Quoted from PinballTilt:Yeah, not a large percentage would buy a game just because someone says it's the best game ever, but if we had a poll and people were honest I think there would be more than a handful that put down a pre-order or bought a game based in part on what someone on here said about it.
If you were new and you saw a for sale thread for a game you think you'd like and everyone was saying it's a great game and a great deal, wouldn't those comments lead you to contact the seller? I liked the Houdini theme and enjoyed it when I played it, but I didn't pull the trigger in preordering until watching sdtms stream with the designer and seeing how awesome they think it was.
Its all just my opinion
I liked playing the Hobbit at the last show I was at, so I went out looking for information on it. I found a SDTM video about it on youtube. I have no idea who they are other than that they are members here. I can't say that their opinion of it (they seemed to like the game) really pushed me further towards buying it though. I will need to play it more before I decide for sure, which will be difficult since there are none on location here.
It could also be that I don't normally enjoy a lot of the popular games. At this point, I wouldn't play TZ for free. I just looked at the top 50 games, and counted 20 that I would play if I saw them. I included Houdini in the count even though I haven't played it because it looks interesting.