Advanced Review Day for Red Rising!

With just over a week before the Red Rising preorder, advanced copy reviews are starting to appear! Today I’m going to highlight that process and share links to the reviews that are live so far (more will be posted here).

Much of what I’ll share today is also detailed in this general post about our approach to reviewers, but there are a few elements that are new to Red Rising:

• Quotes: I’ve encouraged reviewers to provide a quote about their experience with the game that I can post next to their link on our website. I personally find this helpful when I’m learning about a new game, and it can often draw me into clicking on the link to learn more from that reviewer.
• Sharing reviewer names in advance: For other recent preorders, people often ask me who the advance copy reviewers are. So this time I thought I’d simply provide that information up front–I populated the “media & reviews” page for Red Rising with the names of those reviewers.
• Timing: This isn’t completely new to Red Rising, but for any advance reviews, I want to give the reviewers plenty of time to compose their thoughts without them feeling like they need to rush to be the first to post their thoughts. At the same time, I want people to be able to consume reviews before the preorder launches so customers aren’t rushing at the last minute to decide if the game is right for them. So for Red Rising, the reviews are starting to appear 9 days before the March 3 preorder.
• Opting in or out: We only receive a few advance review copies via airmail from our manufacturer (the rest are on the ocean heading to fulfillment centers), so when I initially contacted advance reviewers in early January, I noted that “Your perspective can help people decide if the product is a good fit for them, so if you don’t anticipate that you can post by the time the preorder begins on March 3, please let me know and I’ll send you a review copy during preorder fulfillment instead.” This gives the advance reviewers the chance to opt in or out, either of which is fine with me. It’s the transparency I appreciate, as it means they’re not taking away a rare advance review copy from someone else.
• Collector’s vs Standard Editions: It’s been a long time since we’ve offered different versions of the same game, and whenever that would happen, I would send the standard version of the game to reviewers so someone doesn’t open their retail copy and be disappointed when the metal coins they saw on a reviewer’s video aren’t in the game. There are reviewers who will get the standard version of Red Rising (and Tim Chuon already has one), as we want to support the retailers worldwide who will carry only that version of the game. Conversely, Stonemaier Games is only selling the Collector’s Edition, so that’s the version we sent to most reviewers. I asked them to make it very clear in their reviews that they’re talking about the Collector’s Edition so there’s no consumer confusion later.
• Non-game reviewer: For the first time that I can recall, we sent an advance review copy to someone who doesn’t typically review games. Rather, Samantha at Thoughts on Tomes is a popular booktuber who loves the Red Rising books, so we thought it might be a good way to share the game with Red Rising fans through her (other booktubers will get review copies later). Samantha’s review is here.

As usual with reviews of Stonemaier products, rather than risking unintended bias, I don’t read, watch, or listen to reviews of our products. I mention this to reviewers as well so they don’t have even the slightest inkling to hold back on the things they don’t like, as I want potential customers to get completely unbiased opinions from a variety of reviewers.

With that in mind, I present to you the advance reviews available for Red Rising so far. More will follow (perhaps by the time you read this) from Game Boy Geek and Dice and Dragons.

Board Game Quest

What do you think about our approach to advance copy reviewers? I consider it a work in progress, as I want to make sure we’re respectful of these reviewers and that we’re offering a variety of perspectives to potential customers.

Also, in case you’re wondering why your favorite reviewer isn’t on this list, it’s quite possible they’ll be receiving a review copy during the preorder fulfillment process. We only had 12 advance review copies! :)

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