5 Reminders NOT to Pre-Order Games This Year ~ We used to demand trials before buying before, what happened? ~ Stop Pre ordering Games
Honestly, if the idea of no trials don’t bother you, there are plenty more reminders why YOU shouldn’t preorder.
I think it’s an age thing a lot of times. It’s like telling my kids to brush their teeth because of my experiences with dental, or you can plug any example like that.
I can tell kids not to preorder all I want. They just haven’t had the opportunity to be burned as many times as we have yet.
I think a lot of gamers just don't care enough too. I know so many people that buy a game on release, play it for a few hours, and then drop it. Even AAA titles that are actually good.
Steam achievements kinda confirm that as well, there is a fair bit of drop-off on even the most popular games.
It made some sense when they came in physical format and there was a real risk of a highly sought game selling out. Nowadays they have put worthless digital incentives on preorders and they can't possibly run out.
It didn't make sense to me that people are pre-ordering digital copies at first too, then I remember mtx and streamers which didn't exist back then.
It's the boiling frog syndrome. Gradual implementation of predatory monetization practices like mtx and gachas have made us grown numb to being treated like cash cows for unfinished products.
The latest generation of gamers probably see this as a norm. It's up to us oldies to remind them about the good ol' days when you only pay once for finished products.
I mean, I usually buy physical and sometimes they do run out. Metroid prime remastered for instance was a pain to get. Granted it's probably not the norm but it happens.
This right here. There will always be a steady supply of new gamers who don't know better.
I think it’s an age thing a lot of times.
I don't have numbers but I bet that a lot of people who preorder aren't kids but adults with a proper income. Kids as a group don't have the income to uphold the current presale figures, that's done by working adults who can afford to preorder a game and take the not so small risk that it's utterly shit.
If I want I could preoder a lot of games that come out this year without having to worry about the waste of money to much. I doubt that any regular kid can do that.
I just saw this video the other day, now it’s just all reminders that I’ve aged out.
It’s funny when you get older how much you realize experience is what drives behavior. You can tell a child 100 times about something, but until they experience it themselves, your warnings more often than not will fall on deaf ears.
Hey it's Lemmy, so I will happily use this opportunity to blame rich people as well. I know people doing very well for themselves, who constantly, say, "yeah it sucks, but I've got the money and it doesn't hurt me so who cares?"
Because they're so completely unable to to think of ANYONE else in a different situation, or even remember their younger selves, that they will continue to incentivize predatory behavior because "fuck you, I got mine", and they're such huge pieces of self involved shit that they won't delay their gratification for a split second to help out an entire industry's consumers.
If that sound harsh, it's been a shit day full of people just like that; decide on your own if it applies here.
I don't pre-order games nor do I really buy any games new.
I mean why should I when I can buy complete version of the game for like 10-20 bucks 1-3 years later. Honestly I've simply discarded the idea of being consumer and shifted to thinking myself as customer instead. Its not my job to support the developers and keep their studios afloat its their job by making good games that are actually worth their price tag.
I already have backlog of games that would take years clear thanks to steam sales, playstation plus and all sorts of bundle offers. I am in no hurry to buy new games and I can easily wait for the developers to actually finish the game and buy the GOTY/Ultimate/Definite edition that includes most if not all the expansions and dlc for a discounted price.
As for free 2 play and live service games I simply don't have the time and interest to play those. If I ever make an exception to this then I'll be using only default skins/cosmetics, no gatcha and ignoring the battle pass completely.
Its not my job to support the developers and keep their studios afloat its their job by making good games that are actually worth their price tag.
That’s fine and all, but it goes both ways. If you’re gonna wait years to maybe buy their game, then they’re not going to cater to what you want.
There’s a middle ground imo. If I love a certain type of game, I’m gonna buy it relatively new to show my support. If you don’t do that, then you’re essentially a bottom of the barrel afterthought that the market simply won’t cater to.
I don't view myself as some sort of unique snowflake that has somehow developer some sort of unique and refined taste in video games. I also belong to the most catered majority in video game industry which is white heterosexual men in their 30's. Honestly it would probably be better if the industry would cater less to my interests as I feel beyond spoiled with choice already.
If you want to support some independent gaming studio with handful of passionate developers making niche games of great quality without relying on dark patterns then please do so. But don't lie to yourself about these bigger corporations as all they really care about generating profits for their shareholders.
I second this. I did stop buying games as soon as possible when I had a child.It was like a 2 years gap in my life. I realised it was like living in a shifted timelapse :)
Now I only play 2 yo games, same for movies and series... It means I only keeps top quality stuff !
when I can buy complete version of the game for like 10-20 bucks 1-3 years later
...or, for like 1-3 bucks 10-20 years later.
Life is short, but not that short.
FF16 wasn’t preordered as much as they wanted. Then when the game turned out to be okay, people bought it (and it had a demo). It was a hit.
Yeah, I love Final Fantasy. But I wasn't very hyped for it. I bought it after I played the demo.
I bought it after the demo, and while it definitely hit those highs again, the demo didn't show just how low some of those lows would be. I made it about 60% though the game before abandoning it out boredom. While a demo is great, it is important to remember you're likely getting a vertical slice of some of the best bits.
The demo really made me want to get it and actually caused me to preorder. I wasn’t even that excited about it until the demo. Once I turned it on and heard the music that instantly transported me to final fantasy, I was sold. Wound up shelving Diablo until I finish the story for final fantasy. It’s long and I’ve loved every moment. The side quests, while being typically fetch quests, have great stories in them that really build on the world.
Sorry, this was supposed to be about preordering and turned into me gushing about final fantasy.
I was super happy for that demo. For me it let me know I wouldn't enjoy it, so I saved some money.
I miss the age of videogame demos, it feels like nothing but a distant memory now. And the only reason companies let people play their broken betas now is to gauge excitement for their games and fix any serious game breaking bugs.
Eh.
On the flip side, back in the day, a lot of people bought a lot of crappy games based on nothing more than what the cover art on the box showed. The only source of info was video game magazines, and that applied only to new releases and only certain games.
Now upon release you can look up dozens of detailed reviews, even video reviews. You can watch full play through a on YouTube. You can ask for opinions in social media.
The amount of information you have to figure out if this game is for you is insane compared to before.
Depends really. Nowadays publishers push out fake CGI marketing trailers and paid reviews to premptively muddy those information sources long before release. Same goes for social media (not that they were ever reliably accurate or objective anyway). There are even promises of DLC roadmaps that never materialise such as the OW2 story mode.
By the time actual independent reviewers have their embargoes lifted, the preorder sales window has closed and it wouldn't make much difference to those who already sunk money into the game. Those waiting in vain for DLC and patches are merely sacrificing their refund window.
We may just have very different tastes in gaming, but there’s really no shortage of solid game demos out there, they’re just usually for the indie stuff.
Yeah, I mentioned that to another person, Steam Next Fest was great this year, I got to try out a bunch of awesome games. But like if we're talking triple A, or even just games on consoles demos are just a resource sink for a lot of these companies and don't exist. When there's a demo there's usually a lot of marketing push behind it.
for some reason indie games still seem to have demos semi-often, especially if you check their itch.io pages.
I miss the age of videogame demos, it feels like nothing but a distant memory now.
No it isn't! With Steam you can try most (if not every) game for 2h and return it if you didn't like it.
That's not a demo, that's a return policy. Plus, in most cases you don't get a good feel of a game in the first 2 hours of the game. A demo is a snippet of the game made specifically to let people get accustomed to most of the mechanics in a game, something that isn't usually present in the first two hours.
You could've easily said Steam Next Fest and I would've agreed with you. Indie devs are the only ones who seem to care about their players these days.
I miss the days of game demos
Steam's Next fest has brought back some demos on PC. You might not get a demo for a big IP, but you can try lots of smaller dev games without having to buy first.
I saw the rise of more demos in the store but didn't know it's a thing steam promoted or started. Nice.
I’ve noticed that! A lot of smaller games/indie titles offer demos or some kind of limited time trial. It’s almost like the people making those games get me 🥹
I remember playing Destiny's Alpha version when I was invited to it. It was a fun experience but sucked when the game was mostly a let down for the first year or so.
Developer here - currently indie but was in the machine at one point. Cold hard fact is that demos hurt sales for AAA games, and pre-orders get cash in the door today to keep the lights on. With millions and years invested, they must hedge and limit risk as hard and as quickly as possible.
If demos hurt sales, that means that game devs depend on gamers buying games they don't actually end up liking right? I understand making games has become pricier and pricier, but if the whole business model is dependent on "We want to trick people into getting stuff they don't want", then we have a problem.
Companies 100% have a right to skip demos and sell pre-orders. And people have a right to boycott those.
Absolutely! The numbers show they gain roughly double the sales with trailers/footage and no demo, they won't budge until boycotts reverses that. Same with microtransactions we all hate; they basically just print money.
I don't really understand how this is measured? I attempted to look up some research on it, but it seems most articles that say this are referencing one conference by Jesse Schnell who basically just correlated games with demos, sales, and expected sales. What measure is used to figure out if a demo causes someone to not buy the game? I suppose if they measured presales that were cancelled after a demo, but most anticipated games don't have demos anyway so the data is already skewed in the favor of "no demos." Does it take into account outliers like FFXVI? Highly anticipated game with a demo that sold very well...
I would venture to guess that the data is skewed because lots of AAA games don't have demos and lots of indie games that might not have been purchased anyways trying to get a little markershare, but there seems to be such little research on it.
If you have an actual study on the topic, I would be very interested in seeing their method of results.
The study was they tracked sales across multiple games for years, here's the first example I came across in the wild from ten years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us6OPbYtKBM&t=640s
I've never understood the concept of pre ordering digital content, it's not going to run out of stock. And why pay extra for a few graphical items that don't change the way the game plays?
Also, surely digital games would be cheaper because there's no physical product to send to the customer? But there you go. Base copy of Diablo 4 is £70!! Wow!
Initially pre orders made sense back when physical media was the only way to get games. Nowadays though, you are absolutely right. Digital games have no right to cost around the price as a physical product (especially when even that physical product doesn't even have a cool manual and its just an empty plastic box with a disc in it).
I know right. What's the point of these new games coming with beautiful steel books but no discs.
I can see why because the games are so big, there's no point sticking a bit of it on a disc. That's why physical media is becoming redundant. All these games require patches to run and they won't be around for ever. Not even Switch games are complete on cartridge these days.
The reason, or at least part of it, is the retail stores themselves. They didn't want online stores to be a better option where customers could save money, so they made a deal with a bunch of the publishers that they can't sell their games online for cheaper than the physical copies in retail stores or the stores wouldn't carry them.
I'm not sure how much longer that deal will last, though the publishers probably aren't in any rush to get rid of it since they make better margins on their online sales because of it (and can say "not our fault!" if people complain). But retail stores will be less and less relevant over time I think and eventually someone will want the ability to undercut other AAA games and steal a bunch of market share. Or cut out the whole physical media supply chain entirely.
Im not one to be too hung up on the cost of games. They have stayed relatively stagnant for years and have undoubtedly grown in complexity and with that, staffing requirements. I mean Halo: Combat Evolved was $50 dollars from release well into 2003 and this was before internet based multiplayer games on console were really all that common.
So given how much costs have increased for other items....A 70-80 dollar game isnt necessarily outrageous. Especially given the amount of time some will play said games. 200 is a different story.
Im also not against paid methods to skip a grind. Some people have time to do repetitive tasks in games and may even get joy out of it. Others dont have that kind of time, so a paid option isnt necessarily out of bounds for me. Personally I get an hour or so a night to play, whereas most kids can get 6-8 hours a DAY... But my time is worth money, much more so than a kid, so if it costs me another 20 bucks to skip 8-10 hours of grind and be on an equal playing field, im all for that.
You've reminded me of when Battlefield: Bad Company was first released on Xbox360 (and maybe PS3, I don't remember) EA released a more expensive gold steelbook edition where everything was unlocked from from the start with an included code.
Having something tangible can have perks. Steam bans you. Thousands lost. Online service shuts down. Games lost. I can still fire up this here super Nintendo... And nobody can tell me when it's going to shut down and stop working.
One of the reasons I prefer to buy on gog. I can just save all my purchases to an external hard drive
I agree about the content never running out. I disagree that the content isn’t worth more though. The quality is definitely getting up there and the design teams are grilled while getting ripped off. The corruption of Capitalism has rotted your brain. it is your choice to take the DLC. It shouldn’t be your choice to piss on slave driven developers. not ok.
Beta's used to be free and would actually have an impact on the game getting fixed before shipping out
I made a flow chart for this ages ago...
Will it be legitimately hard to find? (Think Steel Battalion on Xbox.) No? Do not pre-order.
Do you get anything for pre-ordering? No? Do not pre-order.
Cosmetics only? Yes? Do not pre-order.
Is it from a developer with an established track record? No? Do not pre-order.
Is that established track record full of buggy launches (Bethesda)? Yes? Do not pre-order.
Online only? Yes? Do not pre-order.
Don't encourage devs to gate content behind pre order exclusives. Day 1 DLC used to be seen for what it was: content that should be in the base game.
Well yeah but half the fun of Bethesda games is their bugs lol
It's all fun and games until your launch day install looks like this:
The fact that you can "pre-buy" a digital game is insane to me!
Like what's the point! You still can't play it until it comes out!
And games these days are digital copies. It’s not like the supply is limited.
Last time I pre-ordered a game was Diablo 3. I could choose a hard copy for RSP or a digital copy for an extra "convenience fee". As if that wasn't ridiculous enogh, I ordered the hard copy and on release day, they told me that I was on a queue since so many people pre-ordered and they ran out of copies.
I tried to cancel my pre-order and these actual scumbags told me, I couldn't cancel until I received my copy. Pristine customer support, I really felt they did everything to accomodate my needs. So, I contacted Actiblizz to let them know about the practices of their "official reseller" and the next day, my pre-order was canceled and my money was being wired back.
Also the game was trash, but that's besides the point.
If it allows you to pre-download it so you can play as soon as it's available it makes some sense.
That's what I thought. But after pre-ordering a game recently, when I went to launch, the process of unpacking/unencrypting took at least as long as downloading the thing from scratch.
So if you've a good internet connection and a mid cpu like me, pre-downloading is not an advantage.
The only situation I can think of where it makes sense is where you have the money now, and don't think you'll have the will power to not waste it before release day.
...which, if you're a teen/young person, I could totally see that being a legitimate concern.
Don't they often not charge you until the game is delivered (or in the case of digital, unlocked)?
I've been hearing this since 2010. Nothing is going to change.
EA Sports 2024 is going to come out, it's going to have 40,000 mixed reviews.
Yeah, the whole no pre-ordering thing is simply just a personal moral thing. Any amount of people who pledge not to are massively outnumbered by the vast majority of gamers who simply do not care. This simply doesn't matter anymore.
It's not a moral thing at all. Do you know why publishers want people to pre-order games? It's not like people didn't buy games before pre-ordering, but now it's just to create a marketing funnel and to sell your personal data. Worried that you won't be able to pick up a copy of Starfield? Don't be. There will be millions of copies.
I also stopped trying. It's impossible to have a conversation with absolutely everyone that plays games to get them to stop pre-ordering.
Gamers are also some of the worst type of people (sorry, just being honest here). They generally have very little self control and it's almost impossible to get them to change their minds or change their habits.
I can only change my own behaviors and stop getting fucked by these AAA publishers. Once you realize that it's ok to wait a week or so to see if the game is good, life gets much better.
I gave up on that. I just don’t care anymore. No, that’s not true. I actually care somewhat.
People preorder, game comes out, game is shit at launch, they get into a furious rage online, I chuckle.
Financially, preorders without a “preorder bonus” are a zero interest loan to the developer. Preorders with the “preorder bonus” are a loan with the bonus as interest. Even if the game were guaranteed to be good, you could most likely be doing something better with the money until it comes out. Since the game is not guaranteed to be good, it is a risky loan as well. Without any of the protections you get when you make an actual loan.
Without any of the protections you get when you make an actual loan.
I'd say a 100% refund when requested with less than two hours of use within the first two weeks is a pretty good protection, and it's pretty much the standard policy on PC.
That's certainly true. I'd still say that for the online stores, for which that policy applies, there isn't a lot of upside to preordering. Because the purchase is digital, you will always be able to get a copy on release day (unless the publisher artificially limits how many games it will sell, but I've never heard of a publisher doing this).
I would also guess the people doing preorders comparatively aren’t the ones who are the harshest critics of the game and are more likely to enjoy the experience.
The caveat being that this would not be true if the game is a buggy mess that isn’t uncommon on launch these days.
My local currency is devaluating by the second, the price I see today may not be the price tomorrow.
Most games are actually most expensive at launch. A year after release their prices tend to be half. If not, discounts and other promotionals will surely come your way.
Seriously depends on the game. Black Ops 2 for example, a game that came out over a decade ago, still costs $100 on steam (assuming you want the DLC). At best you'll get it for $50 during sales. The fact that, even during a sale, a game with a completely dead playerbase costs as much as a modern title is absolutely nuts.
A lot of games are like this, unfortunately. Not everyone takes advantage of sales because many people are going to end up buying the game regardless.
I pre-ordered baldurs gate 3 after playing the developers previous game divinity original sin 2 and hearing a rather large amount of praise for the content available in the early access.
It's something I wouldn't regularly do but in their short line of recent games Larian studios have left a very good impression on me and I trust them individually.
DOS2 is such an insanely good game. BG3 is shaping up to be just as awesome.
Did you pre order or buy early access? Buying a game in early access when you believe what is currently in the game is a good deal for the price is the same thing as buying a released game in my opinion.
Had the early access on Stadia before that went under. So I guess I'm un-preordered now.
Behave yourself, you just want to have gay sex with a bear
My money, my choice. Everyone saying otherwise can eat a bag of dicks. I'll preorder for bonuses if a game looks good, and I'll refund that purchase if it releases in a garbage state.
I must remeber the history of gaming completely differently. Noone was demanding trials. Majority of people went to a store, looked at box art, made a purchase based on the art and description on the back. Plenty of stinkers in the mix.
Trails would be nice sure, not going to deny that. But I fail to see how pre-ordering is linked to no trials lol.
The concept of needing to pre-order a digital asset is already dumb as fuck. It won't run out of stock or anything. That should be the reason to stop pre-orders, not due to a lack of arbitrary trails. Only reason I do it os the bonues or early access/head starts.
I was selling countless pre-orders at retail going back to 2001. I don't know when this mythical time would have been either.
Ultimately, the vast majority of people making pre-orders aren't here, on reddit, or any gaming community. And frankly, with the rate at which physical print runs are shrinking, people are going to find they will need to pre-order if they want a physical copy of anything not AAA.
Nobody, not once, has said 'it is not your choice'. This always gets brought up like that's what the argument is. Make the stupid choice all you want. Be our guest. What we're saying is "if you pre-order this game, you have zero right to: complain about its content for ANY reason, bitch about release delays, or complain about the constant degradation in release quality of ALL games (because like it or not you're the reason why this happens)". Thing is you won't though will you? You'll be first to give a bad review saying 'I got early access and the quality is garbage!'.
Let me guess though, you'll be like "muh, my money, my right to complain about what I want" because taking responsibility for the inevitable consequences of ones actions is for people with actual impulse-control.
You sure make a ton of assumptions buddy.
I have every right to complain about whatever I want, whenever I want, and yes i can spend my money on whatever i want however i want. Don't like it, take your shit and fuck off little man.
You miss the entire statement of me refunding it if it's bad? I specifically pay in a manner that allows me to refund or even charge back at will, which impacts the seller equally. How about the point about pre-orders being dumb overall, thats literallyin agreement? Or the referencing of the specifics around pre-orders = no more trials, as stated in the OP.
Now I'm just gonna stoop to your shit brain level and assume youre a broke ass child who spends money they can't afford to lose on non-essetinal items, like video games for example.
Hey, fair enough. It is your money. If you see value, go for it. I have trouble seeing value because 9 times out of 10, preorder bonuses are like skins for mp or something else I care little about. But I just have a problem with data collection and selling it to 3rd parties.
Yep people see value in things differently, which is fine by me. I also disagree with the problem of mass data collection farming then selling to 3rd parties.
I used to keep my Galactic Edition copy of Spore on my shelf as a reminder to not preorder games.
Didn't you like spore? I thought it was awesome! Maybe because I was I kid when I played it though
So, full disclosure, I do look back on it nostalgically now. I was in high school when it came out. I was incredibly invested in the hype. I would watch the tech demos of it multiple times a week I think. It wasn't so much that it was bad, more that it heavily under delivered on what was shown in demos.
My Copy of Alien: Colonial Marines would like to have a word with your copy of Spore.
Fallout76 is my reminder, it was an expensive lesson, but one that needed teaching.
There are enough games out there that I can game all I want without ever spending a penny on any games from any companies in this video.
EA games were shit starting around the time of Battlefield 3, I did not need to buy Battlefront to know it would be shit. Absolutely refuse to spend a penny on ANY game from ANY studio owned by EA, and this will not change until the board and entire executive team have turned over.
I expect based on Fallout 76, Starfield will run but be weaksauce with bare mechanics and go the DLC route w/ content to maximize revenue. Studios got shit for that but not as much shit as broken games, so why not give THAT a shot this time?
Fallout 76 is a bit different because it's a live service game, and it runs on an engine that was wildly contorted to make it usable in that form. That's presumably why it launched without NPCs and with all kinds of jank. Starfield, meanwhile, is Todd Howard's own passion project that he's dreamed about making for decades. I still expect a raft of bugs that will only ever be fixed by community modders, and it looks like the engine's reputation for poor framerates will continue, based on the Xbox 30 fps cap. But I don't think total cynicism is warranted. Yet.
I’m not a youtuber, not a content creator. Just sharing this as a way to start discussion. And with your post, I think it achieves the intended purpose.
You added perfect examples of why we must not support these insidious business practices.
Steam makes it so easy to refund games that I'm not sure what the point of all this is anymore.
Steam is not the only game platform out there. Some would also prefer to buy direct to companies. Some games aren’t on steam. There are many reasons why it’s still reasonable to warn people NOT to preorder games, especially since there’s a trend of companies releasing broken, buggy games at launch.
There is no buying games anymore. You rent them now until the servers are down or Microsoft makes a new windows version.
The exception to this is GOG -- They, and publishers/developers that release on their store, should be supported whenever possible.
Not perfect, but miles above the alternatives.
Shoutout to the game devs selling on itch.io too!
I stopped buying from there once I got a steam deck. If they had a native client I'd go right back to the majority of my purchases from there
Yes I've done heroic or bottles or whatever. Not worth it
I mean if anything Windows is super backward compatible. I would agree with the consoles....but windows? Yeah maybe Linux with proton works better nowadays for older games.... but I would not say a new version of Windows breaks your old games, there might be exceptions but it's not that common.
There has basically been a single "event" in recent memory that a new version of Windows broke compatibility with thousands of games: Windows 10 came with a security patch that broke SafeDisc DRM. Which a tonne of games from the 2000s decade used on their CDs. Ultimately, I don't blame Microsoft. These games were purposely (via a third party) exploiting a security bug in the operating system, and it eventually got fixed.
Apart from that, Microsoft have always (going back to Windows 95) been explicitly supporting backwards compatibility of old software, though obviously there are always exceptions as software uses undocumented features of the OS that break over time.
That’s a sad state of gaming. And I’m glad we have millions of game for emulation if that’s the case.
Factorio is pretty good, allows you to download any version of the game for any OS as many times as you want as long as you own the game (also allows downloading from site even if you bought from steam), doesn't need internet connection to run, the multiplayer is player hosted (exception is authentication and optional blocklists)
There aren't and won't be PS5 games like you are imagining. They moved almost everything new into digital and are trying to sell their premium subscriptions. Although I will say I think it's worth it... $120 a year and I haven't had to purchase a single game. Some of their titles are awesome too! But it sucks that trading in games will be a relic of the past. When I traded in my Xbox half of my games were literally worthless because they are on gamepass.
Gameflip is cool by the way. They sell games, but they also sell gift cards for like 9-15% discount.
When AEW Fight Forever I had friends asking if I was going to preorder a game they knew I was buying digitally.
Our games are digital and we cannot run out of stock
We can buy them on our platforms at a moments notice, from the comfort of our homes. The days of lining up at a store until midnight is over. Therefore there is no reason to preorder, if there is a bonus that you must have wait until the last moment read every preview and buy it minutes to release, but remember anything that is given away as a bonus that is separate from the base game is almost always frivolous and doesn't really contribute to the game in any real way.
I agree with this; we used to pre-order back when physical copies were the only way to get a game, in order to reserve a copy. Now they use it to squeeze extra money out of you for "exclusive content." As somebody who is as militantly against exclusive content (because it screws over late adopters) as always-online content, I can't agree enough that digital pre-ordering needs to die.
I stopped preordering unless it's a project that I 100% believe in.
Usually it's titles from studios that never miss like Supergiant Games or small dev team projects with a solid demo.
CD Project RED used to be one of those studios that never miss, but then Cyberpunk happened. So it's never a true guarantee.
People seem to forget that a good track record is never a guarantee that future games will be good. A company name also isn’t a guarantee either. Since studios are essentially a revolving door of talent.
Companies are ran by people and people can make mistakes or whatever that leads to a botched game. Not to mention the fact that the talent in game studios come and go so the people that made game A so great might not necessarily be the same team that works on game B which makes things more uncertain.
Bioware is another solid example. They had a really good track record for years until they dropped ME:A. Largely (afaik) because a lot of the talent behind their best games had moved on, leaving a new set of talent to work on ME:A and future games.
Cyberpunk was a masterpiece on day 1...on pc. Sorry for the ps4 players.
They've fixed Cyberpunk and it's a great game now. I learned with No Man's Sky that it's important to give people a second chance to fix mistakes. Nobody will always deliver a solid product on launch, eventually everyone will stumble. If it's their first time, I'm not going to hold it against them as long as they take steps to make it right.
I wanna talk about DLC. I bought a physical copy of Fire Emblem Engage. I also bought the DLC. I had to go out to take someone somewhere and wait, so I brought my Switch. The game was running before I left home. Had to connect to the internet to resume the game while I was waiting for the person.
Your primary Switch shouldn't need to do that, and it also would have done it if you didn't get the DLC. It is dumb that it basically requires internet access for all your additional Switches to operate, and it actually promotes you marking your travel switch as the primary device while the actual primary device sits at home where you always have internet access.
It is my primary. I haven't played the game on any other console.
Edit: it might not be. My old console might still be considered primary. Shame you can't see it on the website, but I need to charge it to check.
I don't bother pre-ordering anymore. Can't afford to. Most AAA games are £60-£70 on release (up to £90 if you want the Upgraded Super Deluxe Gold version). I wait until a game goes on sale before I buy it. By then all the bugs have been patched and most of the DLC has been released so you get a better experience.
You don't need to pre-order anything except limited edition collector's releases of which there will be relatively few physical copies. You don't need to pre-order EA Sports titles, Bethesda titles, Halo, Gears of War, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, and especially not digital games. Pre-ordering systems are inherently anti-consumer. Even systems that don't require a down payment on the game, still exist to prove to publishers that pre-ordering is a viable way to make money. Not only that, but your personal information is now in a database that you don't control or can consent to 3rd party access. Just don't do it.
Oh yeah? Well what about the new thing to do that's even better than pre-ordering. Take Starfield for example. Wanna play it earlier than everyone else? Well their early access option is the one for you.
"Anyone can dive in then if they're willing to pay the price - it's only available to those who buy the expensive Constellation Edition of the game (for roughly £250/$300) or the Premium Edition (for about £100/$100)"
Edit: deleted comment was additional edit, realised I could just edit original comment
Early access is different tho...
Because you know what you're getting, others who already have it are able to post reviews.
A preorder is just giving them money early for zero reason.
For example, I knew I was getting BG3 no matter what. And I know I habitually restart act 1 of RPGs multiple times before picking what I want. So having a chance to run thru (a limited) act 1 a bunch over a year before release was worth it to me.
But there's no way I'd have just pre-ordered it, there'd be no reason to pay before I got the product.
Sorry forgot to mention. This is an early access option. Pay loads of money, get it earlier than everyone else
I don't often preorder, but when I do it's because I know I won't regret my purchase, and I know I want a physical copy to arrive on day 1. Of course I know there's some risk, but if I felt a game really was that risky then I would wait, I just buy the ones I feel are safe bets.
I know what developers and series I like, and if one of my favorite games is getting a sequel I know I'm playing it. Even if the sequel isn't quite as good as the prior game I liked, they're never bad enough for me to not want to play them at all.
I suppose it helps that my tastes lie far enough outside the kinds of mainstream AAA games that are prone to totally botched launches that I've never been truly burned.
I pretty much don't even buy a game after it's been launched now and I wait a couple of months to see what happens. They haven't bought out a game since Halo that I've cared enough about to even buy on day 1 and it's not like I don't have a fat library of other games I already enjoy.
I just played the trial for Pikmin 4, then pre-ordered the game
Nintendo may be shit sometimes, but for the rest of the time it's almost guaranteed quality
Their games are great. Their lawyers can go skinny-dipping on Pluto.
came here to say the same thing, lol. I imagine most other AAA games aren’t finished early enough before release to offer trials like that, though
every game has a built in trial these days. trial the game for up to 2 hours in the first 2 weeks of buying it, and if you don't like it, steam refund it.
To be honest, 2 hours is not enough to trial a game. I recall demos and trials in the old days can last 14 days, some for 30 days, if memory serves me right.
I heard that if you "overuse" it though, steam will lock you out of that feature. With cases of using it 10 times / month being seen as overuse. Not sure how real that is though, or if these 10 times were exception.
True. My son has refunded so many games that he doesn't like, they locked his debit card from the account and I don't think it can be reinstated. We have to buy the games for him now with our cards.
Other people have Xbox, PS, Nintendo…. Not to mention, 2 hours is not enough to trial a game
2 hours is enough to BEAT some games.
We used to demand trials before buying before
We did? When exactly? Not when I was buying games for my consoles on the flea market and not when I got Rollercoaster Tycoon from a cereal box.
In the mid to late 90s and the early 2000s. PC gaming magazines and PlayStation magazines used to give away demo discs for you to trial new games.
You’re taking it too literally. I meant demand as in trying it first for free BEFORE buying. Without trying it, how can we know if the game is good to play. Sorry for the miscommunication. English isn’t my first language
I meant demand as in trying it first for free BEFORE buying.
Don't remember that being a thing for new games ever. Demo discs were usually of games that were already out and reviewed anyway. The closest we have to that is Steam's refund policy and that's a fairly recent thing. Point is, I don't think that time you think you're remembering ever existed in that shape or form.
I stopped preordering awhile ago but honestly I just stopped buying games in general. I already have enough games to last me a lifetime and there is just so much trash getting released that I skip it all together.
I played the Lies of P demo for almost 6 hours. First pre-order in years.
Last game I pre-ordered before was Cyberpunk 2077, of course that turned out to be a huge lesson. I no longer pre-order anything, Lies of P was the exception because their push for people to try the game themselves along with their reaction to feedback was reassuring. Plus with early access to the game at a date that is perfect for me to dive in based on my schedule, seemed like a good time to show some appreciation.
I only preorder games that have a demo.
I generally don't preorder games because I like to be able to watch streamers play a bit of the game to get an idea of what the game is like and if it's any good. However, I will preorder Nintendo games since their first party games are almost always good. I think the only first party Nintendo game I've ever played that I was disappointed with in the past 20 years was Skyward Sword.
I usually only pre order when I'm 99% sure I'm gonna love the game and it's made by a company with a good reputation of having games be good at launch Ex: Zelda tears of the kingdom
I was 99% sure totk was gonna be amazing but I still pirated that shit and gave it a test run... I obviously loved it and went out and purchased a copy... I'm so jaded with games even nintendo is not safe in my book
I am going to keep pre-ordering games on solid platforms like Steam. The pros of pre-ordering tend to outweigh the cons. But people here, and on Reddit, love to exaggerate the cons of pre-ordering. As long as I can painlessly return a game if it turns out to be a stinker, it's not a big deal.
Preordering might not be so much of an issue with platforms that have solid return policies. Steam might be alone in that sphere. Regardless, preorders encourages companies to release buggy, unfinished products just to inflate their numbers. And even if this is not problematic in the short end, if all companies do this, even with return policies, it’s the user/gamers who suffer with a flood of inferior products.
Many months before a game is released, the game is feature complete and they only fix bugs. Do you believe a single publisher will delay the release of a still buggy game because of the lack of preorders? No way. They'll release it anyways, because fixing bugs takes time, takes money and if there's already low pre-order numbers, they as well can decide that this extra money spend isn't worth it.
This whole don't preorder topic is illogical. My favorite comment so far on Reddit was: " but people forget to refund". That's their issue and not of pre-orders.lol
If anything the publisher sees interest in the game from preorders and will found/agree to more DLC or sees enough interest to greenlight the sequel right away. Which both is great for the devs. Maybe even delays a buggy game, because all the pre-order could guarantee a giant success, which would only be possible if the game is mostly bug free. You see you can easily twist the argument around.
Nobody tells me what to do with my own money.
Yeah idk why anyone is still pre-ordering games.
Can someone unbiasly tell me whats the point of preordering a digital copy?
It's installed when I want to play it. Usually the counter I hear is that internet is fast enough where that isn't a problem. This is an argument, that gamers use to contend when the idea of online only was considered by Microsoft. The fact that I can preinstall 100GB of data beforehand at my leisure is worth it.
Especially now considering that steam offers free refunds up to 2 hours of gametime or 15 days after release? Realistically on PC there is very little reason to argue against it at this point in my opinion (obviously this is referring to PC, no need to do that for Consoles that don't provide these opportunities.
This isn't really a pro preorder, I just lost my frustrations with it when the risk was mitigated
People mostly pre-order for the add ons they put in. It's not uncommon for pre-orders to get beta access, or early access. Sometimes they get even greedier and tie that into the next tier up so you'll pay $80-100 for the game. People don't like to wait/get hit with fomo when they see everyone playing the game already.
I'm sure it varies from person to person, but as far as I can tell it's some combination of FOMO, peer pressure, and virtual dick measuring
In my oponion the two recent Steam Demofests have been a breath of fresh air for the gaming world and might be the first good thing in a long time to happen in gaming. Since the early 2000s demos grew mainly out of fashion and have been replaced by Early Access™ and consumer friendly refund policies. If a game had a Demo it was often out of date and a subpar representation of a game. But with definitve events like Demofest, developers have the opportunity to show of their goods through free and up to date Demos without the fear of piracy or location constraints of gaming conventions. If some Indie Dev shows me that the game is 90% done and the release is with a reasonable time, I surley can spend 20$ to help polish out the last flaws before release. Indie developers are often ride or die with their games and could use the income as early as possible.
Ironically the last games I preorded where AAA games. Resident Evil 2 and 4 Remakes, both of which had extensive Demos. I played them and immediately thought "Yep, this is it, that's worth $60."
Demos are an effective marketing tool and can fully justify a preorder.
Making a good demo before a game is released can take away developer time from getting useful work done before release. But after its been released, the time pressure should be off and they could do a nice demo for more marketing.
We only had 2 Demofests so far but I love the variety in demo types. We had demos with simple play time restrictions, demos with disabled features, sometimes even full games which is basically an early access play test for free. Also the progress on reacurring games is clearly visible. I agree that some demos have had more effort pit into them than others. Since I assume participation is voluntary, it's up to the devs to use that pressure for productivity, which is a legitimate motivator for some people.
Remember shareware?
Pepperidge farm remembers
Thank you for the reminder. I will promptly pay attention to it, and yet, have 0 impact on the world as this issue is a big numbers problem and we're the small numbers.
That's a defeatist attitude. There are a lot more of us then you can fathom. If you're going to make assumptions on data you don't have, why not have hope?
There are a lot more of us then you can fathom.
Where? Here we have 1.2k potential users. The video does have 24k views. For big studios like Bethesda that's a rounding error! Skyrim for example sold 3.4 million physical copies alone at launch. I wouldn't be surprised if Starfield already has sold that many pre-orders.
I mean it's good to have such a discussion, but there are 10's of millions of people who regularely buy PC/console games. It would be silly to expect that such a huge amount of people could be reached easily by grassroot discussions of a few thousand people.
After all this whole pre-order discussion is by no means new. I've seen such for at least 5-10 years but in the end, pre-orders still happen on a gigantic scale.
While following the advice of not pre-ordering games may not change or save the industry it can still save you a lot of money and time.
I love this advice for 99% of games, but I pre-ordered Baldur's Gate III around three years ago now and have been able to play Early Access as a result.
Same here, but we got to get a demo of the game essentially. So excited for it to release.
I recall pre-ordering EA's Battlefront back then. I only played it for 4 hours at most. Should have pirated it.
I don't even play half the games I buy. I just pre-order them so I get the cool goodies that come with the game like art books, metal cases, tapestries, etc.
I used to do that when I was about ten years younger, now I am mostly trying to get rid of them to save some space as all they do is collect dust on some shelf or box.
The last pre-order bonus I got was a pair of socks. That killed my interest in extraneous offers.
I started waiting for like a year after release. I don't have as much time to play anymore.
You don't say? 🤔
