Major game purchase influences?

[Dhruin]

This one was sent in by Bartacus. On what do you base the purchase of a game?
You can make multiple selections this time.

Have at it!

[GhanBuriGhan]

Reviews, previews and interviews, forum comments. Increasingly the latter.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Reviews, advices from friends, demos (if I can get one), forum comments (my most influencial source), rather interviews than previews, because this is the imho best way to find out what the developers intentions were, and for the point "other" I would say: First-hand information, if I can get some (through forums, mostly, in a few very, very rare cases talks to people at conventions directly).

In other words : I try to get information from a variety of different sources to get a - if possibly - most varied view of a game.

[Fenris]

Forum-Comments - and lots of them, to see the big Picture ... Reviewers are nowadays bought by the companies (well, except some heroic few here and at the Codex ^^).

[titus]

Well mostly by reading interviews or by talk on a forum( read as: this forum) I get interested in the game and if possible try a demo before I decide.
And sometimes the box intrigues me too finding out more or buy it direct. Good exemples are Guild wars and city of vilians and WoW to get interested and find more, a good exemple of direct buy is Gothic and Divine Divinity, Vampire and the Soulreave/blood omen series

[Dhruin]

Almost always previews, interviews (and possibly media) for me. I nearly always have my mind made up a long time (maybe even a year or two from release) and follow the development as it moves along.

Occasionally, I use reviews to make a final decision but that's pretty rare. I don't think reviews are bought in the main - like everything, there are good reviewers and bad.

Haven't read a game box in years (and I prefer downloads, anyway).

[Remus]

Based on several reviews, especially from more reputable sources, and forum comments. Rarely my purchase would be influenced by previews/interviews alone (except well known games like Diablo III), or by just looking at screenshots/trailers.

[Konjad]

Reviews, previews/interviews and demos if available.

[Foss]

Review, preview and interviews.

I normally keep an eye on games that seems interesting and therefor many times I know if I want to buy it before it gets reviewed. Where its more the games that I might have missed or didn't thought to be interesting at first glance, where reviews can persuade me to buy it.

[zakhal]

Reviews, forum comments and demos. Demos are like the last fat chance if the others fail - I rarely have to opt for it through.

[dteowner]

Reviews, forum comments and demos. Demos are like the last fat chance if the others fail - I rarely have to opt for it through.Same for me, with forum comments WAY out in the lead. There's this cool online site with some fairly intelligent folks that offer pretty informed opinions of games, from development to release to retro. RPGWitch? UPSWatch? Ummm...

[narpet]

Forum comments and reviews for me. I tend to trust the forum comments more... specifically from the Watch, because I've learned that the tastes of many people here mirror my own tastes in games. I like reading reviews, but I don't take them as seriously.

I never play demos of CRPGs because I want to play a game from start to finish, and not just sample part of it. I will play demos of shooters and other types of games, but not very often. I just don't have the gaming time to waste on playing a demo.

[Icefire]

Forum comments first and foremost, followed by demos. I will read reviews, but they don't influence my decision to purchase very much, if at all.

[JemyM]

FOr me it's reviews, screens/trailers, forum comments and (other) content.

Back in the days I knew what games was coming years before they did... Now I completely stopped to read previews/reviews because I do not want to hype for a game anymore. There was a few huge disappointments for me, then I simply gave up. I remember that I continued to pay for Star Wars Galaxies due to the promises of a better tomorrow until I finally gave up.
Oblivion was another great disappointment.

It's ironic that "Ads" and "Box descriptions" which is really the stuff that large companies put their money for marketing on, have 0% here.

When it comes to reviews I often check gamerankings.com. Games that falls as low as less than 70% will most likely be bad, unless they have a very small nische. Games below 90% needs some kind of special appeal for me to consider. That's why I visit forums such as RPGWatch and AdventureGamers that know the kind of games that I would like. Games above 90% I often check out, regardless the game. I try to avoid being a grumpy conservative old-school gamer and I try to give new things a chance (Ok, maybe I am lying now). Another note: I pay more attention to reviews the less time I have to play games.

I also have a look at screens/trailers to get a feel for a game. As an artist I find artwork important, but I have actually enjoyed games like Avernum despite it's low graphics quality. If a trailer can grasp my attention though, maybe the game is able to as well. Immersion is very important to me.

I do not take advice from friends. The reason is that my friends do not like the games I do so I simply rule them out these days.

What's really drives me to buy a game these days is content. To be worth a purchase the game really need to offer something more than a quick script-driven experience with some gee-whizz graphical effects. Games that you forget quickly is not the kind that I try to avoid when im buying.

[VPeric]

Mostly forum comments for me, which the occasional preview/interview I read because of the comments on it. I also read reviews in the major Serbian paper magazine, but they hardly ever influence me.

[Toaster]

Let's see. Friends' advice and reviews are first, and after that forum comments. The reason I don't place forums even higher is that I know most people have other taste than me, but with friends I know whose taste to trust for what etc. I like reviews still even though I find they're driven as much by the expectations on the game as the game itself when they set the score. (Subconsciously that is, I don't think most are actually bought in some way by the publishers...)

Demos and previews/interviews come in a bit behind, and it's different from game to game. WAR is probably one of the first games I'll by without caring about the reviews, but that only has part to do with previews and more with my friends in the closed beta. Demos are nice for more unknown titles IMO.

[GothicGothicness]

RPGWatch opinions :D how come this option is not there?

[Asbjoern]

Reviews (only if I'm in doubt), screens/trailers (important one. I like to see the actual gameplay), forum comments (of course) and previews/interviews (only as supplement).

But a thing I lack from the poll options, and why I've also chosen "other", is feature lists. They weigh heavily on my decision making.
But also circumstancial factors such as price and availability is important for my decision. They have to be pretty good games for me if I have to order them through online retail instead of buying them through Steam. And price. I tend to play a wide range of games whenever the price becomes reasonable.

[Surlent]

Demos and screens are of highest priority for me because they give glimpses of the actual product. Demos are invaluable since they allow to run the software. Full versions can have gamestopping bugs that are not present in demos, but at least demos let to test the game's graphics engine. Couple of screens showing the game and its GUI tend to tell a lot for me if the game falls into an already known category (rts, fps, rpg ..etc).

After those come friend advice, forum comments and reviews. All the hearsay so to speak. If I hear from those three sources some game is full of bugs, it tends to put off the purchasing decision until at least there's a patch available.

[coaster]

Reviews, forum comments and whether or not a game is a sequel of a previous game I enjoyed. Sometimes even if a game doesn't get great reviews, I might pick it up if it is a sequel of something decent, just to get that "storyline continuity" vibe.

[Benedict]

In terms of other a big factor for me is the balance between available time & things I want to play. I even bought the silverfall expansion in spite of being 99% confident it was going to be unbearably shit because there was just a big gap and nothing else I could think of to play.

[Lucky Day]

When I started making money it usually was based on spare cash on hand. I always liked to treat myself when I got my paycheck. This was at a time when the bargain bins started showing up as before old games would simply be taken off the shelf.

A few disappointments at full price and 2 shelves and a few drawers full of unplayed games has caused me to be more selective. As well, there are a lot fewer games for PC and I am not longer just interested in whatever is out there like I was in the 80's.

Demos, and "unofficial demos" is the difference for me whether to purchase something, or if its a deal I can't pass up like a $5 bargain.

But another buying decision for me is experience with previous titles from the same company. Div Div2 I have high expectations for. My experience with BG and NWN caused me to buy the sequels on the first day, no questions asked. This goes both ways as Heart of Winter for Icewind Dale sucked severely. It was really after that, and maybe U9, that I started keeping my eyes open.

Fortunately for me, the terrible demo for Arcanum didn't nearly come close to how fun the game actually was.

Promotions and publicity (as well as box description) for a game are more helpful to me than reviews lately, simply because most RPGs these days are advertising themselves as Mature. Reviews may gush with the virtues of these games but the simple M on the box is going to tell me I'm probably not going to like it no matter what the reviewers say about the game or even when they say people like me are wrong.

The box is more effective than people will admit I think, because although RPG players are supposed to be more literate than your average shootemup gamer, look at Dungeon Lords.

[Zloth]

Well, the box sure doesn't help me. I normally don't see it until I have it in my hand standing in line at the store.

One big thing for me that's not on the list is publisher/developer reputation. If BioWare or Bethesda are making a game, I'm paying attention. I'm going to remember how CDProjeckt (sp?) put out some very good and free updates for a long time, though I'll also remember how desperately some of those were needed when the game first came out.

Screenshots and trailers are a big influence, as are previews. Developer interviews can often act as both and work great. However, I try hard not to use just those. There are too many holes in that method. It's too easy to hide game crippling problems like horrible stories, checkpoint save systems designed for no-hard-drive consoles, broken quests, mangled balance, and any number of other problems. That's where the reviews come in. Those can quickly point out those holes and, thanks to review copies getting sent out while the game is shipping, reviews are pretty timely, too.

I use demos on rare occasion, normally with stuff I'm on the fence with. I got The Witcher largely thanks to it's demo.

Reviews are static, though, and only relfect the game as it was upon release. If patches have fixed things up then I need to check with the forumites for confirmation.

[Thaurin]

I basically check them all to some extent, except probably ads that seem to tell me least. Even badly written reviews tell me something about a game, especially in context of other reviews and forum comments. I don't think there is one specific thing that pulls me over the line.

Missing poll option: trust in the developer based on previous releases and/or franchise.

[aries100]

10 years ago or even 5 years ago, I would have said reviews. Today, not so much.
Today, I buy games from developers I know and trust. I also buy games based on posts from other forum members about the game.

If I'm still in doubt, I'll try to see some screens/trailers at the company's website or I will tru to play a demo of the game - if there is one. That's how I learned about Eschalon, book I and other games. I have bought some games (not many) based on their box description alone; this includes games like Keepsake and Agon - The Lost Sword of Toledo are among these (very few) games.

I tend to not trust reviews anymore, unless there from this site; or from the the adventure community forums, or from small places like game gamebanshee.com

[TheMadGamer]

The only way to really know for sure if you're going to like a game or not is to play it. Unfortunatley if there is no free demo then you have to plunk down your hard earned cash and buy it... and most software stores will not accept returns of software so buying a game is a one way ticket...

So the next best thing really are reviews and comments by others in forums. Alone, reviews and forum comments can contain a lot of hyperbole or emphasis on aspects of gameplay that you care little for... good or bad.

Together though, reviews and forum comments can give you a pretty decent picture about a game without actually buying it or playing a free demo.

[doctor_kaz]

I think that number one source I use is reputation of the developer ("other"). I don't trust reviews at all anymore.

[Elwro]

Demos and forum comments. The ideal situation is to play the demo and read some comments on how the game fares later on, without spoilers.

[Maylander]

In addition to things people have already mentioned, I'll add one thing: Who is making the game?

Some companies (mainly Obsidian, BioWare, Blizzard and Piranha Bytes) generally make games that I enjoy a lot, so I automatically buy their games untill the day they actually let me down. Even then I'd probably give them the benefit of the doubt, and keep on supporting them untill they somehow managed to fail several times in a row.

[RampantCoyote]

Heh - Maylander beat me to it. The designers / developers are... or at least used to be... a big factor for me. It's a bit fuzzier now since teams are so huge and so fluid at mainstream game companies now. Even Bioware doesn't mean what it used to mean. But I still try and pay attention to it - especially amongst the indies.

I voted for reviews, but I will generally ignore reviews from the Big Game Sites nowadays. I'm way more interested in a review from a particular reviewer whom I trust and know their tastes in games.

[magerette]

I start focusing on a game with the early media and previews, and as several have said, there are developers I tend to follow. Forum comments then come into play, particularly bug warnings. Next, I like a demo for the simple reason that many games look & sound perfect but when I actually get my hands on the controls they play in a way that makes me think I won't enjoy them or get very far with them. (Avencast and Silverfall come to mind.)

Finally the last stage is looking at the reviews--most of the time I'm reading a review after I buy a game to see if the author agrees or disagrees with me, but if something's slipped under my radar, or is an older game, I might look at a review or two, especially from smaller sites that are more into a particular genre, like here maybe. :)

[Dantre]

For me, trying the demo is the biggest factor. Only then I will know for sure if I like a game enough to buy it. Reviews (not the score, but the pros & cons), screens & trailers (mostly to see if I like the visual style and atmosphere) and previews (to get an idea about what the game is) influence me as well, as well as my previous experience with others games of the same series and/or developpers (other).

I very rarely see any game ads so they can't influence me. Friends don't really share my gaming tastes, and beside I see them less often than game ads. Forums comments tend to vary too much to be really helpful; no matter the game there are always people worshipping it and others who hate it. As for the box, my mind is already made on wheiter to buy the game or not when I see it in a store.

[Bartacus]

I voted demo's -> otherwise I would have never bought Gothic and therefor never met the people here (previously rpgdot). Today I use the forum here: I wait till you bought the game and describe it. ;)
I also buy PB games without a doubt.

[Jaz]

Hmmm... when I was still buying many games, there was not much of a pattern to my buying behavior, especially not when it came to discovering favorite games.
If it was a game from a series or developer or sometimes even genre I tended to like, I might have bought it just because I liked the siblings (that's why I bought Heretic, Morrowind, Unreal Tournament, Final Fantasy VII, everything by Westwood and so on...). I happened to buy games after cross-reading several reviews (...Cyberstorm...), after discovering a demo on a magazine CD (...Realms of the Haunting...) or following the advice of a friendly sales person (...Planescape: Torment...). And then there were some favorites I didn't buy at all - they either were birthday presents for me (...Gothic...) or hubby (...Thief...).
Well. There was no pattern back then, and the only pattern nowadays seems to be that a game must be available for one of my aging consoles or playable under Linux. But there definitely is an anti-pattern: never trust the advice of a friend. I wasted good money on horribly bad books by listening to friends, and I wasted good money on HORRIBLY bad games (...Fire Warrior, anyone?)
In a similar manner, good friends told me NOT to play several games because they were so bad. When I accidentally got my fingers on said games, however, they became all-time favorites, like, for example, Lands of Lore and System Shock :p.

[Hedek]

I'm genuinely surprised reviews are ranking that high (so far).

Most reviewers don't have the same tastes as I, they don't have the same expectations as I. Because they play games all day and go through such quantities, little technical or gameplay imperfections will tend to annoy them a lot simply because their tolerance threshold is lowered by the quantity of games they go through. I play maybe a game or two per month, so naturally things that I'm expecting and things that annoy me are very different from them. For example I can do with framerate drops or stutter from time to time while I can totally understand why a professional reviewer would be very annoyed by that if it's the 10th game he's trying that week.

Last but not least, the perception of professional reviewers are often affected by marketing, sponsorships, hype, free trips, invitations to private presentations, etc. Remember that article at NMA describing how the "journalists" who reviewed Oblivion didn't point out its flaws in its actual review but in later reviews of other games.
http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=37708

And really games are just like music, it's first and foremost a matter of tastes, even if 99% reviewer say Britney Spears' last record is crap, maybe I'll actually like it (not saying I do lol it's just an example). The only thing review can have a saying about that might have any validity is technical aspects ("this game has lots of bugs", "this game has an inconvenient interface", etc.) and yet again, as I said earlier, because I play much less games than them, even when their judgment strictly depicts unbiased technical aspects the actual effect of such technical aspects will probably have a much lesser impact on me than it has on them.

I remember during my first playthrough of Fallout 2 I had an inevitable game stopping bug : the non random encounter close to the beginning of the game where you meet Frank Horrigan in the Wastes wasting a guy and his family would crash to desktop. I couldn't get past that until the patch was released, and yet I still consider Fallout 2 my favorite game of all times. Had reviewers encountered the same bug and no way to fix it at the time of press release I'm sure they would have gave it a rating of 2/10 at best.


So I voted for advice from friends and demos. Nothing beats actually trying the game and deciding by myself. Or have a friend who played it already talk about it and go to his place to try it out (that's how I got into Fallout 1 DAoC and WoW to name a few).

[Lucky Day]

"On Advice from Friends" studies in marketing have proved that "word of mouth" is the biggest and best way to get buyers for your product.

We may vote it as the least listed reason but our perception is not reality. Heck, "RPGWatch Opinions" I think would be inclusive to that choice. I would not have checked out Gothic if it wasn't for the "Word of Mouth" at the dot and subsequently rejected it. Same goes for FF7.

Here are examples two games with the opposite marketing. Gothic had zero buzz, was not heard of in NA, but managed to get on a few critics listings and it did eventually find its way here. It didn't sell well at all. FF7 had plenty of buzz, having developed increasing sales in Japan and the previous 2 had been widely distributed in NA on the most popular console. Yet, I would not have checked out either if I hadn't had other people spewing on about how great they were.

[woges]

A combination of all probably, mostly I'm looking for something different or that grabs my imagination or just an interesting mechanic or setting.

[Remus]

I'm suprised so many gamers ignoring the ads; i guess the intensity of online ads causes internet user (especially advance/hardcore user) developed an immune system toward ads, or automatically treat them as spam...

[Rills]

"Word of mouth" from gaming forum cites such as RPGWatch is the single biggest influence on determining whether or not I'll purchase a game. Reviews and previews are important, but actual gamers experiences carries the most weight for me.

[roqua]

I can't trust reviews since they always stear me wrong. I thought everyone agreed previews and intyerviews (and most reviews) were just sales vehicles? I guess not.

I trust demos for sp games, and open betas or free trials (actually open betas, not "buy-in betas", for mmorpgs). I don't trust forum comments, because you all have very bad taste. I can't even trust the hand full of people that sometimes have good taste like Dhruin, VD, Corwin, and DTEowner.

I can trust history. I can put blind faith in some devs I think always have people like me in mind. I just don't get it most of the time though, how did Dungeon Siege 1 get rave reviews, while 2 and Space Siege get mediocre to poor reviews when they have to have a lot more than 1 did? Why would I listen to the hive mind when the hive mind never makes any sort of logical sense? Why would I want a polished game or care if a game has bugs when Troika's games were light years ahead of everything else and were all buggy as shit? Why would I belive a dev that said their game is a rpg when I played games like the RoA trilogy?

All I can trust is history and demos. And history isn't an option.

[Zaleukos]

I ticked Demos (if available, in practice that option is closed all too often) and buzz at forums like this one (where I have an idea of how well people's opinions correlate with mine) are the deciding factors for me. I also ticked "friends" since I count fellow forumites as that for gaming purposes (my RL friends are generally not into games).

Reviews/previews/ads/boxes can serve as eye openers and trigger further investigation, but dont make or break the decision on their own since they simply dont produce enough meat.

[magerette]

Just looking back over this, it's amazing that ads play almost no role for most people. I wonder what the advertising budget is for most games...it appears to be wasted among the hardcore or whatever we are here. :)

[Prime Junta]

I'm surprised anyone admitted to being influenced by ads. Generally speaking that's just not done.

[purpleblob]

Advice from friends and posts on forums for me. I used to read previews and reviews... but their views change so dramatically within few months. I don't believe them anymore :P

[Zaleukos]

Just looking back over this, it's amazing that ads play almost no role for most people. I wonder what the advertising budget is for most games...it appears to be wasted among the hardcore or whatever we are here. :)

I just dont have access to ads unless they show up in morning newspapers or on national TV, and the main stream games that go that are advertised like that are usually not my genre. I dont read game mags and dont frequent game sites other than a few forums such as this one. I think the last ad I encountered for a game that I bought was an Oblivion ad in Nature (or was it Science?), and that was only after I had bought the game already.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I only see via ads that a game is out. Few more.

[Hedek]

Just looking back over this, it's amazing that ads play almost no role for most people. I wonder what the advertising budget is for most games...it appears to be wasted among the hardcore or whatever we are here. :)

That's because people don't realize they're affected by ads. Ads just get stored somewhere in the back of your mind, you forget about them but they're still there somewhere in your brain. Then when you hear about the game again you're like "I heard about that game, I can't recall from where exactly... but the name reminds me of something... must have been someone who talked to me about it... so it's probably good". Works for all types of products. Like when you're in the supermarket and you see that Ariel soap or Signal toothpaste, you can see they're more expensive but you also know they're better than the others because you heard about them more, you're not actually sure why and where... but you just know... that's ads...

When you see sales of Guitar Hero III, Halo III or GTA IV I'm almost sure most of the buyers didn't read any review before buying. Wasn't even word of mouth, just ads and the fact they played previous games in the series.

Oh and from a publisher's point of views "demos and trials" are pure ads, they're one same category of expenses in their budget.

[blatantninja]

I would say ads don't affect me, but that is probably because the types of games that get ads the most on generally action oriented console games, and those aren't my forte. I also don't read game mags and usually don't pay much attention to banner ads. So the only ads I see are on TV, and those are generally the big budget console games (or WoW).

Heck, my biggest influence these days is probably this site and particularly the screens shots that cycle through in the upper right corner of the front page! I never even considered buying Ps:T or Arcanum until I click through some of the screenshots that appeared there. Plus I've seen lots of games there I might buy that I'd never even heard of!

[coyote]

I am going by reviews and forum comments pretty much exclusively when I decide whether to buy a game or not.

But even if everyone shared that view, a certain amount of marketing is still necessary just to get a game noticed: magazines have little reason to write a review for a game noone knows about, as few people will want to read it. Also, there certainly is a psychological effect of a high profile advertisement campaign on the review writers, in particular those who want to spend as little time as possible with the game before getting the article out before everyone else does.

On the other hand, sometimes advertisement money would be much better spend on quality control in my personal opinion, given how easily technical problems can pull down otherwise promising games. And there is little point in getting a game noticed only to be bashed by reviews and the people playing it afterwards.

[Squeek]

The very first thing I do is go to the official site and see how the makers describe their game. It's pretty much one big ad. I look at everything, including press releases. It's fun, and it just seems like a good place to start.

Then I visit forums to see what people are saying and how that compares. I pretty much base my decision around that. The rest is fill-in.

One other thing worth mentioning is that I almost-never buy a game anymore unless it was designed for my computer's graphics chip.

[lanael]

For me, influences can be ordered like that ( from the weakest to the strongest )
1) People ( friends, colleagues )
2) Description ( previews, reviews )
3) Screenshots
4) Videos
5) Demo

Unfortunately, it seems that demos are rarer over time, as real gameplay videos...
After years of playing games, I know what I want to play ( the perfect game ) so anything that comes close enough goes for me.

[woges]

I'll add that if I know the makers/designers previous works it's fairly influential for me.

[lanael]

Good point... Most of the Gothic series players are waiting for the next PB game even if there's not even a single screenshot yet ! :)

Also, the opposite is mostly true.

[kalniel]

Almost exclusively reviews actually.

I mean I know myself which genre of games I will like, and then I look within that for many reviews to get an overall picture. Almost all of the other options have turned out to be less accurate for me. Forum comments tend to be hugely polar - either fanboys defending it or others slating it. Previews tend to be just too optimistic most of the time. My friends have different tastes to me in terms of genres mostly, adverts probably influence me in a subtle way - the sort of info based ones like blog and forum posts by developers etc the most. Demos only ever seem to put me off a game - I've only ever purchased one game I wasn't sure about by playing the demo, but I've cancelled many orders after trying demos.

[Sir Markus]

Reviews. I go to Metacritic.com and Gamerankings.com (the best aggregate game review site on the web, IMO) for my info.