[Goronmon]

I miss that kind of media discovery, our modern always-online world tends to smother serendipity.

I don't really miss the time of having to choose games this way. If you lucked out it was great, but you were also potentially putting down upwards of $50+ bucks in 1995 dollars on a game that you might end up really disliking.

[rkomorn]

Exaggeration warning, but as someone who has indeed spent a bunch of money on games I ended up disliking, I find our current-day inability to cope with disappointment kind of sad.

Sometimes we buy something we don't like, but it's on us, and that's just life.

At some point I think we just took the "satisfied or your money back" mentality too far.

Edit: note this doesn't absolve actual scammers or other bad actors from being crappy people though.

[arp242]

Demos existed, for home computer and PC games anyway. This is why you bought the game review magazines to get the disk (and later, CD-ROM) with demos. For consoles you could often try the game in the shop, or rent them at the Video rental shop. You could even rent entire consoles! I've also returned a few games back in the day.

[SkyeCA]

Everyone I knew just rented games (and sometimes console too). You'd usually rent them for a weekend.