I truly and honestly hate to bother PR (Public Relations/Marketing) people, because you just don't know what to expect, and some of them are so unprofessional, and closed minded, that you regret even trying to give their company the opportunity of a fair and unbiased in-depth article featuring their product. I continue to do so though, because I want to bring my readers as much variety as I can, and it's my aim to cover the most popular products too. I feel that I owe people that.
I ran my own website once before back in 1995-1998, and in '98 I sold the site to a larger publisher Computer Games Magazine for a nice chunk of change. It took a lot of hard work, and even then, at our height of popularity with zillions of visitors and impressions per day, some PR people acted like you asked for their firstborn child, when you asked for their product(s) for review. I never could understand this.
The way I see it, and the way I've always seen is it, quite frankly, "I" offer a free service, and a venue to have any companies' product showcased for all to see. It costs next to nothing, just to have their product reviewed, since the companies create, manufacturer and in most cases distribute the product even. Pennies on the dollar is what it cost most any company to send a product to review, plus postage. That's it.
A review, done by an industry veteran professional writer, if it's as good a product as the company thinks it is, has paid for itself even if only 100 people read it, and 5 people went out and bought the product. Of course the influence of a proper, in-depth and unbiased review, at a place where people know they can find just that, is worth I think a great deal more to any company with a product they want to sell. Even a less than favorable review, can sell a product, if it's done by someone who presented both the good and the bad properly, and fairly.
Some companies do run out of their review copies, and there are times when they need the stock to cover sales first and foremost, but when a company replies "we cannot meet everyone's demands", and do so with a shitty attitude is just unacceptable.
Christ sake, your a PR person, who should have some writing skills. Can you be a little more fucking creative than that please? For starters, I take it personally, and maybe I shouldn't, but call me a little arrogant if you must, but I think I do a little bit better job than the next guy at this stuff, because #1 I'm passionate, and #2 I've been doing it for almost two decades now.
I'm not "everyone", this isn't my first rodeo, and reading through the articles at this website proves just that. The fact remains, some PR people evidently don't take the time to take a minute and do their job, and investigate the people who contact them about their products either. I guess I just have a low tolerance for avoidable ignorance.
Yes WarGameGuru is a newer website, but it's operated by an industry veteran writer of not only this industry, but quite a few others. There's a difference between some kid, even a middle aged guy setting up a blog with the sole purpose of trying to score some free stuff, and a person who's sole purpose is to provide the world with the best possible coverage of any product that he can get his hands on.
Sadly there's still a bias towards websites, but the fact remains that sites like this all this industry has left. I've worked for the only magazines in-print that did a good job of covering this genre, Undefeated, and Scrye, and they're both gone now, because of the high cost of printing, and lack of enough advertisers to support them.
So while I'd have to say that 60% or more of the people handling PR for the companies whose products I review, are a joy to deal with. It's that other almost half just piss me off to no end. It's sad to see how many people leave their companies PR in the hands of less capable, ignorant, and completely unprofessional individuals, especially those you must email three times or more to get a single response from. Some don't have the decency to even respond at all!
It's sad when I as the reviewer show more passion for this industry, than the people who's responsibility it is to help take a company to the next level by getting their product exposed in the right places, by the right people. More so when the right people are knocking at their door, and they're too closed minded or blinded by ignorance to see it.
This is the reason why there are two A-class games out there at the moment, that you won't see me covering anytime soon. It's not that I didn't try, but I shouldn't have to beg and plead either. Once the site becomes more profitable, I may just go out and buy these products, but who knows, by then, maybe their 15 minutes of fame will have passed them by too. That's the thing about this industry, what's popular today, may not be as fun to play tomorrow when the next guy brings another A-class game to the forefront. Gamers can't afford to buy them all either.
I ran my own website once before back in 1995-1998, and in '98 I sold the site to a larger publisher Computer Games Magazine for a nice chunk of change. It took a lot of hard work, and even then, at our height of popularity with zillions of visitors and impressions per day, some PR people acted like you asked for their firstborn child, when you asked for their product(s) for review. I never could understand this.
The way I see it, and the way I've always seen is it, quite frankly, "I" offer a free service, and a venue to have any companies' product showcased for all to see. It costs next to nothing, just to have their product reviewed, since the companies create, manufacturer and in most cases distribute the product even. Pennies on the dollar is what it cost most any company to send a product to review, plus postage. That's it.
A review, done by an industry veteran professional writer, if it's as good a product as the company thinks it is, has paid for itself even if only 100 people read it, and 5 people went out and bought the product. Of course the influence of a proper, in-depth and unbiased review, at a place where people know they can find just that, is worth I think a great deal more to any company with a product they want to sell. Even a less than favorable review, can sell a product, if it's done by someone who presented both the good and the bad properly, and fairly.
Some companies do run out of their review copies, and there are times when they need the stock to cover sales first and foremost, but when a company replies "we cannot meet everyone's demands", and do so with a shitty attitude is just unacceptable.
Christ sake, your a PR person, who should have some writing skills. Can you be a little more fucking creative than that please? For starters, I take it personally, and maybe I shouldn't, but call me a little arrogant if you must, but I think I do a little bit better job than the next guy at this stuff, because #1 I'm passionate, and #2 I've been doing it for almost two decades now.
I'm not "everyone", this isn't my first rodeo, and reading through the articles at this website proves just that. The fact remains, some PR people evidently don't take the time to take a minute and do their job, and investigate the people who contact them about their products either. I guess I just have a low tolerance for avoidable ignorance.
Yes WarGameGuru is a newer website, but it's operated by an industry veteran writer of not only this industry, but quite a few others. There's a difference between some kid, even a middle aged guy setting up a blog with the sole purpose of trying to score some free stuff, and a person who's sole purpose is to provide the world with the best possible coverage of any product that he can get his hands on.
Sadly there's still a bias towards websites, but the fact remains that sites like this all this industry has left. I've worked for the only magazines in-print that did a good job of covering this genre, Undefeated, and Scrye, and they're both gone now, because of the high cost of printing, and lack of enough advertisers to support them.
So while I'd have to say that 60% or more of the people handling PR for the companies whose products I review, are a joy to deal with. It's that other almost half just piss me off to no end. It's sad to see how many people leave their companies PR in the hands of less capable, ignorant, and completely unprofessional individuals, especially those you must email three times or more to get a single response from. Some don't have the decency to even respond at all!
It's sad when I as the reviewer show more passion for this industry, than the people who's responsibility it is to help take a company to the next level by getting their product exposed in the right places, by the right people. More so when the right people are knocking at their door, and they're too closed minded or blinded by ignorance to see it.
This is the reason why there are two A-class games out there at the moment, that you won't see me covering anytime soon. It's not that I didn't try, but I shouldn't have to beg and plead either. Once the site becomes more profitable, I may just go out and buy these products, but who knows, by then, maybe their 15 minutes of fame will have passed them by too. That's the thing about this industry, what's popular today, may not be as fun to play tomorrow when the next guy brings another A-class game to the forefront. Gamers can't afford to buy them all either.