How much do you consider reviews when looking at games/movies/books?

[Everlong]

Simple question. When looking to buy a new game, read a new book or go to a new movie, how much do reviews play a role in your decision?

They probably play the biggest role in movies for me. I don't see a whole lot of movies in the theaters, and I have a pretty low tolerance for what I consider to be bad filmmaking, so if I see something's getting less-than-favorable reviews I'm likely to skip it.

For games it doesn't play as huge a role because the review system for games is so flawed. There's a lot of what basically amounts to bribery in the game industry where games get overinflated reviews in exchange for giving reviewers early access to their content. Anything under an 8 is basically shitty as far as reviews go, so you have to take those numbers with a grain of salt.

With books, I basically just go for what I'm interested in and don't pay much attention to reviews.

[SlightlyJames]

For games it doesn't play as huge a role because the review system for games is so flawed. There's a lot of what basically amounts to bribery in the game industry where games get overinflated reviews in exchange for giving reviewers early access to their content. Anything under an 8 is basically shitty as far as reviews go, so you have to take those numbers with a grain of salt.

This is definitely a thing you need to be conscious of, I don't think outright bribery is as common as you're implying but it does seem that a lot of outlets are conscious that they may be blacklisted and not receive early access review copies if they're too harsh which is a big problem. It's not everyone, though, and there are a decent amount of guys I trust to give honest reviews, even if I don't always agree with them I know it's genuine.

As far as inflated review scores, I can't say I know where that mindset came from but it is definitely something that can lead to an inaccurate interpretation of a game's quality from someone not familiar with that tendency. It's a problem that maintains itself to an extent because when someone tries to give more reasonable scores without that upward bias they can catch some criticism for being unfair to a game, even though logically a 7/10 should be thought of as a very good score.

Thankfully there is a slow trend moving away from numbered review scores in recent years, making it so that if you want to gauge a game's quality the average consumer will need to actually read the specific analysis that the reviewer has made on the game rather than just going off the arbitrary 8/10 or whatever. It's a much more reliable way of knowing if the specific consumer will enjoy the product.

Another thing that games have to their benefit when it comes to making informed purchases is the Let's Play community. It's remarkably easy to get a decent picture of how a game is by just watching someone play it for a while. Watch a little segment of gameplay from early on in the game and chances are you'll be able to get a decent idea for how it plays and it it appeals to you. This is preferable to official gameplay demonstrations as those are more often than not played in a very controlled environment to show the game in a positive light whereas a Let's Play is usually a more honest to god representation of how the game plays.

[Hanley!]

I have a lot of respect for reviews, and they do definitely influence the media I consume. I don't just blindly listen to any particular reviewer, I like to get a bit of a consensus. And even then, I don't just pay attention to the scores that are given, I take note of the various criticisms and try to get an impression of how these things would affect my enjoyment.

Like Tim, it's films where I pay the most attention to reviews. I go to the cinema a lot, I've seen 20 new releases so far this year. So I like to see what I'm getting myself in for and I don't go to anything that I think is going to be shit.

Reading/watching reviews is also a good way of hearing about cool movies that you might never hear about otherwise. I watch the film reviews of 'What The Flick' on Youtube religiously, and have discovered some great films that way. The great thing about these reviews is that they're conversations by four critics, so you get a broader idea of the film than you would if it was just one person's opinion.

I don't buy a lot of new video games. I don't have much time to play them, and I tend to be massively underwhelmed by most AAA releases. I listen to some video game reviews, but I'm more likely to be won over by very good word of mouth when it comes to video games. I'm more likely to act on a friend's recommendation (but only if I think they know what they're talking about). And probably once they've peaked my interest, I might check out some reviews to learn a bit more about the game before buying it.

With books, I just buy stuff by my favourite authors, stuff that's recommended to me, and shockingly stuff that I just pick up on a whim after reading the blurb at the back. Yes, sometimes I do actually pre-judge a book by its cover. I've actually found some of my favourite books this way.

[PorkChop]

I kind of pay attention to reviews for things like games, movies and books, but these are things which people can experience differently. There are some games I liked which others hated, and I've seen movies / read books which I enjoyed and others thought were terrible (and vice versa). I mostly hate superhero films, for example (with one or two exceptions) but many people get excited at the idea of an Avengers 7 or yet another Spiderman remake.

The reviews I pay attention to are the ones concerning things which aren't down to personal taste. I need new tyres on my bike, and I'm making sure to read through as many reviews as possible to ensure I'm getting a good deal. I don't want my tyre splitting and bursting 5 miles from my house, like it did earlier this morning. That was a long walk home.

[AkydefGoldberg]

I do try to read reviews of books, not read them word by word but just get a glimpse of what someone's thoughts were. I like to provide my own reviews at Goodreads.com and it's handy place to get reviews for books which I might not necessarily know alot, or anything, about the author etc.

[KaiserGlider]

For movies, if it's something I KNOW I'm going to see and/or enjoy (like Age of Ultron or Batman vs Superman), I don't read the reviews before going in. Otherwise, if a movie is getting really good reviews and looks interesting enough, then I'll probably go see it (The Martian being a recent example of this).

I wouldn't really consider myself a hardcore gamer. I don't own that many games and there's maybe 2 franchises I stick to and buy every new game that comes out in that series. In those cases I don't care about the reviews at all because I know exactly what I'm getting. But when I feel like trying a new game, I definitely pay attention to the reviews and get something that is popular.