Among Shindig’s content are reviews of specific products, such as games, comics, and collectibles. The aim of these articles is twofold:
- To provide an assessment of the strengths and flaws with the product in question, in order to inform readers about whether or not it might be of interest to them.
- To critically analyse the artistic merit of the work, exploring its relationship with the audience and with society.
These two goals are not mutually exclusive, and indeed, most reviews will cover both aspects to some extent. However, some reviews will sway more to one side or the other, and the focus of the review will be dependent on the subject. In some cases, our coverage may include multiple reviews, from multiple perspectives.
We aim to provide reviews that go beyond simple “buying advice”, but naturally, artistic and consumer merit will often overlap.
We use a five-star rating system (with half-stars for works that sit somewhere between two others):
- Five Stars: Excellent, and something that everyone should consider checking out. This doesn’t mean “perfect” or without flaw; it’s something that pushes the boundaries of the medium, is artistically or culturally significant, and/or is just extremely enjoyable to play, read, or watch.
- Four Stars: Very good. It’s not quite the masterpiece that earns five stars, but is very ambitious, noteworthy, and enjoyable all the same.
- Three Stars: Average. It’ll have something to offer fans of the medium or genre, but doesn’t really do anything to stand out.
- Two Stars: Not good. It has some good points, but the flaws overwhelm them and make this difficult to recommend to all but the most diehard fans.
- One Star: Awful. Something that gets one star is broken or outright offensive, and has no redeming qualities whatsoever.
Any products reviewed will be done so under the same conditions as any public access. Products will either be purchased for review the same way anyone else would do so, and in the case of games where online play is an important factor, will be reviewed in a live environment with other players who have bought the game. Our focus isn’t on getting a review out on or before launch day, but on giving the best assessment of the product that we can.
Even in cases where a review unit or copy has been supplied, we will not discuss our reviews with developers, publishers, or PR firms, except in cases where there are factual inaccuracies that need to be addressed. We may amend our reviews from time to time, but any such amendments will always be noted and will never be at the behest of publishers.
Shindig currently does not have advertising aside from affiliate links and Google Ads, with almost all running costs paid for personally by the site’s management. This may change in the future, but we will never accept advertorial content, adverts will always be clearly marked, and we won’t advertise for companies that we cover on the site unless we can ensure a complete separation of advertising and editorial.