relic456 Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 8 minutes ago, RuneBrush said: I'll be honest and say this is pretty standard practice. In my last job I worked for a company that produced monthly Equine magazines, they'd frequently be sent demo products and the bosses would go out to lunches (as we termed it "hob-nobbing"). The reviews put into the magazine were still completely unbiased, but worded in such a way that a poor product wasn't ripped to shreds and kept factual. However that's me going off at a complete tangent Definitely depends on your industry and region. I would get fired from my job (Finance) for receiving gifts or being treated to lunches by clients. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stato Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 17 minutes ago, HollowHills said: I like GW products and I think there are some great, talented people working for them. However, I don't place trust or support in any company. Ultimately as a publicly traded company they are there to increase profit for shareholders and they will do so within the bounds of what is legally permissible and unlikely to damage their public relations. If we, as customers, spot something dubious or consider that the behavior of the company has a potential detriment to us as consumer's then we should debate that and possibly use our voices to raise those concerns. You shouldnt put support freely into a company... unless you are happy to do so knowing they owe you nothing back and you are doing so for your own/others enjoyment. If you spot/know something dubious its absolutely right to discuss it, but for discussion not slander. Note that opinion isnt fact though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPjr Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 12 minutes ago, HollowHills said: You can point to the fact this does happen, which in some cases and areas I'm sure is true, but that doesn't mean that we should condone it. Thing is though it basically happens ALL THE TIME. It's just the way it is, 99% of writers in these fields whether it's music, comics, video games, war-games or whatever get paid the absolute square root of ****** all. Most do it for free and cram it in during their lunch hours, spare evenings or whenever they can, to compensate that you get various perks to make it less ******. Not so much fancy lunches or whatever anymore as sadly the budgets in my industry got reamed by the collapse in music sales around the turn of the millennium but still you get free copies of albums (wooo! free MP3s, my cup doth runneth over), tickets to gigs and the like. Believe me, that novelty wears off pretty quickly, BUT if you are doing this for free (or micro-pennies which YT ad revenue generally equals) then the chances are it's because you're a super passionate fan and that's likely to influence any 'review' more than pressure from the company. If you don't want the media landscape to resemble a load of unpaid fans doing ****** 'unboxing' reviews the easy solution is pay for your media, unfortunately just as people decided they wanted their music for free, they have a similar approach to the value of criticism. And as ever in this life you get what you pay for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kramer Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 1 hour ago, Overread said: A review channel or site only works if they get traffic and they'll only get traffic if what they post resonates with a portion of the market large enough to generate income from the articles (if they monetize, not everyone monetizes). As a result a professional reviewer has pressure on them to produce results that are accurate to a segment of the market rather than to the manufacturer. The manufacturer gives them early access and product information, but its useless if the income comes from the monetizing of the site which requires fans. So honestly its more likely that you'd find a reviewer more influenced by their fanbase than anything else. There are, of course, exceptions;but GW is nowhere near the "big fish" to need to pay out huge sums of money to reviewers - heck they don't even need to they've already got their own highstreet shops and staff. True but incomplete. Yes they need to respect and provide value to their fan base. But a reviewer is often more depended on the manufacturer when they are smaller or the topic is more niche. Because that product is how they provide value. Some manufacturers do pay out fast sums and most likely not GW. But they can keep channels out of the loop. For example guerilla miniatures games got 17k and 11k views for the Ork Codec preview and the accompanying bat rep. The first 40k bat rep after that... 5,4K. So you can see how important those videos are to grow his fanbase. Now will GW take that away if he is critical. I don’t thinks so. But the dependency is there. Again also to his fanbase but you have to stand strong with other revenues to be able to bite the hand that feeds you. Even if you don’t know if they’ll see it like that. Just as a reference in the gaming industry Nintendo is really hard with and on streamers playing their games. They do take downs and do select deals. In Holland we have the gaming website GameKings who have confirmed on multiple occasions that Square also requires good reviews to get the press kits. Hence they never review final fantasy’s etc. Again I’ll argue that it’s good to think about but if your truly serious about it, it’s a lot more widespread then just influencers. That’s just the fun trending topic for marketeers at this time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPjr Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 3 minutes ago, Kramer said: For example guerilla miniatures games got 17k and 11k views for the Ork Codec preview and the accompanying bat rep. The first 40k bat rep after that... 5,4K just to put these numbers into perspective, the YouTube revenue the channel made from those 3 videos combined would probably be about £20. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kramer Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 2 minutes ago, JPjr said: just to put these numbers into perspective, the YouTube revenue the channel made from those 3 videos combined would probably be about £20. Oh true, 100k views is roughly €100. But my point is not about the money. It’s that GW still has a big influence. 17k views for a bat rep or 5k is big big difference if your trying to grow your fan base. And that dependence might influence their review of a product. Might being a keyword. And you can never truly judge that as a review is subjective. I’m sure there are people who liked the emoji movie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPjr Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 2 minutes ago, Kramer said: And that dependence might influence their review of a product. true, though of course the other thing to keep in mind is that almost nothing gets more shares and attention than a negative review, and I mean a real stinker. the internet is after all an awful place that thrives on rancour, resentment, bitterness and spite. at the end of the day, as in all things, caveat emptor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kramer Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 2 minutes ago, JPjr said: true, though of course the other thing to keep in mind is that almost nothing gets more shares and attention than a negative review, and I mean a real stinker. the internet is after all an awful place that thrives on rancour, resentment, bitterness and spite. at the end of the day, as in all things, caveat emptor. Haha oh absolutely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HollowHills Posted November 7, 2018 Author Share Posted November 7, 2018 5 minutes ago, JPjr said: And as ever in this life you get what you pay for. I agree, but there are various models of financial reward / benefit that are more transparent and don't result in a conflict of interests. 1) Advertising revenues. The YouTube business model, for most of it's life, has been that you watch adverts before videos, during long videos and on side bars. This generates revenue for the company some of which passes to the content creator. This mimics "free to air" TV channels, such as ITV in the UK, that are funded through the traditional ad breaks. The benefit of this is that there is a clear line between what is content and what is promotional material. However, given the prevalence of ad-blocking software this business model has been under threat and is now less effective than it was in the past. An independent website that has close ties, or whose owner has close ties, to a specific company may find their relationship strained if they chose to use their website to advertise a competitor's product. Given the way ad tracking works in the modern world, this is likely. I.e. you may get Fantasy Flight Games advertised to you on some Warhammer fan websites out there. 2) Membership, Subscription, Donations or paid for content. Several war game content creators already employ this. Miniwargaming have the vault, a paid membership platform that provides exclusive content. Others have Patreon. Guerilla Miniatures run an ad at the end of videos asking for donations. These allow creators to be rewarded for their work, or at least to generate revenue to help off set the costs of what they do. This allows the benefit of running ad free and customers can make a decision as to what the product, the content, is worth. The risk with this is that people, unfortunately, generally will take something for nothing and are unwilling to invest cash into a product they can get for free. Hence piracy. 3) Paid sponsorship that is disclosed. The creator receives a financial benefit for the content they create and they clearly disclose this. In a video they may state this before giving any opinions or have a disclaimer somewhere on screen. In an article they can list it as sponsored content and have this displayed in the text itself. This way the audience are aware that there is a vested interest at play and can factor that in. To my eyes a balance of all three, where possible, is ideal. The goal is not to be free of advertising, paid content etc but to be transparent about your content. I regularly buy White Dwarf, which is the epitome of a vested interest. In some ways I'm actually paying to be advertised to. However, it's pretty clear that the magazine is manufactured by Games Workshop and designed to sell product. Because this is upfront I have no issue with it. They don't pretend to any objectivity, and generally, avoid terms like "review". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overread Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 Trust is the first step on the road to betrayal. In the end any review can be and will have a degree of bias - it might be financial, it might be stupidity, or that they are a fan of what they are reviewing etc... In the end you have to do what everyone else does. Sample a wide variety of sources and make your own mind up who to and who not to follow, if anyone. In the end there are people I know (who have no financial gain) who are great fans of films I'm a fan of, if they recommend something I will likely go see it, if I like it it reinforces the pattern, but there is still every chance that they will like something I won't. Heck I like Starwars VIII. I know many people don't like it, and I an open and honest that I can see its flaws, I still like it. I still like it as a film. I've no financial, social, moral, objective or any gain in that other than its my viewpoint. Review sites are no different save that they aim to produce regular content up to a standard and aim to be at the front edge if not the preview edge of reviews. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kramer Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 7 minutes ago, Overread said: Heck I like Starwars VIII. I know many people don't like it, and I an open and honest that I can see its flaws, I still like it. I still like it as a film. I've no financial, social, moral, objective or any gain in that other than its my viewpoint. Review sites are no different save that they aim to produce regular content up to a standard and aim to be at the front edge if not the preview edge of reviews. You do know after this statement if a gryph hound appears in the next instalment.... you've lost your credibility Edit: Is this a Gryph-Chick....? ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaldoBeardo Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 But who judges "transparency", and even if there was a measure what effect does that have? For every "ZOMG SPEED FREEKZ IS DA MUHFUGGIN BOMB, SQUEEEEE!" review, there will be a "Ugh, more Jeedubz money grabbing when they know us real fans just want Dark Future back, ugh." For every person who froths over the latest AoS release and remortgages their house in preparation, there will be someone proclaiming that Mantic are the true gamer's mini producer, etc. GW simply choose to direct their efforts towards the former, which is frankly only sensible. Both reviewers find a market, but in terms of making money only one stands a chance of doing it as a day job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overread Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 1 minute ago, Kramer said: You do know after this statement if a gryph hound appears in the next instalment.... you've lost your credibility I can neither confirm nor deny any rumours of hints of vague concepts of plans to sneak gryph hounds into SW IX........... That said I've probably got more chance trying to get them into Amazon's LotR production! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sleboda Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 4 hours ago, stato said: This measured and clear explanation of concerns and issues seems to be something a lot of forum posters are incapable of ... Agreed. I recently watched a bunch of Speed Freeks unboxing/review videos. Clearly they got the game early and, I believe, were expected to give viewers some insight. One guy literally opened the box on camera and went through the contents. Here made several comments that were off base due to him not having even glanced at the rules. I'll be surprised if he gets more free stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperHappyTime Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 Not being able to criticize is a problem. GW isn’t perfect. The Soul Wars Box didn’t fit together in a similar fashion to most kits and the product deserves some criticism for being user friendly in a different manner. But if GW are going to penalize those who criticize, that’s propoganda. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sleboda Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 2 hours ago, RuneBrush said: I'll be honest and say this is pretty standard practice. In my last job I worked for a company that produced monthly Equine magazines, they'd frequently be sent demo products and the bosses would go out to lunches (as we termed it "hob-nobbing"). In my last job, I worked in the Marketing department for a healthcare company. We created lots of branded materials. Vendors gave us promo samples and took us to lunch all the time. It was nice, but we still pretty much always went with the one that could deliver what we wanted at the price we wanted. Point is, freebies don't always buy your business (or positive words). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaz Taylor Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 My two pence on this.... I just see it as GW sending stuff out to people who have sites , video blogs or podcasts that are popular to show off the cool stuff that's coming out soon. I don't think there is any sinister motive outside of marketing on these items. I don't see these as a review but more as an overview of the products as very simply if it's something you are interested in, you will probably be buying it anyway but it's nice to see somebody's thoughts on it. So in short, if you chat or write about your hobby in a cool and interesting way that will probably get you some cool stuff from GW to chat or write about. If you do it in a negative way, you won't but probably won't have many people reading or listening to your thoughts and GW won't want to send you something to chat or write about. I don't think there is anything more to it than that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
relic456 Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 11 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said: So in short, if you chat or write about your hobby in a cool and interesting way that will probably get you some cool stuff from GW to chat or write about. If you do it in a negative way, you won't but probably won't have many people reading or listening to your thoughts and GW won't want to send you something to chat or write about. Whoa whoa whoa, pump the brakes. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point, but if content producers want to be respected they need to be critical and unbiased in their reviews, which sometimes means being negative. It sounds like you're saying that if you have something negative to say, nobody wants to hear it? Every company puts out stinkers every once in awhile and they absolutely should be told about it, otherwise how else will things be better in the future? If you're (the royal you) only looking for people who are positive all the time you're surrounding yourself with "yes men" and actively sabotaging your product. Companies that promote that kind of culture can have it blow up in their face too, just look at what happened over at r/Roll20. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemon Knuckles Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 You can't uncritically trust anybody. Trust is developed organically through a feedback loop with experience. Think it, but dont overthink it. Don't be an easy mark, but don't be a cynical old ****** either. The reality that incentives for dishonesty exist is as old as time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overread Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 Negative and critical are not the same things (though some mistake them to be). You can be very critical of something and point out flaws, errors and problems without being negative, insulting or derisory of the product/company*. Similarly the attitude you have with regard to the company and the products it make at large is important. GW is certainly not (nor do I know of any company that does) send products to reviewers who "HATE" on GW/its products. *eg The sword arm is a bit out of scale with the rest of the model but the overall sculpting detail is fantastic and the pose is really epic, its a shame about the tiny scale issue, but otherwise its a great model and honestly normal playing distances you won't even see the issue. VS GODS its like GW can't even get basic sculpting right. Their staff are clearly incompetent and they are fools for even allowing this through quality control into production. *insert name of other company* do far better and from now on I'll never buy own brand GW models again so long as I live One of them is critical and yet overall positive without telling any lies. The other also doesn't tell lies, but takes a very negative and insulting view and isn't even being critical. Both are somewhat opinionated (I've not the energy to try and do this without that so its just a crude example) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaz Taylor Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 14 minutes ago, relic456 said: Whoa whoa whoa, pump the brakes. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point, but if content producers want to be respected they need to be critical and unbiased in their reviews, which sometimes means being negative. It sounds like you're saying that if you have something negative to say, nobody wants to hear it? Every company puts out stinkers every once in awhile and they absolutely should be told about it, otherwise how else will things be better in the future? If you're (the royal you) only looking for people who are positive all the time you're surrounding yourself with "yes men" and actively sabotaging your product. Companies that promote that kind of culture can have it blow up in their face too, just look at what happened over at r/Roll20. As @Overread has mentioned, there’s being critical and there’s being negative. If somebody acts in a negative way, you don’t want to be around that person. So would you want to give your spare time reading or listening to a overview of a product from GW or would you rather spend it listening or reading about somebody being interesting and cool. You can still be interesting and cool and say something critical about a product. ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overread Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 Also lets not forget GW has stores on many highstreets - certainly in the UK. So you can walk into most stores and see the models and the codex/rules face to face in the flesh. You can chat with store staff and you can also see things for yourself. Furthermore GW previews are very close to launch, so any reviewer who goes out of their way to ignore massive issues is going to get noticed very quick because chances are a week or less later that product will be in peoples hands and info will be out on forums and facebook and in clubs very quick. So there's actually no real reason for reviewers now GW to actually want to "hide stuff" because whilst it might boost sales very very very short term on one single product; it could seriously harm sales in the long run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
relic456 Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 25 minutes ago, Overread said: Negative and critical are not the same things (though some mistake them to be). Certainly not, though to be critical you do sometime have to be negative. Unfortunately I find people often mistake being critical as being overly negative because of their own emotions/baggage/biases. 9 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said: So would you want to give your spare time reading or listening to a overview of a product from GW or would you rather spend it listening or reading about somebody being interesting and cool. You can still be interesting and cool and say something critical about a product. ? That's a bit of a loaded question. If somebody who is "interesting and cool" can never see a fault in a GW product, then they're just as bad as the raving hater in @Overread's example. Personally, being "interesting and cool" is much less important than being properly critical. In an ideal world, I'd be able to spend my spare time reading multiple perspectives, including the most critical, so that I could make an informed decision. Sometimes in some circles it feels like walking on egg shells if you want to be critical of GW. 8 minutes ago, Overread said: Furthermore GW previews are very close to launch, so any reviewer who goes out of their way to ignore massive issues is going to get noticed very quick because chances are a week or less later that product will be in peoples hands and info will be out on forums and facebook and in clubs very quick. I'll have to disagree with you here, the hobby is so small and the amount of reviewers even smaller that I think they get away with not being critical quite often. I don't recall seeing many reviewers talking about the Soul Wars model gap issues for example. Though I'd love to be wrong on that, if someone did bring it up please send their link my way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenshin620 Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 If Im honest....am I the only thinking this topic seems like making mountains out of mole hills? Granted I dont really watch youtube or twitch streams about warhammer but it seems super niche of an already niche hobby. I mean I don't think "Games Workshop paid review scandal revealed!" is gonna show up any time soon on the front page of youtube as oppose to "Top 10 Worst cartoons of 2018!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaz Taylor Posted November 7, 2018 Share Posted November 7, 2018 3 minutes ago, relic456 said: That's a bit of a loaded question. If somebody who is "interesting and cool" can never see a fault in a GW product, then they're just as bad as the raving hater in @Overread's example. Personally, being "interesting and cool" is much less important than being properly critical. In an ideal world, I'd be able to spend my spare time reading multiple perspectives, including the most critical, so that I could make an informed decision. Sometimes in some circles it feels like walking on egg shells if you want to be critical of GW. It’s not loaded at all. It’s just my perspective on this topic. I think you can be interesting/cool and critical. ? 2 minutes ago, kenshin620 said: If Im honest....am I the only thinking this topic seems like making mountains out of mole hills? I 100% agree with you on this. ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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