Buying games without reading reviews has changed my purchasing psychology.

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Alxndr 11 Sep @ 10:38pm

This may sound dramatic but it really has uplifted my gaming experience. Since I can remember I have only ever bought games that have either overwhelmingly positive or very position reviews. In fact sometimes I'll find a game that has very positive reviews and upon reading them I'll scroll past 20 or 30 positive ones and find a single negative review, read it and decide against buying it... Stupid I know.

But over the last year or so I came to realise that everyone likes different things, what some people rate as positive, others may rate as negative and vice versa.

And Steams refund policy is incredible, it creates a safety net for us to buy a game, use it, and then refund it if it doesn't match our expectations. Something that doesn't happen with physical purchases very often.

So I used uBlock Origin element picker and blocked the review element on the Steam store page so now I literally cannot see what the reviews are, and instead I buy games based entirely on whether they look good and if I think I'll enjoy them. I've also stopped looking at Youtube reviews and instead just look at gameplay footage.

I've bought 3 games in the last month without knowing the reviews and I've enjoyed all 3 of them. I peeked at the reviews just now and one has mixed, one has mostly positive and the other has very positive.

I am certain I would not have bought the mixed or mostly positive ones if I knew they had this review status before hand.

Obviously 3 is a small sample size but honestly I'm starting to think of how many games I didn't buy and missed out on a lot of fun just because the reviews were not insanely positive ya know?

So yeah, I'm not longer buying based on reviews, if I buy it and I like it I'll keep it, if I don't and it's buggy and terrible I'll refund it.

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Showing 1-12 of 12 comments

Bind0fGod 11 Sep @ 10:41pm

This was written by Randy Pitchford

Nev Nev 11 Sep @ 10:48pm

Oh yeah, well I agree with the sentiment. I never buy games based on reviews, ever in my life.

Back in the day when we just had reviews in magazines or just online magazines, no peer reviews, I would always just be interested in what was in the game and how it was, not the opinion of the person. I never cared about their opinions. I was just interested in the games content.

I never understood why people would only buy games based on others. I guess they have their reasons? But people are individuals with different likes and dislikes. I don't know though, I personally can never let someone decide something for me. Just too weird.

But yeah, I love a lot of the non-famous games. They're my style of genre and gameplay. If I only got the highly positive or high selling and trendy ones, dang my life would be boring.

Goldias 11 Sep @ 10:54pm

Mostly looking for negative review about technical problems.
If a game have lots of complaint about performance I'll just find other game, don't wanna risk it.

Pierce Dalton 11 Sep @ 11:09pm

I do read Steam reviews more for fun than anything, they rarely impact my decision.

Caldari Ghost 11 Sep @ 11:14pm

The one or two times I bought a game without reading reviews I massively regretted it

Edward Von Worms 11 Sep @ 11:23pm

the biggest problem is fake reviews, humans are known to lie, add to that paid reviews and influencers and it has gotten pretty hard to tell exactly what a game is about, one of my main red flags is anything that doesn't show actual gameplay and states the system it is running on, something could be said for the honesty of devs these days, even dumb people can often understand when someone is attempting to deceive them.

Alxndr 11 Sep @ 11:28pm

Originally posted by Caldari Ghost:
The one or two times I bought a game without reading reviews I massively regretted it

I would say this is true for physical products because generally they're either good or they're bad right? But something like a video game is really subjective, much like a movie or music.

Obviously nobody likes a buggy mess that crashes every hour but I've found that generally 2 hours is enough time to determine if a game is a buggy mess, and if it is then I will refund it.

Alxndr 11 Sep @ 11:31pm

Originally posted by Nev Nev:
Oh yeah, well I agree with the sentiment. I never buy games based on reviews, ever in my life.

Back in the day when we just had reviews in magazines or just online magazines, no peer reviews, I would always just be interested in what was in the game and how it was, not the opinion of the person. I never cared about their opinions. I was just interested in the games content.

I never understood why people would only buy games based on others. I guess they have their reasons? But people are individuals with different likes and dislikes. I don't know though, I personally can never let someone decide something for me. Just too weird.

But yeah, I love a lot of the non-famous games. They're my style of genre and gameplay. If I only got the highly positive or high selling and trendy ones, dang my life would be boring.

I think it's because I'm looking for reassurance that my money won't be wasted. I'm not living pay check to pay check but I'm also not a millionaire so when it comes to buying stuff, I still want to make sure my money is not going to waste.

So the moment I see a negative review that criticises an aspect of the game, it puts me off and I start looking for a different game. Even when the ratio of positives to negatives is like 10:1. It's a habit I've built up over the last 20 years really.

pasa 12 Sep @ 12:29am

Originally posted by Alxndr:
This may sound dramatic but it really has uplifted my gaming experience. Since I can remember I have only ever bought games that have either overwhelmingly positive or very position reviews. In fact sometimes I'll find a game that has very positive reviews and upon reading them I'll scroll past 20 or 30 positive ones and find a single negative review, read it and decide against buying it... Stupid I know.

That's what I do and consider it the opposite of stupid. That - review was probably not just the usual "gg" with 2 hours played of the game that is meant to have 60, but goes to detail explaining what was expected and what got instead playing beyond the tutorial.

sure, you have money to burn and only aim to have 1000 games on the acc, buy ahead. Or don't count your time a value and happy to waste it on mediocre experience.

Those who look for certain playing experience are better off looking at YT play videos and reading reviews.

OTOH, just prefiltering by statistics and not even look at positive is stupid indeed. I personally don't bother with "mixed" unless special circumstances apply, but overwhelmingly positive is an unfair bar, many people dislike a game exactly for having what I look for, i.e need to think rather than just scroll/click through.

Last edited by pasa; 12 Sep @ 12:34am

AdahnGorion 12 Sep @ 12:33am

Reviews are just subjective takes from biased consumers.
They are almost always useless and personally I would never buy something based on reviews..

If you can see and hear, then there is more than enough official informations on games for you to make a guess about if it's for you or not

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Bind0fGod 12 Sep @ 12:50am

Originally posted by AdahnGorion:
Reviews are just subjective takes from biased consumers.
They are almost always useless and personally I would never buy something based on reviews..

If you can see and hear, then there is more than enough official informations on games for you to make a guess about if it's for you or not

well games are just subjective takes from biased devs - so it evens out

#11

AdahnGorion 12 Sep @ 12:55am

Originally posted by Bind0fGod:
Originally posted by AdahnGorion:
Reviews are just subjective takes from biased consumers.
They are almost always useless and personally I would never buy something based on reviews..

If you can see and hear, then there is more than enough official informations on games for you to make a guess about if it's for you or not
well games are just subjective takes from biased devs - so it evens out

The point is reviewers were pro biased as you need to own a game to leave a review.

You will never see or hear why people ended up skipping the game

#12

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Date Posted: 11 Sep @ 10:38pm

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