-
JAMES CASTELLI
Australia
Hornsby
N.S.W
-
Review copies are something I have seen discussed by reviewers on occasion but not often in a lot of detail. With this blog I hope to give the viewers of my show insight into my personal experiences with both playing games and reviewing games, today I’ll be discussing review copies.
It’s worth noting that review copies are something that for each reviewer will likely be different; my experiences might not reflect other reviewer’s experiences in any way shape or form.
When I began reviewing games the concept of getting a game for free for the purposes of a review was unknown to me. The "Review copy" was something I only learned of much later. It would be about a year after my first video was uploaded that I would get my first review copy, it would have been not long before that time that I started making inquiries about them to publishers. As you will soon learn getting review copies and making inquiries are two separate things.
When I first received a positive response to a request for a review copy it was exciting, more so for the fact that the game I was about to receive was, and still is in Australia hard to come by. The first issue I had to face was how to disclose this relevant information during the review without it taking up much time, or taking the focus away from the review itself. There was never really a question of whether I should disclose the information or not. I decided to flash a note at the beginning of the review saying *Review Copy, as opposed to saying it during the review or placing the note at the end of the review. I had become aware from numerous threads I had come across here on the geek, that disclosure was important to many and even legal in some circumstances. I’m not sure that video reviews fall into one of the legal circumstances or not, but I saw no harm in disclosing it anyway.
I can understand why people think that review copies may lead a reviewer to give a bias positive opinion; after all they are getting a game for free. However, if I uploaded a positive review of a game I disliked, instead of setting out to provide a service to the gaming community, I’d be doing the exact opposite by providing a disservice. It benefits no one by me stating I enjoy a game when in fact I don’t; I’m also not going to take the time to write a fictional review for the sakes of popularity or in hopes to get free games. If all I wanted were games I’d just spend the time that I spend on reviews, at work instead, the overtime would earn me enough to get me as many games as I desired.
The way I make an inquiry is in most cases by contacting the publisher about the possibility of a review copy of a particular title of theirs. It is just a short and polite email sent to them accompanied with a link to my latest review, website and a small write up of some statistics, such as where the majority of my viewers are from, number of views etc. (I will in another post, show you guys these statistics, as some of the statistics are probably not what you’d expect). I never expect a company to provide review copies either. It’s great if they do, but I completely understand that they may have other existing relationships with reviewers or it may just not be of interest to them.
Over the past year or so I have written to a number of publishers about review copies and it is easy to become discouraged, the most common response I have had is no response at all. I have also had some that cannot for several reasons send goods to Australia, some that politely reply that it’s not something they do, and in one circumstance the reply was and I quote, "(insert companies name here) likes to give out review copies of games to serious reviewers". I’m not sure if I should have taken offense to that response or not, I'll admit I did, but replied politely and I still look forward to playing their game if I get the chance too. There have been several times I have inquired about review copies and my request has been denied and I still have ended up purchasing the game I inquired about.
I do not have a relationship with a company where I receive games that I have no personal interest in. Nothing shows up on my doorstep that I am unaware of, or that I am not excited about getting to the table. All the games I have received to this date were games that I had researched and had thought that both my group and I would enjoy playing. I’d like to keep it that way too. Out of the 5 review copies I have received, 4 have been at my request, 1 of which I had already done a written review on, another was a prototype for www.kickstarter.com in which I ended up pre-ordering it anyway. In only 1 rare occasion a publisher approached me with a game that I liked the look of and I was obviously happy to accept. I have refused a review copy of a game that was offered to me because I had no interest in it after researching it. The Bottom line is, if I am sent review copies of games that I "have" to play, not "want" to play, I’ll be pushing the boundary of this becoming work. Work is something I "have" to do, not "want" to do. You can tell how much I love my job .
I ask this question to the readers of this post, I am about to receive a couple of games from an overseas publisher, they were not free review copies though, I did have to pay some money, although admittedly they were discounted for review purposes. Taking into consideration I did pay something for them, are they still review copies? or should I put a note *discounted copy. It makes little difference to me, but it might make a difference to others.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, any questions or comments are always welcome.
Regards,
James.
www.castellireviews.com
|
|
. 
. It may just be for web Bloggers, Law isn't one of my strong points. 
