Please submit your games to Freelance Games if you are interested in having your game reviewed by us. As always, your game will be added to the review ladder to compete head to head against other Independent Games. However, effective immediately we are also offering our new full game review service.

In order to help offset the time required to do reviews and produce the best possible content for our readers; our pricing is as follows:

- Shareware Games released in the past 14 Days – No Charge*
- Shareware Games released in 2004 - $25.00*

In addition to the above mentioned pricing model, we require two registered copies of any game being review in order to write the review. Also, we reserve the right to give away these games as prizes after the review has been completed and published.

If you’re interested in this service please submit your game to Freelance Games and send me an email.

Might I suggest you run a special offer for the next 12 months and make the reviews free? It will take some time for the quality, consistency and value of your reviews to come up to scratch and just like everything else in this game, "Please send $25 now!" is not a great strategy for getting any money out of people with short arms and deep pockets...

...besides, aren't you a little worried about the concept of payed reviews? If I paid $25 for a review I'd want a 10/10 or I'd sue your asses. On the other hand if you just wrote a bad review for free maybe I'd pay $25 for you to remove it (ROFL!) ;) And we have to be brutally honest here, but as a customer I don't trust paid reviews one tiny little bit.

Cas :)

This is why I never considered paid reviews on indiegamer. A review is supposed to be a critique of a game, and who wants to pay to have their game rates 1 out of 5 stars? But then on the other hand if your reviews are not consistent and useful who wants to bother reading them. And so then you dont have any audience. So either way the review isn't that useful.

For those that wonder Indiegamer is coming back. Still working on a complete new back end and I'm very busy with other stuff.

At the end of the day there are only three business models that have been shown to work in this area and they are:

1. subscription only content - which is difficult to achieve when everyone is so accustomed to having everything for free on the internet

2. advertising - I'd gladly advertise my game on a site if a realistic amount of money were being charged. Unfortunately most sites seem to labour under the illusion that two inches of screen space is as valuable as a quarter page in a printed magazine. I'd maybe pay $20 to advertise on a single web site for a month, because that's likely to be the ROI.

3. doing it for the love of it - which is a great way to move into 1. or 2. above

There don't appear to be any shortcuts and there's no magic formula :/

There is also the problem that in order to be any good a review site needs updating with several new games every month which is basically a full-time job for several people. Well, that's not the problem - the problem is finding several games worth reviewing under the mountain of rubbish.

There is no point in reviewing crap titles either. If you can't say something nice about a game, don't review it. No-one needs to be told not to download something. It's cruel, unnecessary, and a waste of the reader's time. The reader generally wants to learn from a review whether it's worth downloading the demo and whether buying the full version is worth the money asked (in the reviewer's humble opinion). The reader would also like a second or third opinion. Reviews done by a single reviewer are by definition biased and worth a lot less than a balanced review from several players.

And finally, my pet gripe is ratings. All rating systems universally suck, they're all universally meaningless, childish, and irrelevant. 0-10, 5 stars, A-E, who cares. Just looking at the distribution of scores from a given site would show you why they're meaningless. Add in the fact that no-one can objectively say why something gets a particular rating. And of course finally factor in the fundamental purposes of the review which are to a) convince you to download the demo and b) convince you that the upsell is worth the cash - you're effectively using star ratings to tell someone your own opinions of the demo which they can far more effectively work out themselves by downloading the damned thing.

Sigh.

Cas :)

@All,

Everyone has brought up a number of good points. I guess I would say that I don't really consider a $25.00 charge to be a charge; but is more of a barrier to entry.

Also, any new games (games released in the last 14 days) will be reviewed for free.

Lastly, I would gladly offer anyone who asks advertising for $10-$20 per month. Offer is limited to games and products that are believed to be in the best interest of Freelance Games.

On the other hand if you just wrote a bad review for free maybe I'd pay $25 for you to remove it


Right, I think I see a new business opportunity here. I'll get busy on "Alien Flux - worthless piece of crap" right away. Anyone else want their games reviewed?

. . .

I don't have a problem with paying a nominal charge for a review from GameTunnel etc, just because they are really doing a good thing for us all and they need our help. However I would still expect that review to be totally unbiased, and if you pay for a review that turns out to be bad, well that's the breaks.

But I don't think I'd be keen to pay for a review on any old site - especially a site that doesn't already have a well-established review database, and an established readership for said reviews.

@Anthony,

Fair point, how many reviews would I need in the database before you would consider Freelance Games to have a well-established review database?

Well, first, how are you planning on organising said database?

If you're just doing a giant lump of reviews with no breakdown, 10 reviews would make it look (to me as a browser) like this was a review site that planned to keep adding content. 5 or less and I wouldn't take it seriously at all.

If you're doing breakdowns by category, you should have one or two entries in each category. This would give the reader some basic idea of what your reviewing standards are like in each genre/category that you choose to review.

And of course, one must be careful with openly admitting dates if one doesn't update frequently - is indiegamer officially dead? 'December 2003' in late June 2004 is not very inspiring!

papillon,

At present there are 70 games accross 7 categories on Freelance Games. The site is generally updated everyday to 3 days max.

I meant for reviews. I don't think you've reviewed all 70 games.... have you? :)

Even though your site has clear game content, I've seen various websites decide to try to do a review thing, and then not be able to carry through with it. So I was saying the amount of reviews that would make it look like someone was committed to *reviewing*.

Hmm, I don't know how many, exactly. Quite a lot.

I'd want to feel that it was an established review site that had been going for some time, and had an active readership. So it wouldn't be about the number of reviews so much - although a large number of reviews would be a good indication that this was the case.

Originally posted by princec
There is no point in reviewing crap titles either. If you can't say something nice about a game, don't review it. No-one needs to be told not to download something. It's cruel, unnecessary, and a waste of the reader's time. The reader generally wants to learn from a review whether it's worth downloading the demo and whether buying the full version is worth the money asked (in the reviewer's humble opinion). The reader would also like a second or third opinion. Reviews done by a single reviewer are by definition biased and worth a lot less than a balanced review from several players.

And finally, my pet gripe is ratings. All rating systems universally suck, they're all universally meaningless, childish, and irrelevant. 0-10, 5 stars, A-E, who cares. Just looking at the distribution of scores from a given site would show you why they're meaningless. Add in the fact that no-one can objectively say why something gets a particular rating. And of course finally factor in the fundamental purposes of the review which are to a) convince you to download the demo and b) convince you that the upsell is worth the cash - you're effectively using star ratings to tell someone your own opinions of the demo which they can far more effectively work out themselves by downloading the damned thing.

Sigh.

Cas :)

Sure, I agree that unless you have something good to say, don't say it at all. If you run a magazine, prove that you've gathered the best of the best for your readers -> things that *should* interest them and tell them why.

Then again, there's no such thing as an unbiased review. Reviews are supposed to be a "pro friend word of advice", should that "friend" won't give you the real highs and lows and what to expect from the game you consider buying, you wont trust him again to recommend you that game. also, like i said before, you wont hear him recommed you games he considers to be crap, only give a word of advice on good ones.

Just my POV

Originally posted by princec
On the other hand if you just wrote a bad review for free maybe I'd pay $25 for you to remove it (ROFL!) ;)

Cas is the greatest!!! :D
Yeah, guys! Let we wrtie terrible reviews on products of all that Mikes and Steves and require money from them for removing these reviews...
Who said blackmail?! - That's just our business!!! :D

All we need this is just one respectable review site to make this idea alive ;)

Originally posted by WildSnake
Cas is the greatest!!! :D
Yeah, guys! Let we wrtie terrible reviews on products of all that Mikes and Steves and require money from them for removing these reviews...
Who said blackmail?! - That's just our business!!! :D

All we need this is just one respectable review site to make this idea alive ;)

hehe, we should have a tagline list here, this one should be under the"review mob II: give us protection cost!" (first was under dl.com thread)

Yeah!!!

This would be very good and kind move from our side to give them the option to pay us upfront! Could minimize our efforts and increase our income...

Good suggestion Gil - you are in the team starting from now... :D

Let they pay for their popularity!!! They are using our potential customers! No? :D :D :D

In order to build a nice database as Anthony suggests, you should do free reviews for the first couple months... Start with the link below ;)

Not sure how this turned into a bad thing; I guess I consider a $25 charge pretty minimal. However, if getting rid of charge will make this something positive; then let the charge be gone.

To add you game to the site; use the following URL:

www.freelancegames.com/SubmitGame.aspx

Once your game has been added, please send me an email letting me know that you would like your game reviewed.

I do request two registered copies of the game being review. Once will be given to the person doing the review and the other will be given away as a prize on the site.

I think I am going to have one person per game category; so all word games will be done by the same person for consistency.

And of course I will be doing all the Pinball reviews myself. :rolleyes:

On the topic of paying to have reviews removed, heh, I remember FatBabies having rumors and emails posted, which were then pulled and replaced with statements like "We'd like to thank Sony for their generous contribution to remove this rumor."

Oh, and to keep it topical, I personally *like* to see reviews about games that suck. Not because I like seeing negative reviews, but it helps the image of being unbiased. What would you think if all the reviews on a website were good? I'd think they are on drugs or something. Besides, I just like to know if a game should be avoided or not....

Ah... how I miss the GamesDomain 1.0

Anthony

No bad thing, Sean. As I say, I'd have no problem with a nominal charge once you've established yourself as a good, reputable review site with an active readership.

And I agree, bad reviews are useful, too. Not only do they give you advice on games to avoid, but perhaps more importantly, you need to hear both ends of the spectrum in order to get an idea of how much you can trust the reviewer. How a reviewer deals with the bad stuff is very telling.

Originally posted by Sean Doherty
And of course I will be doing all the Pinball reviews myself. :rolleyes:

Nice try... :D No! :cool:

I like to see reviews on games that suck so I know some things to avoid! :)

(Of course, the review has to be understandable and point out in useful detail what those bad things are, instead of just yelling "THIS SUX THIS SUX THIS SUX" all over the place. :) )

The thing is, indie games just don't need bad reviews. It's already incredibly difficult to get people to try your game out; it doesn't have to be any more discouraging based on just a few people's opinions. Let's face it: in my own case, 99.5% of all the people who play my only game actually think it's not worth the money and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. 50% of the people who play it only bother playing it once! But it's that 0.5% of people who play that count, opinion-wise. They obviously think it's great. But the chances of a reviewer being in that 0.5% are ... well, 1 in 200. It just doesn't work out well for anyone concerned. In fact if I got a review I wasn't happy with I'd probably not bother sending any more games to a site for review.

Cas :)

Just because a reviewer doesn't like the game enough to play it more than once (if they weren't doing the review), doesn't necessarily mean that it would be reviewed poorly?

For example, I am not a big fan of FPS; but I know that many of them are very good.

The thing is, indie games just don't need bad reviews. It's already incredibly difficult to get people to try your game out; it doesn't have to be any more discouraging based on just a few people's opinions.


Or, to look at it another way, it's already incredibly difficult to get people to try your game out; it doesn't have to be any more discouraging based on people's bad past experiences with other people's crappy games. When does a really good game ever get a really bad review?

Also, as I say, I think a few bad reviews are important for the review site.

I've had some bad reviews of Alien Flux - or what I'd consider bad, at any rate. I got a 6/10 from one site - psychologically because I understand that nearly all games are rated between 8..10 a 6 really doesn't cut it. I got a 6/10 for gameplay on Game Tunnel which totally devastated me as I consider gameplay to be Alien Flux's singular strength. Again, as nearly anything of any merit is always rated 8..10 I simply consider it to be a pretty thorough panning. I hold the same opinion of pretty much any review of any game - I ignore anything that gets less than 8/10 in any category, because I know that it basically means it's substandard, and I want best-of-breed.

This really irritates me, as fundamentally I think that ratings are irrelevant, yet still they have a profound psychological effect on me (after all, that's their purpose - the reviewer is trying to stamp an objective score on their subjective view to try and let you understand their own psychological feelings about a particular aspect).

Cas :)

Subjective and personal, I know, but a 6/10 review wouldn't completely close the door on my interest in a game, even though that's a low score by the standards of most review sites. The 3-star range to me means "You'll like it if it's your kind of game; it wasn't mine." Being a fan of a supposedly-dead genre (adventures) which are generally lucky to make 6-7 on a mainstream review site... this sort of review range can actually be more appealing than the perfect score, which I expect to be boring mainstream crap that I would never play. :) On a retail games review site, at least, not so much on a downloadable.

It's the under-5's that generally mean "there's something very wrong with this game", and the review had better justify it. Bytten does fairly well with their small collection of black-star games and still manages to be polite about it, too.

I still cling to the old-fashioned ideal that 5/10 is a dead-set average. Better than half the stuff out there. Not as good as half the stuff out there.

But of course, I know that videogame reviews have, by now, been almost wholly corrupted by the stupid, misleading practice of scoring out of 4, and then adding 6 to it...

But this unpleasantness can all be avoided if a review site simply adds a short key detailing what the scores actually mean. And, most crucially, doesn't lie about it.

Anyway, I thought the actual text is what really counts, Cas...?

1-4 - Seriously flawed - Wouldn't even look at it.
5 Average - I don't want average.
6-7 Ordinary - not interested.
8 - Good - I'll try it.
9 - Great - I can't wait to try it.
10 - Classic/Milestone - Steady on there reviewer; methinks you got carried away. It's a 9 really.

I don't trust single reviews anymore, but I do trust Metacritic (http://www.metacritic.com/games/).

It's a shame there isn't a metacritic for indie games, though I'm sure there aren't enough reviews of indie games to warrant it.

A 10/10 *should* mean "even if this isn't your kind of thing, you'll love it because it's such a great game".

Of course, on a mainstream review site, five stars usually means more "Big name, big money, and we couldn't see anything wrong with it on first glance. GO TEAM!" :)

Couple of points:

- First I don't understand why people won't go back and fix some of the low points that are pointed out by the review sites. Some things can't be fix; but if the review says the games graphics are not up to the standard of todays game or the controls are difficult to use. Why not just fix the things that can be fix?

- From what I have seem people rate their games much higher than they should? For example, Freelance Games currently gives users the ability to rate the games betweek AAA - F; at this time I don't have the result posted because I was waiting for the to accumulate. However, you wouldn't believe the number of people who rate games as AAA; to me if your game is a AAA title it can not be improved and you probably have it published?

Because a lot of people vote emotionally on a "It was great!" "It was okay" or "It was terrible!" basis.

A certain site that allowed user reviews of games let them break those scores down into multiple categories so that you could rate how good the writing was, the level design, the bug-free nature... But this was all pretty pointless, because most people rated it one number flat across the board. If they loved the game, they gave it 10's in everything, even if it was blatantly a hack-and-slash-only game with no plot, they'd give it a 10 for storyline anyway because they liked the game. If they disliked the game, they'd give it 1's in everything "to counteract the fanboy vote".



(Of course, being published isn't that much of an indicator of how great something is - There's plenty of things published that are crap!)

See, you're all trying to describe entirely different things with scales of 0 to 10. It's just not helping anybody.

Sean - fixing things to suit the subjective whims of a reviewer is truly the path to hell. Some people think the sound effects in Alien Flux are amazing; some people think they're just average bleeps and bloops. The point is - there's no point in even rating this aspect of the game, as the prospective downloader can judge the graphics, sound, and gameplay for themselves with the demo. What we need in a review is a few words about what the game is all about, a reason to download the demo, and whether in your opinion what you get for your $19.95 on top of what's in the demo is worth the cash.

Cas :)

What we need in a review is a few words about what the game is all about, a reason to download the demo, and whether in your opinion what you get for your $19.95 on top of what's in the demo is worth the cash.

You have to pay for that kind of review - it's called an ad.

If I read a review, it's because I don't want to spend the time downloading it, or it's because I want to see what someone else said about a game I like or dislike.

Here are some reviews which don't use trivial ratings yet aren't adverts:

The ever-excellent Arstechnica (http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/20040622-3916.html) on Beyond Divinity: an excellent piece of work, as is everything at arstechnica.com. Also this excellent review of Thief 3 (http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/004/software/thief-deadly-shadows/thief-1.html).

My own review of Gridrunner (http://www.puppygames.net/articles/gridrunner.php) - just blowing my own trumpet but I reckon it's good enough to read. Also this one of SAIS (http://www.puppygames.net/articles/sais.php).

I seem to be having trouble finding any more on other sites. But you get the idea.

Digital Eel sent me copies of Dr Blob's and Big Box of Blox but I declined to review the former because I didn't think it really came up to scratch and I've been too lazy to post the latter :)

<edit>Whaddya know, I just came across this thread (http://joystiq.com/entry/7672457467056657/) on joystiq.com.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
Here are some reviews which don't use trivial ratings yet aren't adverts:

The ever-excellent Arstechnica (http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/20040622-3916.html) on Beyond Divinity: an excellent piece of work, as is everything at arstechnica.com.

Getting OT, but - This is a great review? I've already had to click to a new page and read it and I don't feel like I have any idea what the game is like or about. I can't tell whether they liked or hated the predecessor with text like "Some of you may have been… umm…. blessed with experiencing the gameplay of 2002's RPG sleeper hit, Divine Divinity."

Another click in and FINALLY a screenshot... and then a click to another page...

It seems to fluctuate between talking far too vaguely and talking in too much detail. I'm thoroughly bored and sick of clicking to Yet Another Page. (How many pages IS this thing?) Eyes skimming vacantly over the paragraphs, every word that catches my eye appears to be negative.

After all that, I desperately *want* a number to figure out what they actually thought about the game, because the review was too much trouble to read, and I don't have any idea whether they thought it was a good game or not. :)


Your Gridrunner review was much cleaner, and only had the split-columns thing to irritate me. :)

The ars review is very much geared to the ars audience - deeply geeky, hi-brow types who like to sit and nerd all day long on the internet, reading long articles with a history.

Cas :)

I'm a geek and a nerd, but if I'm not already deeply interested in the game, I need to get information quickly and clearly. :)

Originally posted by papillon
I'm a geek and a nerd, but if I'm not already deeply interested in the game, I need to get information quickly and clearly. :)

If you need the infomation quickly your just a geek,:)

rofl! But so true :)

Cas :)