I agree that relying on reviews/critics work best for similar tastes, but a responsible consumer should be aware of a (modest) variety of sources for that infor

I agree that relying on reviews/critics work best for similar tastes, but a responsible consumer should be aware of a (modest) variety of sources for that information to account for unavoidable biases. Metacritic tries to do that by aggregating reviews, but apart from the extremes it just winds up rating everything as "average", which I suppose is accurate, but not really informative. Other than a variety of sources providing a variety of perspectives on any given game, though, how else could consumers make an informed decision? Your suggestion that price correlates to quality doesn't add up particularly where games are concerned, as there have been several very high-dollar flops and disappointments in recent years. It also sounds like you're suggesting creating artificially higher barriers to entry to get there, which I disagree with philosophically.