How to Interact with Board game Media
I’ve been writing and talking about games in public for over a decade. Way over. What began as an idea for a publisher, became an avenue for writing, from which a podcast emerged and now I find myself here. I’ve interacted with single person operations right up to large publishers, and I’ve been treated every way from incredibly well, to absolutely awful.
Recently I gave a talk at Ancient Robot Workshop in Edinburgh on how board game media, like me, want to be treated by publishers. I said I would turn that into an article that could be referenced. So here we go.
No such thing as content
I hate the term ‘content creator’. It just feels like we are saying ‘produce slop’. I’m not a content creator, I’m a writer and a podcaster. I make a form of art as do those who produce videos, actual plays, tik toks etc. Each part of board game media has its own challenges, skills, and output. Let’s start by respecting that by using more words than ‘content’.
So what do the different sections of the media ecosystem produce:
- Writing : blogs, magazines
- Video : the current trend leans towards short form video like tik tok, instagram reels, and Youtube shorts. The longer form video content is pretty much exclusive Youtube.
- Podcasts : as someone who has made three of these things I can testify to it always having been an odd format. Still loads of podcasts out there, but it is no longer the ‘default’ for new folk to the scene.
What do you want?
Before we wade into the long grass of etiquette, let’s establish what you want. To my mind there are 3 branches of boardgame media and this probably goes for other hobby focused media. Those 3 branches are Advertising, Educational, and Criticism.
Advertising is the branch where you pay and they produce. There is no criticism here, just a straightforward way to get information about your game out there. You pay, you get an advert. Outlets like Tantrum House are the prime example of this kind of board game media. It does have an offshoot that I will call News.
The News sub-branch is media that puts out newsletters, website updates, video etc. that concentrates on forthcoming games. Some of these may do this for free while others will charge turning it back into advertising (we will come back to this).
Educational output includes people like Rodney Smith of Watch it Played or Paul Grogan of Gaming Rules. This work is likely to be paid for, making it a service and potentially an advert from a legal standpoint.
Criticism includes people like myself at the small end of the wedge and all those big names you will all be familiar with: No Pun Included, Shut Up & Sit Down, Dan Thurot, and Quinn’s Quest.
Now it is possible that an individual or channel might combine several of these branches. However when you contact folk you will likely only be looking for one of these approaches.
Do Your Research
On the internet it is sometimes difficult to know the truth of anything. Big channels might seem like the way to go but maybe you’ll get more traction out of a smaller outfit. Whoever you are considering you must do your research.
Not every channel will review every game so figuring out the best channel for your product is a good place to start. This is ‘gaming the system’ but with so many games out there and hundreds of channels, doing this will give you the best chance of finding your audience. It isn’t cheating, it’s being smart.
That said, we must be careful with what the algorithm tells us. With the big channels I’ve mentioned already, you know the reach and impact. It is a visceral thing, a rock thrown in the cultural landscape whose ripples can be felt. With smaller channels, like myself, it is sometimes harder to determine the truth of the matter. Let’s look at two reviews from my own site.
Salvage Union is an RPG from Leyline Press that I reviewed a couple of years ago. It appears at the top of page one on a google search for “Salvage Union review”. I looked this up in an incognito tab.
The Gang is a pretty well know co-operative game that loads of people love and has definitely featured on bigger channels than mine. I am also on page 1, if a bit further down, of a search for ‘The Gang review’. I have never paid for social media boosting of any of my work.
At the time of writing I have 2400 views on my Salvage Union review, all time. My gang review has 53. Now even that large number, which I am very happy with, is low for most of the big sites. I reveal these stats not to say ‘look at me’ or to garner your pity, but to show that although I am telling you to do your research, the algorithm isn’t everything. Just because a site shows reasonably high in the search results doesn’t tell the whole truth.
Making Contact
Once you’ve done some research and narrowed down your options, and you are ready to reach out. How do you go about making contact?
- Check how they want to be contacted. Most media sites will have a preferred contact method: email, website form, social media etc. If it isn’t clear how to contact I find a polite contact via socials stating who you are and your objective is a good way to make that initial contact.
- Get the name right. I pretty much ignore all emails that don’t include my name in the initial greeting. I also really want people to get my name right. I have two I’s in my name, Iain. This tells me if you have paid the absolute minimum amount of attention to what the site is and who I am. Anyone ignoring this mostly gets ignored.
- Be Clear. Tell me about your game and why I might want to cover it. Bonus points if you relate it to games I have previously covered. Again this tells me if you have engaged with the site beyond the contact form.
- Be Specific. Don’t be coy. Are you looking for an advert, a review, or a playthrough?
- Give a timeline. When would you like the work done by? This is more important with advertising requests and promotional work. When it comes to reviews giving effective embargo dates to an individual can turn it into an advert in some countries. We will come back to this. If you are contacting folk a week out from, or as I have seen before during, your Kickstarter you are too late. If you are that disorganised maybe you should consider delaying your launch.
Pay Up
This is the part of this advice where things get a little woolier from me. I have never received payment beyond review copies, I just know what ethics requires of us. Despite that caveat, my advice here remains the same: Do Your Research! You are paying for a service so it can be a good idea to reach out to fellow creators who may have used the channels you are looking at.
I will say one thing about paying that is going to be controversial to some and seems to be a debate that rears its ugly head every 6 months or so on social media.
There is no such thing as a paid review
If the media outlet you are contacting involves an exchange of money directly between you and the people producing the media, that’s an advert. Morally. Ethically. In the case of some countries, legally.
There is some murkiness to the word ‘review’ in some sections of the board game media. It is used with reckless abandon to cover a multitude of media from unboxings to actual criticism. A review is by its very definition a critical appraisal of a piece of work. Again, legally speaking in many countries if you are paid directly by the publisher, your work is an advert by definition. Stop muddying the waters media creators, and just be honest about what you are doing.
Results
What can you expect to get from the media?
If you pay for an advert then you get what you paid for, hopefully. The outcome is guaranteed to an extent. That’s good for you and will get the word out to an audience for your game. The flip side is that the channel doesn’t really care about your game. Well they might, but in the end this is a job. No shade to those channels that do this and also end up loving some of those games.
If you seek out genuine criticism, then the outcome is much less certain. Let’s take a moment for an uncomfortable truth you are going to have to live with as a game designer/publisher.
Not everyone is going to like your game
Not everyone should like your game
Making games is art. Art brings people together but it also divides opinion. You have to be prepared for folk to not like your game. Hopefully they will be kind in their criticism, and a good critic will rarely express anger.
However, if you can get a critic on board with your game, they will genuinely love it. They will advocate for it and in this industry of thousands of games every year, that can be an extremely powerful tool, more so than paid advertising and campaigns. A critic that loves your game will be an advocate long after an advert has run its course. You roll the dice, and make your choices.
Responding
At some point if your game gets any traction, or you send it directly to them, it will end up on the table of someone like me, a critic. Some critics will not like your game. How do you respond to that?
You should never criticise the critic. Bar the occasions when one of us gets something fundamentally mechanically wrong about your game. Doing so only makes you look petty. I’ve seen it. Don’t do it.
Instead, share all work, even the reviews that aren’t 100% glowing. Remember that Salvage Union review? I didn’t really like Salvage Union. The publisher Leyline Press shared the work anyway. I am sure they have gotten some sales off the back of that. I’ll also be willing to check out their games in future. That sort of attitude leaves an impression.
I am not alone in the critical world, even in the small circle I operate in, of giving pretty positive reviews to games only to be ignored by the publisher. This has happened even when I’ve been given a review copy by the publisher in question, and once when I turned a review around in only a couple of weeks. It is an attitude I don’t understand. You’ve just cost yourself money, for no reason. It is rubbish behaviour. Don’t do it.
Remember This
I hope some of this advice is useful to you as you navigate the tricky road of marketing your game. Let’s sum up the salient points.
- Know what you want
- Advertising (and don’t forget about the news sub-category here)
- Educational
- Criticism
- Contact the correct people: Do you research as best as possible and give your game the best chance of finding its audience.
- Pay for adverts, not reviews. You’ll get what you pay for, getting a critic on board is better long term.
- Share all work. Seriously. Why wouldn’t you?
- Never criticise the critic
The boardgame community is huge and growing very day. The industry gets bigger every year with more and more titles coming out. Getting your game seen by folk is hard. We all know it. Critics like myself sympathise with your issues. That doesn’t mean we deserve to be treated with anything other than respect. Do that, and you will win our admiration, if not our ringing endorsement. We are all just people trying to talk passionately about the games we love. Let’s all be kind to each other.
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