I prepared myself for a lecture on how wrong Jeff’s review of the game was, that we generally suck, and we had pretty much made enemies for life of Greater Than Games. After all, it has happened before.
As a reminder, Jeff’s review of Sentinels was less than favorable. My review of the expansion, Rook City, was more positive, as I thought they had really made some improvements, but I figured that would not be the focus of his discussion with us.
Surprisingly, I was completely mistaken. Christopher sat down with us and said that he appreciated the criticism. Ours was the only negative review that Sentinels had received, and after the initial annoyance subsided he decided to seriously look at our concerns with the game, and what could be done to address them. After all, if Jeff ran across problems in playing the game and having a good time, then there are probably others out there who have experienced the same issues.
They reviewed their game, improved the quality, clarified many of the rules, and added some components to make tracking of your statistics easier. You can see some of their work in the Rook City expansion, which is really a step up from the initial release. The next printing of the original is promised to be be a much more streamlined and improved game. I’m looking forward to the promised dividers and inserts so that I don’t have to keep all of my cards in ziplock bags.
Christopher was very nice, he let us know that he is a fan of our show. We call them like we see them, and he can respect that. If all of the game companies would take criticism and turn it into a positive opportunity for growth like Greater Than Games has then I think everyone would benefit.
A lot of companies are fine when we give them a less than stellar review, but there are a select few that we will never hear from again, simply because they were not happy that a reviewer gave them a big thumbs down on a game they have invested much time and effort in.
As everyone who listens to us or reads our reviews knows, we give reasons why we don’t like something. We say who we think the game would appeal to, and who it wouldn’t. We try to present enough information so that everyone can make up their own minds, regardless of what we think of it. After all, everyone has different strokes. What might be right for you, may not be right for some.
When the conversation was over, we had gained some insight into each other, we laughed, we had a great conversation, and a good time. Christopher didn’t even complain when I called him Chris, and I realized afterward that he probably prefers Christopher since that is how he introduced himself.
Thanks Christopher, for taking some time out to talk to us, really talking to us, rather than just giving us the lowdown on what is coming next from GTG. It won’t affect our future reviews of course, but that wasn’t his intention, and that was the coolest thing of all. We hope to see that new version at Gencon, unfortunately I don’t remember what he said about the timing, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
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Chris was very nice and we’ll be sure to stop and visit GtG at Gen Con.
To clarify Elliott’s opening statement of having a game company tell us we suck happening before, it was once and – we’ve talked about this on a previous show – the company in question was Moostache Games with their game Rowboat. It wasn’t even everyone in the company but simply the “designer” who railed against Elliott and I. I use the term designer loosely simply because I don’t think taking Whist or Spades and tweaking it with a nautical theme makes you a designer. That’s like saying I can come up with a variant on Go Fish and now I’m a game designer. The person in question also sent multiple emails ragging on us in, what I’ll always believe, some attempt to get us to change the review. The emails were not pleasant in the least.
To be honest, Elliott actually liked Rowboat more than I did (not saying much) and provided what I believe to this day a solid review on the title.
Hey guys – I have to admit, that initially I thought you guys were overly hard on games. there didn’t seemt be much, beyond wargames, that you really liked. but the more I listened and started to really start looking at the games you were disappointed in, the more I found that your ciritical analysis was more accurate than I first thought.
Now, I know that your game opinions may not always align perfectly with me, but I also know that you are not overly biased either – you give each game a chance to prove itself, and if it doesnt, you aren’t afraid to say so.
Keep up the Great Work!
We really try not be biased regarding our reviews. Obviously if a overly complex wargame comes in for review I’ll tackle whereas say a family game will normally be reviewed by Elliott. We just gravitate toward the genres that are a better fit for each of us and, for the most part, a great majority are of interest to us both.
Overall the great majority of the games with reviews on the site or show are ones we liked to varying extents.