Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ghostwind" data-source="post: 842556" data-attributes="member: 3060">No one likes a bad review, be it publisher, writer, artist or anyone else involved in the rpg industry at a professional level. Criticism is to be expected, but how you handle the criticism is what determines the kind of person you are.In the case of Fast Forward, Jim Ward's column brought up valid points but he allowed his emotions to interfere with the point he was making. The end result was an article that imparts a great deal of veiled venom rather than an objective assessment of how he views critical reviews.The RPG industry is in a somewhat unique position in that it has to rely upon "amateur" (non-paid) individuals to write product reviews because there really isn't a financial support structure in place that will support a significant number of "professional" (paid) reviewers. Because of this, there is a dramatic difference in not only the style of reviews but also the quality. A badly written review that inaccurately portrays the subject of the book can be a devastating blow to sales. I believe this is one of the points that Jim Ward was trying to make.However much publishers would like to see it, there will never be a uniform code of criteria that all reviewers would use to evaluate the products. Therefore you will always have reviews that are critical for no reason at all and reviews that are critical with the supporting arguments to back it up. The best thing a publisher can do is accept this fact and if they have an issue with a review, contact the reviewer privately to discuss the matter first. Many times, problems within a review can be corrected through this simple act.Publishers should also be aware that consistently sub-par reviews by a diverse sampling of reviewers is an indicator that there is an inherent problem in product design and that is something that should be addressed in-house. Perhaps the problem lies in that the publisher is not able to effectively get across the message that his products are intentionally meant for epic level play and not the baseline campaign, or that he is consistently using a certain mathematic formula that results in improper game mechanics. Reviews are there for everyone to learn from, but the moment it is taken as a deeply personal slam or attack, the professionalism is bound to fly straight out the window.</blockquote>

Verification