What makes you buy a videogame? – Are reviews all-important?
What makes you buy videogames? I don’t mean overall, but the individual games available for your system of choice. Are reviews all-important? Or does price, series history, or developer notoriety make you reach in your pocket and buy a PS3, Xbox 360, or Wii game?
A recent article on The Koalition talking about how important reviews are to purchasing decisions made me start thinking about why I buy games. And I was immediately interested in what the readers of Blorge think about the subject as well. Yes, I actually care what you all think, and read your comments… even the nasty ones.
Reviews are clearly important to purchasing decisions, whether that’s right or wrong. If you trust a particular source for gaming news and views, you are likely to listen to what they say about a game. If they say it’s rubbish, then you’re likely to steer clear, while a positive review is likely to persuade you to part with your hard-earned.
But the chances are you’d have made your mind up well in advance of any review appearing either on the Internet or in a magazine. If you’ve followed a game’s development from the start, and either been intrigued by the style, genre, or plot, you’re likely to harbor a want for it regardless. In that case, a good review is likely to just reinforce your viewpoint, while a bad one can be ignored.
There’s another problem with reviews, which is the integrity of the reviewers concerned. Official games magazines used to be full of gushing reviews for first-party games, even though every other publication was giving the title low scores. The Internet has helped in that respect, but backhanders and exclusive previews for positive reviews are still a regular occurrence, although thankfully not on Blorge.
Series and developer history has a big part to play. Take Final Fantasy for example. Some of the games have been far superior to others, but that hasn’t stopped me buying every iteration over the years purely because the series has generally been good to me. Square Enix are the same. Because of Final Fantasy, I’m always interested in this company’s games, even if they turn out to be crap.
And there’s price, a matter probably more important now that the economy is in the toilet. Maybe I’m an old miser these days but price definitely plays a part in my buying decisions. Although I love Guitar Hero, I’ve never bought Rock Band because it’s too much money for just one game. Price concerns also mean I look to the pre-owned sections on all but the essential new releases.
I’m sensing a new poll in the offing here, but I’d love to hear your views on this subject. Are reviews as important as some people think? Do they still hold the same power as they did years ago? Are magazine reviews more reliable than Website reviews? What ultimately makes your mind up as to whether to buy a game?
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19 Responses to “What makes you buy a videogame? – Are reviews all-important?”
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November 23rd, 2008
hearing it early and reviews are more important to me although reviews are helpful now when so many new games have been released
November 23rd, 2008
Reviews help me greatly. I only buy games when I read “much better on the 360 than on the PS3, and the 360 has netflix, not just crap BBC1.”
Thankfully I have a healthy collection of 40+ games. . . Orange Box, COD4, Bioshock . . .
many many games have fit that requirement.
November 23rd, 2008
umm… I bought Socom… and that got a 6.5 from Gamespot… well… bought it for the headset… still I like it…
the same way my idiot friend likes Mercenaries 2… even though it has a ton of bugs… he enjoys it… then again… he did get a pirated version…
Id buy it if its a good game… reviews count… so do demos… so do word of mouth… not just one thing…
November 24th, 2008
I’d rather have a demo than a review because you get biased idiots like jsimons writing them. Also, whether you like a game or not is obviously down to you entirely. Take the .hack GU games on ps2, not fantastically recieved, but I loved ‘em.
November 24th, 2008
NO FREEKIN WAY SW!!!
My idiot friend liked that series too… and … so did I… only a little… thought the story was interesting… but TOO MUCH collecting… combat was no fun… but still good story…
November 24th, 2008
I have a question for the PS3 people. (Excluding Ivan the terrible)
How easy is it to put in a bigger HDD?
I am a computer programmer with lots of hardware skills.
I just haven’t seen a PS3 close up yet. I’m going to buy one and I want to through in a large drive. So should I buy a 20 gig one?
Thanks
November 24th, 2008
DWH it hasnt come up that u added me. My new name is Anihilate, i create so many different MGO accounts. My PSN is Anihal8r
November 24th, 2008
@ncaissie
With the PS3 unplugged, you open the panel on the side, pull out the harddrive and insert new hard drive (notebook sata). Close panel.
Plug back in and turn on. Voila.
If you value what is already on the hdd, back up using the utility before hand, and restore after installation.
November 24th, 2008
@JofaMang
It will be brand new so nothing I will need from it.
Thanks
November 24th, 2008
I got over 500 games and i have never ever care about reviews. This is what i look in a game graphics, controls, atmosphere, and online support and genre.
ncaissie:
Any idiot can add a bigger hard drive to the PS3 is easy as hell real the PS3.
You will need:
1 NOTEBOOK 2.5MM HDD SATA ANY SIZE (We recommend staying with the same RPM as the PS3’s original HDD, 5400RPM. You can upgrade to 7200RPM, of course, but we cannot promise that it will not have ill-effects on your machine.)
1 MINI PHILLIPS HEAD SCREWDRIVER
1 MINI FLATHEAD SCREWDRIVER
1 SOLID PLACE TO WORK
We cannot stress enough the importance of buying the correct HDD. The one we used cost $93 USD at Newegg. If you get a regular old IDE Notebook drive, you will be out of luck, so make sure you order the right part.
The first step is to find the HDD Bay on your Playstation 3. It is located on the left side of the console, and it is marked with HDD. Easy enough. Use your flat head screwdriver to pop off the plastic cover. You now have access to the actual HDD caddy.
The next step is to remove the blue screw that holds the HDD caddy in place using the Phillips head screwdriver. Once you have done so, flip up the metal handle that is on the front of the caddy, and slide the HDD towards the FRONT of the Playstation 3 to dislodge it. Once you have done so you can remove the HDD tray.
Once you have access to the tray outside the PS3, you can take out the 4 screws which hold the original Playstation 3 HDD in place, and swap in your new 2.5MM SATA Notebook HDD.
Once the new HDD is secured in the HDD caddy, you need to place the caddy back inside the PS3 unit, and slide it toward the REAR of the console to lock it in place. Once you have done so, the final step is to use your Phillips head screwdriver to replace the blue screw which anchors the HDD caddy to the Playstation 3. Pop on the plastic cover, and boot up the console.
As soon as you boot up the console, the PS3 will detect that the HDD is not formatted, and it will ask you if you would like to format. You must select yes twice, because they want you to be sure that you realize you will be destroying all the data. Of course, you pick yes.
Once the HDD is formatted, which takes less than 2 minutes, the unit will ask you to reboot. Once you have done so, you can do into the settings menu option in the PS3 OS. Then choose system settings, and then finally system information. There you will see a display of the HDD space on your console. If you have done everything correctly, you will see that the HDD space now reflects the amount of space on the replacement drive. Keep in mind, about 15 to 20 GB of space will be taken up by the PS3 for system use, so do not be alarmed when the HDD space measurement comes up short.
November 24th, 2008
I guess Ivan missed the ‘(Excluding Ivan the terrible)’ part of his question
November 24th, 2008
For me it’s a sort of “all of the above” with a “I’ll rent from Gamefly first and see if I like it” sprinkled in. Example: I bought Midnight Club LA right away because I loved the other MCs. But I bought Valkyria Chronicles after I played it from Gamefly. Also, Price is the probably the biggest factor. I got MC by trading in other games I never play, which knocked the price down to $33. Valkyria Chronicles I got for $42 from Gamefly. I pretty much never pay full price for any game.
-Arvis
November 24th, 2008
I guess I kind of am an “all of the above also”. Some franchises I will always buy regardless. Demos are ideal. That way you can actually get a pretty complete idea of how the game actually is. I do listen to word of mouth/hype and reviews, but I always try to take in as much as possible. I never base my decisions off of just a single review. I tend to take reviews with a grain of salt. If I read a lot of reviews and most say basically the same thing, then it carries a little more weight.
I only have about 12GB left on my PS3, so I’ll be changing mine soon. I saw that there is a “Back up hard drive” option on the XMB. I guess I’ll just back it up to my PC, but is there an easy way to transfer your old data to the new Hard Drive? Also how will it effect my games that I have on my existing Hard drive? I think they are bound to the hard drive they were downloaded to, right?
November 24th, 2008
I think they are very important for games. I like to read game reviews for cell phones before I buy them. Right now I’m a big fan of the Krave. (motorola.com/krave) It’s got a crystal clear touch screen display. I’ve liked this thing ever since I started working with Motorola. It’s awesome!
November 24th, 2008
FERRO, can you please delete mgoode’s post? He’s just trying to advertise his shitty little mobile phone.
November 26th, 2008
“Any idiot can add a bigger hard drive to the PS3 is easy as hell real the PS3.
You will need:
1 NOTEBOOK 2.5MM HDD SATA ANY SIZE (We recommend staying with the same RPM as the PS3’s original HDD, 5400RPM. You can upgrade to 7200RPM, of course, but we cannot promise that it will not have ill-effects on your machine.)
1 MINI PHILLIPS HEAD SCREWDRIVER
1 MINI FLATHEAD SCREWDRIVER
1 SOLID PLACE TO WORK
We cannot stress enough the importance of buying the correct HDD. The one we used cost $93 USD at Newegg. If you get a regular old IDE Notebook drive, you will be out of luck, so make sure you order the right part.
The first step is to find the HDD Bay on your Playstation 3. It is located on the left side of the console, and it is marked with HDD. Easy enough. Use your flat head screwdriver to pop off the plastic cover. You now have access to the actual HDD caddy.
The next step is to remove the blue screw that holds the HDD caddy in place using the Phillips head screwdriver. Once you have done so, flip up the metal handle that is on the front of the caddy, and slide the HDD towards the FRONT of the Playstation 3 to dislodge it. Once you have done so you can remove the HDD tray.
Once you have access to the tray outside the PS3, you can take out the 4 screws which hold the original Playstation 3 HDD in place, and swap in your new 2.5MM SATA Notebook HDD.
Once the new HDD is secured in the HDD caddy, you need to place the caddy back inside the PS3 unit, and slide it toward the REAR of the console to lock it in place. Once you have done so, the final step is to use your Phillips head screwdriver to replace the blue screw which anchors the HDD caddy to the Playstation 3. Pop on the plastic cover, and boot up the console.
As soon as you boot up the console, the PS3 will detect that the HDD is not formatted, and it will ask you if you would like to format. You must select yes twice, because they want you to be sure that you realize you will be destroying all the data. Of course, you pick yes.
Once the HDD is formatted, which takes less than 2 minutes, the unit will ask you to reboot. Once you have done so, you can do into the settings menu option in the PS3 OS. Then choose system settings, and then finally system information. There you will see a display of the HDD space on your console. If you have done everything correctly, you will see that the HDD space now reflects the amount of space on the replacement drive. Keep in mind, about 15 to 20 GB of space will be taken up by the PS3 for system use, so do not be alarmed when the HDD space measurement comes up short.”
and that’s supposed to be easy? wth? simply have to press one button on the 360 to change hdd…..
nice job sony…. next time include an electronic engineering scholarship to go with those instructions….
prolly why NOONE i know has ever thought about changing hdd in their ps3…
November 26th, 2008
Kev,
You forgot to mention that, to change the 360 HDD, you press one button AND get sodomized by Microsoft for their proprietary hard drive. That’s an important step in the process.
-Arvis
November 26th, 2008
“you can take out the 4 screws which hold the original Playstation 3 HDD in place, and swap in your new 2.5MM SATA Notebook HDD”… Despite the long write up, that is basically all it takes. Remove 4 screws and insert the UNIVERSAL drive. That doesn’t seem overly complicated to me.
November 28th, 2008
Rofl, trying to make the hdd change seem hard, bwhahahaha.
I talked to 60 year olds who can handle that kind of operation.
Bottom of the barrel…