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[–] ArsCortica 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Tough question to answer.

The pessimist in me instantly says that, with the way reviewers are in the pockets of the publishers today, there is no chance that it would have been any different back in the day - it would be the same mess except with over 9000 game awards slapped onto anything, and the stupid hype LetsPlayers have already build around otherwise lackluster games (I am Goat, Five Nights at Freddies, etc., etc.) would probably be even worse than currently.

On the other hand, a large part of the problem (apart from the sheer flood of shitty games and the already existing oversaturation of the market) indeed was that people often had no idea how the game itself would look like apart from two or three screenshots and the shiny frontcover. Cue catastrophes like that one ET game or many other titles that were literally sold on the expectation that, no matter how shitty they were, the consumers would buy them anyway because they didn't know better.

Good, honest games journalism might have alleviated this problem in that it could have highlighted the games that actually were good, but as mentioned above, they'd probably be in the pockets of the publishers, and even if they weren't, 85% of the games on the market still were utter trash. The "quantity over quality" sales model of the games industry only worked because the gaming market so far had been virginal, but by the time of 1983, the market had become about as virginal as a crack-addicted, STD-ridden Las Vegas hooker. The implosion was inevitable.