Funny Email From a Publisher re. Reviews

[Dragongirl]

Re: Ahhhh

Oh, well, I would've probably avoided them solely to protest the obvious pandering to "pathetic geek losers who play role-playing games and would buy our products solely because we show a lot of skin on the covers".

AMEN!

 

[jaults]

I just want to say thanks to Morrus for taking a stand on this, and for filling us in on the details. If the integrity of this site's reviews were called into question I for one would have a much more difficult time making ANY d20 purchases.

<snip>

So, short story long, thanks to Morrus and the others here for maintaining the integrity of the reviews on this site. And thanks for linking to this thread from the news page, as I doubt I would have found it otherwise. I feel even better about the money I spent, and can't wait to receive my order.

    Exactly... I never considered that the reviews here at ENWorld might be anything other than fair and unbiased, so its very nice to see my thoughts reinforced.
    Yeah, Morrus!

Thanks,
    Jason

 

[Psion]

Even during the ENnies I know that Psion and I were solidly behind Black Flags for the setting category, and, had it been up to me, Blood Prince of Wallachia would've gotten the nod as well.

Yup. And were I to review those two products now, I could comfortably give either one a "4". The main reason I only gave Twilight of Atlantis a 3 was the expensive ("per word") format. And I gave Jade & Steel a 4 DESPITE that format; I think Mr. Lai's d20 work is pretty good. Their format has improved in value singificantly since their first round of d20 books.

We did have some yuks about the cover of the Ragnarok book in the ENnies forum, though.

 

[orphius]

Well, for the most part I didn't think the interview was all that bad, until I got to this part:

"When you do this for a living, you find that you just don't play games for fun any more."

I have never been so in need of a free pass on the profanity filter before. Holy crap. More than anything I have seen yet, this to me is the definitive reason not to buy from them.

THEY DON'T EVEN PLAY THE GAME.

I was, absolutely shocked to read that statement. I do a bit of playtesting for Steve Jackson Games, and I am a regular reader of Pyramid, the online gaming magazine run by SJGames. There you can chat with the writers of a great many of their worldbooks. All of them, without exception, still play games. If not every week, then at least once a month. Steve Jackson, the OWNER of the company, still plays games regularly. If you do not play the games, how would you know what does and does not work?

 

[Umbran]

It really doesn't matter how good their product is now, they have marked themselves as a company that could be duplicitous and untrustworthy.

While I don't particularly like their position, it is not indicative of duplicity.

Publishers are not required to give out review copies. They do so only because they hope it will give them good exposure - it's a form of advertising. If they find that doing so here is not good, effective advertising, then of course they'll stop asking for reviews. That's only good business. No duplicity in that at all.

And, honestly, I am not terribly surprised that they now decline comment. If Morrus e-mailed them a link to this thread, I can fully understand. There's been a strong negative sentiment from the very start of this thread - if you were a corporate person looking at that, it might well seem like a good move to keep your mouth shut. If it looked to them that the court of local popular opinion had already convicted them, it makes sense not to continue to stir the waters.

*shrug*. I've never bought an Avalance product. If I have money, and it's a really good product, I don't see how their review copy policy is relevant. Just don't listen to reviews that come from folks who've gotten free copies, and you're set.

 

[Feaelin]

Re: Ahhhh

Oh, well, I would've probably avoided them solely to protest the obvious pandering to "pathetic geek losers who play role-playing games and would buy our products solely because we show a lot of skin on the covers".

Or, at least, that's what their covers say to me...

They do to me, also. I bought the first product "Last Days at Constantinople" (spelling?). It was "okay". I loved the idea, I wasn't impressed with the presentation.

I had plans to pick up some of the others, but I was too disappointed in the first to take the rest seriously, and my d20 dollars are getting tighter and tighter...

 

[Ghostwind]

'GamesGenre: How would you rate the overall quality of d20 products that have hit the marketplace so far? Who's doing the best job?

AvalanchePress (specifically Mike Bennighof, CEO of Avalanche): I see a lot of garbage. A LOT of garbage. There are some gems among the bilge, with Atlas' Penumbra books really standing out. In economic theory, there's the principle known as "Gresham's Law," that the bad will drive out the good. I think we're about to see this in action.'

My first thought was how this will most likely apply to Avalanche themselves, especially given their industry business practices and attitudes towards others. While the interview itself doesn't necessarily come across as demeaning or rude, there are a few points where I could see that Benighof's straightforward attitude could be taken as rudeness.

 

[Corwin]

For the most part, I have to agree with what chatdemon said a page or so ago.

I, too, would like to take the Devil's Advocate position. (Don't shoot me)

First, although technically "legal", I think Morrus' decision to post this publicly was a bit tacky.

Also, I think there is a lot of implication by some detractors that they feel the letter was somehow stating that APL no longer wanted ENWorld to review their products. This doesn't seem to be the case, from what I read. It seems to me that this Sales Rep. sinply said they didn't want to give ENWorld any more free copies. They never asked not to be reviewed anymore by them. If you want to review the next APL book, get yourself a copy and go for it.

I will state, however, that the part about having to pay for it to complain was a bit odd. That could have probably been worded a bit differently... OK, a lot differently.

The beginning of the letter seems to clearly be a response to a request for a free review copy. If they felt the reviewers here were more likely not to like it, why give it out. I don't think it's hard to understand that there are different kinds of gamers out there. Likewise, these different styles of gamers are also reviewers. Perhaps it may have seemed apparant to APL that the reviewers of ENWorld may not be the kind of gamer they are writing for. If this was the case, giving them free review copies would be just bad logic. That would be like Spike Lee screening a review of his latest movie to a KKK representative. (OK, maybe not that extreme, but you get the point... I hope... ).

I would be interested to know the context of this correspondence (what happened to prompt it). Was it a reply for a request for a free review copy? If it is, and I believe it may have been, that would place the response in a slightly different light (to me, anyway).

I just find the lynch mob mentality of this thread a bit disturbing. Sure, there may have been a falling out between these groups. Sure some words were exchanged, questionable words. But this (thread, etc.) seems to has been set up, from the beginning, to be one-sided bashing, IMO. Of course they won't get involved at this point. Pretend you are them for a second and go back and re-read this thread from the beginning. Regardless of your position, opinion or explanation, you'd get hammered the second you showed up.

 

[Corwin]

'GamesGenre: How would you rate the overall quality of d20 products that have hit the marketplace so far? Who's doing the best job?

AvalanchePress (specifically Mike Bennighof, CEO of Avalanche): I see a lot of garbage. A LOT of garbage. There are some gems among the bilge, with Atlas' Penumbra books really standing out. In economic theory, there's the principle known as "Gresham's Law," that the bad will drive out the good. I think we're about to see this in action.'

My first thought was how this will most likely apply to Avalanche themselves, especially given their industry business practices and attitudes towards others. While the interview itself doesn't necessarily come across as demeaning or rude, there are a few points where I could see that Benighof's straightforward attitude could be taken as rudeness.

Agreed. And I can't see how you could fault him for what he said. I'm no economist, but if there is a "named" theory to explain what he is talking about, maybe he is making some sense. [shrug]

And is anyone going to try and argue that there isn't a lot of junk out there? Remember, "junk" is reletave to the beholder (not the monster ). To him, there may very well be a pile o' garbage. I could probably say the same... I think.

 

[Psionicist]

Why bother? There are plenty of companies that stinks, just look at Microsoft Corporation. As long as these guys write good material, I will use it, no matter what this salesman people person writes in his emails...