One of the ickiest things about the board game industry is how many publishers think of reviewers. While there's plenty of respect (and money) directed towards content that could double as marketing, there is often little respect for their voice and the critical endeavor.
Part of this I think is a natural consequence of the fact that publishers need reviews to help sell games and new reviewers are often excited to get access and want publishers they like to succeed.
But there's a downside. In a small industry where many folks are friendly, a bad review can really hurt in more ways than one.
But, whenever this happens I can't help but thinking that a publisher has just fundamentally misunderstood what a reviewers job is. They don't owe you anything, not a timely review and not a positive one.
If your early-access agreements stipulate a review schedule then that's part of the problem. While I think there's some value to embargo, asking someone to get something done by X date means that they aren't valuing your work outside of the context of their own marketing.
Over the past several years I've become friends with many of the folks who have reviewed my games. I always try to be very careful about these friendships.
At every opportunity, I make it clear to them my desire for their work to remain honest and try not to make our friendship contingent upon getting high marks. Writing a negative review is hard enough without having to worry if it's going to put stress on a relationship.
This is one reason why I don't personally contribute to reviewer patrons--even of the reviewers I really like. There are other ways to help a friend and when it comes to their reviews, I don't want to put them under any undue pressure.
I think it's best to think of reviewers and publishers and designers and everyone else as equal voices in a conversation about what games are and what they can be. In that conversation every review is valuable--perhaps espeically the ones that challenge us to do better.
