Professionalism in the Elf Game Industry

I had someone come for my eyes over the post I made yesterday, saying it was unprofessional of me to comment about a review. At no point did I name the reviewer or make fun of them; I poked fun at the review, not the person. I intentionally avoided linking to it, because (knowing what the internet is like) I do not want anyone getting hassled over something I think is pretty trivial.

But if you want to open up a can of worms about professionalism, okay, let’s go.

When I was a reviewer for a popular site that will remain nameless, I was forbidden to rate anything a 1 or 2. If it wasn’t going to be a 3, 4, or 5, I had to keep it to myself. The reason was that this site did not want to alienate the publishers and game designers by offering negative review. Seems like a huge conflict of interest, but sure, I only reviewed things I liked a lot, which was certainly easier for me in a lot of respects.

Still, even with good reviews, I would regularly be contacted by publishers and authors angry about what I’d written. Seriously, man, you’re going to cuss me out because the glowing five-star review I gave your game, which I thought was incredibly cool, because I didn’t mention the one feature you were pushing? That wasn’t the thing that grabbed me. I’m also not your publicist.

There was the guy that wrote me a nasty-gram and trashed me online, again over a good review, because he though it was too short. He felt that the size of the book, and what it cost him to ship it to me, warranted more than the word count I’d given it. Which was the standard size of my posts, which at the time was around 600 words. Somehow he thought it either deserved a longer post, or a multi-part series.

I had an author sic his followers on me because I said a book was well-written and had an interesting premise but was not my cup of tea. If the subject was to your tastes, by all means check it out, but it didn’t overlap with my interests. This was somehow a huge insult to the author and an indication that I was an idiot. Bonus, when the guy died, some fans remembered me and came at me again, apparently as a farewell tribute. Warped. 

There was a publisher who requested the above-unnamed site not let me review their products any more. I always gave them high marks, and rated them highly on a number of points; there were things they were really good at, and I consistently pointed that out. They felt I reviewed too many of their book, and that my reviews were repetitive because of my consistent praise of certain elements. 

This is just talking about reviews because that’s how it came up. There are plenty of other areas where I came up against unprofessional behavior. It seems inevitable, though. While there are a lot of very professional people in the industry, a lot of folks start as fans. They know games; they don’t know business, or how to behave in a business environment.

All of which, again, is why I live in this bubble, away from social media and the so-called community. As I am punk AF, I can be as casual as my conscience and common sense will allow. But unprofessional? Me? Never.

I hope you’re doing well today.