why pre-order?

[GeeDave]

I pre-order... but I don't Pre-Order games, unless it's something like the Orange Box, which you know isn't going to fuck you over. My biggest problem with pre-ordering is it sends a message to the publishers that "even though the developers aren't finished yet, we really want this game"... so the publishers can turn around and say "Nice! Hey Devs... finish this pile of shit as soon as possible so we (meaning I, the publisher) can reap the rewards while you get hate mail about releasing a buggy game"

It would be fine and dandy if there was no money involved... ie, if you could "pre-order" without a debit/credit card. Essentially... there should be a system in place where people simply show interest in a product and allow such information to be easily collected by the devs and publishers. A one-stop website to tally up the theoretical importance of a game in development. Maybe something like this already exists... if it does, it clearly isn't popular enough to be effective.

In short... I am 99.9% usually very much against pre-ordering games, especially nowadays. Christ, once upon a time games on consoles had to be almost perfect, sure corners have always been cut in the industry, but "we're" not just cutting corners anymore, we're digging deep with a rusty blade and twisting.

[/rant]

 

[mooncalf]

Pre-orders IMO are for peace of mind that you'll have a collector's/limited edition reserved of the release you're looking forward to - for your own damn reasons, whatever they may be.

Beyond that, it's just someone's desire to count chickens before they're hatched, alot of people started counting along like good little consumers and voila, a market!

 

[Cyclomega]

I pre-order only if it's for a collectors edition.
Only time you actually need to, other than that they usually release enough of a game for you to easily find a copy.

Pre-ordered Fable 2 collectors and Saints Row 2 Initiation pack a couple of days ago.

I have found myself lucky enough to find a mint condition used Collector's Edition of DooM3 on Xbox, and one quite good collector's edition of Halo2, together they costed me less than one new game for xbox (full price). Some piece of shit stole them from my place and sold them, but still it was cool to find them.

I also found a collector's edition of Perfect Dark Zero for 20?, and I can still find used collector's edition of Lost Planet with the gift code unused for roughly the same amount, so I consider myself lucky enough not to buy collector's editions on release. I don't care for release dates and limited stuff, I just get it second hand, fine enough with me.
I used to run like hell for digipak and limited edition music albums, true, but that faded also.

 

[GenHellspawn]

You'll stop asking why people preorder when you go out to buy Starcraft 2 only to find out that a surprising amount of Koreans live in the area.

(Yes I know it's a stereotype, whatever.)

 

[Cyclomega]

Yet stereotypes love to play themselves out...

 

[tiredinnuendo]

I don't pre-order, mainly because of how easy it is to get burned. Pre-ordering is available months before the game in question is released, but you don't usually start seeing real reviews until a week or so before the game comes out. Take Force Unleashed. Three months ago, I was really excited for it. Now I'm definitely not sure I want to buy it and everything I hear keeps lowering my enthusiasm.

I suppose if I was still excited, I could go and pre-order it now, but really is it that hard to just go buy the game on release day? One of the nice things about refusing to ever go to Gamestop is that the stores I go to have lots of copies of the new games that I want on the shelves, right there where you can buy them. I went and (on seperate occasions, obviously) bought Halo 3, GTA 4, AC, and Mass Effect all between 3 days and a week after release from the same store. Right off the shelf. And they had lots and lots of copies left.

Why in the world should I have to go shopping for a game twice?

- J

 

[3LANCER]

I have never preordered but I was thinking about preordering stuff on Steam a few times. Not because of "super" discounts (few bucks on a 50$ game is nothing), it's when they give away another game for free (game from same franchise for example).

 

[Cyclomega]

Only time I "pre-ordered" a game I just bought it full and it got shipped on release date, I bought myself KoF 2001 for Dreamcast on ncsx.

And once I did the same with Border Down for a friend who fixed me with the money beforehand.

 

[1-800-STFU]

Only games I have pre-ordered are Disgaea3 and MGS4.

Don't see a point otherwise. Then again most of the time I just use gamefly.

 

[PxDn Ninja]

I'm a collector, so I preorder to guarantee the collectors addition.

 

[Syphonz]

I pre-ordered Killzone 2 yesterday. They'll call me whenever they decide it's finally ready.

 

[TheGhostOfSin]

Umm. because a lot of good games sell out quickly and the only way to ensure you have a copy is to pre-order, I made the mistake of not pre-ordeing GTA 4 and had to wait 3 weeks till it was in stock.

 

[k3v1n]

why?¿ I suppose for the extra goodies ,I pre-ordered the legendary edition for halo3 and I still think it was a good purchase(although I had been saving for months and I could barely pay for the bus ticket, but o well fanboys are like this), also I pre-ordered gears of war 2 because of the goodies, it's what fans do if you don't LOVE a game so much that you'd rape your own nostrils then don't preorder