Reviews "least important factor" to game purchasers

Game reviews are the "least important factor" to gamers when they consider what to buy next, a survey conducted by Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz has concluded.

According to its data, word of mouth received a much higher score than critical aggregator rating to its survey participants when deciding to buy a game.

Thus, says the Cowen survey, video game companies' increasing focus on securing high review scores may be misplaced.

"We believe that while Metacritic scores may be correlated to game quality and word of mouth, and thus somewhat predictive of title performance, they are unlikely in and of themselves to drive or undermine the success of a game," the survey concludes.

"We note this, in part, because of persistent rumors that some game developers have been jawboning game reviewers into giving their games higher critical review scores. We believe the publishers are better served by spending their time on the development process than by grade-grubbing after the fact."

It's good to know that all our hard work delivering a number out of 100 makes a difference.

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Do Review Scores Encourage or Deter you From Buying a Game, answer via comments

Not really for me, these days I just do a quick Google image search to see if it looks appealing to me. If a game as a nicely polished quirky style to it, It'll tempt me to try the game out.

If you can filter through all the fanboys and haters then forums are the best place for an honest review, sadly it's just too hard to know how much a review site has been corrupted by advertising revenue these days.

I have not read a magazine review in years.
I listen to word of mouth a lot.
But I have a friend who owns a game store so he and his employees play a lot of games.