Poll on reviews, reviewers, and you

[Crothian]

This is just to get an idea of people's habits regarding reviews and reviewers. If you do follow certain reviewers please list them and try to say why. Note this does not just include the reviews here on EN World but includes gaming reviews everywhere.

 

[Eremite]

I like the staff reviewers here and have followed Psion and JGK for a couple of years or so. I like JGK for the detail of his reviews but as he almost always gives a 4 rating so I don't pay much attention to the implied recommendation; Psion I like for his judgement. I've also appreciated Crothian's PDF reviews although I haven't followed them as much as I have those written by JGK and Psion.

Recently I have come to appreciate John Cooper for his keen eye for detail. I think his review style is my preferred style. Having a lot of detail about the content, a solid recommendation and rating and then a list of errata... the last is a real bonus!

I'm not sure if I'm alone in this but I also read reviews for products that I have already bought. I do appreciate it when the reviewers mention ways that the product can be used, ways I may not have already thought of.

 

[Krieg]

Read 'em all but take 'em with a grain of salt.

However I do have one or two reviewers whose tastes I have come to understand and I use them as a general measure against my own tastes.

 

[Turjan]

Hmm... actually I'm not really sure what to choose here. I read many reviews. After some time I see which reviewers give a lot of thought when they write their reviews. This means I usually follow the advice of those reviewers (if I consider the publication at all). Then there are those reviewers I know make good reviews but have a different view of many things than I do, so I take the review with a grain of salt, but still take valuable information out of it. Next, there are unreasonable reviews with funny ratings, which nevertheless contain some pieces of information highlighting some aspects of the product that are worth knowing. Then there's the fanboyish or trolling kind of review with few to nil information at all.

This all boils down to the following point: You have to get to know your reviewer .

 

[jgbrowning]

I read some of them, by various reviewers, take them all with a grain of salt, use them to find out contents in equal amounts to opinion and then comparision-shop the various reviewers against each other.

I choose E: All of the above!

joe b.

 

[Silveras]

For me, while I chose "to find out the contents", that is not wholly accurate. I read the reviews mostly to find out the contents. However, I appreciate reviews where the reviewer explains why s/he found an element good or bad; often, that helps me decide whether the same element will fit into my campaign or not.

Thus, I tend to care very little about WHAT the reviewer's opinion was compared to why WHY it was that way.

 

[was]

I never read the reviews. I just go down to the local shop and flip through a copy and then decide.

 

[Wombat]

I'm all over the board on this one.

I read several, but not all, of the reviewers (some of whom I know I will disagree with, thus I take that into consideration when reading a review). I don't tend to read adventure reviews, for reasons that are pretty well known, but I am fascinated by, even when I am not all that interested in buying, the reviews on various campaign settings -- go figure. I tend to take them with a grain of salt, but some somehow "ring true" to my eyes straight away. Some I read after I have already purchased a product; some tip me away from buying something, while a few tip me over the line to actually buy something.

So I'm pretty up and down on the whole review-thing.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Other - I read all reviews of a product I am interested in, taking it with a grain of salt.

The Auld Grump

 

[kolikeos]

i used to not read them, but after the downfall with 'planar handbook' i'll read them all before i buy.