2025-08-14T19:54:06Z
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Okay. I mean, I’ll watch it…
But how many times has SUSD done “Something a little different” a grand total of once… or twice… and then dropped it. Why not just make this more AwSHUX? It’s basically this already!
Maybe I’m salty because they release Top 100 videos at a rate of one a century. I kinda just want them to do what they keep saying they’re going to do and focus on what they’re good at.
Did I like that Matt designed a board game? Sure. Do I appreciate that they’re trying to bring classic games back to modern shelves? Sure. But that’s not why I’m here, for lack of a better term. I’m here for the reviews! The silly sketches attached to insightful commentary!
Ah well. As I said, I will watch, and I suspect it will be very, very good.
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Y’know, if they want to do one week a year of paid previews to keep the lights on for the rest of the time, I’m okay with it.
Wish they’d do more Top 100 though 
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I hope Robot Maria can cope
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I do agree with the sentiment, although part of me wonders if it’s just a personnel issue. Like, the top 100 started while Quinns was still part of the crew, but was gone after the second video. It’s fun seeing Pip in some of them, but she’s not a full time contributor or anything.
I have no idea what happened with Emily, she hasn’t been heard from all year, unless I’m forgetting a podcast appearance, and being in Australia meant she was unable to participate in person with things like the top 100 or even join in on a review.
Even the studio space that was keeping Matt busy for months seems to have disappeared. I believe that’s where the top 100 videos were being made, but I’m not remembering any other videos being in that space. So most videos are still being made in their apartments. They’re just a couple of guys doing their best. I really appreciate the high production quality of their videos, which are usually leagues above most other reviewers. And I have no idea how their donations are these days. If they need some paid content in order to keep doing what they’re doing, I can accept that, as long as they keep things honest and admit it, and admit they’ve taken money to preview a game if they later review it.
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I’m wondering about the link between “giving you a rough idea of how each of them works and why we picked them for this format” and “these are paid videos”. It sounds like they were “picked” because of the monies? Or did SUSD just put the word out that they were open to doing this, get a heap of submissions from publishers who were willing to pay, and then pick the ones they were personally interested in looking at? I guess we’ll find out next week?
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A guy I’ve been following for a long time on youtube does it that way: gets paid to preview video games, but gets offered hundreds per month and picks the three he genuinely likes.
He’s open about the payment, doesn’t recommend the games except to have a blast while playing on camera, and only chooses the ones he think he / his viewers will enjoy.
I’m actually more okay with paid previews now I think about it, it’s basically “what we played at GenCon” showing a variety of brand new games so that people can know they exist without endorsing them as the best of 2025 that you should buy.
Other channels can get it wrong and either hide the payment or make the preview sound like a glowing review, but SUSD being clear about “Hey, this is paid! And we’re doing a load of them in a week. Anyway this is what an upcoming game looks like and how you play it” actually makes me fine with it.
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This is how I saw it in the video, “we’ve got this massive pile of games and here are the ones we selected for the previews.”
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I’m getting flashbacks to Tabletop, the web series that was wildly popular when I was getting into the modern hobby. It was always presented as “Wil plays a game he likes with his friends”, but it was an open secret that the games were the ones supplied by the publishers, and after the success of series 1 they needed to pay quite a bit to get the placement. (And a couple were games I have never heard mentioned anywhere else before or since.)
I’m not saying they’re doing that, and full disclosure is good, but I think the whole boardgame journalistic cycle of “we will give you free games as long as we get positive reviews” is a damaging one. I can absolutely see why NPI took on their policy of not even accepting review copies; it’s clearly all too easy (look at any Kickstarter page) to fall into a pattern of “we get the thing, we say something nice about the thing”, and that’s not reviewing, that’s paid promotion, just not paid very much. (The same thing happens in film reviews; critics who don’t reliably praise films find they don’t get invited to previews.) Can the same people do both reviewing and promotion? I suspect there’s a tendency to fall into one or the other (see for example Paula Deming who has gone over entirely to paid promotions and the occasional comedy piece).
TL;DR: I am edgy but let’s see what happens.
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…or not? I’ve watched a bunch of bits of the first video, including at least one segment all the way through, and never heard any indication of why they had picked any of them. (The fact that they were showing some amount of general enthusiasm doesn’t really count when they’re getting paid to do this.)
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After watching half of the 12 thematic games entry, paid previews are boring. No surprise there. I mean, these guys bantering is fine, but without any review or real opinions featuring, it’s hard to see this as anything but a cash-grab.
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Yeah… I’ve always liked SUSD, but in the end this is hours of advertising for games I’ll probably hear more useful things about in future if they’re worthwhile? I’d probably watch them if it was quicker, but I’m not terribly inspired to sit through these.
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A bit meh to the whole experience. I skip sections (thank goodness they section their videos) that I don’t find interesting. The sections are bitesize. I’m sure I will end up hearing about Gods & Mortals at some point, but glad to hear about this now
It’s all paid advertisement, but, imo, this is perfect for me as I can’t be bothered with reviews now. But then I’m not part of their audience nowadays. I often listen online to know what games exist and when they will be released
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I don’t hate it. It’s letting me see the games set out on the table, and 90% of the time that’s all I need to know if I’ll like them or not.
I’m skipping through FAST, whereas I enjoy their style in full reviews and watch all of those. No way would I sit through hours of this, but as a “what’s coming up?” list it’s fine.
Hit rate: so far I’ve made a note to definitely check out ONE game, and 1-2 of the shorts. Not remotely interested in the rest.
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I’m vaguely interested in G&M because it’s published by the Guards of Atlantis people.
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I agree these aren’t as interesting as their actual reviews, but being able to see a game out on the table and watch them handle the pieces and give a brief explanation of the rules and gameplay is providing some value.
I am curious how they decided which games they were going to cover, as they say that they handpicked the selection. Were they just given a list of games from the publishers and they chose ones they thought looked interesting and wanted to know more about, or was there some other criteria involved?
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I enjoyed these (I think there’s one left today, so they might still fumble it I guess, but overall this was positive). Gave a first look at some games that could be interesting. Interested in March of the Ants, Philharmonix, Bagged & Boarded and Naishi. Brink looks neat as well but it looked like it would be pretty dire at just two players, so that’s out.
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