How much do reviews impact your purchases?

[BathorysGraveland2]

I don't even read/watch reviews to be honest. They've never really affected me anyway for any medium as I tend to have very individual tastes, or simply tastes that aren't the norm. So really not at all. The only exception is if a review says something is horrendously buggy or glitchy. That's about the only time I'll pay any heed to a review (other than just entertainment, of course).

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Almost entirely. I havent bought a game for PS4 for more than a month after I bought it because reviews weren't stellar.

 

[McElroy]

Sometimes yes, but I'm rarely an early adopter of new releases, and so I mostly rely on word of mouth instead of reviews. Reviews are often a way to check if a critic agrees with me on movies or games. Confirmation bias ftw.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Usually not at all, but I sure am glad I watched some reviews before picking up Assassin's Creed Unity.

I generally have my mind made up based on what I've seen of the game, but I can never be 100% sure.

 

[Godhead]

Depends on the review. I normally don't pay attention to the actual number they give them, but rather if the controls are good, and if there are any glaring bugs and glitches.

 

[brtt150]

Not very much. If I'm interested in a game I'm going to check it out unless there's just overwhelmingly negative feedback. Games I'm ambivalent towards though reviews may influence me more.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Somewhat is the short answer. The longer answer is that there are effectively three categories for games: those I will buy no matter what, those I may buy and those I will never buy.

Of the three categories, reviews and write ups will have no effect whatsoever on titles I will buy regardless and those I will never buy. For the other category however, those games I'm tempted by but not sure of, reviews will make our break my decision to buy or not. In order of most influence, recommendation from friends, recommendation from other players (eg. Here on this forum) and lastly, proper reviews can convince me if a game is worth it or not.

There are very few games now which I still outright buy "sight unseen". Elder Scrolls, Fallout, any CDProjekt Red game, a few others, that's it. Games I will never buy (unless they're insanely cheap in a steam sale, and then I'll likely never play them) are most big AAA franchises, anything that releases annually, anything Origin exclusive, most indie games that look like undergrad projects. For everything else, I see what friends, gamers and reviewers have to say before I decide.

 

[Something Amyss]

Not at all.

"First impression" videos on the other hand affect my purchases quite a lot.

 

[DeimosMasque]

Pretty much not at all, UNLESS their are multiple reviews that basically all say it's unplayable. If I want a game, I'll get it. If I listened to bad reviews or even average reviews I wouldn't have played some games I really like.

 

[veloper]

Reviews can convince me to NOT buy games.
A game with a low metacritic score isn't even worth a trip to Youtube.

Generally, aggregates and written reviews are a very quick way to get many spoiler-free points of view on a game. Vids take much longer to get to the point or show the relevant bits, so I reserve that option for more promising new titles that are less spoilerific (not games relying on puzzles).

 

[Silvanus]

Occasionally, reviews will impact my choice. I bought Alien: Isolation on the basis of consistently raving reviews (combined with it being in a genre I love, and a franchise I love).

Most of the time, though, they won't impact my decision much. I will usually watch short gameplay videos before I make a purchase instead.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Not much. Usually I find the games I'm *really* looking forward to receive quite positive scores. I often know ahead of time when games aren't likely to be very good (I'm looking at you, Colonial Marines) and manage to avoid getting excited about them. I didn't need a Metacritic score to tell me Duke Nukem Forever was going to be something of a mess and probably not good enough to bother with. I always look at reviews but can't remember a single time a game I wanted was reviewed badly enough to change my mind. I might wait until a Steam sale to pick up a less well reviewed game, but I'm still getting it.

 

[LaoJim]

I'd be interested to know the age of those who are saying "not at all" as being something of an old fart, I'm still sentimentally attached to a good review.

I think having the considered opinions of a person who has played the game from 20+ hours is much more valuable that watching the same person play the game for the first time for an hour and talk off the top of their head. Also, while I like seeing snippets of play footage, I don't want to see the first hour of the game since for me the first few hours (once you've passed the tutorial anyway) of a game are the most fun as you come to understand the aesthetic and gameplay choices the developer has made.

That said I tend not to buy games at launch so what happens is I have the preview-period were a game is hyped, the review-period when professional reviewers have their say, and then public-period where the public get their hands on the game and if they disagree with the reviewers they tend to make their feelings known. So I'm unusually well informed by the time I pick the game up.

 

[baddude1337]

Quite a bit when browsing Steam. With all the crap that is on it nowadays, I am usually wary games I've never heard of on sale, so reviews become paramount to my decision.

However, if it's a property or game series I really like, my love for that property tends to overwrite the low reviews.

 

[jklinders]

I take it case by case. Most of the time I already know if I want a game before it comes out. the main things i look for are technical or design problems that come down to more objective traits that a reviewer can talk about rather than the opinion based stuff. Unless a reviewer has a opinion set that matches my own I consider it highly unlikely that their opinion of a games softer stats are going to be relevant to me.

So if their opinion comes out as "it works as intended" then I can call it useful to me then decide for myself if the other stuff I heard about is appealing.

Numerical scores can stuff it and the majority of the time user scores are so far based on punishing "evil publishers" as to be completely useless to me.

 

[renegade7]

Not much these days, I tend to go off of let's play videos where I can see the game in action and if the people on the escapist and other forums seem to be saying good things.

Yea, basically this. I'd much rather actually see the game being played.

Rather than a corruption or collusion, the reason I'm less inclined to go off reviews is that to the professional reviewers, it's just a job. They play the game for a few days to a week at most, then just write up how they feel about it. The nature of this means they have to rush through it to cover enough ground in time to formulate a reasonably well-informed opinion before the deadline. That makes me worry that they might miss some really major flaws or play through the entire thing before the launch hype has worn off (resulting in an inflated score) or get bored because they're human and sometimes aren't up to sitting down to play the same video game for 8 hours (resulting in a deflated score).

I'd much rather see someone actually play the game, talk me through it, and see for myself how the game actually plays than take someone else's word for it.

 

[FPLOON]

How can a review effect the thing I've already bought and/or am going to buy anyway?

But seriously, I tend to only read reviews of things I've bought already, still going to buy in the future, and/or things I was basically indifferent to, anyway, just because I like reading [random] reviews in general... especially if it's a written review of a video game [I greatly enjoyed] where they gave it a very low score overall... So, I'm not sure if they impact me in the traditional sense...

 

[the doom cannon]

Actual reviews influence what I buy, for sure. Numbers do not. There is a big difference between a review and a score, because the review tells me what the game is and if I will enjoy it or not.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Can anyone find me a review by a legitimate, respected journalism source that gave 'The Last of Us' anything other than a glowing, overwhelming 9/10 or 10/10 recommendation?

I didn't like 'The Last of Us.' It bored me so much that I didn't finish it, and I always finish the games I paid for. I could write a review myself that warned people to stay the hell away from that game. But would that review be helpful to most people out there? Clearly it would not.

I remember the Game Informer review of Soul Calibur 5; it was a very positive 8/10. My friend bought it and we decided two hours in that it was easily the worst Soul Calibur ever. There were several issues we had that the review never even mentioned.

So no, I don't ever, ever base my purchases on a review. I judge for myself, based on genre, style, developer, gameplay, history of the franchise, and many other small factors that I am privy to long before the reviews come out. If I am on the fence about a game that has already been released, then I may take reviews into consideration. I just think that they are a terrible thing to base your purchases on.