) even in the face of the fact that people could learn what not to do in future campaigns by studying what failed in the past. All of this ties into the propogandism of the game industry, that Kickstarter is a great place to buy into an idea of a game, because there aren't any Kickstarter failures, so therefore they must all be successful products.

I spoke, recently, with a up and coming blogger about this, a guy who I feel is smarter than most, about how publishers try to lean on bloggers: "I have actually gotten into some rows with SOME GUY about obligations to the consumer vs. the publisher because back ... when I was writing my perspective on what games were worth buying vs. not buying based on rulebook reads and I trashed a few that he had issue with. He talked about how much it would suck for that poor first-time publisher if my article ended up tanking the sales of the game, and my response was essentially, “My obligation as a reviewer is to the people who are buying these games, not the the publisher.” He did not like that very much, but I got a better understanding of the basis for that dislike after I discovered that most of the games he argued with me about were games SO AND SO was importing."

This is typical, as publishers tend to pal around at conventions and give extra access to those who review their products and give positive reviews. Fantasy Flight, for instance, publicly trashed and excommunicated both Matt Drake and Michael Barnes for bad-mouthing the company's products, and in one case, the company's lack of editorial oversight on production. Now, unless a blogger has independent wealth or a large capital base, he's not going to be able to buy new games all the time. And any person in the board game world knows that it's virtually impossible to break through the glass ceiling into the upper echelons of reviewers where Matt Drake, Matt Thrower, Michael Barnes, Shannon Appelcline, and Dale Yu reside unless you're writing reviews of current or upcoming games, because the cult of the new demands a constant feed of information or they will abandon your site. In our world, depth is secondary to expediency, and the goal of reading a review is more to reinforce the reader's subconscious desire to be right about a game that they want to buy, not to explore the game from the perspective of critical analysis and explore not if they should buy or not, but why they should buy it.

"It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale." ~ Jacques Ellul

In reality, the hype apparatus that has developed over the past 15 years, driven by information technology and the proliferation of easy to use interfaces on home computers has had the unfortunate effect of creating an illogical mindset when making buying decisions. The constant stream of programming from television, radio, and the internet has convinced people that the only decision they have is to buy a product, because if they don't, it will be a stain upon their character; a mark of Cain, so to speak. The board game hobby is populated with many who are introverts to begin with, and the whole culture has started to turn into a battle for supremacy in the land of the nerds. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, right?

MC Frontalot is a prime example of how the culture is changing, as the Nerdcore rap scene embraces its nerdiness and doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. Nerdcore Hip Hop not a predictor or shaper of culture, it's a response to the changing culture. Nerds want to fit in, even if that means only fitting in with other nerds. And in every society, be it nerds, jocks, or whatever, there's always the Alpha, the apex predator. Since the hobby of board gaming is, at its core, a highly competitive hobby, it stands to reason that someone will always wish to emerge as that Alpha, and if that means being the one to bring the latest game to Tuesday Game Night, then that's precisely what you'll do, and the publishers understand this all too well.

"All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume." ~ Noam Chomsky

Now, due to this phenomenon, which is partially driven by the consumerist Western culture, one way to leap to the forefront of the herd is to have the latest, greatest shiny, precious thing. I proudly coined the term SHINYPRECIOUS to describe the latest product that is at the current eye of the advertising maelstrom. Thus, it is, in board gaming, a mark of distinction to have had the courage to go out and back a Kickstart project, or to be the first to buy a game. The evidence is everywhere, because there are countless internet threads where people are chomping at the bit to proclaim not only what they're backing, but for how much.

All of this reinforces, in my mind, the idea that the decision to buy a game or not has been taken away from the consumer, provided they have the means. And most astonishingly, for such a smart and resourceful group as board game aficionados are, the only questions that they are asking of their media, the blogisphere, and their advertisers is "if I should or should not" buy a game, which only serves to prove them right or wrong when they go out to look at a game that's in the hype zone. That is simply the wrong question to be asking. The question that all board gamers should be asking themselves, more than any other, when making a buying decision is WHY.  Not if, or if not, but WHY.

Too often people will buy a game based on a single review from a person who gives almost exclusively positive reviews, and they do it primarily without thinking. They do not ask why, because they're not interested in the basic questions that someone buying a car would ask, instead they generally scroll to the bottom, read a couple of "pro's and con's" lines, maybe a summary, and then pat themselves on the back if the review coincides with their intention to buy the game. Also, unsurprisingly, if you look at any given game in the Board Game Geek database, virtually all entries overwhelmingly positive reviews and very few, if any, truly negative reviews.

The reviews that are negative, however, generally are met with a violent backlash of dissent that customarily dissolves into name calling and personal insults. This is because people in our hobby generally cannot stand to be wrong, even in the face of facts, or if the subject is opinion-based and there is no real right or wrong to be found. Yet people have this inherent need to be heard, and even worse, a need to be right, and this fuels a death spiral of shilling, vast inaccuracies, and the quashing of dissent.

At the end of the day, the whole reviewing and rating system is set up as a carrot-first system, where positive reviews are rewarded by free items, larger GeekGold awards, power, influence, celebrity, and negative reviews are generally rewarded with smaller GeekGold rewards, less influence, and being attacked by proponents of the game as well as the publisher. One of the most critical reviews I ever wrote ended up with a pissing match between the publisher and the designer to determine who could passive-aggressively mock me the best. So, the impetus is to only write positive reviews to reinforce the idea that all games are fun for someone, so by extension, all games must have some good qualities and, finally, all games must be good, if you're enlightened, elegant, or smart enough to appreciate their elegant, innovative, and interesting designs.

Thus, there is a neverending parroting of the same overused words, the same praise for mediocre products, the same lack of any real semblance of scrutiny on games for fear of being ostracized, cut out of the loop, banned from internet sites, or the worst possible consequence for a critic, to be made irrelevant. As long as the persistent cornucopia of praise is heaped on mediocrity, the masses will be led to believe that mediocrity is the new "great", and something truly novel, such as deckbuilding, becomes "stellar" and spawns hundreds of mediocre clones, endlessly, until the new "thing" emerges from the ashes of the truly average. Until we, as consumers, stop to ask the important questions of "WHY" and stop believing that your worth or credibility is based solely upon how many Kickstarter projects you've  backed, or how many games on the "Hotness" you own.

So, while we may not want to actually read real criticism, I am forced to submit that we need it now more than ever, as the hype apparatus has been developed to devour any shred of willpower or self control that we might have. The pitchmen have honed their marketing skills, used psychological tricks, have manipulated the willing press, and have developed intricate networks for the sole purpose of selling you mediocre products under the guise of the "next big thing" for years, and the only thing to stop them is the single precious gift that God granted man, the ability to reason. To see through the hype and not ask "if or if not", but why.

Until we, as readers and consumers, stop simply begging to be agreed with so we can feel empowered and righteous in our judgement and start requiring the media to scrutinize the products they peddle by proxy, we will always be slaves to the hype machine. They are simply better at selling than we are at buying, and it's been so since the world at large developed the science of psychology to the point that it could be used to manipulate people into being controlled into mindless consumers. When a game like Earth Reborn is on the Tanga deathwatch along side Hotel Samoa, the gaming world is in a state of crisis.

At the end of the day, the overarching question isn't whether George Orwell or Aldous Huxley was right about our subjugation, because it's clear that both of them were influenced by the same man, Ed Bernays, who ultimately proved that free men can be made willing slaves, provided the right marketing is in place. The fact that CCG games have ever been allowed to exist, and thrive, proves that people have ceded the power of choice to publishers, and will spend money foolishly if you can convince them that they absolutely have to have a whole set, otherwise they're robbing themselves of the full experience. They never demand that the publisher sell complete sets, never ask if the game is even good enough to buy more than a few packs in the first place. Just that they must collect the entire set. Not because you require a Gonk power droid or a useless promo that adds absolutely nothing to the game, simply because it exists.

It's not whether Orwell's bludgeons or Huxley's distractions would be the ultimate tool to manipulate us, rather it's that neither are required since we have been utterly convinced not only to buy a neverending supply of mediocrity, at a premium price, BUT THAT DOING SO WAS OUR IDEA.

Board Games: Commodity Trading Vs. Hobby Vs. Addiction

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about games as they sit on the shelf, collecting dust, as less of a  "durable good" or "commodity" as much as "collector's item". What I mean by this is that, as I'm sure you know, most games have a short lifespan of "buzz" on the Internet, then appear to ride off into the sunset. I'm not sure that they end up being shelved indefinitely, but they certainly don't command the attention as they did when they were all fresh and new. Maybe that's just human nature, to want to play with the new, shiny toy even though the one you got last week is still in perfect working order and just as awesome as it was when you clicked "buy it now" two weeks back. But maybe it's not. Maybe it's because the allure isn't a "new game to play" as much as "getting something new" and having something to look forward to.

But let's start with the original thought: What is the useful lifespan of a board game?  I used to think, probably in a minority opinion, that games are to be kept and played often rather than played a lot for a short period and then shelved, only to be re-investigated sparingly to quench a particular hankering. But now that I'm laid up, and my friends are pretty much out of action or disinterested, I'm starting to see things from the perspective of someone who doesn't value the idea of getting new games often, but from someone who wants to play games that I have, and enjoy, more often. Because I've been playing video games more often, I've started comparing board games to other types of interactive entertainment, and the realization has been pretty eye opening.

When you look at a video game, especially an RPG game, for instance, there's maybe one or two "plays to completion" in the game. That said, with each play consuming 20 hours or more, and 100 hours or more in some cases, the fifty bones you drop on a video game may be better spent than the fifty you spent on a boardgame that will be played an average of 10 times before shelving it, with each play being two hours. The difference is that with video games, you generally play the hell out of them until completion, whereas with a board game, you'll likely play it four or five times in rapid succession, then sporadically, and then rarely after, if ever again. I'm not even sure that this has to do with the quality of a game as much as the human condition, especially when it comes to collectors and OCD completists.

Then look at a first person shooter, like Halo was or like Battlefield 3 or COD: Black Ops is. People spend hundreds of hours a MONTH playing those games, and honestly, I'd say it's more in line with a boardgame since they're both forms of entertainment that require other people to utilize. So, when looked at under that lens, you can see that board games are not nearly the value, when looked at from a use perspective, as some of these games might be. I mean, even the most die-hard Heroscape guy can't say that he plays Heroscape as much as a FPS enthusiast plays online shooters. Thus, it's certainly arguable that the board game hobby itself isn't about the actual play value as much as the collecting aspect, and certainly not about the lifespan of a board game as a durable good.

Let's go back and take a look at board games when viewed as a durable good. What is the lifespan of a game? And should it be judged by that? At what point does one accept that they will never play a game again and the only reason it's still sitting on the shelf is sentimentality? I'm not very sentimental or nostalgic in this regard, so as a pragmatist, it's a very, very short time for most of my games. Some games, though, such as El Grande or Space Hulk, have such a high probability of being played that I cannot envision arbitrarily dismissing them.

By that rationale, I'd have to say that for most games, their viable lifespan is not all that long. As noted, this doesn't include a very few games, arguably "the classics" or games you particularly love, that may see use for years and years. And in my research for this article, which was comprised of talking to a great many folks without telling them why I was asking the question, it appears that I am correct in assuming that "value" isn't the real motivator, and that people hold onto games not primarily based on their interest in playing the game a lot. Primarily, the motivation they almost universally offered was that they wanted the 'experience' of playing the new game.

What this exercise has shown me is that my original view that a board game is really not that different from other forms of entertainment as I once thought. You go out and buy a DVD not because you plan to watch it four hundred times, but because you believe that you will watch it enough times in the long-term to justify its price, and you want it to always be available to you. You buy video games going into it for the experience as well, not really taking into consideration how long the game will last, or how much value-per-hour you're going to receive for your money.

So it's not really about the value of the game as far as how many times you will play it, it's about feeding your desire to have something available to you, on demand, and the experience. Boil that down, and it appears to be about instant gratification. But with board games, it seems, the mental justification often is there for the purpose of allowing the purchase rather than justifying it based on value terms. In other words, the person getting the game has no real anticipation of playing it so many times that it would justify the purchase, but simply owning it is justification and reward in and of itself.

What I find interesting about board game collecting, or should I say collectors, are the parallels to substance addiction. I've talked to, and read Internet forum posts from, ample people who brag about ordering something online and how the waiting is unbearable; how they look outside at the post box, praying their wee parcel of goodness will appear. It's akin to the guy who calls his dealer up looking to score, and how he can't wait for the black-on-black Maxima with 20" rims to appear in his driveway. Continuing with the corollary, the game will most certainly prove to be a short-term fix, like that eight ball of coke, because before long, the "new game smell" will have worn thin, and the guy will be back at BGG researching the next purchase to ease their need for a new game. If you then pair that with the desire for the "experience", irrespective of the value received or the cost, it really starts looking like an addiction.

I'd point out that there's nothing wrong with this in and of itself for many people. People tend to need something to do with their time, and collecting boardgames is certainly far less destructive than drug use, or at least to one's health. But what I am saying is that, like drug use, the enjoyment tends to manifest more in the researching and collecting than the playing. Sure, playing the game is great fun, but the fact that the game gets stale so quickly and becomes perpetually shelved so soon after purchase would support the idea that "having something to look forward to" vis-a-vis waiting for a parcel to arrive is the real draw. Sort of like a kid's anticipation before Christmas, waiting for the special day that they can open the presents. It's not so much the present as the anticipation and the act of opening it.

So, the question then becomes, does the quality of the game really matter all that much, in the long run? There are some truly great games out there, but there's far more games being churned out by the Euromills that are simply re-themed versions of other games with almost identical mechanics, or worse, the nebulously themed mash-up games. Yet, these games seem to be consistent sellers just as the great games are, although their buzz dies on the vine far sooner than a good game's buzz would.

If the draw is in the collecting, and the anticipation, then the answer becomes clear: a great game will see the table more often, but in the grand scheme of things, mediocre games that are played 5 times and then sent to the bench are just as intrinsically valuable because they feed the need to collect, or the need to perpetually anticipate an inbound game. Maybe the "bragging rights" of having a great game on your shelf is nice, but were it the primary motivator, people would have nothing but the greats, with the chaff being sold or donated off, which is simply not the case with many, many board gamers.

But let's get back to the idea of collection versus playability...if a game is poor or average, and so many games are superior, why keep them? Why have a collection in the mid hundreds if the games will very likely never see a table again? This is the one thing I just can't seem to figure out. Maybe it's the pain of having to sell and ship games, maybe it's the unappealing idea of spending money on something and then selling it for less shortly thereafter.

Maybe it's because the only viable alternative is BoardGameExchange, where you can rent them. There simply is no "Gamestop" for Board Games as of yet. Some FLGS stores provide a buy-back service, but again, this isn't utilized often because every FLGS I've been to, and there have been a great many of them, there is almost never much "used game" inventory with respect to board games. A lot of Magic cards and miniatures, but very few boardgames. Thus, I'm let to believe that the demand for such a service doesn't truly exist, or all FLGS would be doing it, and it would be the norm.

This is compounded by the fact that unlike video games, boardgames are far more expensive to dispose of via the same means normally available to other entertainment venues. Shipping them is expensive, which is hampered by the fact that most online sellers offer free freight upon initial purchase, and therefore upon sale, the price must generally be exponentially decreased in order to attract buyers.  It's a real pisser, in short. Sure, few games will actually appreciate, but those games are generally the ones that the original purchaser is most inclined to keep.

Even when you consider trading games online, there are significant barriers as you are losing the price of the initial purchase, the initial shipping price, and then the price to ship the game to another person, all of which adds up to a snowballing financial loss for each game that is traded. There are obvious deterrents to buying mediocre games, available for all to see, yet people for some reason are compelled to continue buying crap games by the bushel, only to perpetually store them.

Whatever the case may be, it surely appears to an outside observer that boardgame collecting is just as addictive as crack or tobacco, and provide the same fix as a junkie gets with virtually the same cycle: the continual craving for more, the anticipation of the arrival, the use which results in euphoria, and then, finally, the crave hits again and the 'user' goes back out 'doctor shopping' on BGG to find their next fix.

But, the question remains: If it's not an addiction or mental issue, why would one continually buy mediocre games and shelve them, knowing they'll be hard to sell and thus will cause financial loss? Why not simply buy only the best games, and forgo the poor ones? The only conclusion I can come up with is that it is indeed either an addiction or mental disorder along the lines of 'hoarding'. I'm sure there's a minority of aficionados who want, for idealistic reasons, to collect every single boardgame ever made, but I'd argue that it's a very, very small and quiet minority. The majority just seem to want more and more, and it doesn't matter how much the games get played or how fun they are.

This idea is cemented by the fact that I cannot tell you how many people I know that have bought hundreds of dollars in games that are sitting, right now, on their shelves with the shrink wrap still on them. And it's likely that they will ALWAYS sit there, with the shrink on. So, what purpose could that serve? If you buy something and haven't even bothered to open it a year later, let alone actually use it, it's a good bet that you might have an addiction. Now, I'm not saying that EVERYONE is like this. I know plenty of people that use weed or drink a lot, and are productive people that aren't addicted. What I am saying is that there's a definite subculture of addicts, or at least those who exhibit addictive behavior. I think it's fair to say that this is the core constituency of "The Cult Of The New".

My conclusion really comes down to the idea that boardgames, more so than video games, are not actually a durable good or commodity. They are, for many hobby gamers, a consumable item prone to few uses before being discarded, but that happens to be collectible. Sort of like a Pez dispenser, really; they're used several times, then set aside as a decoration. But for other folks, the game will sit on a shelf for many, many moons, maybe even in the shrink wrap having never been played, because the goal may never have been to play the game at all; that was the simply subtext to justify the purchase. The real goal was to have something 'precious' sit on your doorstep when you come home. In both cases, though, the useful lifespan of virtually all boardgames is incredibly short, and the fact that the game sits eternally on a shelf makes it no less discarded, it simply redefines the garbage bin.

A Journey Of Self Realization In Gaming, Or, "Sick Of The Same Old Shit"

Well, I've had ample time to reflect on games this month, and it was primarily because I'm in the process of cleaning up my Man Cave (...or Dude Dungeon if you prefer) for the purposes of having a huge 6 player Heroscape game. In the process, I was reorganizing my games, and it hit me that there are certain games that I simply don't have. That being said, I'd almost rather have my scrotum crushed by an air conditioner that fell from a skyscraper than have them.


The reason I say this is that no matter how compelling the gameplay, how clever the mechanics, and how highly rated the game may be by those who enjoy, above all else, such amazing feats as moving a quarter-inch brown cube from a pile (arguably the slave pens) onto a map representing Puerto Rico, if the theme is garbage I'm going to have a hell of a time wanting to play it repeatedly. Where's the fun in that? It seems to me that these games generally end up as dick-measuring contests by potentially unimaginative people who yearn to prove to their slide-rule using peers that they are, indeed, the smartest Mensa member in the room.


To those who think these games have compelling themes, I loudly proclaim: "Fuck That Shit." I'm sorry, but if you think that managing the power grid of Germany or scheduling shipping containers is fun, chances are that you and I will never see eye to eye. In my world, being a merchant of the middle ages, hustling corn husks between the farm and the market is about as compelling to me as having every single ass hair ripped from the root by an Epilady. Sure, I loved "The Darjeeling Limited" and "Lady In The Water", but if I had my druthers, I'm watching "Aliens" or "Conan The Barbarian" instead nine times out of ten.


So, seeing as I'm here, let's talk about theme a bit.


First, what the fuck is going on with games these days? Most of the drivel that is being produced for the Board Game Geek crowd of late seems to come in two flavors: games that involve farming or production of some kind, or games that are total knock-offs of someone else's work. Seriously, you think Hollywood has plumb run out of new ideas, take a look at our hobby. It's the same old shit, redone over and over, ad infinitum. If I see another damned Zombie game where a small group of survivors have to escape peril through swarms of the undead, I may slice my fucking balls off and sing showtunes in front of city hall until I bleed out.

Same with production games where the pinnacle achievement is growing and selling shit (oh, wait, let's not forget the shipping the shit you grew variant! BRILLIANT!). Or, wow, set collection games. There's a new one. If I wanted to play an Old Maid or Go Fish variant, I'd just play Old Maid or Go Fish. Worker placement is another pet peeve, because I can't think of many things less interesting than putting a little cube somewhere that represents a person in some manner of indentured servitude, be it serf, slave, or subject.  Where's all the new stuff?

Back to theme, though, in my little tirade here, what the hell is going on with the damned Renaissance? Why is that so compelling to so many people? Do we really want to relive plague, death by dysentary and cholera, and wars that lasted 30 years? Or how about tripe like Fresco, where the object is to mix paints? Fuck that, if I want to mix paints, I'll do it, and I'll go even further by actually painting something. Like maybe a ultra bad-ass pewter miniature resembling some nightmare creature eating the white meat off of a damsel in distress!

I just don't get it. Maybe people are just boring these days, or maybe the advent of the internet visual media has completely dumbed down peoples' ability to use their imagination. How many shipping games do we need? How many Pillars of the Earth building games does the world really need? Why on God's green Earth do we need another game about farming or medieval life? I mean, seriously....WHAT THE FUCK?

Theme matters to a lot of people. Games like Ascending Empires, where varied interstellar races beat the piss (or whatever liquid non-humans excrete) out of each other, are compelling. They make you WANT to play the game. Games like Road Kill Rally, where the racing aspect is less important than running over grandmothers pushing strollers, are irreverant and fun, and although the theme is a bit dispicable, at least they're compelling. It's not enough anymore to simply pick a theme out of the old playbook, tack on some mechanics that may or may not work well together, and then hire an artist to make it all look fancypants. If you do, you'll do it at your own peril because I'm not fucking buying it. God forbid I do get a hold of it, because your ears will be on fire from the review I'm going to write and whose wrath I'll personally deliver to 10,000 readers in the first month of publication.


I'm not saying that some of the new "thematic games" ( which incidentally, I refer to as "games that may actually be fun" ) have to be completely original themes to be good. I really like Battleship Galaxies, and I think it may well become a fan favorite, but it really is just another "space dudes in space shooting space weapons at other dudes in space" when you boil it down to the base. The difference, my dear friends, is that Hasbro took the time to flesh out the story, build some characters in, and then explain the whole thing to players so that they had a reference point. As I noted in another article, the imagining of a universe or setting, and then building the game, from bottom to top, around that setting, is the hallmark of a great game.


Games like the new Chaostle, while I don't know that much about it, are compelling because there's something new there. I want to know more about it, and that's saying something because there's so few games these days that actually make me want to click on a couple of links to learn more about them. I'm not saying Chaostle is a great game, because I don't know yet, but I will tell you that it has an integral theme, great visuals, and a backstory, and all of this adds up to something that has the potential to be fun.


To be great, as I've said before, requires a rare crossroads of integral, interesting theme, great mechanics, good pacing, and most of all, an assload of fun gameplay. There are very, very few games that I consider to be truly great, but I can point to all of them and they have precisely that rare mix of elements, hence my reasoning that these games have risen above the chaff to become legendary, in my mind, at least.


While it's true that some games have such novel concepts that they can ride on that alone, they are the rarity. Dominion, for example, has almost no noticable theme and could've been about buying various quantities of dope from Columbian and Afghani dealers, or alternatively could've been about amassing different tiers of out of print board games in a basement. The result would've been the same, because at the time, this style of game didn't exist. Dominion was so novel that many were OK to look past the obviously pasted-on theme and saw it for what they saw it for: a neat new game design.  Personally, I owned it for a month, played the shit out of it, and then realized that it was ultimately a very boring multiplayer solitaire game, and I subsequently gave it away. But that's because it wasn't about Space Marines collecting the ears (or whatever) off of Genestealers, right?

So, in conclusion, I sure wish game designers would focus more on getting cool games out there that have nothing to do with shipping corn to some island I don't give a fuck about, or games that involve having fistfuls of cards that are supposed to make me feel like some sort of land baron. Stop trying to be "Dominion with a theme" because you can't. Ascencion of the Godslayer, Nightfall, Thunderstone.....whatever. They're all trying to trump the original, and you really can't. All you can do is hope to ride the sea of mediocrity and sell as many games as you can until it subsides and sanity kicks back in.

Be original in design, and stop trying to knock off other people's shit. I know that virtually all games are derivative of another game design, but you can certainly mix it up. Talisman does the same thing Prophecy does, essentially, but they are very different game designs. Earth Reborn does what Tannhauser does, but again, very different paths between A and B. Come up with a cool theme that hasn't been done not only to death, but to death, reborn, and to death again. Take that theme, and wrap around its magnificence a great story, some great art, compelling, fun mechanics and gameplay that are absolutely soaked in the pickle juice that is your awesome theme, and then playtest the shit out of it so that it doesn't disappoint. Then, alone, you have a shot at greatness, unless you're very lucky.

There's just not enough "new" games out there that are worth buying, and quite frankly, I was wholeheartedly unimpressed with the big-box offerings at Origins. The highlight with all the buzz was yet another snoozefest Knizia math game that happens to have Captain Kirk in it is a completely epic failure in judgement and execution. So much could've been done with that license, especially with the skill at minis games Wizkids has, yet they found a way to totally fuck it up. Seriously, is this all we, as a colletive group, have to offer the world?


I hope "Wild" Bill Shatner kicks ol Wizkids hard in the balls for that one....whomever decided Star Trek and Knizia in the same sentence would be a good idea really should go back to barber college or whatever the hell they did before signing up at Wizards. What a shame. And things like this are so much more often the story than the story of triumphing over all odds and creating a totally awesome game like Omen: A Reign of War. And guess what: John Clowdus doesn't have Wizkids money, Knizia name recognition, or Star Trek fanbois to work with, either. So stop blaming the market for your failures, bitches, and start sacking up. Make great products that are loaded with fun and stop relying on the same people with the same old ideas. There's a lot of fresh ideas out there, I know it, but they're buried under the weight of the old guard and the marketing giants that get all the press.


Alright, I'm done, go back to your regularly scheduled programming. I'm going back to playing Heroscape and waiting for my Hirst Arts molds to come in so I can pimp out my Epic Duels set....you know...a FUN game?



Because the Blogger interface is pissing me off and won't let me post comments, I'm having to put responses here.

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@Kenchan13: Thanks!

@Trent: (shaking head...) Buddy, there's a difference. The brown cubes are nameless, faceless little markers. They're not Paco, Pablo, and Geronimo. There's no personality, and if you're trying to tell me that people actually can not only keep track of who's who on a loaded PR board, I'll be the first to tell you that you're full of shit.

Miniatures have unique looks, and they elicit emotions in people, which is why they're so popular. It's not enough to note that your random legion cube dies in T&E when viewed from the light that you could rather be playing a game that Kaemon Awa, Master Samurai, has fallen to the likes of the sinister robot menace, Major Q9. It's just apples and oranges.

It's hard to give a shit about cube #9, but your imagination runs wild when playing a game like Dungeon Twister when your Paladin falls to the fearsome Dragon. Totally different experience.

I am sure glad you grabbed onto the idea that "Pete is saying people that like cubes are dumb", although it's totally inaccurate. I like Puerto Rico. I like El Grande. I like Tikal. I'm just sick of every God damned game being a copy of something else, with a different but equally boring theme tacked on.

Clay: Totally agree.

July 3, 2011 6:49 AM

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