- What about Early Access Games?
- Do you feel differently about Early Access vs traditional preordering?
- If you are open to the idea in specific circumstances, what are those?
- How do you decide if a game qualifies?
I’m interested in the community thoughts on preordering and I’d love to have a thoughtful discussion on the matter.
Personally, I’m against preordering, except in specific situations where I want to actively support the development of a game.
I have been thinking about this because there is a game I’m considering preordering from a medium sized studio, but the reason I want to preorder is for the IP, rather than the game and it goes against my typical stance on this. The game is based on my favorite book series and part of me wants to encourage more games be made based on this series. At the same time, the book series has found commercial success and as a whole does not need my help.
I did name the specifics here because I’m hoping to encourage discussion on preordering as a whole, rather than my example, but if you want to know, I’ll drop a comment and we can have a discussion in the comment thread. :)
EDIT: thank you all for the thoughtful discussion on this! I expected most people to slam preordering, but there was some very thoughtful dialogue here and that is why I appreciate you, Lemmy!
I pre-ordered ff8, they ran out anyways. Lesson learned.
Wtf. Of a physical copy? You got screwed more than most people in the comment section. You’re the only one to get screwed by a physical preorder, that I saw
I had this happen with the switch originally. Pre-ordered the lets go pikachu&eevee switch, they ended up receiving far less than the company expected. Employees were the first on the chopping block since they worked there. Absolute bullshit.
They did end up getting me one, I had first pick from the next shipment, but it made my blood boil.
It didn’t really mean much to have a confirmed next shipment, as I worked in the department selling them, and fully intended to go on an early lunch to buy one that shipment anyway since they can’t dictate what I did off the clock.
I can’t specifically remember what games, but this definitely happened to me at toys r us several times. Back in the physical copy days you had to pre-order big releases most of the time and the pre-order was usually held but they often oversold because the distributor didn’t send all the copies they’d ordered.
It was toys r us for me too, I was able to get a copy a week later but there’s no point to preordering if they don’t honor the reservation & when you’re a kid that week feels like forever so it sticks pretty brightly in memory
Never in my life. I want to read the reviews, at a minimum. Too many games with some booshit on launch day, if not at least several months after. I am incredibly psyched for the new Control game but it’ll be at least a few months before I pick it up.
Never. Why would I pay early for a digital copy of a video game? I can just buy it when it comes out, or better yet, when it goes on sale.
I very rarely used to, and now I absolutely don’t ever since I pre-ordered Anthem…
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Never. I hate the preorder exclusive bonuses; it’s anti-consumer bullshit, especially in an age where every game is available as a digital download, even the physical copies usually require downloads. Publishers are enticing customers to pay while hype is high, before the product is actually available, before quality has been proven and before reviews are published.
I hate gift cards for the same reason, you’re giving money to corporations before they’ve provided anything to you.
Hold on to your money, wait for reviews, then pay them for the finished product if you still want it.
I also think the rising launch prices of AAA games is bullshit, especially for singleplayer games. I’ll usually wait for a decent discount.
I used to more when things were more disc based from stores, but it’s rare that I do now.
Occasionally I still may if I have the money and it’s a game I know I want and will highly likely enjoy, if only for the pre-load capability. But it’s far rarer now. Sometimes they throw in some pre-order dlc, and if I know I’m going to buy it at launch anyways I may as well just technically pre-order it. But again, I do it much rarer now than I did a few console gens ago.
Early access is a bit of a different story, and I will sometimes buy an early access game if I like where it’s going and want to support it. But those are also pretty rare for me.
I never pre-order, there is no benefit.
Early access is misleading, there are games which are “released” and would barely count as early access and vice-versa, so I just treat them equally.
The criteria for me is that based on reviews or some gameplay footage it seems like I can get £1/hour worth of enjoyment out of it. I tend to look for how many hours do people have when they leave reviews and how many have they played since, rather than just what they say. If I’m unsure if I’ll like it and there is not enough videos or reviews to give me certainty, i may take a risk on £10 and below games depending on how bored I am at the time.
THE ONLY REASON TO PREORDER IS TO ENSURE YOU HAVE A COPY ON LAUNCH.
Do you think they will run out of digital copies of you to download? (Just in case someone doesn’t know, that’s not how digital downloads work)
It’s that fucking simple. Pre-order bonuses are almost never worth it on their own, and even for those that are, you’re enabling and supporting a predatory/anti-consumer practice.
We Do Not Preorder
Seriously, don’t reward this kind of anti-consumer bullshit.
The only acceptable justification I can see is if it’s an indie dev who has really, truly earned the trust of their players and proven that they will work tirelessly to deliver the product people want. And even then I’d be very, very unlikely to. I’m crazy excited for both of Owlcats upcoming games and I still haven’t pre-ordered them, for example.
Pre-orders encourage bad, buggy, incomplete or deceptively marketed releases by juicing day one numbers without any need for the dev / publisher to actually release a worthy product.
I preorder Indie games, because even if they turn out to be crap I want them to make another one and get better at it !
I relentlessly fuck over AAA publishers by buying keys on resellers, and I have no remorse about it.
Nope. Only game I EVER preordered was fallout76, because I’ve been a fallout fanboy forever.
I learned.
Nope. Trust has been broken too many times. I don’t even buy anything anywhere near release anymore. I won’t buy anything anymore unless it’s either an indie game or its on sale and even then I deep dive the reviews and make sure I’m not wasting my money.
I pre-order games I know I’d buy on launch. Some titles I just know I’ll play, regardless of reviews - E.g. Sequels to games I love like the Witcher 3 or any of the Dying Light games.
I’ll also do Early Access if I want to play the game early and am okay with jank, E.g. Hades 2, Windblown.
I did pretty much the same, but then Kerbal 2 happened. I had that game in wishlist for like 5 years and damn they played us dirty.
Very disappointing when that happens, I agree - but that’s the risk we take as people who pre-order!
My nightmare pre-order was Star Citizen, to the point that I now despise Kickstarter.
any of the Dying Light games.
My man 🤜🤛
I got screwed over so many times with both pre-ordering and early access, that I never pre-order again and I very rarely buy early access games. I honestly don’t really buy any game at full price anymore and I only buy early access if a developer hasn’t abandoned a previous game and releases regular updates, unless if they have a really good reason to leave a long time between updates (looking at you Detail Valley).
