I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails regarding potential guest posts, partnerships and other collaborations, and figured I should write a post detailing what I am up for and what I’m not okay with.
[The header image is from a game titled Gorogoa (Review) btw.]
My bottom line:
I’m not interested – at all – in anything that promotes drugs, gambling, crypto or AI-generated content. I won’t endorse anything regarding casinos or various substances. I won’t endorse anything regarding crypto scams, meme coins or any of that other bullshit. Period.
Gambling is bad and has destroyed many lives, and continues to do so. So, I genuinely am not interested in contributing to that by sharing a guest post that promotes online casinos, online betting sites, and the like. I also am not interested in linking to any of those sites.
I also don’t want to support anything derogatory or hateful. I’ve had anti-queer and incredibly racist folks in my e-mails a while back who wanted to share posts that were absolutely delusional and just… weird. One of them, for instance, tried to link school shootings to trans acceptance or something. I wasn’t sure if that was satire or whatever.
Anyway, if you want me to post your hate speech, just go touch some grass. I’m sure there’s other stuff that I’m not okay with, but gambling, drugs, crypto and hate speech have been the most common topics that people reached out for for the sake of collaborations or guest posts.
Guest Posts
Regarding guest posts, I’m all for sharing posts written by other people on my blog and then linking to those people. In those cases, I’d want to showcase reviews that are 1.3k words long (at most) and don’t contain a numerical score but just a simple “recommend” or “not recommend”.
The contents of guest posts have to be written by human authors and human authors only. I’m not okay with anything AI-generated, be it text or art.
If you need it to get edited, I’m happy to help. Same with advice and the like. I like to think of guest posts as not just merely a way to promote oneself and reach a bigger audience but rather an opportunity to bond with others, work together, learn from each other, and figure out different approaches to reviews.
In that sense, I do think that previous guest posts on here have been great opportunities for me and others to learn from each other.
As for what kind of reviews are okay:
- Any form of media can be reviewed.
- If I already reviewed a title, it’s totally fine for you to review it as well, especially if your opinion differs from mine.
- If your review ends up being very short, that is totally okay. The 1.3k word count is just a maximum, not a minimum.
As for what kind of reviews are not okay:
- Don’t review anything that only exists to upset people.
- Don’t review anything that is illegal in Germany.
- Don’t instrumentalize the format of a guest post or review to attack or mock other groups of people or individuals.
All that said, if you’re interested in writing a guest post on here, just reach out either via Discord or e-mail. You can also leave a comment under here and I’ll get in touch.
Partnerships, Sponsors, and Collaborations
This is my personal blog, so I share my thoughts on all sorts of things. If I were to receive an incentive of any kind, I would always be transparent about that. This is not just a matter of legality for me but also a matter of trust. After all, if I were to recommend a game and someone were to consider buying the game in question, they’d probably want to know if I got the game for free or if I bought. The same goes for sponsored posts.
Even if I did receive money for a review, I’d not only disclose that information upfront but also still provide my honest unfiltered opinions. I’ve done so in the past on streams, for instance, and I do think that that is really important for the sake of my blog’s integrity.
With that said, I’ve had offers in my inbox of not disclosing such information and publishers even prohibited me from publishing certain reviews due to the criticism in it, and in those cases, I obviously cannot do that.
I can’t just omit what I dislike about a game and I can’t just omit having received a review key or having received money for the review, obviously. In those cases, the reviews never saw the light of day and I can’t even talk about who made those offers due to NDAs and the like.
So, if I get a review key, you’ll find it in that box with the genres, release date, developer, etc. within the first four paragraphs of the review. Similarly, if I were to get paid for a review, I’d still be critical of it and I’d still disclose that information on top of the other information. I’d most likely make it even more obvious in those instances – which is probably also why there has not been a paid review on this blog yet.
About Reviews and Reviewkeys
The reviews I write tend to be relatively simple in their structure:
- I start with an introduction into the article
- I talk about the game, the story, the visuals, and various things I like
- I then eventually talk about the things I didn’t like, from technical issues to design flaws
- At last, I try to formulate my thoughts on whether the cons outweigh the pros or vice versa, resulting in a “recommended” or a “not recommended”.
With that in mind, I try to not be nitpicky. If I simply like a game a whole lot, then that’s that. There’s no reason for me to try to look for flaws if I couldn’t find them during my playtime. Similarly, I try to be fair in my criticisms, and at times, I make suggestions.
If a review is too critical, I tend to not publish said review and instead leave the developers in question with a lot of feedback in an email. I’d then offer to revisit the title once they’ve gotten a bunch of updates. A lot of Early Access reviews end up kind of out of date, so I should revisit those more often. Oh well.
There’s a difference between “being critical of” a title and “bashing” a title, after all, and I’m not writing in my free time to just punch down on people. So, a balance is pretty important, and sometimes a game is just not in a state that I can review it in.
With that in mind, I also do not review every title that is sent my way. The reasons for that are honestly quite simple:
I barely have time to play games these days. Between work, university, a variety of deadlines, my health issues, my physical activities, streaming, extracurricular and volunteering activities, friends and family, and other hobbies, I just kind of am limited to streaming hours for gaming.
As such, I, as but one dude, cannot handle the sheer volume of games sent my way and news that I’m supposed to share.
Posts have to be written, then edited, then formatted, then looked over again, and eventually published. I have to figure out my wording a lot, make sure the tone is coherent throughout the post, and do all of that after having spent enough time in a game to have seen it all and understand the gist of it.
So, simply accepting a review key doesn’t mean that I will review the game… and simply receiving an e-mail into my flooded inbox doesn’t mean I’m obligated to do so. I’m just one guy, after all.
All that being said, I’m trying to cover games as I find time to do so… and soon enough, I’ll be able to do a lot more in terms of reviews and stuff, once lectures come to an end.
With all that said, if there are any questions about any of this stuff or if you need clarification on any stance I may have on any subject, feel free to send me an e-mail and I’ll make sure to answer and also add onto this post.
This post was originally written by Dan Dicere from Indiecator.
If you see this article anywhere other than Indiecator.org then this article has been scraped. Please let me know about this via E-Mail.
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