I check Board Game Geek frequently. It’s probably not healthy. Still, I want to know how my games are doing. Does someone have a rules question? Better answer it. Did someone upload a new photo? Cool, I love the modifications people do to Far Away. Did someone leave a nice review or rating? What a wonderful feeling. Did someone leave a terrible review? Time to obsess about it!
We know our games are not for everyone. One of our principles is that we’d rather make a game that some people love, rather than a game most people think is fine. Still, that doesn’t mean we ignore feedback. Our critics (usually) aren’t haters. We want to understand their concerns and improve in some way. Since we’ve trotted the globe’s convention circuit this year and talked to so many players, I thought it might be nice to share how we think about critiques. Effectively, there are three buckets into which we categorize post-launch feedback.
Future Improvements and Fair Points
Far Away’s cubes could have a better solution for colorblind players. We could have been crisper on some of the Hair of the Dog fetch quests. These are fair critiques. There’s a finite limit to playtesting: the commercial audience always finds different issues and comes to different conclusions than testers.
Some things we’ll address in future editions. Far Away’s second printing saw us fixing some of the creature contrast, correcting typos, and adding an inlay. Other improvements that folks suggest are the result of budget limitations or other externalities. Indented player mats for Far Away’s explorer would be cool. I don’t think the value justifies the price (I’ve never played a game of Far Away where bumping the mat was catastrophic, unlike when I’ve knocked the income/reputation board in Suburbia). Still other pieces of feedback are critiques that make sense, but don’t have an obviously better solution. For example, sometimes sharing negotiations in Hair of the Dog can drag, but I can’t think of a better solution than passive group pressure.
Basically, everything in this category is something we consider. It’s the kind of feedback we really like getting and mulled over. These are threads on Board Game Geek I’ll most engage with and invite group discussion.
Audience Mismatch and “Yes, And?”
I’ve previously written about feedback on game systems that goes against the core reason for the system. It’s common to hear critiques that are aimed at a mechanic, rather than a game’s use of that mechanic. This is always hard to handle as a designer. The players’ experiences are valid, and they are allowed to not like things, but it can feel like they were always going to dislike the game or mechanic. Getting penalized for living up to an expectation is a weird feeling.
Based on BGG comments, members of that community dislike “take that” and “information trading”. Those are fundamental parts of Hair of the Dog that aren’t hidden. I don’t really know how to react towards a 3/10 for having those mechanics, especially in response to a convention demo. In the moment, I can’t really say anything but “yes, and?” Perhaps they could consider some house rules? In the long-term, these negative reviews restrict sales (your FLGS checks BGG before buying indie games) and ultimately dictate reprints and future games.
One instance of this that sticks in my mind is from a reviewer. I had a conversation with this person after they posted a review stating they disliked the difficulty of discovering Pet Conditions in Hair of the Dog. I politely pointed out that the sharing mechanic exists to solve that problem. They responded that they knew about the rule, but didn’t like trading with other players because they view all games as zero-sum. I’m usually very laissez faire about reviews and let mistakes in videos go uncorrected, but this misrepresentation bothered me. It’s an extreme example of this audience mismatch reverberating into the collective perception.
To me, these sorts of reviews feel like giving a brewery a 1-star on Yelp because you don’t like beer. Perhaps the neighborhood as a whole doesn’t like beer, and no one wants the brewery, but that’s not really the brewery’s fault. I’m curious how folks expect designers to react to this type of feedback. We’d definitely welcome the inverse: someone who doesn’t like beer, except for this one amazing brewery.
Garbage
At my Microsoft day job, I see the comments folks leave on our documentation pages. Some of it is… not nice. Thankfully, there isn’t as much vitriol in our BGG comments. Our Garbage tier of reviews isn’t filled with negativity and cruelty, but rather weird nonsense.
What separates weird ideas in this tier from the others is impracticality. More than not liking a mechanic, it’s a suggestion that would require every other mechanic to change. Someone refused to buy Hair of the Dog unless it had miniatures. While dog statues are cool, including three poses for each pet’s pet types would require about 200 miniatures (or a miniature that can separate the head, belly, and butt for each pet – which is disturbing to visualize). That’s also ignoring the new problem of how to randomly pick a pet type from a pile of minis.
We’ve mostly avoided “political” backlash on our online surface area. Perhaps we’re small enough that the angry mobs on the internet haven’t noticed us, but we’ve only had a couple instances of comments accusing us of pushing an agenda. This “feedback” is definitely trash. For the record, the coloring on the Far Away mats is a reference the old Macintosh logo, not subliminal LGBTQ propaganda. Maybe we’ll add some in the expansion.
Ultimately, little of the feedback we receive gets categorized as “bad”. We do listen. We do care. We do want to improve.
Wrapping Up
Recently, Stonemaier Games informally surveyed reviewers and publishers about their relationships. CPG seems to be in the plurality on most things. We don’t pay for reviews (how would anyone trust that reviewer). We don’t publish negative reviews, but we don’t ask for them to be taken down (though some reviewers have said they won’t make a review video after not liking a game). We’ll usually give a review copy to anyone with a legitimate channel, though there is a limit to the number of copies we can give away (and international shipping is a killer).
Unlike Jamey Stegmaier, I do watch most reviews, though I struggle to do so. It makes me incredibly anxious, even if I know it’s positive. For whatever reason, reading reviews doesn’t trigger such an extreme reaction, but this is a “me” thing, not a “CPG” thing. Regardless, I welcome people being honest with regards to our games.
I hope this blog doesn’t come across as defensive or dismissive. By sharing how we receive and interpret feedback, I’m hoping to encourage more reviews. If you love our games, by all means share that with the world. If you’re feeling like Far Away is a “7/10”, I am curious why. And if the “why” is inherent to the game, I hope people understand that their comments are heard and acknowledged, even if we don’t plan on acting them.