Why should I pre-order games?

[XRoyalT]

In todays age of high speed internet and 5.25" drive bays becoming obsolete, I find it curious why gamers are pre-ordering games instead of waiting for a respectable YouTube channels or Game Review websites, to help you make a good decision on wether its for you or most important the hard earned cash your about to spend.

Does this not effect the overall quality of the game your purchasing?

I'll elaborate, everyone preorders the game months in advance after a great preview video of the game is released, ie Watch Dogs, graphics look amazing, game looks great, social hype builds, millions are made before the release. Then on the day of launch everyones very disappointed.

Take away from that, the developers have made loads of cash on the basic game they have developed and shown off, would they not just finish that off to a low buggy standard and from there continue to make a "Bigger and Better" Watch Dogs 2?

The loop ever continuing as this process is repeated?

So why do you preorder your games? Can you list me some pros and cons in your opinion?

[stevie lee]

last game I pre-ordered was Witcher 3 collectors edition.
mainly because I wanted the big statue that went with it.

didn't pre-order immediately on it becoming available in may 2015 (first date of preorder) waited until December, then GAME cancelled the order for some reason, so had to wait again until it was available because of other people cancelling their pre-orders.
ended up at amazon in late January. got it 1 week after release in may.
didn't matter one jot that it wasn't on release day. its a single player game, theres no advantage whatsoever getting it early/late/release day.

but mainly got it because of the statue.



funnily enough, that photo also includes the collector statues from Lord of the Rings directors cut DVD, which my sister got, because she wanted the statues she also has the Gollum statue and a mini minas-tirith.


did turn out that the majority of them where badly painted, bits broken or missing, but I lucked out, you cant tell unless you examine it closely.


pro is. now the statue is selling for 4-5 times what I paid. and I get a nice statue.
con is. the promo shots of collectibles you get may not be entirely accurate as to what you actually get.

[kalniel]

The vast majority of sales still come after the pre-order period, so there's an incentive for devs to continue polishing and making a game good. In the case of watch dogs it's also likely that future games are affected by the quality of earlier games in the series/from the devs, so added incentive not to rush/produce a buggy game.

That said, it very much depends on individual circumstances.

I consider pre-ordering if the following conditions are met:
-I trust the developers/have some prior knowledge of the quality of the game for eg being involved in a focus group or beta etc.
-There is some cost/benefit improvement for doing so - this could be a discount or could simply be the value of playing a game I want to play when I want to play it.

The same rational applies for kickstarter in some ways - only in that case you're taking on an even bigger risk if your concern is with an end product (as opposed to putting your money where your mouth is in respect to games/products you want to see developed).

Of course that therefore means in most cases I don't pre-order. For some studios that means I have to pay more later to get a product, but that's countered by saving money on purchases I don't make.

[virtuo]

Con: I do think pre-orders risk taking the incentive/motivation away from the developer to deliver something fantastic. They've already made their money "why try harder"?

Pro: In the modern day of digital delivery, one big benefit to pre-ordering is that you can download the title days ahead of release so that you can play right away on release day. Handy for those of us with less then super connections. Also takes the strain off CDNs trying to push out 50GB+ packages to thousands of people at once on release day.

Pro: if they are incentivised correctly (like most Kickstarters), pre-orders come with tangible benefits and the knowledge that you are helping get a game to production that may not otherwise have made it. (Potential con: might not work out)


Generally, I'd say pre-orders are a good thing, but really you need to have some faith in getting value-for-money. I like to read reviews/opinions before I buy anything. Luckily with most pre-order systems (non-KS) you can still get a refund if it doesn't live up to expectations.

[XRoyalT]

Hmm thanks i appreciate the effort in replying to my thread and your answers give me some more to think about on pre-ordering. Nice picture there to from *Stevie Lee, was interesting to hear that the value of your mini minas-tirith has increased by 4-5 times.

Regards

[Ttaskmaster]

I rarely pre-order and of the few occasions I have, only Elite Dangerous has been anywhere near worthwhile, IMO... Half of them either tanked at the last minute and never hit full release, or are STILL in development and probably on their way to being dead...

Stevie Lee, was interesting to hear that the value of your mini minas-tirith has increased by 4-5 times.

Yeah, some bloke called Boromir once offered to help increase my White Tower of Ecthelion by 4-5 times... would only have needed my credit card details, email, bank account no and a mobile phone, with passport for proof of ID... said he was a prince in his home country of Gondor!

[stevie lee]

^@ last 2 posts..

huh.. I did say that I was the Witcher statue that's 4-5 times more expensive now. based on amazon prices https://www.amazon.co.uk/Witcher-Pol.../dp/B00XWF1QP8

minas tirith isn't even pictured In the picture.

just a bit confused why you're talking about it...

[Ttaskmaster]

huh.. I did say that I was the Witcher statue that's 4-5 times more expensive now.
minas tirith isn't even pictured In the picture.
just a bit confused why you're talking about it...

Can't see pictures here at work and only talking about it as a dirty joke!!

[Dashers]

I used to pre-order games to ensure I got a copy on the day of launch at HMV - but in those days games tended to be tested a fair bit as patches were few and far between and certainly not big as people had to download them over dial-up.

I've preordered a couple of games since as well as bought a few games on launch. What I've learnt from that experience is excessive hype tends to cover up a poor game. Waiting a few days or weeks to see how people enjoy it is more useful. I'm waiting for a month before looking at No Man's Sky.

I did buy Elite early, but I kinda wanted that to exist even if I didn't play it. I still waited until after kickstarter though to see if it was actually delivering anything worth while.

[shaithis]

I pre-order all the time.

As soon as a cheap one-day pre-order deal appears (normally around the £20 mark) I just order, knowing I can cancel closer to the time if I change my mind.

But then I hate paying 30, 40, 50quid....for a game that I will consume voraciously.

[AGTDenton]

I'll pre-order rarely. There needs to be an insentive.

Of course in the case of Doom I was going to get it come what may so Pre-Ordering just made it hassle free.

[Pob255]

to start with you have to separate pre-order from early access/kickstarter/alpha-beta in development purchase.

I've only pre-ordered a couple of games in my life all of them MMO's/multi player mainly to get access to the beta, early start and free in game goodies.

There's a few "In development" games I've bought, as that is giving money to the dev's to help fund development.

And other than the "extra junk" you get from collectors editions there's no real reason to pre-order esp on pc where physical media is rare these days.
For publishers there's good reasons to push pre-orders, all pre-orders get added into week 1 sales, so it can give you a big jump in numbers that make the game look better and push it higher up the charts.
Although I don't think these factors are as important as they used to be, esp on consoles.