Topic: How did you choose which games to buy when you were a kid just starting to play videogames?

My first console was a ZX Spectrum in the mid to late eighties. My parents managed to get me a large number of cassettes to play. I used to chose the ones which had a fun cartoony looking packaging art and avoid the ones with realistic serious looking art. It wasn't until I got my NES, I think it was Christmas 1991, that I started buying videogame magazines. The first one I ever read was Total! #13 and I was hooked on them for the next twenty years.

What my friends had and what I played at their houses. Then as I got older, game magazines. Then I moved onto websites. I don't trust YouTuber's opinions, but I do like seeing gameplay videos.

My first home console was the Atari 2600 but I fell in love with Nintendo because the NES had ports of arcade games like Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. These versions, despite not being exactly like the arcade version, were vastly superior to the DK and MB that were on Atari or anywhere else.

I mean, here's what DK looked like on the Atari 2600 .......
and here's what it looked like on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

It was literally night and day and it left such an impression on me at that early age that Nintendo became (and still is) #1 in my book.

At first, mostly my dad did. Then I bought sequels to games I liked, then I bought some games based on other things I was a fan of (like Spider-Man or X-Men), and then I mainly used Nintendo Power reviews and previews.

Back then I didn't really ever buy games - I rented them. Sure, I would get some games as gifts every now and then, but I never really owned the carts for many of my favorites - the Mega Man series, Super Mario 2 and 3, Street Fighter II, the Donkey Kong Country series, etc.

Now, how did I decide which games to rent? I mostly went for either word of mouth or features on gaming magazines. Every now and then I'd try renting a game I'd never heard of before too, but those usually didn't go that well.

I tended to beg my parents to get me the home ports of my favourite arcade games such as Pac-Land and Robocop.

My parents decided and bought my games for me.

I guess they had good taste because even though there were some duds in there, most of my SNES games are what are now classics.

I played whatever my brother bought.

Did my friends have it? Is it similar to something my brother got? Does it have a cool box? Does it have a famous character I saw on TV?

That pretty much explains all the poor decisions I made as a kid.

Mostly I would rent games and ones I really enjoyed I bought or asked for gifts for birthdays or Christmas.

gamepro magazine

I just have an bad habit of purchasing things. Like take that Earthbound poster for example in another form. I want more Earthbound things but I don't have the money.

I'm guessing my siblings had a hand in it. I was so young, I don't even remember. Then, when the Gameboy Advance came out, I didn't want it, because I was too attached to my Gameboy color. I didn't ask for another console until the DSi came out, and by that time I looked things up on the internet.

When it came to getting games for my birthday or Christmas, my parents tended to choose differently than what I wanted. Usually what was cheap. Nintendo Power effectively chose the games for my parents (there was a time when they periodically included coupons for certain games in the magazine). NP got me Yogi Bear for the Game Boy! (though I don't think the game is TERRIBLE so much as UNREMARKABLY GENERIC) But it also got me Kid Dracula and Illusion of Gaia.

But before that, my parents chose Bart's Nightmare. Most certainly because of the license, though I honestly can't even remember what game I would've asked for that year. By then I think I had only played a handful of games on rentals but I think most of them had been hits (F-Zero, Lemmings, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. I think I had played Super Adventure Island and Xardion which I thought were just okay.)

Though I also rented a lot. So when I WAS allowed to choose a game myself to own, I was able to pick good games like Mega Man X and Super Castlevania IV. Though I also chose Roadrunner's Death Valley Rally (which I don't recall being BAD so much as frustratingly hard)
What to rent? Well, the only thing I could really go by was the boxart. I did tend to choose games based on cartoon characters. Luckily that resulted in me playing more games like Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose and Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse, though also the Sunsoft Looney Tunes games were decent (though I've read a bit of hate on those). I think the only LJN game I ended up playing was Spiderman & the X-Men, and after playing Rocky & Bullwinkle on SNES I learned to avoid THQ. (though I see the NES version had much worse problems than just VERY unfair difficulty)

I bought whatever looked best when I was in the gamestore. I say the gamestore because there was only one relatively nearby and it didn't have many games. I played a lot of rentals and friends games too, so it wasn't all slim pickings. I did also watch some videogame TV shows which helped once or twice.

My NES collection was exclusively gifts because it was 1995/6 but on the N64 when I got that I guess I just went with what seemed fun and popular, and took advantage of renting games A TON. I thankfully even back then knew not to bother with licensed games usually (I guess because even back then I could tell that the non-licensed games (and equally importantly, the advertised games) were better than that usually). I'm not sure I ever owned a ton of games until I started paying attention to reviews or whatever, so the popularity of Nintendo first party won over everything (though ironically, my least favorite game ever I bought partially because Game Informer said it was alright).

Honestly, the only game purchasing decision I remember back then was when I gave up finding a cheap copy of Mario 64 and decided to go with Glover...only to find a cheap copy of Mario 64 to buy at a local place on the way home.

Games that looked good on the shelf (pretty box art and good description), and games that my friends had. Occasionally I bought a magazine, but I don't recall if they influenced my decisions a lot.

My first console was a C64 in the mid to late 80s and I would just buy the tapes that had the most colourful cover art, or my father would buy me the tapes with multiple games. Back then C64 (and ZX Spectrum) tapes were sold by newsagents and later I found out they were all bootleg copies - that was alright though because even if they had little to no instructions, at least they had titles that were in a language I could comprehend.
The came the Sega Master System and I could rely on the information on the back of the box. That was all you got - that and the occasional TV advertising. Also at this point videogames shifted from the newsagent to toy shops, which meant limited choice (toy shop didn't carry more than 5 to 10 different games per system). That's how I got Sonic, Laser Ghost and the inevitable two (or three) sport games. It wasn't until the middle of the Mega Drive lifespan that I found out about videogame magazines and review scores became the gospel.

I went to my cousin's house almost everyday (we live in the same neighbourhood),played with him his games,and bought the ones I liked(he owned a Playstation so I got one too).

Minus the ones I got as Birthday and Christmas gifts, any one game at the flea market that cost $10 or less, maybe $20 if I was good.