Board Game Criticism. Time to Let Go.

10 years later, we’re now the grumpy ones that stand around in the kitchen, sour, sipping, and trying to solve the world’s problems as our enthusiasm and sobriety wanes into something that we never intended in the first place. On occasion we’ll glance into the lounge, wall mounted television playing a karaoke version of some tune we don’t recognise, and listen while the fresh faced photogenic people take selfies and sing some nonsense about a pony and a club, while raising their hands into the air. We pretend to know what it is, and some of us even try to move our elden rings in some kind of tired rhythm but we’re not meant to be singing along. We’re meant to smile and be proud and hold out our hands and offer the torch and best wishes to those who are simply much fresher and certainly less stale than we once were. 

Even with our best intentions we came into this with good thoughts but slight traces of blue mould at the sides, because we’re altogether too serious for something so lovely as fun. We demanded to be listened to and taken seriously and some of us were never writing words or filming videos. We were engaging in ‘artistic criticism.’ How very self important work. We used big words or wide angles, and spoke in front of shelves with classics, displaying our cardboard qualifications to anyone who would watch.

The truth is, (for me anyway,) that I’ve come to accept that I’m never really here to persuade or even change someone’s opinion on something. I’ll confirm their opinion at best, but mostly I’m confirming a decision they’ve already made. The shopping basket is empty, or the shelf already has its new occupant in place. I’m a well respected nodding dog who is only reflecting and reinforcing what you thought anyway. 

I’m asked to write previews for crowd funding games but you’ll rarely see a link to my work because I’m too much like hard work. Reading my painful prose doesn’t fill you with joy and excitement. Mostly I’ll be demanding changes to make the game the one I want to play, in the guise of trying to be helpful instead of being hypeful. Surely it couldn’t hurt to effuse praise just for once? But I can’t. I need to deliver a well garnished self indulgent shit sandwich, because that’s how it’s done. That’s how I cling to the vaguest notion that we still matter. There’s no grey relevant in the room here.

You can try what you like and step outside the bubble and claim honesty, but then you look in the mirror and realise that you’re maybe more tired than you used to be. Things that used to make you hot under the collar and angry enough to rant, instead make you shrug your shoulders and sigh. We’re not seeing this again are we? The same old missteps and mistakes, but I told about this in my last video, but I know you never listen because your last error made you $237k. You never listen. You want people who tell you everything is grate, while they smile and take your preview money, while you hope some of their subscribers pay attention to the sycophantic noise, and back with stretch goals and stretch  pay and push that gratification and invoice into another month. We can’t improve if we never know how we can improve. Criticism is a fearless endeavour forged on the foundations of love for something. 

I’ve made my peace with it though. Times have changed. No one actually really wants what we’re peddling. I’ve never engaged with a publisher who demands that I tell them how I really feel. They want me for my numbers and my reach and sometimes my words. They expect the words to be kind. They don’t want to see the countless hours that have been spent designing, developing, play testing, art being planned, art being changed, manufacturing being costed, shipping being organised and paid, to be at the mercy of some parasite who couldn’t be bothered taking the first steps themselves. They who live their creative dreams vicariously through the courage and gamble of others. Why would you invite the grumpy old man to the table when you can have party hats and cheering? Why would you pay for the privilege and ship them anything at all? We’re past the place where we can afford to have anything except good thoughts and a strong marketing plan. 

The creators like us that have endured, my band of others who are still out there, scraping, scrapping and snarling and still love taking pieces and a rulebook and having the best time (or actually take them to pieces). Many of them have realised now that the only true way to keep on going is to become feral and live directly off the land, shunning promotional copies in case they are fully infected with bias, instead relying on the generosity of the very people who have almost welcomed them like distant family. If a distant family charged you £5 per month to keep you entertained and then went away and came back with a three act play once a month. Literally putting their lives in the hands of strangers, something I am continually in awe of. I just don’t think we would ever reach those heights. Not in this economy.

We have to admit that games coverage has changed, there’s no new critical kids on the block. At UKGE, I spoke with a few of the ‘old guard’ familiar faces, those with histories of long form videos, 60 minute podcasts and six hundred word salads with the occasional bitter dressing. We realise we’re maybe no longer important, that we’re excess to requirements. We were walking with dinosaurs, but it was each other. The press event was full of bright and shiny faces, and I must admit I hardly knew anyone there, and not through lack of trying. The place was packed, there were phones in front of faces and pitches about reach and numbers. Me?  I was back in the kitchen again, and I honestly couldn’t even tell you the song that was playing in the room next door.

For those younger types, with their smiles, and montages and collages and tagging. While I may seem dismissive to those with their thirty second videos of unboxings and quips, disappearing content, and with their endless search for topics that might catch fire and elevate them into a level of followers I could never hope to achieve. I do admit that time has seen me stare at them with much softer eyes. I see them with their daily posts and are perplexed at how they do it. I witness their piles of shames and wonder how they get them played, how they even manage to still have fun and not sink into a pool of anxiety. Convention hauls like millstones. I hope they manage to shine before they burn. That they have the courage to know when to pause, to learn when to say no. Realise that the monster will chew them up without a thought. I wish them well. Though I see so many of them start and stop so quickly now. Like watching fireworks instead of stars. 

I’m glad I started this ten years ago and not last week. Things have always been at my pace. Deadlines, recording, editing and releasing were always self imposed. The reviewing came with expectations but I never had the famished algorithm sitting hungrily on my shoulder. The imp demanding slices of content or else it defecated down my back as a warning to keep on going. I never felt punished for sitting still and just breathing in the self grown importance that I then wafted around my nostrils like a self congratulatory fart. 

I’ve written reviews that were harsh, but always came from a place of care. It was never about trashing, it was about making things better. I worry we have lost that in order to sell a product that never does anything wrong, that is flawless, and the best ever, until the next best ever comes along.

As for us? Well, the pressure is off. We’ve done our time, the game has changed. Though we’ll still be back here, mixing silly cocktails and seeing what’s in the fridge. We’re still standing in the kitchen and I’m considering running around naked with zero damns to give. Flop 7.