Game Industry Etiquette
Or, How to Avoid Looking Like a Pathetic Jerk

As someone who's looked like a pathetic jerk plenty of times in his life, I thought I'd pass along a few things I've learned in the last 14 years to other game industry professionals (I've no doubt that I've still a lot to learn). A lot of this deals with interaction with the public. Some of it deals with interacting with other pros. Since there is such a fine line in the game industry between fan and pro, however, this really applies pretty broadly. Take it for what it's worth.

1. Handling Reviews
When you publish a product today, it will probably get reviewed (this was not the case when I started in the industry, pre-World Wide Web). Many times, a review gives opportunities for people to make comments or respond, either as a letter to the editor of the magazine, or as part of a forum or comments section attached to the website. If someone gives you a good review, you'll be tempted to thank them. If you get a bad review, you'll be tempted to refute it.

Resist that temptation.

If you pay attention to only one thing in this article, please make it this point. Refuting the opinions of someone who wrote a review, or even just someone who made some comments on a message board, makes you appear petulant, oversensitive, and petty. Even responding to a good review or comment can sometimes make you seem pathetically in need of validation. Handle this on a case by case basis -- if someone starts a whole online message board thread about how great your product is, and lots of people chime in, it is very gracious to throw in a simple thank you. It's never a good idea to write an Academy Awards-style speech.

The only exception to this is when a person writes a review that contains a factual error. If the reviewer says there is no section on new spells, and Chapter 5 of your book contains a dozen new spells, you can probably get away with a response that simply states the correction and nothing more. And even then, you're probably treading a fine line. And if the statement you are refuting is at all subjective, such as, "There are no good spells in the product," think again.

A Perspective on Reviews Our industry doesn't have people well-trained in formal criticism or scholarly studies to write reviews the way that books and movies do. With very few exceptions, every reviewer out there is simply a gaming fan. That makes their opinion both very important (because they are our audience) and yet no more important than someone that writes you an email and says "good job" or comes up to you at a convention and says, "Your product stank." In all these cases, you're hearing from one person. The only difference is that the reviewer is saying it in public. And put even that point in perspective -- there is currently no forum for reviews in our industry that reaches a significant portion of the audience. No magazine printing reviews reaches the majority of your audience. No website commands such a large number of visitors that opinions stated upon it affect a significant part of the game-buying public. In short, no review will make or break you. In fact, although I have no proof, I suspect that reviews do not have any measurable impact on sales, positively or negatively, ever. (The exception may be PDF products reviewed on a popular website, because the sales numbers of PDF titles are often so low that even a small number of influenced buyers can make a significant impact.) Don't freak out when you get a bad review. Don't get a big head when you get a good review. Read all your reviews, but don't put any more weight on one than another. We tend to ignore the bad ones and print out the good ones to hang on the wall, but while that serves to make you feel good, it's a skewed perspective on an already skewed perspective. The best way to look at reviews is as valuable feedback. Worth noting, but not worth losing sleep over.

2. Interacting With Gamers
Whether in person or online, treat your audience with courtesy, kindness, and respect. Be humble and gracious. If you can't do this, learn.

Either that, or avoid conventions and the Internet entirely.

Gamers are your audience. They pay for those products that you publish. They are the people you serve as an entertainer. They are not your lackeys or your groupies. They are not some undesirable group of people to be simply tolerated. They are the most important aspect of the hobby. Not you.

I get so tired of seeing industry professionals put down gamers, making jokes about them needing to bathe before Gen Con and things like that. If someone puts down gamers, they're putting me down, too, and I take it personally.

Whenever you speak to a gamer or interact with them online, remember that in actual fact you are interacting with an entire game group (because even if you do not remember the interaction, they will, and they'll tell their group about it). In fact today, when you answer a fan's email or talk to them personally, you might be actually interacting with a large group of people, because the answer you give or the way you act may end up as a post on a message board. If you're worried about online reviews, how much more should you worry about someone posting "Joe Game Designer is a big jerk" in a public forum? Like it or not, that's just as influencing as the quality of your products. In fact, it's a review of every product you'll ever produce from that point forward.

3. Interacting With Other Industry Professionals
When you want to meet someone else in the industry, just go up and introduce yourself. More than likely, they will be happy to meet you as well.

Offering to trade products with another professional is fine, and can be fun (and a great way to stock your library and theirs). Offering to simply give a copy of one of your products to another professional is also great, whether it's to show your respect for the other person or in the hope of finding out what he or she thinks. Asking for or expecting to be just given products (or worse, demanding) for nothing in return is particularly uncool, however. Sometimes other professionals can't offer you a product because they are running out, or for some other good reason. Sometimes they just don't want to give something away that they could otherwise sell. When push comes to shove, you're not owed graft from other publishers.

The exception is review copies. If you are an established reviewer it is cool to just ask for products --to a degree. Remember that different publishers have different policies about review copies. If a publisher says "no," it doesn't mean that publisher is mean. Sometimes a publisher only gives out a limited number of review copies. In fact, when in doubt, assume that they won't give you a review copy and purchase a copy of the product you want to review. And most important of all: If a publisher gives you a review copy, write a review. Send them a link to the review online, or tell them when the magazine it appears in will be published (and send them a photocopy of the review if they ask for it). Show them what you did with the free product that they gave you. Don't expect a publisher to ever provide a review copy to you if you haven't yet produced a review for the last one they gave you.

4. Dispensing Opinions
I think it's fine for an industry professional to express opinions about the work of others. However, do not ever do so without backing up your opinion with well-thought out reasons. Personally, I do occasional reviews of products myself. I would never, however, go to a public forum and simply state "product X sucks," or even "this part of product X sucks." Even if it's true. I would, however, simply state "product X is great," if I thought it was true but didn't want to take the time to elaborate. No one's going to complain if you give unfounded praise.

5. Self Promotion
Personally, I hate self-promotion. If you see a post from me on some message board, particularly one not my own, that hypes one of my products, you can know that I was cringing as I wrote that. But a lesson I've learned is that if you don't have a marketing department behind you, you can't expect people to know about your products. If there are people out there who would like to buy your products but they don't know about them, you are doing them and yourself a disservice by holding back. But don't go overboard. Don't issue a press release every other day. Don't let gamers out there get tired of reading Internet posts from you, or begin to ignore you because you're always going on about inconsequential things.

6. OGL Etiquette
The OGL allows you to publish freely the open content created by others. However, since this is a column about etiquette and not legalities, I've got to tell you that you should still contact the publisher whose material you want to publish first. In fact, I'm going to go a step further and say that you should ask if it's okay. And if the publisher says "no," you should comply with those wishes, even though you legally don't have to. The publishers might have a good reason, such as they are in the process of reprinting the book from which you want to take a huge section of material. Or perhaps they've got some other plans for the material that you just aren't privy to.

It's incredibly foolish to do something that angers another publisher, even if you are within your rights to do so. This is such a small industry. It's not just a possibility, it's a certainty, that the publisher that you anger will talk to other publishers. Even if they don't all side with the angry publisher, some will. Is your product that you wanted to include a bit of open content in worth it?

7. Don't Bite Hands, Especially the One That Feeds You
I think it's in poor taste for people to put out ads, conduct promotions, or in some way push their own products at someone else's expense. I think it's particularly crass, if you publish d20 material, to promote your product at Wizards of the Coast's expense. I wouldn't, for example, run an ad for the Book of Eldritch Might that talked about how much better it is than, say, Tome and Blood. Or how your mage characters will be better off with the options presented in my book as opposed to Wizards'. While it's in many ways true that smaller game companies live on Wizards' scraps, I think it's low-class to point it out.

8. Give Credit Where Credit Is Due
Straightforward and simple. If someone worked on a product, or you are using someone's previous work in that product, give that person credit. I know I personally have been burned on this one: Others have neglected to credit me a number of times. It just plain sucks to page through a book and find your words (or your art, or whatever) therein with your name nowhere to be found on the credits page.

9. Remember Those Who Helped You
I've been lucky enough to get to a pretty good place in the industry, but I certainly never did it alone. I'll never forget all the people who hired me, helped me, and gave me advice. People like Coleman Charlton, Kevin Barrett, Rob Bell, Tim Brown, Steven Schend, and Jonathan Tweet. I've certainly learned from all of them and/or been given a leg-up by them.
If someone helped you out in some way, once you've "made it" (whatever that means), don't forget them.

10. Help Others
If someone asks for a little advice on getting into the industry, take five minutes to offer some pointers. While few (or none) of us have the time to review someone's work-in-progress, we all can give some advice about where to submit it. More than likely, someone helped you (see point 9), so return the favor. I'm more than happy to run a series of workshops at Gen Con every year for people who want to break into the industry, and Sue and I maintain a workshop page with tips for those getting started in the industry.