Preorders: Have you been screwed?

[MortisLegio]

I have preordered several games in my time and after A:CM (did it for the collector's edition) I will never preorder again. I'm getting tired of buying bad games (I know it's my fault that I bought into the hype) and I don't plan on buying anymore of them.

 

[The Lugz]

i'm a cheap ass except for a few franchises i really enjoy if a game isn't on my big top 10 then it's steam sale, amazon or i don't bother

obviously if you simply can't wait for something pre order it, but that shouldn't be the state of play for every game imo

 

[Frybird]

I preorder all the time, although it's all mailorder, i couldn't be bothered to give out 5 ? to a gamestop just so they can't screw me over when i come on release date to buy it (also i buy almost exclusively from the UK because it's cheaper).

Most of the time it works out well (Well, some games turn out to be more "meh" than others, AC3 for example), but i still messed up every now and then.

Biggest failure yet: Alone in the Dark (that new one).
I was SO convinced this would be the game of the year, so i got the collectors edition and everything. Unfortunately, it took me a while until i finally could admit to myself that the game just sucks, and as such i never managed to re-sell it. The bulky box still remains in my home to this day, a shameful reminder of me having no patience when buying stuff. Well, at least the Soundtrack CD was kinda neat.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I have only ever preordered 2 games: Diablo III and Borderlands 2. The first one because it had a contest with a killer gaming PC as the main prize, and the second one because I was the first one's *****, and knew I was going to be the second one's. Eventually regretted neither of those, despite initially being more than slightly disappointed with D3.

I've never really understood the point of preorders aside from preordering special editions, in which case I understand the desire to get all the extra stuff. It just seems implausible to me that someone is so excited for a game and so impatient that they can't wait for a few days after its release to see reviews, but simply has to be able to play the instant it hits stores. Preordering digital copies is simply insane, I cannot for the life of me think of any reason for it.

But I was actually screwed with my preorder of BL2. I had the premier club edition, but despite having owned it for almost 6 months, THE CONTENT NEVER SHOWED UP. I wasn't pissed enough to do something about it, since I already feel I got my money's worth (and then some) with that game. But it still occasionally itches in my memory as an annoyance.

Biggest failure yet: Alone in the Dark (that new one).
I was SO convinced this would be the game of the year, so i got the collectors edition and everything. Unfortunately, it took me a while until i finally could admit to myself that the game just sucks, and as such i never managed to re-sell it. The bulky box still remains in my home to this day, a shameful reminder of me having no patience when buying stuff. Well, at least the Soundtrack CD was kinda neat.

You just put to words the reason I almost never preorder games. Also, I once saw entire boxes full of Alone in the Dark's special editions, tucked under a table in a store. It was so tragic yet also so funny at the same time.

 

[Whispering Cynic]

No, I don't really preorder...

In the retail store where I buy all my games "preorder" means "reserve a copy for pickup" if you so choose (you can also have it shipped by mail, with payment upon delivery). You don't have to pay anything in advance and can cancel your reservation at any time - a great system to if you want to avoid buying disasters like DNF.

In today's world, where you can't trust anyone to deliver a quality product, forking over your money in advance is just foolish.

 

[Harlemura]

My pre-order of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood got messed up so it got here like a week after it was released, but the game itself was pretty good so that doesn't count.
Only game I pre-ordered that sucked I can think of is Street Fighter X Tekken. But even then it wasn't that bad and it has been patched and updated so that it doesn't suck as much, so I guess that doesn't count either.

I don't pre-order games all that much though, but that's down to waiting for the price to drop more than waiting for reviews.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

The only game I can think off was Dungeon Siege 3, that game had consolitis in a bad way.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

Never have I been disappointed by a game I pre-ordered. I choose the games that receive that privilege quite carefully.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Only once have I felt really screwed over by a pre-order, and that was with BRINK. In fact me and a decent group of fellas pre-ordered that one and we were gonna have an awesome time playing together...at least until we found out it sucked. Besides that I have had a pretty solid time with any game I decided to pre-order.

Same here. And I remember they decided to release it a day early on PC. Wtf was that all about?

To be honest, there were a few moments I've had with the game when it reached levels of greatness. When the game actually played the way it was allegedly meant to play. With two full teams of people playing their classes well, and fighting for objectives... it was pretty awesome.

Unfortunately, the rampant gamebreaking bugs and horrendous rubber-banding made the game unbearable to play. It had so much promise, but in the end, thanks to the game breaking bugs and performance issues - I felt screwed.

I preordered Resident Evil 6 Anthology knowing that RE6 was going to have no 'survival horror' elements to it.

The game itself was unbearable. Thankfully the pack came with RE1-5.
I don't own RE 1-3 and never played through all of 2 or 3.
In the end the game was worth the money because of the time spent with the classics.

RE6 on the other hand isn't even worth $10.00 IMO.

I too pre-ordered the RE6 anthology... but I'm one of those people that actually liked RE6 lol.

Of course having the rest of the franchise is great too.

Even if there's no incentive, I don't see the problem. Maybe I have the money now and want to get the payment process out of the way?

Admittedly, this is a big reason why I pre-order. Some fairly recent preorders by me were made for this reason alone.

Actually, as a PC Gamer, I found a great tactic to cancel Pre Orders after the release date.

DON'T BUY THEM ON STEAM. BUY THEM AT GAMESTOP

Well shit, I never thought about that.

I'll have to start looking into this. Valve's approach for pre-orders is too damned heavy-handed, it'd be nice to make a small investment and take it back after release if I see the need to.

I remember back when I was young, I'd preorder games at dedicated game stores because they really would run out of stock.

And big box stores like Best Buy wouldn't stock new releases until several days after their release date.

But now it seems that every big box store is crammed to the brim with new releases the moment they come out, and even do midnight releases. Dedicated game stores intentionally get a small amount of shelf copies to make pre-orders seem necessary. But I can't remember the last time I wasn't able to find a game I really wanted on release day. It's been years.

 

[N3squ1ck]

Since I don't preorder too much, not really.
Well, I preordered Duke Nukem Forever, but I knew that it wasn't going to be a good game, I just wanted to get it over with (I remember how I went with my dad to an electronics store and trying to buy it, back in the nineties, so I had to get it ASAP) and also Dishonored (with a 30% off coupon at GreenManGaming).
Then I preordered some indie titles like Retro City Rampage and Legend of Grim Rock, I don't think I really got burned at all.

 

[sir neillios]

I have preordered one game in my life, that being Natural Selection 2. I will say I was had because I didn't read the small print, I thought I was getting access to the beta. So feeling very stupid I waited a month and a half to play it. Best game ever. Did preodering make me more excited for it? Oh yes. But would I have gone near it with a ten foot pole without the metric tonne of beta footage leaving me in no doubt what I was getting? Probably not, although the nineteen pound price encouraged me.

Watching footage of aliens:cm is just painful, the game has some of the worst clipping in an fps I've ever seen. I haven't played duke nukem forever, but based on what I've seen, I'd say it's actually the better game.

Will I ever preorder again? Indie games, maybe, especially if it gives me cheap beta access. AAA games, no chance. I'm never dropping 30 pound on something I've no clue about.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

I wouldn't say I've ever been screwed, but the closest to that would probably be after preordering Brink. I enjoyed the game for the most part, but once the servers started drying up and I was stuck with just bots that don't act near as much like people as they marketed they would; there was no point in playing.

 

[mew4ever23]

Most of the stuff I've pre-ordered was stuff I was gonna buy anyway. Portal 2, Pikmin 3.. I've never been screwed over by preordering and getting surprised by a bad quality game.

 

[rob_simple]

To my eternal shame I pre-ordered Final Fantasy X-2, because it came with a free poster (don't ask) only to be informed on the day I went to collect that the employee had lied to me and I only got the free poster if I pre-ordered the strategy guide, as well.

It didn't help that the game fucking sucked, either.

 

[Denamic]

I will never pre-order from steam ever again. Alien: Colonial Marine was missing the .exe files needed to play. If I had gotten it from GameStop then it most likely would have worked.

You know you can check file integrity and download any missing or corrupted files, right?

 

[Issurru]

The one time I broke my no preorder rule was maybe 4 years ago, figured why not? Then the store I preordered from closed down (Movie Gallery was its name) and they owed me around $200 for the 3-4 games I had preordered. So I bought a bunch of garbage that I'll never play because I couldn't get my money back. Never going to preorder again, well I guess I technically "have" since then. But it's rare and only the day before release so I can preload it on steam

 

[Jfluffy]

I haven't pre-ordered a game since Empire Earth 3... *sobs uncontrollably*

 

[Mikeyfell]

Well yes, because of preorders I payed 80$ for Mass Effect 3, and then played it.

That's like paying someone to kick you in the balls and then rape you with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.'

If I had any foresight I would have gladly payed someone an absorbent sum to follow me around and kick me in the balls every time I thought about buying the game in the first place. Either I'd eventually get the hint that I shouldn't be playing the game or I'd be completely numb to pain by the time I'd want to feed every Bioware employe their own beating heart.

 

[Gizmo1990]

My main 3 were Mass Effect 3, DragonAge 2 and Final Fantasy XIII. I got the collectors/special editions for each them and was burned each time, more on DA and FF as I liked most of ME but I hated all of DA2 and all but the visuals of FF.