Pre-orders: What's the big deal?

[likalaruku]

I can understand preordering a single player game by a developer who hasn't lead you astray before, but it's against my policy with MMOs that charge for alpha & closed beta access. With F2P MMOs, I play for 2 weeks before deciding how much if any cash I want to put into the game.

 

[Spanglish Guy]

I stopped pre-ordering ever since I pre-ordered Aliens: Colonial Marines (we all know how that turned out). I got my money back but still.

I can't trust a game to be as good as it promises even if it's from a developer I trust, it's just too muck of a risk to put down £30 to £40 on a game that I am not even sure I am going to even like. I will now always wait for everyone to post their reviews of a game before I make any decision to purchase a game or not.

Other than that, I am a bit bemused by the whole pre-order culture we have at the moment where we are now seeing season passes (essentially DLC pre-orders) but that's a different topic really.

 

[K-lusive]

The last time I pre-ordered was because I didn;t ffeel like remembering the exact release date for a game, having pre-ordered it it just downloaded when it became available..
Writing these dates down would've been a better idea though, perhaps.

 

[Aethien]

I considered pre ordering the new Borderlands game but all you get for that is 1 arena that probably won't be very fun or interesting and can most likely be bought for 3 bucks or so later on, might as well wait for the reviews before I spend ?50.

 

[Burgers2013]

I understand preordering physical copies of games. I never did it unless there was a chance it would sell out, few copies would be made available at launch, or there was some bonus content (physical, not DLC). If I really wanted the figurine, art book, and/or sound track, I'd go for it. The digital versions of these things have little value to me. For instance, getting a disk of the sound track is nice, but getting it as a download doesn't really increase the value of the proposition for me since the sound files have just been copied in a different format; they didn't actually create anything new like a manufactured good. There's no added value there for me really.

I've kickstarted a couple games, and that may count as some sort of ultra high-risk preorder. The benefit there is that the game has a higher chance of actually being made.

The only digital preorder I've ever made was The Witcher III. It gave a nice discount for preorders. To me, that adds real value to the proposition. Not much else does for a digital release. Maybe the idea that preorders need to have a discounted price, scarcity, and/or offer physical goods to be worth it will change as digital distribution becomes more common. It'll be interesting to see.

The preorder in-game benefits like weapons and abilities always seemed off and silly to me. I never liked the practice. I would like to blame GameStop and high quality internet connections for this issue.

 

[Fasckira]

I preorder my games because Im impatient and cant wait to play them. By having it drop on my doorstep in the morning it also means I dont have to drive into the city, find a parking spot, queue up in the shop etc.

I couldn't give a monkeys about any bonuses that come with it.

As with regards to the game not living up to the hype... well, I only ever preorder/buy games these days that I've read quite a bit on and seen quite a video previews. This means that going in I at least have a rough idea of what to expect. Should it turn out to be utter pigswill then Ill trade it in at a later date for a game that I didn't want enough to preorder but still interested enough in to play.

 

[bug_of_war]

I don't think I've ever not been able to find a copy of a game I wanted on release date. Once I've seen the local gamestop run out of copies of something (I think it was Halo 3 but I can't remember for sure), and I walked across the mall to the Target where they had a couple dozen. Putting money down to reserve a copy is functionally meaningless, it doesn't change anything. At absolute most, you save a trip to a second store.

As for your question: The alternative to preordering is to wait for reviews to come out, find out whether or not the game is actually good, then decide whether or not to buy it. Preorders are literal leaps of blind faith banking on the fact that the game's PR engine hasn't lied to you, when the entire purpose of said PR engines is to lie to you. It's madness.

I'm not trying to say that everyone should pre-order games, I'm sorry if that's the way I've come off. What I am saying is what's the problem with pre-ordering? When it comes to PC games I absolutely agree that the idea of pre-ordering to secure your copy is outright dumb, but (in my case at least) when it comes to retail purchases, especially new console games, there is more risk at not being able to get a new game when it comes out. For example (again, this is all personal experience) there have been multiple times where I have been unable to get a copy of a fairly new game anywhere from a week to a month after said games release. Assassin's Creed Black Flag, Watch Dogs, The Last Of Us and even Infamous Second Son were all games that I have had trouble obtaining for the PS4, and I only got Infamous because it was a trade in. And that was me checking multiple stores both game focused and general shopping stores IE: Target, K-Mart and Big W.

I should also mention that I fully understand not pre-ordering new IPs. Colonial Marines and Watch Dogs are perfect examples, the games were the first of their series and were asking you to trust them without ever having any pretense to go from.

 

[bug_of_war]

Alien colonial marines, and theres also a chance that you could be strung along for years if not a decade in the case of Duke nukem forever. Not only that but you may never see the product actually come out (like in half life 3s case). You are putting blind faith in a developer to actually make a good product and deliver it. I dont think thats a friendly business model to consumers.

Alien Colonial Marines is always put up as the, "Look at what Pre-orders have created" but I ask you, how many games before and after have actually pulled this stunt? I find it hard to think of any (maybe Dragon Age 2) and that's why I find that ACM is one of those games that is used more as a scapegoat to condemn the practice rather than one of many examples. As for Duke Nukem, yeah the game was pretty average, and yeah that's a really great point of pre-ordering ending up being a big fail, but how many other games lead into this example?

Also, Half Life 3 was made available for pre-order? I don't see how that point works in your argument.

Why is it a big deal?

It's because there's far less motivation to make a game good if you're being paid before you've even finished making it.

Sure they get paid, but most retailers (if you're not a PC gamer) still offer 7 day refunds/trade in offers. Duke Nukem after 6 months of release in Australia was worth literally 15 dollars. There were no new copies, only pre owned ones. Becoming known as the piece of shit dev that makes half assed shitty games does not bode well for longevity. Look at the Early Access devs that were pretty much obliterated by the bad PR that they got. Bad PR is bad PR, and everyone begins to notice which companies are dicks, and which are decent (especially when companies logos are everywhere on game cases).

 

[shemoanscazrex3]

Last one I did was Mass Effect 3.... and incidentally, that was the last time I do so.

I really don't know why other than its a hobby and therefore enthusiasts will put that much effort and see that much value to put fourth the extra money to buy those editions.

But for me... nope. Not when I see most of them sell along with their extra bonuses much cheaper within a month. You can get some surprising collections these days if you feel like it for sometimes 80% off what they were during their day 1.

What a coincidence, that was the last game I preordered too don't know if for the same reason.

lol -- if you imply because of the ending? No. Obviously I didn't know what the ending was before I pre-ordered it. I honestly believed it was going to be BioWare's greatest achievement from such a rich pool of characters and back story of ME2 but that's a totally different discussion.

When I got it, it was just mediocre. The extras that came within the game ( the useless robot dog, underpowered rifles that were quickly replaced) was just very lame. The small post-card like picture of the SR2 was meh. The art book was interesting but I thought it was going to be a nice art book. Something much larger than it was. Totally a bogus " bonus". I think they should have given away I don't know -- a pewter model or something. Only thing close to being redeeming was the black leather jacket during his off-duty time.

That was the last game I preordered because of the day 1 DLC that was pretty substantial to the game. I actually didn't get the big hang up on the ending. I do agree though about the extras as with a lot of games that have preorder bonuses. I end up not using them and even if I do once I level out to the point of that bonus being worthless well it just becomes wasted space or something I sell. Most of the real life extras just suck unless you get the collectors edition.

 

[doomrider7]

I don't see the blind faith or gambling aspect if you're pre-ordering something like a Mario game or any other game from a major series with lots of titles to compare. Now if it's a new IP then yeah you better do some serious research, but if it's a sequel game or something similar then I don't see the problem.

Really? Ok Ill give a specific example, actually Ill give a few examples. Lets take the Dragon Age franchise. The first game to this day is widely considered one of the best RPGs, if not one of the best bioware RPGs, made in many years. Then we got dragon age 2 which wasnt anything like the original. The names were still there but the combat system was completely changed to be a more action oriented one (a bad at that IMO) that took away almost all the strategy the first game had. Then there were the choices which largely amounted to nothing. It was even more constrained then I felt the walking dead was. Ultimately this lead up to the adventure meaning nothing. Then there were the shallow characters compared to DA:O's pretty well done characters. Pretty much everything they did in that game was the polar opposite of what players liked about DA:O and today DA2 is condemned as a horrible game (I dont think it was the train wreck everyone else thinks it was but I still dont think it was even mediocre).

Second example. Many older gamers grew to love the fallout series from fallout 1 and 2. However the change from a strategy RPG to and FPS RPG in fallout 3 turned a lot of people off. Now I personally think Fallout 3 is amazing but I can see why many fans of the franchise think the changes werent good.

Third Example. X-com Enemy unknown (1993) is my personal favorite game of all time. However the hard choices system of Firaxis' X-com is something that turns me off. The strategy elements are bare bones, there are no invasions of your base, there are no alien bases besides the one story one, you cant have multiple X-com bases or teams to send out handling multiple missions simultaneoulsy, many of the original aliens like snakemen are missing making the games narrative less interesting with a coalition of alien races working together instead of the Ethereals just being dictators.

Fourth example. DMC: Devil may cry was IMO a step backwards for the franchise. It had a stronger narrative but the character design and characterization were way off to my expectations of Dante. However the worst part was the combat system was severely dumbed down making button spamming and getting a "SSS" rank easy while past games required timing and skillfull execution to get "SSS" rank.

In each of these cases preordering may have burned people who had preconceptions to these franchises. Like it or not there are many cases where franchises have changed either when going to other developers or behind a single developer. If you pre-order youre still going on blind faith that the new game in a franchise coming out is going to be like the old game in that franchise you liked.

Dragon Age I can give, but doing fairly basic research on any of the others would've avoided any of those problems. I mean the new Wolfenstein game looked amazing, but after researching it a bit more I backed out on pre-ordering it since as good as it looked, it wasn't something I wanted or needed at the time. All of the games I've pre-ordered have been games I want ASAP and I've researched well enough to know what to expect in terms of gameplay, story, and even mechanics.

 

[Windcaler]

Dragon Age I can give, but doing fairly basic research on any of the others would've avoided any of those problems. I mean the new Wolfenstein game looked amazing, but after researching it a bit more I backed out on pre-ordering it since as good as it looked, it wasn't something I wanted or needed at the time. All of the games I've pre-ordered have been games I want ASAP and I've researched well enough to know what to expect in terms of gameplay, story, and even mechanics.

If it happened once it can happen again.

That said youre doing research with the material that is available. Usually this means youre relying on marketing material released by these companies to try and make an informed decision and that will probably get you burned eventually. We've seen many cases where marketing material released didnt measure up to the actual game. Aliens colonial marines was the most striking of this with a demo that was a straight up lie. A more recent target is destiny. There were many developer interviews that were released about the game to hype it up but very little about the actual game measures up to the interviews I watched. Relying on marketing material to make an informed decision is also going with blind faith. In this case the faith is that youre being told the whole and complete truth about the product

 

[Leemaster777]

I was a part of the pre-order thing for awhile. Stopped doing it when I stopped caring about pre-order bonuses.

The ONLY reason I preordered Persona 4 Arena Ultimax was because it came with a set of Persona tarot cards, and an inflatable Teddie. Both of which are things I have wanted for some time, and are things I would have eventually spent real money to obtain at some point. Didn't want to miss out on swag like that.

Other than that, I almost never preorder anything.

 

[Danny Dowling]

Watch Dogs had 5 different versions of the game released each with different content and pre order bonus'. It is nearly impossible to get 100% of the games experience now because of that.

People that pre order are not getting bonus content that otherwise wouldn't be in the game all that often. Usually, it is a small portion of the final product taken out later to become a pre order incentive.

The new Assassin's Creed game (not Unity, the other one, the one on PS3 and 360) got pre order options and pre order bonus' in the very trailer that was used to announce the game. companies are now trying to bait us, the consumer, into pre ordering games that we have close to 0% knowledge on. For the dumber members of the public, this is not good.

What's all this talk about pre ordering and money? Pre orders in game shops don't cost money, at most you're looking at £10 deposit on major major titles and consoles. At least where I come from. Pre-purchase is a whole different kettle of fish.

 

[mavkiel]

A lot of people on this site seem to have it out for pretty much ALL types of pre-orders regardless if they offer content or not. I've heard a few of reasons such as:

The content should be in the base game
Pay to win
Paying for a game that you have no idea whether it will be good or not
It's greedy
...

So yeah, what's your deal with pre-orders? Or do you agree with me?

Captcha: multi pass
Captcha, you're screwing with me aren't ya?

Paying for a game that you have no idea if its good or not.

Easy examples, Aliens Colonial marines and X-Rebirth. Both sounded wonderful from the descriptions. But if you missed the ***** fests about those games then you have been living under a rock. Oh and Civ 5. Not talking about the design issues or etc. I am talking about the memory leaks, graphic bugs, and ctd issues that plagued it for months after release. Although prices for misc civlizations also left a bitter taste. But that's another issue.

 

[ecoho]

The "gonna buy it anyway so might as well pre-order" mindset is absolutely poisonous and needs to go. If people are going to buy a game anyway, is it that hard to wait till AFTER release? The product isn't running away, neither is it running out.

You will be doing a huge favor to the game industry because developers will start realizing that people are waiting for release and marketing/hype will no longer be enough.
By choosing NOT to pre-order, people will indirectly increase the standard and quality of games coming out (even if slightly).

The conversation at EA headquarters may one day go something like this:

Bob: Jim, we're receiving almost no pre-orders!
Jim: Should we step out the marketing and hype even more?
Bob: No I don't think that'll work, we might actually have to start creating games that are NOT SHIT!
Jim: WHAT MADNESS DO YOU SPEAK?
Bob: I know it's crazy, but I'm being serious Jim!


Yeah, I can dream

first off lay off EA there are much bigger assholes in the world now then them(look into ubisoft)

now the reason I preorder a game im going to buy anyways and don't wait for release is I do it a good 3 to 6 months before the game comes out and just put 5 bucks down a week. By the time the game is then released I tend to have paid it off and hell if the game is bad you can transfer that money to another game or better yet GET A REFUND assuming of course you preorder at a half decent store.

 

[LarsInCharge]

I preorder when I know I'll love the game (usually from previous track record), and I want to make sure they have a copy for me. Extra stuff never really crosses my mind.

Recent preorders:

FFX/X2 HD Remix
Lightning Returns: FFXIII
Disgaea 4
Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate
Metal Gear Rising

And I haven't regretted any of them. Only preorder I ever regretted was Madden 2013 (which luckily I didn't open because of one aspect I hadn't known about which made me hate the game) and FFXIII (I bought the hype... I'm not proud).

 

[Rozalia1]

Never had an issue with pre-orders. When I make a decision to buy a game I buy it simple as, I couldn't care less what some reviewer thinks of it. I bought AMY even though every review under the sun labeled it a train wreck, I didn't care as I wanted to play some survival horror at the time (and yes it was a trainwreck, not a good one either).
... Though it helps that the whole review thing is invalid for me to start with anyway. A large part of the games I play all have Japanese releases before they come out here so getting info on them isn't difficult.

Oh and those saying everyone should wait a while even if we're dead set on buying the game to...not encourage game devs... what makes you think I or anyone else gives a damn about this goal of yours when we're spending our money? Get a better eye for games if you keep getting disappointed so much, we'll do what we like.

 

[Super Cyborg]

There's only a few times now that I pre-order stuff. The first is if there is a special edition set that I want. I did this with Ys, Memories of Celceta, because I wanted the soundtrack and other stuff that came with it. I'm also doing this for the special edition of Persona Q because of the soundtrack that comes with it. If Legend of Heroes: Second Chapter was being released physically with a special edition, I would've done that to. I also only pre-order the special editions for games I know I will like, so Xseed and Atlus games are an easy bet because even the ones that aren't the greatest (Conception II), they are still fun.

The other game I pre-ordered was Hyrule Warriors. I wanted to get the special costumes that came with the pre-order. While this is one that I usually would be more harsh on, I didn't mind much for one reason. The reviews for the game came out a week before it was released for consumers. After reading a number of reviews, I figured out I wanted the game, so then went to Amazon to pre-order the game to get the twilight princess outfits that came with it. While still not a great thing, especially with it being based on where you pre-order, at least I can see reviews and take advantage of the pre-order.

So quick summary, I pre-order for special editions with physical items for games I like, and will pre-order games with bonuses if the game has reviews out well in time to be able to take advantage of said pre-order bonuses (and if I really want the game right away).

 

[G00N3R7883]

Basically it comes down to trust. I lost my trust in the games industry a long time ago (specifically, Aliens Colonial Marines was my last straw). I love playing games. Its my favourite hobby. But I do not trust the business side of it.

Pretty much every game that is released, PC, console, AAA, indie, whatever, will have some kind of bugs, missing or broken features, etc, that will spoil the enjoyment of people who play it on day 1. Alternatively the game will simply be overhyped and under delivered.

Since ACM, I've been very strict with not preordering games. I wait for reviews, steam forum feedback, patches, etc and I've been able to avoid most of the negatives and get back to just having fun with games that work properly.

 

[WeepingAngels]

I did pre-order Final Fantasy XIII on Steam because it comes out during a time of the month when money is tight. Otherwise though, I don't pe-order and actually pre-order bonuses discourage me rather than encourage me to pre-order.

I am a grown man and if I did get some figurine, chances are that I wouldn't want to display it. As for downloadable pre-order bonuses, those are more hassle than they are worth. I just hate inputting codes to download some 100kb costume or weapon. The idea of having retailer specific versions of a game kinda pisses me off. There is no way I can have the complete version under those circumstances and it makes me even more likely to say NO to a pre-order.

I have also learned that DLC that doesn't install itself when you reinstall a game (Steam and Origin do this but the consoles do not) is a hassle too. It has made me less likely to buy any DLC on consoles.