Why are you buying games?

It's my money and I want it now!

I'm mostly (re-)playing older games of which I know they are good or have heard only good about the last years.

That way I save lots of moneys, because I don't have to buy 60$ titles right after release but get them for almost nothing via bundles & sales.

GTA V will be just as much fun in three years as it will be now (for me).

Mainy for story and performance, because I have a very old rig... I'd like to get games that are considered classics in order to play them because I couldn't really play them before... That's why I've been playing mostly Half Life and GTA 3 at the moment.

Because I'm genuinely interested in playing them (which I suppose can be a mixture of the things on the poll). Though most of the time it's because the story looks interesting, other times it's because it's a good time waster (puzzle/hidden object games) while I marathon tv shows.

Reviews are often skewed and not genuine in the sense that they're always personal opinions and hardly objective or neutral. Fifty people can play the same game and not have the same experience with it - which is why I never read them.

Though Steam is a bit of a different animal. It's much easier to access reviews there, so sometimes I skim over them when I see a game that I wish to play, but it has nothing but negative reviews. I do take those into consideration when deciding to purchase in the long run because if there are over 100 reviews saying this game is messed up, then I'm definitely not buying it full price (because it still doesn't stop me from wanting to try it).

For me what determines if I buy the game most is the game description itself. What the game promises to be.

Where is the "addiction" option?

The multiplayer feature has to be the most important item thing on my checklist when I buy a game

I prefer the opinion of a youtuber I trust, but gathering more infos possible is always a good thing

story, but i read the user reviews on steam before deciding...

Price > Good story > Watch gameplays about the game

I... just buy them. :(

Although I don't like the whole "Let's play" culture, because it doesn't make sense to me and most YouTubers are just annoying I do use it to determine if the gameplay is appealing to me.
So I only watch it if I don't have the game or if I need some tips and strategies.

Besides that I often look for interesting new ideas since the variety of PC games is much wider than on consoles where I mostly bought games for the story or multiplayer, which still applies to my PC games but stuff like goat simulator, surgeon simulator or damned ate games that I bought because they are something new in comparison to your usual FPS blockbuster.

I would say everything from the chart, only there is question how much each item has weight on my final decision.
For me game-play mechanics have most influence, but at the end, price dictates when will I even buy the game. Word of mouth is good way to notice some game, but when your friends don't prefer same genre as you do, it can be a problem. That is why YouTube is excellent place for me to hear about new releases. Story has little influence on me, because I don't like the-chosen-one theme, honestly it just pisses me off, and that is main premise of all "story-based" games. At the end I don't trust too much magazines and reviewers, can be bought, blackmailed or any other reason to not give you as honest as possible opinion.

I need them because reasons.

Achievement and card hunting is not one of the factors? Really?

If the game is interesting, but id wait for a review first.

If it seems interesting and maybe if it has a huge number of % positive in steam (such as life is strange and to the moon - 97%-98% positive)

Steam reviews for me.
If 20,000 people reviewed and 95% Think the game is good, I might buy it even if I am not entirely convinced about the game.

Never thought so few people actually cared about reviews, I'm a review whore, I never bought anything (either games or movies, music, hardware, else) without gathering A LOT of user reviews (or at least after asking a lot of question to my friends).

When I get to play games then, story is just as important as game mechanics, probably I'd say I follow this checklist to buy my non-bundle games:

• has good reviews
• is on discount (at least 66%)

And this list to actually judge the game I'm playing:

• gameplay/mechanics
• story/plot
• music
• graphics
• sound effects

Just to write down few examples, Portal 1 is so far the only 100/100 on my review list, other games got close but that one was the only one where I would have not changed anything. On the other hand Tomb Raider (2013) was probably the worst disappointment, such good reviews for a QTE game.

Graphics, artistic direction, story, gameplay elements and the attitude of the developer. I usually check the store page, read user reviews and compare the genre to my tastes and add the game to my wishlist. I purchase it when there is a major sale or on release if it's a game that I've been waiting for.

I have never cared about youtube or metacritic reviews and do not waste my time on them. Everyone has different tastes and preferences so I don't need someone to tell me whether a game is good or not, I make my own decision based on the information available to me. I feel like all those high profile reviewers are all just freeloaders who don't want to work at a real job.

Buying mostly to just own them

mostly if it has an interesting story and it's affordable
sometimes a friend recommends it to me

I basically only care about the story and graphics. Sometimes I'm interested in a game because it's from a dev that has made a good game in the past. However, if a game is "overwhelmingly negative" or "mostly negative", I read the reviews to see why.