Reviews Not Influecing Buying?

[KnowTheToe]

Personally I am tired or reading rules, so I don't buy anything new, well almost nothing anyway. I have stopped reading reviews for the most part because of this, but if something does interest me, I read a few reviews of that product and the reviews of other products reviewed by the same reviewer, that way I can tell more about the reviewers bias. For instance, I don't care about art, it is nice, but not essential. I don't care about grammatical errors as long as the intent is clear.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Reviews have influenced a number of my purchases, in both directions. Like others, it's typically when I'm sitting on the fence--that usually means that the concept has intrigued me and now I'm wondering if the execution is strong. But, like other forms of entertainment, concept is king. No matter how good the reviews, if the concept doesn't have an audience, the book won't see extensive sales.

ENnies nominations have also gotten me to make purchases, perhaps even better than reviews. In fact, the presence of a well-done set of awards and consistent reveiwer base is one of the advantages of playing d20 since I have a way to find the hidden gems and more confidence that my purchases will turn out interesting or useful.

 

[Pants]

Have I bought books based on reviews?
Yes, two to be exact. Book of Fiends and Path of the Sword. PotS ended up being very, very boring, kinda like a hardcover Sword and Fist. BoF was good... just not as good as all the reviews claimed.

Bad reviews have kept me away from products though. Planar Handbook, Complete Divine, Pale Designs, and Path of Magic all got either average or bad reviews and all were books that looked very cool.

However, I don't read reviews that much, I do read what people say about products on the messageboards as I tend to get a more inclusive look at a product there.

 

[coyote6]

I can think of one book I bought based on reviews -- Magical Medieval Society, and that largely based on Monte's review. There have been a few other PDFs for which reviews have added enough weight to push me from "eh, maybe" to "oh, I'll buy it."

I'm a pretty free spender when it comes to games, though.

I've also used reviews to decide to give one or two print products (e.g., a Monkey God adventure); but that was only after other buzz online had led me to seek out reviews of those products.

There have also products that reviews have warned me away from. It's possible that reviews have led me to decide not to buy more often than they've led me to buy. (Hey, I guess Hollywood is right to not let the press pre-screen really bad movies!)

Even then, though, reviews are usually a small part of the buying decision, and usually just a part of a more general buzz (e.g., a company, product, or author gets mentioned favorably in several threads).

Also, some reviews count for more -- I probably give more weight to Ken Hite's Out of the Box, a Pyramid Pick, or a review by Monte Cook than to most ENWorld reviews.

 

[Shemeska]

Well I cant say that a review has ever made me buy a book, but they have made me not buy a book based on the review, or from a discussion of the book here or elsewhere. I didn't buy Complete Warrior or Complete Divine based on the average and poor reviews they got from most of the folks I heard from.

However I do appreciate when folks go out of their way to write a full review on a product.

 

[grodog]

So yes, online reviews are definitely an influence, especially since there are almost no print mags left which do reviews of RPG products.

I consider the fact that print, non-house-organ gaming magazines can't survive in the market one of the great crimes of gaming-industry economics....

edit: For one small publisher's take on the impact of reviews, see http://www.halfmeme.com/main.html (about 1/2 way down, the Q4 Shareholder Report -- 12/12/2003).

 

[Steel_Wind]

I bought Dundjinni based on reviews.

OTOH, I have recently bought Sov Press DragonLance books sight unseen as I am a fan of the product line.

I avoid books that have a bad review and negative word of mouth. A "bad" review is more persuasive than a "good" one. But either opinion combined with a similar buzz online is enough to "seal the deal" for me.

Overall - especially for non-WotC releases where even KNOWING about the product is most of the battle, reviews matter a great deal to me.

In that regard, there was a post by one of the folks at Paizo that attempted to justify not reviewing 3rd party D20 or other non-WotC D&D products in their pages based on "limited appeal" to their readers.

That, gentlemen is not a genuine policy. That's sophistry. You are doing a great disservice to your readers and I was not impressed.

Quality third party products deserve to be brought to the attention of all gamers.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Too often I find reviews to be nearly useless - they often don't give me a table of contents, or tell me what's in a chapter (needs more than one sentence!) and don't tell me how big the chapters are.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I read reviews to find out what's in a product, mostly. Like many people, I have my own set of tastes which I'm not really that likely to have in common with any given reviewer, so I tend to mentally edit out opinion as I read, unless it's more factually-based - for example, I'll play attention to someone criticising a plot hole in a module during their summary of its storyline, but I won't pay attention to their negative opinion of the way in which a sourcebook's drow differ from their traditional D&D presentation. Instead, I'll just note that it's different, if you get me, not what the reviewer thinks of the change.

I do appreciate reviews which give a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of a book's contents.

 

[Treebore]

This is how I do it. I read posts from various people about upcoming products and then again when they "have it in their hands". IF they are posters like at NEcromancer messageboards I will likely buy something they recommend without reading a review. Fro example I just bought Black Ice Well because of their recommendations.

When they say it is OK or "good, but..." I will then come here to see what Psion and Joe have said as a kind of swing vote. Like I have yet to buy the Conan RPG because I am waiting for the second printing. If I had bought that book and then found all of those problems I probably would have banned Mongoose product for the rest of my life. Since i came here and read the reviews and then saw what Mongoose Matt said I stayed happy and have patiently waited for the second printing.

So yes, reviews do influence my buying and I have written 6 reviews myself, but I tend to stay away from reviewing product I can't give at least a 3/5 to.
Plus I am interested more in content material rather than art or the count for mis-spellings, or botched 3.0 to 3.5 conversions. Wrong/missing tables or maps will irritate me though, or missing NPC write-ups, that kind of thing. Plus I would really like to see more Table of Contents and indexes. I actually use those things.