In light of recent events by Avalanche Press (Company bashing not desired)

[WizarDru]

Well, that's interesting, Cedric. Another ex-AEG member - John Wick in fact - got royally roasted for a column he wrote on gamingoutpost.com, in which he stated that reviewers should describe a product, but not actually provide any opinions of the contents. *snort*

John Wick gets roasted on a regular basis, or should I say 'The Wick' does, as he refers to his outspoken alter-ego. Wick's greatest enemy is...John Wick. He's the Charles Barkeley of RPGs.

 

[mirzabah]

I'm most familiar with Avalanche's product by a particular website that mocks their covers.

You tease! What's the URL?

 

[Theuderic]

I am very impressed with Avalanche. I am going to now buy all of their products. Avalanche are fighting the fight and they must really give a damn about their products. Any company that cares this much is definately on my side. Hail Avalanche! Power to Avalanche!

 

[Crothian]

You tease! What's the URL?

There's a link in the Meta thread to such a page.

 

[madriel]

"Please STOP placing scantily-clad women on covers of games completely unrelated to them. I (as a male gamer), as well as some other gamers, both male and female, do not believe that sex sells an RPG in which the cover girl is unrelated to the subject matter (except for her little attire), and a good amount of women gamers find your covers ridiculous at best and offensive at worst."

Well stated, Fred.

Mialee's Fashion Platemail thread was my first exposure to Avalanche's covers. I remember laughing in disbelief that a professional gaming company would release product with such blatantly cheesecake artwork. Twenty years ago, it wouldn't have surprised me, but I thought our hobby had matured beyond that. Ridiculous and offensive sums up my opinion of their cover art.

I am not impressed with AP's decision to use scantily clad women on its covers. If AP produced a sourcebook for a jungle setting, I wouldn't see anything wrong with artwork showing men AND women dressed in loincloths. The fashion fits the context.

The cover for Ragnarok struck me as ridiculous. Um, excuse me, anybody heard of frostbite? Bueller? Bueller? To see a woman in a winter setting not dressed for survival is unrealistic as hell. Since AP has a reputation for producing historical material, it makes their choice of cover for Black Flags very peculiar. There were only a handful of women pirates and only one didn't try to pass herself off as a man.

Cheesecake covers need to go.

 

[Larry Fitz]

As a writer of D20 products I'm aghast at this. First I know something of the publishing end of things and it is not at all cost prohibitive to send review copies to established reviewers. We at Living Imagination were thrilled when Eric Noah put us on his website. I can understand someone's ego getting in the way of taking comments that refer a potential customer to wait till it's on the discount rack with aplomb, but frankly the response to criticism's like that should be posting to forums like this one. Considering the cost of print advertising, websites like this one are the best way to get your product known. If I have a beef with a specific review I'll contest it (I think that's only happened with one review, and to be fair the reviewer even caveated that he did not like one aspect of the product as a general rule, not just restricting it to the product at hand). I find the reviews here and on Steve Creech's d20zines to be fair and unbiased. Steve even informs his audience when he receives a product for free, at least he did with Twin Crowns and Broadsides! , and I'm sure he will with Streets of Silver as well. If a publisher thinks they are being unfairly treated by a reviewer that's one thing, if however they want to complain because a reviewer is treating them fairly, and what they really want is for a reviewer to lie about their product... well, reviewers like that find that people stop paying attention after spending a few too many dollars on products that don't live up to their reviews.

Larry Fitzgerald
Author
Living Imagination

"Yes, I made up the word caveated, and there were several run on sentences in there, but used the word aplomb correctly so overall I give this posting a 3.5."

 

[Crothian]

Out of curiosity, for those of you who feel the apology from Avalanche wasn't enough to fix this situation, what do you feel they should do to correct it?

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I'm not sure they CAN correct it. Even if it wasn't meant for ENWorld, they put out there that they expect a certain level of reviews as a reward for free books.

The fact that a lot of companies do this is irrelevent.

Other companies are bright enough to keep it quiet.

Besides, I tend to think it was just the final nail in their coffin around here. The "Our content is completely unable to stand out from the pack but please enjoy our misogyny" attitude seems to rub people here the wrong way.

Go figure.

 

[Dragongirl]

Out of curiosity, for those of you who feel the apology from Avalanche wasn't enough to fix this situation, what do you feel they should do to correct it?

1) Several years of being good little boys, with no more gaffs.
2) Stop putting nearly naked women on their covers.

 

[Crothian]

1) Several years of being good little boys, with no more gaffs.
2) Stop putting nearly naked women on their covers.

Well, the second one speaks for itself, though I was referring more towards this particuliar situation. One the positive side they havea HC Celtic book coming out with nothing objectional on the cover. Unless the cover I saw was not actually the final one.