Do you research a game before buying?

[Harrison]

Personally, the less I know ahead of time the better. I like to be surprised. I'm drawn to the more obscure ones with unfamiliar cartridge art. If it's bad, it's still another one for the collection.

[CPUWIZ]

Awesome question, I bet most players will say yes, whilst collectors will say no. Depending on whether you are talking about gameplay, or not.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Obsessively. I keep big lists of all the well reviewed and critically praised games for every system I'm interested in and tend not to buy games with poor reviews unless there is some aspect of the game that is interesting enough to me personally to warrant playing it even though I know it probably won't be very good. In any case, every game I own is a game that I enjoy playing; and if I buy something that I decide I don't care for after playing it then it always gets resold before too long. I keep a well curated collection.

[hizzy]

Always. I seek out the rom, if possible, read reviews on-line. The forums are a great resource. The people here are very helpful.

[toiletunes]

It depends on the console- For second or third gen, I'll take a chance on just about anything depending on price. Anything newer usually gets researched, unless it's really inexpensive.

[Atarian7]

The only research I did when I was still actively buying was checking the rarity guide to get an idea of how much I should pay.

 

 

Most of the games I've bought the past few years are homebrews though.

Edited October 9, 2017 by Atarian7

[zzip]

Both- BITD, I had a subscription to Electronic Games magazine, so I discovered great games from reading reviews that I may have otherwise ignored. But I also made bargain bin impulse buys.

 

Today with modern game- I take both reviews and player feedback into account as well as my gut feeling.

 

I've found many 9/10+ games that I just don't like, while many games I do like score much lower. Also being on sale helps, but I only buy games on sale if I was interested in them in the first place.

Edited October 9, 2017 by zzip

[StanJr]

A little bit. I find if I research too much I get caught up in other people's opinions and bias, and if I have download the ROM and play it via emulation then there is less motivation to have the actual cart. So I'll typically skim some reviews and then make a yes or no decision on purchasing. I like to work under "native era" conditions when it comes to buying classic games. I don't mind risking my gaming dollar on homebrew games because I know they were made with some degree of care and love.

 

For modern games, oh Hell yes. I'd prefer to borrow the game from a friend for 20+ hours before I blow $60+ on modern crap. There is so little out there in the modern lot that is worth the price point that there is no way I'd risk my gaming dollar there.

[AtariBrian]

I get games that I will enjoy playing. So I watch gameplay videos first. I like to watch hidden gem videos to find good games that I never knew about.

[RamrodHare]

I tend to research almost everything before I buy it. I think the main reason is that I don't have much, if any, disposable income. When I decide I might be interested in buying something, I watch videos reviews repeatedly and read about any possible QC issues, etc. Recently, anything over $20 has been out of my price range, so I haven't bought anything over that. Most of the time, when it comes to hobbies and collectables, I find that after watching video reviews over and over, sometimes I get over the urge of wanting a certain item.

[accousticguitar]

Yes, I buy games to play so I usually check out youtube first before buying anything.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

Yes. With homebrews, I've usually been following the development here in the forums, so by the time a game is released I have a pretty good idea whether or not it's something I want to buy.

 

As far as collecting older games, I've played pretty much everything in Stella by this point. I'm willing to pay a little more for a rare game I know I like and will play. If it's one that's going to end up sitting on the shelf, I wait for a good deal on it.

Edited October 9, 2017 by KaeruYojimbo

[pacman000]

Often I already have an idea of what the game is about before I buy it. If I don't know, and it looks interesting/is cheap I'll take out my cell phone and search for info on it. Or just ask to play it.

[fiddlepaddle]

When I was buying new games, there wasn't really any way to research them other than demos in the store or if I met someone who already had it. So I mostly read the back of the box and bought it, or didn't. Back then, there weren't really that many options anyway. GCE made Vectrex games and Coleco made Colecovision games.

 

Once games started appearing at flea markets because people no longer wanted them, that's when I really started "collecting", and I only bought games if they were dirt cheap and if I didn't already have one. This was great fun with Atari games, and then a few years later with NES and Genesis games, since I was always running into something I'd never heard of. Also, because I was in the silicon valley area, I occasionally saw things pop up from developers and distributors in the area that were interesting.

 

More research occurred towards the end of my collecting phase, when I started paying a little more to complete holes in my collection, but that pretty much stopped once I realized I already had PLENTY of games to try out well into future (for decades, probably) and it became clear that those "holes" weren't really important to me.

 

These days, I spend a lot of time researching games, but it's more part of learning about games I've got already or history and anecdotes about historical times and events I'm familiar with. I've been putting much more of my attention into offloading some of the useless crap I acquired during the unfocused acquisition phase.

 

I'm really not buying much except a few DS and GBA carts from the bargain bins...I skip the obvious mee-too platformers, and the sports games and RPGs I've always hated. The game store guy can usually give me a quick rundown of anything I have an interest in.

 

 

[Professor Gull]

I am a big risk taker when it comes to game so long as the price tag is not astronomical. I mean would you go in and buy a game for $300 that you had no knowledge of? Probably not but I love cool stuff like mystery carts. I have quite a few mystery ones for the 2600,7800 and even NES. Sometimes its worth the gamble on getting something amazing. Too bad 9 times out of 10 the NES carts are all Mario sadly. I did get a cool Ghostbuster genny game though that was totally unlabeled for a buck. And to me that's worth it.

 

Sames goes with games I may not know anything of but sit in the dollar bin. If its not just a Madden game or Nascar I might be tempted to snag it to see if its any fun.

Edited October 9, 2017 by Professor Gull

[GeekDragon]

When it comes to the 2600, if its a good price I'll buy it, doesn't matter if its good or bad. 2600 is the only system I am seriously collecting for. As for the other systems I collect, I'll do some research. If its bad, I'll stay away.

[The Mr. Video]

Yup. I watch reviews and gameplay videos, and even play the game for myself through emulation if I can.