How I Review Games

In something of a departure from standard content, I thought I’d discuss something a bit more meta: how I review games! There have been a few posts recently on other blogs discussing topics around reviewing, the ethics of it, what makes a good review. Definitely check out Meeple Like Us and The Thoughtful Gamer’s posts. So I wanted to comment on those subjects. In the end that turned into this post, an overview of the process I go through to get a review on the site. Not as philosophical as those other posts I mentioned, but a starting point, perhaps, for exploring that later.

Let me know if you find this interesting, or if you have any questions. I might enjoy writing more about this topic if you enjoy reading about it!

Step 1 – Choosing a Game

When it comes to finding a new game to cover I am rarely short on options. There’s 1000 games a year after all! But not only are a lot of them rubbish, no one cares to read about them. That is the biggest issue facing any reviewer (as sad as it sounds): views.

Views (or downloads for podcasters) are, in a cynical way, the currency a reviewer trades in. Get enough regular eyes on your website or youtube channel, and you earn access to those coveted review copies. But from a personal perspective those viewer metrics are the one source of feedback on the work you’re doing. They can end up being a measure of your worthiness as a reviewer. I know that’s a little dangerous for your mental health, but certainly on written blogs, comments and engagement are rare, the only idea of whether I’m doing a good job is seeing my viewing figures grow (or not).

So I will tend to lean towards new releases. I’ll go out of my way to cover games high on the hotness quickly, if possible, because that is how the current reward cycle is set up. For example, I was able to get an early copy of Nemesis whose review garnered probably 10 times as many views as most reviews I write. But that game was the exception for me. If you want to be the next big figure in reviewing, you need to be getting pre-release copies from publishers. And generally the only way to get those is to be a big name reviewing… oh that’s an unfortunate loop! I’m not really in it and that’s ok, I don’t think my lifestyle really allows for that kind of process.

Instead, I’m extremely lucky to be working with the main distributors in the UK, in particular Asmodee UK (previously Esdevium). From them I can request games from the latest releases that week and I’ll typically have a few on the go at once. Unfortunately it’s only the very latest releases so when we get to the quiet period for releases, like now, I can’t easily go back to, say, the recent Essen influx and get copies of those games. It also becomes a little bit of a game trying to decide whether to wait for something better that might come out next week! But hey, reviewer problems!

If you go back through my reviews, you’ll see that probably 80% of my games come from there. I have relationships with a couple of the European publishers directly (for example, I just released a review of Pulsar 2849 for Czech Games Edition) but they typically only represent a couple of games a year. The other games I buy myself, or play friend’s copies, because they are ones I particularly want to play. Which typically means ones from the last couple of months that I was too slow on, or Kickstarter titles that dropped on to my doorstep (thanks, past Matt!) There are so many games I wish I could cover in depth but there’s never quite enough time.

All in all, it won’t take much time, but I’ll throw in the miscellaneous email sending and other admin tasks too.

0.5 hours per review

Step 2 – Learning and Punching

Ah, Learning and Punching, the name of my high school nerd gang on the mean streets of Lincolnshire… Or something. Anyway. When you review games that means you always have to learn and teach them! And punch out all the bits. No surprise there! I know some people love punching a new game but I find it to be a chore. Mostly because I don’t get much time at home and I usually have more urgent things to do then remove cardboard from other cardboard.

Fortunately I can read rulebooks on trains. I always learn games from the rulebooks, I never use online videos. It’s just the way I’ve learnt to learn everything, no different for games! Since I learn a lot of games, I’m usually pretty quick, for which I’m also very grateful! One careful read through is enough for me to get most of the rules, just a quick refresh needed before a game night and, not surprisingly, referencing the edge case rules during play. Which is much easier to do when you learn the game from the book!

1 hour per review

Step 3 – Playing

When discussing reviewers there always seems to be a flood of self-righteous gamers demanding at least X games before you should write a review, and at all player counts etc etc. As far as I’m concerned, I care less how much a game is played and more whether the reviewer has something interesting to say.

Personally, that is what I aim for: enough plays to feel comfortable that I understand a game. Understand it well enough to be able to say who it’s for, what the designers intention was and how well it achieves those aims. As far as I can at least. If I feel there is some element I don’t understand, I’ll play it again, focussing on whatever it was that was bothering me. When I felt like Imhotep was going to get a negative review I ended up playing it 7 times to test what I felt was a broken strategy.

The more experience I get as a reviewer, the easier reviewing gets. It doesn’t take as long to get a good feel for a game. You learn to recognise the elements that go into a design, the sort of elements of the experience you wish to comment on and look out for.

Normally, a game will only need 3-4 plays. Partly this is down to what I focus on in my review. Or rather, that I will try to focus on particular elements of the experience and only lightly touch on other elements. I don’t go in depth at every player count for every game because I’m not interested in exploring the subtle differences between how a game plays at 2 player or 4 players, and it’s simply not practical for me to do that exploration given the groups I have available to play with. (All my 2 player time is spent with Arkham Horror anyway!) Likewise I tend not to comment on balance, I’m never going to be able to play it enough to say with any authority, and frankly, I doubt other reviewers can too.

Does this make me a bad reviewer? Should I be playing every game 10 times and at every player count? I’m sure some keyboard warriors might say so, but I would invite you to read the articles I’ve written and decide for yourself whether my opinions are all flawed, or whether (as I hope is the case) my arguments for why I like or didn’t like a game stand for themselves.

5-10 hours per review (obviously much quicker for fillers and quite a bit longer for Gloomhaven!)

Step 3: Writing

I have quite a long commute, but it’s by train and by bus so I get plenty of dedicated writing time. About 10-15 hours of it a week. Which is usually enough time for 2 to 3 articles. I’ve written so many reviews now that they don’t take too great an effort. I know how I write, I have a groove. The hardest thing is having the energy around a full day at work!

I aim, firstly, to be informative, but not in the tedious “here are all the rules, here are all the components” overview style of reviews that seem to exist purely to take up space on the Internet. I really dislike those kinds of reviews… I’m interested in analysing why a game feels the way it does, what makes it interesting to play, where do I think it went wrong. And while that requires some explanation of rules, I really try to cover the bare minimum because, as far as I’m concerned, that’s the least interesting part to read (or watch).

I also try to be funny sometimes! I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether I ever succeed…

4-8 hours per review

Step 4: Pictures, Editing & Scheduling

Writing is often only half the battle. I want pictures to give you something nice to look at. I want to edit it so that when you read an article it’s not complete nonsense. Then I need to get it all formatted and uploaded to the blog so you get to read it at all! This process is fairly labour intensive, although not particularly difficult.

Pictures I try to take during game nights but I don’t often have my camera with me now and I often want specific shots of specific components, and I won’t know which until the review is written. So I set up the game, with my filming lights if I have the time as this makes for better pictures. Then they all need resizing (I have a script for this) and I’m discovering the power of the auto white balance correction tool in GIMP (open source photoshop I use for image editing). I also make a cover image which is a custom job and usually takes half an hour by itself.

The post needs editing, although I’m usually pretty good at doing this as I go along and I have a style and structure that is by and large instinct at this point, which means it’s usually only tweaking phrases, jokes and spelling. Finally, everything gets put together into WordPress and scheduled for release. Phew!

2-4 hours per review

Step 5: Advertising/Sharing

The self-publicity step… *sigh*. A step I wish I was a bit better at. Generally this means I post a link on Twitter a couple of times and add a link to the BGG page (which I’m pretty sure no one ever clicks, but that does help with the old SEO). I do have an Instagram account but my use of that is not very consistent; my phone camera has never been sufficiently good and I haven’t made time to organise a better system. I occasionally post to Facebook groups but sparingly, as I know people hate spammers, especially when I’m not as active as I should be in these groups. Ultimately I know this is an area I could be much better at, but I don’t feel like a natural at it, so it’s where the corners get cut!

0.5 hours per review

Step 6: Getting Rid of Games

Oh! I’m sure you weren’t expecting this section! All those review copies have got to go somewhere, and I have a very small flat. The best games, the ones that end up on my end of year Top 10s say, they get a spot on my shelves (there’s got to be some perks, right!) but the others need to move on. Unless there’s going to be expansions or other future content that justifies them hanging around a bit longer.

I don’t sell review copies. This isn’t something I feel is wrong necessarily, but it’s something I chose to avoid doing as it felt a bit too mercenary to me and I wanted to minimise any potential calls of bias. So I tend to either run giveaways with old review copies as prizes (pretty rarely though, they are so much effort to do!) or, much more commonly, I donate them to charitable causes, as and when I come across them. As an example, the immensely entertaining charity auction at the UK Games Expo is run by an old friend of mine so I will drop off a suitcase full of games for that.

0-1 hour per review

Totalling up!

Total time: 13 – 25 hours

So that’s the rough total effort that goes into every review on this site. Not insubstantial, hey? If nothing else I always feel like this time is the best argument I have against the influence of review copies (along with my negative reviews!) Of course, that’s a much bigger topic, and if I can think of a way to approach it without regurgitating the excellent work others have done already, I may explore it in more detail.

Drop me a comment below if you have any questions about reviewing games, my opinions and my process. If there’s enough interest in this I may do some further posts on this topic, especially if you come up with some good questions! Can’t wait to read your thoughts.