[Dave Erickson]

Although I DO believe that the timing of reviews does reveal a bias, I DON'T believe the divergent tones taken by these reviewers is due to a lack of objectivity. Rather it is due to what I have already described in the "Kicking the Retail Habit" thread. It is simply a matter of name recognition -- Gary Grigsby vs. some guy.

Not much you can do about it, I guess, except promote the heck out of your stuff and do what you can to get around this attitude -- start your own review site, find where these attitudes are prevalent and avoid them, find reviewers/consumers who aren't so enamored of mainstream stamps of approval and get them all together in an undiluted bunch, whatever.

But as far as Wargamer itself goes, aside from occasional weirdness (such as not mentioning "Prussia's Glory" in their new upcoming releases article and some other stuff I'd rather not go into), it is actually a lot MORE objective than they were under the previous management. A LOT MORE.

I think Annette laid out the problem indies face as well and as clearly as is possible. There IS a problem and I'm happy to see Shrapnel lay it out so clearly. I hope some kind of action will follow, for the sake of the hobby.