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I hate "Must Buy This" review wording

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21 Apr 2015 13:52 #201197 by ChristopherMD
I have a pet peeve with reviews. Any time a reviewer suggest I buy the game it annoys me. There is no such thing as a "must buy" as far as I'm concerned. Some reviewers I won't even read anymore because too many times I felt I was reading a sales pitch. I want to read your opinions and experiences with the game. Telling me I should seek it out to play is fine, but saying I should go out and buy it based on your review is not. Does this bother anyone else? This isn't about anyone getting payouts or anything like that. Maybe its just not a perspective that works for me because I don't buy every game I didn't hate.
Oh, extra annoyance points if the reviewer got the game for free. Don't tell me to spend my money where you didn't, asshole.
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21 Apr 2015 13:56 #201200 by Black Barney
Yeah, they should really change it to, "MUST PLAY THIS" which is a much better review. Cuz maybe your buddy got it and you've been wondering about it, now you'll force him to play it next time you see it.

THat's what most video game reviews see. It rarely says "must buy", it often says, "please play this, don't miss it".

What do you think of movie reviews that say, "Must see." cuz I use that a lot.
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21 Apr 2015 14:39 #201210 by Legomancer

Black Barney wrote: What do you think of movie reviews that say, "Must see." cuz I use that a lot.


"Must see" is a different case because that's what you do with a movie.
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21 Apr 2015 15:29 #201215 by edulis

Black Barney wrote:
What do you think of movie reviews that say, "Must see." cuz I use that a lot.


You should change it to "You must buy a ticket to this movie!" Then you could put the ticket on a shelf with a bunch of other unused tickets.

Maybe this analogy would work better with DVDS... hmmm?
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21 Apr 2015 16:10 #201225 by Michael Barnes
This comes from amateur board game writers who think that what they are doing is providing a consumer service instead of analyzing a piece of media and providing an opinion about its successes and failures or maybe even analyzing it deeper than that. Board game reviews, by and large, have about as much authority and sophistication as product reviews on Amazon.com ("This was just what my grandson wanted, many smiles. Shipped on time and in great packaging. THANKS!"). And sadly, what the majority of the audience wants is an answer to the questions "should I buy this game?" or "did I do the right thing by buying this game?" instead of actual critical review.
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21 Apr 2015 16:48 #201235 by SuperflyPete
Michael, you have to remember that not everyone thinks about what they write like you do. I, personally, am not analyzing a games successes and failures as much as providing a service. I am telling people what I want to tell them, personally, which is "is this worth your hard earned money, and why". The analysis is definitely there to support the "why" but there's so many shill fucktards out there who are in it for free shit that there has to be someone who can be trusted to deliver unbiased information and recommendations. I look at my site as the "Oprah's Book List" of board games, of a sort, but without the ties to the publishers she has.

Most people, sadly, don't give two fucks about true criticism. They want to be made to drink from the water they brought themselves to. They want their hands held to be told "it'll be alright" and that's why you have this huge power given to unvetted, untrained, and sometimes unscrupulous crowd of bloggers who are basically using a free service (blogger) to help publishers sell product so that they can get free shit (review copies) and get some modicum of nerd fame, for what that's worth.

So, I do provide a service, just like you do, but we vary on how we do it in a lot of ways. You give a great deal of insight and tell people why from a much higher elevation than most, and I provide the "10 people I played with scored this game 3 times, and this is what we came up with."

But, I will try very hard in the future to not give buy recommendations, although I don't often go that far. The last one I did was Pompeii, which was recent, and I mean every word of it, as I always do.

Just my 2C.
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21 Apr 2015 20:18 #201256 by OldHippy
Not only do I want them to tell me what to buy but I prefer they just play it for me too. This way I can walk around with the experiences of a thousand reviewers without ever having played an actual game myself. I mean... if they know what I should buy then perhaps they can take over other aspects of my life too...

I'm really sicking of jerking myself off for example.

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