I never understood the need to read reviews on games and movies

Back in the pre-Internet days, even up through the early '00s, that's about all we had. Unless one of your buddies bought the game or watched the flick before you did and could give you a first-hand review, the gaming press and review media (think EGM/PC Gamer for games and "Siskel and Ebert" for films) were our lifeline for whether something was going to be worth our time and money. There was always some suspicion of payola and collusion back in the day, but we tended to overlook it as the reviews from multiple magazines usually lined up - if a game was a shit-show then there would be at least one mag that would be honest about it.

Obviously, things shifted pretty quickly between 2000-10, when we started realizing how deep the rot and collusion - both between the games press outlets and the publishers, and among the games press outlets themselves - ran in the industry. We now know how full of shit they all are, so anyone who takes the hobby seriously knows to go to independent review sources for any info they need.