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What this mat and advertising reminds me of is the way TV stations (and especially cable TV stations) advertise nowadays. They either have their little logo in the bottom corner of the screen, for the whole show, or they have that little corner pop-up, with an animated little blurb about what show is coming up next, or what show is new to the station. And it does the same thing on TV as it does for me with this mat:

It kills the suspension of disbelief.

When I'm playing a wargame on the table, I want to be absorbed into the game, see the terrain, and mat/table, and the painted armies, and be immersed it in. Likewise, when I watch TV, I want to immerse myself in it.

When I see that little pop-up on TV, and the logo on the mat, it rips me out of my immersion and reminds me: "oh yeah, I'm watching X tv channel", or "oh yeah, I'm playing with plastic toys on a sabol battlemat."

Either way it dampens the experience for me

MagickalMemories wrote:

Now... disagree with me all you want. That's cool. I'll be happy to DISCUSS it further. How about trying to stop the mud flinging, though, for those of you who are? There's no need for derision and derogatory commentaries.

Eric

First off I find that logo absolutely horrible. If I want a battle mat I don't want advertising all over it. Completely ruins it for me and I was considering getting this before finding this out.

Second @ MagickalMemories I think people are hammering you for your very bad analogies that simply do not hold up under even a little bit of scrutiny. The look of the battle mat is its functionality. None of that holds true for any of the other items you mentioned. So while you can have any opinion you want you should at least have a better understanding of what other people are saying. It is obvious that some 10+ people have said they would not buy this item now and you are the only one who would be interested in it. So only some 10% of the people seeing this review would no be interested in buying the item. That means it was a really bad business decision on the part of Sabol to do this.

It obviously detracts from the aesthetic value of the item and they could have just put a smaller and less obtrusive ad / logo in the corner of the mat.

Less like a pop can, more like this;

Hahaha, that is funny! It would have to say Leoart.com repeated a few times too!

No worries Magikal, we are all over it at this point I am sure.

I was in the hardware store today, and saw some precut plywood sheets at 2' x 4' three of which would be perfect for a game board, but it would end up being pretty pricey. Add in the paint, flock, etc. it would end up costing the same amount as the combat mat!

Maybe the store I went to was more expensive than others, but it was the closest.

yeah,
I don't like the Advert... It's something I could only tolerate if it was on a Free sample, you know to get the name out there...
But advertising to a guy has bought from you is dumb, why print your name on his mat?
It would be like BattleFoam putting their logo on everytray! It would kill sales!

It ruins the product for me.
I'm not a sabol representitive, I won't be posting their website advert in my battle reports.
I won't be buying one.

Panic...

Second @ MagickalMemories I think people are hammering you for your very bad analogies that simply do not hold up under even a little bit of scrutiny. The look of the battle mat is its functionality. None of that holds true for any of the other items you mentioned. So while you can have any opinion you want you should at least have a better understanding of what other people are saying. It is obvious that some 10+ people have said they would not buy this item now and you are the only one who would be interested in it. So only some 10% of the people seeing this review would no be interested in buying the item. That means it was a really bad business decision on the part of Sabol to do this.

I understand 100% what they don't like about it, and I can see why. My only point, really, is that it doesn't bother ME... that being said, the product is of no interest to me, either. It's cost is, IMO, excessive for what it is and -on top of that- I already have things to cover my table surface. I'm not so entranced by the graphic on the mat that (with or without advertising) it would make it's way onto my top 20 list... probably ever.

Also, I'm definitely not defending Sabol's decision to put the graphic where they did. Being the type of person who always wants to believe the best of people, I don't think it was put that way to make it so that people would choose to keep the advert, rather than snip it off. I think it was, simply, a placement mistake.

Who knows. Maybe I don't mind it being there because I know I'll never buy one, making the advertisement placement immaterial. Maybe that's it. I DO know that, when I played locally, the mat advert didn't bother me.
Then again... I didn't buy that one, either. : )

E

P.S. While I'd never compare a battlemat to the Mona Lisa, I did get a big kick (and a LOL) out of your comparison, Aduro.

Cruentus wrote:When I see that little pop-up on TV, and the logo on the mat, it rips me out of my immersion and reminds me: "oh yeah, I'm watching X tv channel"

QFT, that's why I would never pay for TV. Why give your money to someone for adverts, the point of this entire thread. I already bought your product, you don't need to remind me in repetitive type where I got it. If it is good enough that other players will want it, they will ask me where to get it. Adverts are designed to get you to buy stuff without thought, I take a proactive approach, if you offend me with and advert, I won't buy anything you make.

Wow. Magikal, sorry you got dogpiled there. I was trying to respond to your statement, not throw mud. Oh I DID respond about your "smaller" image as well. Prego, baby; it's in there.

But the Mona Lisa pic was still REALLY funny!

grizgrin wrote:Wow. Magikal, sorry you got dogpiled there.

I think by now he learned a valuable lesson: "Never put yourself between a man and its favorite drink..." ehehe

As for the prices of these things, If you add shipping to europe its never going to be a cheap buy... I refuse to pay so much for a matt of any type.

Magikal, Aduro's image pretty much sums up why I think advertising is best left off certain items.

If you go through your house you wont see any ads on your carpet, your wallpaper, your furniture, the house itself.
People who wear suits to work don't have the name of the tailors or factories that made the suits on the outside.
There are just times when for an illusion to be created the strings must be hidden.

To put the ad on in a place where its presence was going to compete with the mat itself is just corporate tomfoolery. The ad did not need to be repeated over and over and it could easily have been put closer to the edge.
A single ad near the edge would still be effective at identifying the product whilst giving the user the option of placing scenery over it during game time.

What they've done is akin to Games Workshop printing their name across vehicle hulls in places where removing them would ruin the model further. They don't do this because it would ruin the effect being aimed for and the amadans at Sabol will hopefully rectify their mistake.

The ignore button has proved invaluable to me. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on "quoted" posts...

vonjankmon wrote:I think it's has more to do with the nature of the product having an ad rather than just the ad itself. The ENTIRE point of the product is to make your battlefield look more realistic.

Precisely, Vonjankmon.
If I wanted to buy a surface to suspend my disbelief, then I will buy a product like Zuzzy.
If I was not worried about the look of the battle surface, I wouldn't even bother buying one, I would just play on a plan old table.
Magicalmemories completely missed the trees for the woods in his comparison.

Thanks for the review Reecius. Sorry it cost you that much to find out but you did the wargaming community as a whole a great service by taking one for the team so to speak.

I will stick with my zuzzy mats and not bother with a lower quality in both materials and production value product like sabol.

So now HF has to do a review of the zuzzy mats along with a guide on how to paint them.

Take your time, I'll wait.

Tazok sent me a Zuzzy mat review. I've been lazy.

I'm still lazy. Give me a week or so.

Ozymandias wrote:So now HF has to do a review of the zuzzy mats along with a guide on how to paint them.

Take your time, I'll wait.

Nope not gonna. Too much other BS in life right now and the one project I AM involved in will not be sidetracked by such things.

Tazok has sweet sweet stuff anyways. Don't let his love for greenskins fool you into believing that he isn't anything other than a terrain god.

Hellfury wrote:

Ozymandias wrote:So now HF has to do a review of the zuzzy mats along with a guide on how to paint them.

Take your time, I'll wait.

Nope not gonna. Too much other BS in life right now and the one project I AM involved in will not be sidetracked by such things.

Tazok has sweet sweet stuff anyways. Don't let his love for greenskins fool you into believing that he isn't anything other than a terrain god.

Fine then! I've seen Tazok's blog piece on the zuzzy mat and it looks great. Don't remember seeing a guide to painting though.

It's just a review, I think.