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I prefer to buy video games without knowing anything about them

When I hear about a new game, I usually read the first sentence or two on Wikipedia. I rule out games described as certain genres or types, like soulslike or online-only multiplayer games. Then, I check reviews on a site like Metacritic. If the critic or user reviews (doesn't need to be both) are good enough, I add it to a list to play.

I also do this with movies and tv. Obviously, with sequels/series I know a little bit more about the games/movies/shows but I still go in as blind as possible.

55 comments
  • From the title, I thought OP would just look at a cover and buy the game, ignoring reviews. This is not the case, there's some research on the (perceived) quality of the game, so I wouldn't consider this unpopular.

  • I did that, not so much anymore after Rockstar published State of Emergency on the PS2 (Am I showing my age? lol) and it was absolute dog shit. Now I tend to wait after day one just to be sure.

  • I don't like getting spoilers, but I'll read the reviews, the description of the game by the publisher, and 2-5 minutes of let's play footage (in the middle) to make sure I'm not wasting my money. That strategy worked well with The Witcher 3.

    • I’ll occasionally pull up videos if I’m unsure. But I just look for like 10 seconds of gameplay to see how it looks.

  • Yeah, I tend to operate the same way. I stopped watching movie trailers maybe ten years ago because there are only five basic movie trailers, and they all hit the same tired beats. I hate them all.

    • Comedy
    • Adventure
    • Drama
    • Horror
    • Nolan (just pick one of the above and put a BWAAAAAAA in it)
  • I am pretty much the opposite. I have been burned in the past... things like difficulty (esp. co-op games not really adapted at all for single-player), inventory/loot, hunger etc being annoying. Or sometimes games start out fine and then just eventually lose me.

    In fact for some games without much replay value I'll just watch a let's play of it and get 90% (or perhaps better because it's not me dealing with nonsense) of the experience.

    Then again, I also just have mostly stopped buying games. And the last thing I bought off Steam (in 2020) was one of those things I wanted for a while and it ended up being a disappointment for me.

    • The only thing I’ve been burned on with difficulty is souls style games. Anything else I can handle.

      • Some of it is probably just me sucking at games or not being focused enough. Even though often times I already feel like I'm taking things slowly enough as-is (and trying to exhaust my options).

        Though I also think some of it is how razor-thin margin-of-error can often feel, unforgiving (or as I've said, annoying) mechanics, the downsides of randomized/generated content, and also just a big lack of player agency or more specifically good options (like how most games just decide the single-use items you buy are gonna be expensive and selling stuff is barely worth it aside from making room in your inventory).

        If a roguelike(/lite) game really kicks my ass almost every time and then I have one really good run where I win (likely due to luck), I probably am not going to want to play that game for a while (if ever) again.

  • If I already know I want to play/watch something I will avoid everything I possibly can about it until I get a chance to experience myself.

    It started when I was lucky enough to walk into John Wick knowing nothing but the name. Didnt even know it was an action movie, just went with some friends and picked a movie at random. When he started taking a slesge hammer to his garage floor I knew it was going somewhere wild, but I had no idea where. Really taught me the value of leaving surprises for yourself.

  • Ill upvote this. I never like wasting money myself. I don't get why anyone buys a game pre-release.

55 comments