I strongly believe in the importance of providing review copies to a vast variety of content creators so they can share their unbiased opinions with the audiences they serve. There were a lot of great games published in 2025, and I’m truly grateful for those who chose to play and feature Stonemaier products. I estimate that we send around 1,000 free Stonemaier products each year for reviews and other content via the system described below.
I genuinely hope content creators continue to seek joy in games (opposed to it feeling like a task, chore, or obligation). You have an amazing opportunity to add value to the people who value your insights and perspectives; it’s your choice to serve your audience instead of serving an algorithm.
If you’d like to sign up to potentially receive review copies of Stonemaier games, please read following article in full to understand our guidelines and procedures (within the article there is a link to a signup form). If you’re a relatively new content creator, please also read this post.
Overall Procedures
If you’re a reviewer or content creator on our list, I will contact you when we have review copies available. At that time, you will receive a message from me listing the products currently available for review, and you can choose one to receive (free product with free shipping). If you’re not on the list, you can sign up for consideration via the form linked in this article.
I kindly request that you follow this process rather than directly soliciting me for review copies, as it allows me to continuously provide products to hundreds of different content creators. For every product we offer numerous opportunities for you to receive review copies from us; if your schedule differs from ours, Stonemaier products are widely available for you to attain or play (on our webstore, from retailers, on digital platforms, and in non-English languages from localization partners).
Whenever I let our list of reviewers know that we have review copies available, I preface the email with these guidelines:
- You do not already have a review copy (or an incoming review copy) from Stonemaier Games for which you haven’t posted substantial content.
- You are available to feature the product you select in the next few months.
- You don’t already have easy access to the product.
- If you choose an expansion to review, you already own (or have access to) the core game.
If you are a content creator who wants to be considered for Stonemaier Games review copies, please read the following guidelines and sign up on the form within this article. Once you’re on the list, we’ll contact you when we have products available for review.
Here’s how we handle the various stages of review copies:
We only send 100% final versions of our products to reviewers, not prototypes.
- Advance Review Copies: I typically receive 10-12 copies of new products via airmail from our manufacturer, Panda, a few months before we launch the product on our webstore. While I sometimes choose a few well-established reviewers for advance review copies, I also include some growing and underrepresented content creators. I provide a media date for those reviewers when they can start sharing their primary content about the product; the reason for this date is that we do not want to rush reviewers–we want them to have ample time to play the game, evaluate it, and compose their thoughts so their reviews can best serve their audience.
- Early Review Copies: When our fulfillment centers receive the full ocean-freight shipments (typically a few weeks before the product launch), I reach out to a handful of content creators to see if they’re interested in receiving an early copy of the game. This is a marketing effort to reach as many people as possible, so typically these are reviewers with 20,000+ Instagram followers, 10,000+ YouTube subscribers, 1000+ podcast followers, hundreds of views per article (self-hosted or on BoardGameGeek), and/or who have medium-sized audiences with high levels of engagement.
- First-Run Review Copies: After the initial product launch and fulfillment but before the retail release date, I contact more reviewers–most with smaller audiences than the early reviewers, but still good engagement from their audiences–to see if they would like the product. At this point, around 200 reviewers will have received a review request from me, and typically around 50-75 of them respond with interest. Your opinions are just as valid if your video, article, or podcast isn’t posted until a few days, weeks, months, or even years after the game’s announcement/launch/release. Your audience subscribes because of your insights and the quality of your content, not because you’re the first to get a new game.
- Reprints and In-Stock Games: I don’t want all of the buzz and visibility of our products to only happen at the beginning of their lifespans, so I regularly offer review copies of reprints and in-stock games. This is typically when I reach out to content creators with small, growing audiences with less engagement (views, likes, comments).
- New Signups and Newly Discovered Reviewers: Like any gamer, I discover new-to-me reviewers all the time, and if I really like their content or just want to make sure they’re better represented in the hobby, I may contact them directly to introduce myself and see if there are any Stonemaier products they’d like to review. We also receive new signups on the reviewer form all the time, so I give those reviewers a few chances throughout the first year to accept review copies and to share a link with me of the content they create for that product. If I don’t ever hear (via email) from reviewers who signed up for the list with a link to the content they create about the review copies, eventually I stop contacting them.
- Damaged Games: Sometimes our customers report that they receive a damaged copy of one of our games (purchased from our webstore). In those cases, I often send them a mailing label to send the ding-and-dent game to a reviewer, and we send the customer a new game. Reviewers don’t need a perfect box to assess the experience of playing the game.
Other notes about our methods:
- I Don’t Read/Watch/Listen to Reviews of Stonemaier Products: I highly value constructive criticism, of which I get plenty from playtesters and gamers. But for reviewers, I want to remain entirely unbiased and impartial to their tastes so consumers can get honest opinions from a wide variety of reviewers. I truly want all reviewers to know they can say anything they want about the Stonemaier products they play without feeling like I’m looking over their shoulder.
- We Do Not Pay Reviewers to Express Their Opinions, Nor Do We Charge Reviewers for the Products They Review: If a content creator selects a free product from Stonemaier Games to feature, we ask that they disclose that information with full transparency in all related content. On some platforms, the only way to do this is to tag the post as a “paid promotion,” which, while not entirely accurate (we’re providing cardboard, not cash), is necessary until those platforms offer more accurate tags about material connections between reviewers and tabletop publishers. Here is an extensive survey of reviewers that reveals how exceptionally rare it is for publishers to offer reviewers money for their opinions.
- Social Media vs Journalism: Simply being on social media does not make someone a content creator, reviewer, or journalist. I have the greatest appreciation for people who are consistently willing to spend time and effort to learn/play our games, publicly share their unbiased opinions in great detail, and contact us directly (and/or other sources for research) to ask questions about our business practices instead of making unfounded assumptions. That’s journalism. My email is jamey AT stonemaier.com.
- We Ship to Reviewers the Same Way We Ship to Customers (from within their region): We ship from fulfillment centers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia. However, if a reviewer is ever charged customs/fees by their courier, we ask that they accept the package and then contact us so we can refund those charges.
- Standard vs Deluxe: I clarified in an article the reasons that we only send content creators free copies of standard versions of our games (even if there are deluxe alternatives/add-ons). If you’re a content creator who chooses to purchase and showcase deluxe components, that’s totally fine–please just be sure to make it abundantly clear to your audience whenever you’re showcasing something that isn’t standard (to avoid any possible confusion).
- I Consume a LOT of Review Content (Just Not for Our Games): At this point, I subscribe to around 750 different game-related articles, podcasts, and YouTube channels. I love hearing other people talk about games, whether they’re individuals or multiple hosts. You can see some of my favorites on our stuff we love page (see the archive section) and among our annual charity auction selections.
- Feature and Focus: I’ve mentioned several times above that I ask content creators to select products of ours that they want to “feature.” From a publisher perspective (and, honestly, as an avid consumer of gaming content), I’m less interested in a podcast or video that’s about a bunch of different unrelated games (or a game haul Instagram post) instead of primarily featuring one or two specific games (or focusing on a specific category). “Featuring” a game also means going beyond just making a quick Instagram post or an unboxing clip.
- A Distaste for Consistent Negativity, References to “Hype”, Clickbait, and Ragebait Tactics: I truly want reviewers to offer their honest feedback about games (whether their our games or games from other publishers). However, if a reviewer is consistently negative–for example, lists about games they hate or games that disappointed them–or is focused on “the hype,” as in “Does it live up to the hype?” (see this video and this video), I steer away from that content as a viewer (and such reviewers thus drop off my radar as a publisher too). To be clear, I have no problem with negative reviews of a game that a reviewer didn’t enjoy, especially if they take ownership over their dislike (“I didn’t enjoy it” or “it wasn’t for me” rather that “This game is bad/overrated/terrible”). But if you’re going to spend time making a top 5 or top 10 list, I simply can’t relate to someone who spends that time focusing on games they strongly dislike rather than games they enjoy. I also have a strong aversion to clickbait (titles and images) and ragebait tactics that don’t seem genuine to the creator or their content.
- Brand-New Reviewers: If you’re excited to start reviewing tabletop games or you’ve only been posting for a few weeks, I highly recommend that you build up a solid base of content and an engaged audience using the games you already have access to before you request that any publisher send free games to you (as a rule of thumb, if you haven’t already created content for many games in your collection, it’s too soon to ask for free products). A mutually respectful and beneficial relationship between a reviewer and a publisher goes both ways. There’s more on this topic here.
- Conventions: Attending conventions is incredibly expensive for publishers. There are so many expenses to have games, staff, and a demo team at conventions that we need to sell every possible copy to have a chance at breaking even. For that reason, please do not ask us for free review copies at conventions.
- Permanent discoverability: Reviewers spend invaluable time and effort to play, photograph/film, and compose their thoughts–I believe that their content is worth finding months and years after the original post. So I greatly prefer when a creator’s content is permanently discoverable. Specifically, if you post reviews on Instagram, (a) build up an audience of at least 5000 engaged followers before requesting a free game AND (b) post your reviews somewhere that a search engine can find them long after the day when you first post (like an article or BoardGameGeek).
- Written Reviews: We send hundreds of review copies to content creators focused on the written word, but for a few bigger releases we didn’t send any advance copies or text-focused journalists. After posting this article on the subject and reading the demand for such reviews in the comments, we committed to sending at least 1 advance copy of each product for a written review (followed by many more in subsequent waves).
- Social Media Tags: If you post an article, podcast, or YouTube channel, a quick post on Instagram tagging @jameystegmaier makes it very easy for me to share the news (though I don’t see every post and thus can’t promise I’ll share ever post–I try my best!). Sidenote about Instagram: A personal pet peeve of mine is when I open an Instagram story and am blasted with music. I don’t want to blast anyone else with music, so it’s very rare that I share posts with audio.
- Weekly roundups: Every Friday, I post on Facebook a list of all Stonemaier review links emailed to me by reviewers over the previous 7 days. While I’ve always posted these links on our website (and continue to do so), I’ve found this to be a more active way to share review content for the benefit of both the reviewers and our followers.
- Featured content: If you accept a free review copy, we’re looking for substantial featured content. That is, we’re looking for more than a quick tweet or Instagram post (a series of such posts is more in line with the idea of “featuring” content). Featured content consists of more than a brief discussion among a number of other games and more than just a 1-2 minute standalone video.
- I Say Yes to Every Interview: No matter the size of your channel, podcast, or website, if you want to chat with me to post a public interview on your platform, I’m happy to join you (and I think you’d be surprised by how many designers, publishers, and artists will do the same). There are a few small caveats to this–for example, you need to have some body of work posted publicly for me to first take a look at–but odds are very high I’ll agree to join you. Read more about this here.
- Forge Your Own Path: There are many ways to approach content creation–your style and methods don’t need to copy what [insert your favorite famous reviewer] does. For example, I have a YouTube channel where I talk about games (mostly games by other designers/publishers). But I’m not a reviewer. Instead, I primarily focus on mechanisms: When I play a new-to-me game or expansion, I select my favorite mechanism and create a video about it. I also post weekly long-form videos (e.g., top 10s) that usually highlight a specific mechanism. I record every video in a single take using a webcam and a decent mic; most are completely unedited (I use StreamYard to share images of the game while I’m talking). I also decided a long time ago that I’m not a reviewer–just a publisher/designer who likes to talk about games–so I do not accept free copies of games (with very rare exceptions, I only play games I buy or that friends own).
- Size Doesn’t Matter: I believe that review content is relevant whether you have 300 subscribers or 300,000. The only impact of size is how often I contact you about available review copies.
- Why isn’t a content creator you know on this list? It’s probably some combination of reasons: They’ve been inactive for a long time, they don’t actually feature content for a free product they accepted (or they didn’t email me links to the content), they didn’t accept any review products for a long time, they’re on our private list but asked not to be on the public list, they never signed up for the list, their content doesn’t meet the above guidelines (too new, no permanent discoverability, clickbait tactics, etc), they’re in a region that is prohibitively expensive for shipping (we accept alternative addresses in regions we do ship to, though), or they consistently exhibit such high levels of antagonism to us and/or others that I simply want no association with them.
We understand that some reviewers receive hundreds of games, and it’s their choice to accept (or not accept) a free review copy from us given these stipulations.
Overall, I’m really grateful for the wide variety of content creators who take the time to share their perspectives with the gaming community. If you’re curious about my favorite content creators, I’ve most likely featured them on one of our annual charity auctions (like these creators in 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013). There are also members of the media who cover gaming news, which I also appreciate.
Below is a list of all reviewers who have given me permission on the form to share their information with you. Over 25% of this list is comprised of underrepresented content creators–I’d love to further improve the diversity of this list! All you need to do after reading the above article is fill out the form; later, if/when you accept a review copy, please feature content for that product and send me a link.
This list doesn’t auto-update–it’s something I manually update once a year using our private list. In case scrolling within the list below is annoying, a full-page version is here. The data on the list may not be 100% accurate, as many reviewers filled out the form a while ago, so their stats and answers may not be up to date. I’m happy to update them upon request.
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If you’re a publisher, what’s your approach to reviewers and other content creators? If you’re a gamer, how do reviewers impact your decision to buy games, expansions, and other products?
Also see my original post on this topic five and a half years ago, the 2025 update, the 2024 update, the 2023 update, the 2022 update, the 2021 update, and the 2020 update.
If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content! You can also listen to posts like this in the audio version of the blog.
Anmelden
What has impressed me about this system is that it creates so many opportunities for contacting and engage potential customers (like me):