How much could a free game cost you?
The title of this post is a little baity, because I’m not talking about a monetary cost. I’m talking about cost in terms of principles and faith from your followers.
If you work hard at what you do in board game media, sometimes publishers will offer to send you games. It’s pretty cool. You get free games and then get to talk about them. Sometimes, however, there’s a price tag attached, even if it’s not obvious.
The trigger for me writing this is an email chain I’m a part of, which never should have been an email chain, offering a free game. The free game offer unfortunately waved more red flags than the Boys’ Big Book of Bullfighting to me, but what was more shocking was just how many people either didn’t notice the red flags, or worse still, didn’t care.
Setting the scene
The email came from someone at Mythic Games. Some of you might already have alarm bells ringing, while more of you probably have no idea why this is a problem. Mythic drummed up a lot of ill feeling and discontent over the last few years with the way they’ve handled their crowdfunding campaigns. Delayed deliveries, backers being told they won’t get their games unless they throw even more cash at the publisher, and an overall Ponzi scheme feeling of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
I’m not going to do a big summary of what’s happened now. There’s plenty already out there to read. You could start somewhere like the 38,000+ comments on their Darkest Dungeon campaign.
Here’s the body of text from that email, sans the contact details, with my own red flag highlighting in bold:
Hello,
I'm contacting you because we've corresponded in the past, and I wanted to let you know that 6 Siege: The Board Game, Ubisoft's adaptation of the Rainbow Six Siege video game, is nearing the end of delivery to backers, which is a relief and a source of pride for us despite the context that we know is quite hostile to us.
You know that context and I'm not going to go into it again. I'm sure you're aware of the problems we've had and the additional contributions we've had to ask for in order to deliver the game. However, we're pleased to see that the backers who have received their game are very happy with it, and I invite you to take a look at the recent reviews left on BGG, for example (I'm talking about recent reviews from those who have actually tried the game, not those left by customers who were unhappy with our contribution request and posted a protest note without having tried the game, which we can understand).
I wanted to know if you would be interested in receiving a copy of this game, knowing that the only thing we would ask in return would be that you talk about the game itself, the components and the gameplay, and that you mention (as this might be of interest to your community) that the game is available for sale in limited quantities for immediate delivery (as it's in stock at our various hubs).
You're free to say whatever you want about us (the publisher), we know our image has been damaged and we're not trying to restore it through you. We're just proud of this game and we think it's important to pay tribute to the game designers, game developers, artists and graphic designers who are not responsible for the problems we've experienced. Perhaps it's possible to approach your presentation from this angle.
We would understand if you prefer to decline our proposal, so as not to be associated with a project, and especially a publisher, that has provoked strong reactions after announcing requests for additional contributions. But if you're interested in the game itself, and willing to talk about it, we'd be happy to send it to you.
Before we even get into the content of that email, I need to point out that the hundred or so creators it was sent to were CC’d in. That’s right, I have the email addresses of all of those people, and they now have mine too. This is incredibly negligent to start with, not to mention almost certainly breaching GDPR.
Do people honestly still not know how to use BCC?
Aaaaanyway…
So I find myself in this farcical situation where I can’t believe the audacity of the publisher. To offer to send me and a hundred others a free copy of a game which they not only repeatedly delayed, but also demanded more money from backers on top of their original pledges to receive their copy of the game. It’s pretty disgusting.
Nothing happens for a few days, but then a well-known creator from a certain Youtube channel replies - USING REPLY-ALL - to everyone on the email saying that they’d love to have a copy.
Shortly after, another much more well-known creator replies, again to everyone, making it clear how low they found the publisher’s actions, and how anyone taking them up on their offer would lose respect in their eyes.
Respondent number one then replied again explaining how they had no idea about the problems, how the backers have to get their games first, and a few things like this. And this is where I loop all the way back around to the start of this post, because to me this reply is both disingenuous and morally wrong.
Your responsibility as a reviewer
Even if you had no idea what the publisher had done in this example, there are things in the email which should pique your interest. I highlighted plenty of those things in the quote above, but when someone says
“You know that context and I'm not going to go into it again. I'm sure you're aware of the problems we've had and the additional contributions we've had to ask for in order to deliver the game”
and
“We would understand if you prefer to decline our proposal, so as not to be associated with a project, and especially a publisher, that has provoked strong reactions…”
then it’s time to spend 30 seconds on Google to get an idea of what they might be talking about. Staggeringly, to me at least, it goes even further than this.
I’ve been in threads in board game media groups about this particular situation where board game media people are saying “I don’t need to talk about the company, I only care about the games”. This sentiment is no more than burying your head in the sand to ensure you get free games, and it’s pretty sucky.
Make no mistake here, this email has nothing to do with rewarding the artists, designers, and anyone involved in the game. This has come from the people who manufactured the game and now have stock in their shop - the same stock which they demanded more money from backers for - which they want to sell. They want to make money. They’re a business. It’s about getting the game seen and talked about, to give it legitimacy, and by extension, Mythic Games themselves. It’s to bump the game’s average score up on BGG. It’s all about self-preservation, and it stinks.
This section is titled ‘Your responsibility as a reviewer’ because as much as we’re not professionals, as much as we want to talk about games and veer away from politics, if we want people to watch, read, and listen to what we make, we owe it to them to look beneath the surface. I’m not saying we spend hours googling the life history of everyone involved in a game, but when that game is laid in front of you wrapped in a bright red flag - which is precisely what that email is - just think for a second. Maybe you’ll run a mile, or maybe you just don’t care and are all about getting a free game. If that’s you, take some time to think about what I’ve written here. Just remember that the tabletop world is small and people have long memories. You reap what you sow.