Community Hark! All Non-Professional Review Writers!

[Chudah]

This idea sprouted out of the EGS thread, and I thought it was a good enough topic to continue discussing elsewhere. How do you feel about free review keys, and do you believe that getting a game for free influences your overall opinion on said review?

I used to get lots of review keys for casual games a few years ago, and I noticed that even for the games I didn't care so much for, I was tempted to review them more favorably than not just because somewhere in the back of my head I felt that it was owed to them in payment for the free game. Once I realized that was something I was continually fighting against, I stopped taking the keys.

I do get review keys for my two Steam curation lists, and the ability to refuse or accept them has helped me stay more impartial towards a game. I dunno. It almost feels like just having Valve in between me and the dev makes it easier for me to be more objective about the games. If someone wants to send a key, fine. If they don't, it's no sweat off my back. I'll just buy the game myself and review it if I feel the need.

What are your thoughts? Where do you post reviews? Steam? Your own blog? Elsewhere? Also, feel free to post a link to your reviews here, if you'd like.

 

[gabbo]

It's not like most major review sites pay for their keys either, and people have no trouble believing in them. I like that whether a game was given for free on steam reviews, but I don't actively care unless the review is incredibly biased one direction or another and doesn't critique or dig into the game itself, because then it's likely harmful to the experience and purpose of a review.

As much as my comments in the metathread about Gears4 and gamepass may speak otherwise, getting games for free doesn't change my outlook on what I'll score a game, it'd get the exact same whether I paid or not because it's about the game and the experience playing it not the process of acquiring it.
Mind you, I only only rarely review games anyway. Usually only on steam if I really enjoyed it and think it could use a bump in exposure or it's part of a sale metagame - and I don't half ass those just for the achievement.

 

[Ruvon]

Thanks Chudah for the thread !

As I was saying in the wrong thread, I get review keys for my own blog here and for Dystopeek where I write with friends (all in french, obviously).

Will come back to talk more about it later

 

[Alextended]

Here's my only somewhat professionally published review. It seems pretty embarrassingly bad now that I'm reading it again, haha

Review: King’s Bounty The Legend | GameCyte

Where do I begin? You've probably heard of King's Bounty The Legend, either as the sequel of a title long lost in the sands of time, or as a new game

web.archive.org

I only wrote it because I loved and was totally addicted to that game as the last paragraph may imply.

I never really did reviews, mostly just wrote about mods, news and interviews and things, on my own sites, all defunct now, and I haven't tried in ages.

Random snapshot of my first site. Dat Lik-Sang banner ad!

Mod HQ - Your favorite Half-Life 2 modification news, articles & interviews source

web.archive.org

Last snapshot before the design overhaul...

Mod HQ - Your favorite Half-Life 2 modification news, articles & interviews source

web.archive.org

...which is completely broken on the web archive, it was much more complex:

Steam Lab - Your Steam Gaming Source

web.archive.org

 

[Chudah]

It's not like most major review sites pay for their keys either, and people have no trouble believing in them. I like that whether a game was given for free on steam reviews, but I don't actively care unless the review is incredibly biased one direction or another and doesn't critique or dig into the game itself, because then it's likely harmful to the experience and purpose of a review.

As much as my comments in the metathread about Gears4 and gamepass may speak otherwise, getting games for free doesn't change my outlook on what I'll score a game, it'd get the exact same whether I paid or not because it's about the game and the experience playing it not the process of acquiring it.
Mind you, I only only rarely review games anyway. Usually only on steam if I really enjoyed it and think it could use a bump in exposure or it's part of a sale metagame - and I don't half ass those just for the achievement.

I have to say, I generally don't feel that way anymore. I'm currently prepping for a review for that PS4 VN that's being ported to PC, Akash, and I'll likely tear that game a new one despite receiving it for free through my curation. Do I worry that I may never get another review key from that developer again? Sure...but I don't care, because I don't need the free games. I also think my willingness (and ability) to buy the games I want now instead of needing them to be given to me makes a difference.

I cannot deny that when money was tighter, the idea of being cut off from free review games (especially ones I tended to enjoy) was a worry for me. And that often meant fighting the temptation to soften my stance on a game just so I wouldn't upset the publisher who was sending me keys to all of their newly-released games.

 

[gabbo]

I have to say, I generally don't feel that way anymore. I'm currently prepping for a review for that PS4 VN that's being ported to PC, Akash, and I'll likely tear that game a new one despite receiving it for free through my curation. Do I worry that I may never get another review key from that developer again? Sure...but I don't care, because I don't need the free games. I also think my willingness (and ability) to buy the games I want now instead of needing them to be given to me makes a difference.

I cannot deny that when money was tighter, the idea of being cut off from free review games (especially ones I tended to enjoy) was a worry for me. And that often meant fighting the temptation to soften my stance on a game just so I wouldn't upset the publisher who was sending me keys to all of their newly-released games.

What part of my comment don't you feel the same about [anymore]? As I said, I'm no reviewer, I only do reviews for games I own - whether I got them for free or not - on steam in the user reviews section from time to time. And I don't let how I acquired the game impact how I'd review it. I'm not sure if my tired mind was able to get that across well last night

 

[Chudah]

What part of my comment don't you feel the same about [anymore]?

The part about how I acquired a game in the past having an affect on my review scores. As much as I'd like to say I have never been swayed favorably by free games, that's simply not true, and that's mostly because I couldn't afford to buy everything I wanted at the time. But now that I have more spending money, being cut off from a dev/publisher's supply train isn't an issue for me, because if I really wanted, I'd just buy their next game to review anyway.

Having said that, I do believe fledgling reviewers who are working on a budget may be swayed to review favorably so they can continue receiving free games that they might not be able to afford otherwise. I, myself, have experienced that temptation, and I only ever write Steam reviews. Someone who is trying to break into the industry is likely to be tempted even more.

As for why I review games? Because I enjoy it and have been told that I'm somewhat good at it. I like to write, but I'm not creative enough to write my own stories despite coming from a family of writers. So, I funnel what little creativity I have into my reviews. I would probably still write reviews even if nobody ever read them, as the process of writing often helps me explore and analyze my thoughts and feelings on the games I play.

 

[bobnowhere]

I have three curators, one serious one, one joke one that was really only done as an experiment and one "other" one that upsets some people. The third has the most followers by far!

The Serious one: I've received about a dozen games to review, nearly all puzzle games, and it seems as though mine has been specifically targeted by the devs as they have very few other curator reviews. I try to finish them all and I take it quite seriously, trying to find the good and applying genuine criticism. I suppose I've been fortunate that they've all been pretty good so far and it's been quite easy to write reviews. I did receive one junk one and tried to find the good but in the end I decided not to review it negatively as it's not really what that curator is about.

The Joke one: This was more of an experiment in whether anyone cared or really looked at those joke ones, "the cat says meow," "Commander Shepard." etc... Turns out people might follow them but they generate no actual useful traffic. But for some reason it got on one particular publishers list and they kept sending me dozens of games over and over. So I did the standard review and moved on. I'm now swimming in match 3 and low quality hidden object games.

I did start this one as a bit of a writing exercise, to write in the style of a particular game character and I quite like some of the reviews, but got bored of it and went full joke. At some point I might scrub it and go back to semi-proper reviews.

The Other One: Well... i don't expect to receive any games for review. Probably more likely to get a knock on the door from the lawyers of the owner of another store!

Also steam probably needs to look at the curation system, there are a hell of a lot of people with bot farms farming free games and nothing else. Any curator that is in the range of about 6-8k followers is probably a scam and possibly run my the same small number of people. I've been inside a few of these and my proper one with 134 followers generates more traffic for games than these ones.