It's for people that grew up in the 90s, and it possibly favors girls. I dunno if any of the rooms used to contain teenage boys, or if the story mentions any.

At least the game is finally at the price it deserves. ;P (don't kill me)

It's for game journalists who are friends with the developers.

I bought it because of the adventure detective theme. I liked the "find out what happened here" Scenario.

Początkowo opublikowane przez mendel:

Buy this if you...
...like stories.
...like to explore.
...like short games (1-3 hours).
Buy this on sale.
Don't buy this if you...
...are looking for challenges of logic or skill.
...are unsympathetic to LGBT issues.
...don't like teen drama as a genre.
These points address the most frequent complaints voiced on this forum.

source (needs a reply to bump it up)

I liked the storytelling for both having depth (realistic emotions and reactions of all family members, but mostly Sam) and breadth (all of the family members get a backstory, but mostly Sam), and I loved to explore the house.

I got this game in an HB and despite not being really interested in it i ended up giving it a try. It is very short (in 2h i have seen everything) and it is not a game in the traditional way. That being said i ended up really enjoying it. (i had no clue about the thematic of the game when i played it so my experience was a bit different then most people in that regard).
I would recommend this game but it is actually pretty hard to know to what people recommend since i believe most people will not enjoy it..
It is a niche game, defenitively not for everyone and i can easily see why some people wouldn't like it. In games like this what i usually suggest is to watch some videos and maybe try the game. However, in this specefic case i believe that doing so would take from the experience. And at least for me that was the main selling point that Gone Home had.
If you end buying it i hope you enjoy it.

P.S.
Responding to your ideia of the main audience: i am not a girl, not an american, not a teenager, not gay, not a feminist and i never set my eyes on tumblr.

Edit. I'd only suggest buying on sale.

If you love tumblr and eat up everything that comes out of tumblr, you'll love this game.

There is no real gameplay on this game. And after the end of the game, you will wonder why all the fuss during the game for the meh ending you can see coming from one million miles. Buy it on sales. At 20 euros it is MUCH to expensive, at 2 euros I think it is OK.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Mithrandir3:

the meh ending you can see coming from one million miles

There have been posts on another thread just a few hours ago where players expected a completely different ending. Maybe you just got lucky, I know I certainly didn't predict the ending.

Początkowo opublikowane przez mendel:

Początkowo opublikowane przez mendel:

Buy this if you...
...like stories.
...like to explore.
...like short games (1-3 hours).
Buy this on sale.
Don't buy this if you...
...are looking for challenges of logic or skill.
...are unsympathetic to LGBT issues.
...don't like teen drama as a genre.
These points address the most frequent complaints voiced on this forum.

source (needs a reply to bump it up)

I liked the storytelling for both having depth (realistic emotions and reactions of all family members, but mostly Sam) and breadth (all of the family members get a backstory, but mostly Sam), and I loved to explore the house.

**SPOILERS**
I think the LGBT issue in Gone Home is pretty well-handled insofar as it is merely incidental. It's a story of two people who love each other and just happen to be lesbians. I could be easily categorized under "unsympathetic to LGBT issues" due to my conservative views regarding marriage and other issues (because, you know, nowadays "don't agree" = "unsympathetic"). But that didn't prevent me from enjoying the game in any way. This is because I never felt Gone Home was trying to shove an ideological agenda down my throat, which is a blessing given that movies on this subject tend to be really ideologically-oriented and plagued by "Us vs. Them" mentality, which can put one easily off.

So, the way I see it (aka: imho), even if one is "unsympathetic to LGBT issues" one can still enjoy Gone Home as I did, because the LGBT thing is nothing but incidental to the story.

Lol @ all these people saying "Why would you want to play an interactive book"
Sorry, but that's like straight up saying the Point to Click genre isn't a video game genre.
Which if that's what somebody believes, they're dead wrong. Point to Click games, mainly in this style, were Video Games first mainly before any of that RPG, FPS, MMO sh!t.
May seem a little boring to some, not nearly as much action, but that's what a Point and Click game is.

It's a game for people who hate the idea of video games.

Początkowo opublikowane przez TesseracT:

It's a game for people who hate the idea of video games.

Actually, it's for people whose idea of video games is broader than yours.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Feathers:

Początkowo opublikowane przez mendel:

Actually, it's for people whose idea of video games is broader than yours.

I would say it's more for people who want to read an awful love story with no gameplay.

Pretty much this.
I mean we could be all pretentious and try pretend it's more than it really is.

But let's be honest here.
Gone Home is in no way revolutionary, game changing, convention challenging or groundbreaking.

It's your generic Find key Open door game with some flavour text thrown in around the environment to break up what is otherwise a simple glorified fetch quest.

And yes, I know it's main selling point is it's narrative but let's look at this.
The narrative is what?
Coming home from school to find your family isn't home, there's a note for you on the door, you let yourself in then run around reading flavour text that consists of "I like this music!" "I wonder what sis is doing" "I remember this day at school!" "Oh no! I diary, I better leave it alone" and then finally of course "By the way, don't tell anyone but I'm a lesbian"

The inclusion of lesbians (or rather the close friendships between the developers and some reviewers cough Danielle Rideneau cough) lead to the game being awarded a 10/10.

So no, the game is not for people "whose idea of video games is broader than yours"
It's a generic poorly written narrative game with some very basic "key finding" mechanics to artificially prolong gameplay with the game's entire identity being focused around "WE HAVE LESBIANS. LOOK HOW PROGRESSIVE WE ARE", or in other words token use of minorities for bonus points.

When a character's identity or rather in this case, the game's identity revolves around a single flat aspect.
That's bad writing.
I don't care how "socially aware" you think that identity is.
It's flat, it's shallow, it's incredibly basic and it is an insult to the genre.

Want a better experience?
Go get another Narrative game like "Dear Esther".
Instead of affording undeserved praise to a generic title.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Terk:

Coming home from school to find your family isn't home, there's a note for you on the door, you let yourself in then run around reading flavour text

This game's definitely not for you. You seem to have missed that Kaitlin is coming home from a year abroad, and that the "flavor text" is an important part of the narrative. Given that you overlooked the interesting bits -- which is strange, since even Hernandez' review states that the items lying around the house reveal quite a lot - and that is precisely what the reviewers who praised the game found so special about it (No items in Dear Esther, hundreds of them in Gone Home) - given that, it becomes clear that your opinion of the game must be low: it can't be groundbreaking for you when you disregard its groundbreaking elements. And you do that because they're not included in the things you look for in a videogame, and that's because your idea of a game is more rigid and narrow than that of others. (It's not a problem. You're welcome to your view, but please accept that there are those who don't share it.)

I'll put it down to your unwillingness to read that you smeared the wrong reviewer - might look them up on the gamergate wiki sometime, for "Gone Home" the target is Danielle Rideneau[www.polygon.com], not Patricia Hernandez. (I also like Danielle's review better.)

I suspect your statements about "game's entire identity" are likewise the result of poor reading comprehension, or maybe malice? Who knows. It's a fact that the main narrative of the game (there are side narratives about the parents and other people) focuses on a coming of age story, on teen experiences in a rebellious phase, and friendship and love predictably play a big part of it. The fact that it's love between two girls does not.

Początkowo opublikowane przez mendel:

I'll put it down to your unwillingness to read that you smeared the wrong reviewer - might look them up on the gamergate wiki sometime, for "Gone Home" the target is Danielle Rideneau[www.polygon.com], not Patricia Hernandez. (I also like Danielle's review better.)

I always get those two mixed up.
My bad there, thanks for correcting me, I'll edit the original post to reflect that too.

Also, my position isn't one of malice or what not.
I honestly do see Gone Home as nothing special.
Note I didn't say "terrible"
I just mean nothing special.
This is the crux of my point, there are better games out there in the genre that are deserving of the kind of praise Gone Home recieved.
Surely you have to honestly admit on some level that Gone Home, while not in itself a bad game, is hardly one deserving of the sweeping highest possible aclaim it got, especially when compared to other entries in the narrative driven exploration genre of video games.

And come on, let's be honest with ourselves here.
A big part of the reason it got 10/10s was because it had used minoirites like tokens and became the latest posterchild the whole "GAMES NEED TO GROW UP" narrative.