100% I don't get how people pre-order so easily.

Imagine preordering a digital copy lmao

What, are they going to run out?

My ideal version of preordering is joining a torrent swarm and waiting for a seed to connect

Because gamers will still buy the slop, they just like complaining loudly whenever the opportunity arises

Yes, there’s even a joke among the Pokemon fandom that: “you’ll buy it anyways” that I saw all the way back in Gen 5, when people were upset that you were forced to play with all new mons (and many of them were too obvious of rehashes to the point you might as well have added that pokemon in or it was just sloppily designed).

Hence why I don’t call myself a anymore, just a guy who likes video games. Besides I have plenty of games to finish, or even begin. It’s an old stereotype that pc gamers have tons of games they bought off steam they never even touched.

The calculation people make is "this game might be good" and "I want the exclusives". They determine that the risk of it being bad is worth paying on the offchance it's good and they won't get the exclusives.

It's annoying but it absolutely works on much of the audience.

It's just the cope people go through to navigate a worsening economy while lacking class consciousness. If you perpetuate the belief that the responsibility is on the consumer, then you can look at the exploitation and say it's because they weren't smart shoppers who did their homework. The system doesn't need to change, you just need to be smarter.

It's just another permutation of personal responsibility politics used to ignore the systemic problems we're seeing. It's telling customers not to be stupid instead of questioning why videogame companies keep selling low quality garbage with pre-order bonuses to hook people who want to look forward to something.

It's bad to do the pre-orders and get invested like with Starfield, but the people offering warnings like that are more just trying to prove they are being a smarter shopper. That they won't get duped by the hype.

I preordered Pokemon Yellow from Toys R Us as a kid for a $5 deposit, and it was such a good preorder that I don't ever need to preorder anything again.

I preordered my N64 from ToysRUs and i learned back then a pre-order meant morning as i still had to wait a week or 2 extra. And PS was better. Ahhh I'm still mad about it anyway Nintendo never got another dime from me after the 64.

Anyway these cats are all trying to use their non-existent market power in a fantasy where voting with your wallet is a thing that works so it means they're probably libs...

so maybe it would be a funny bit to reverse uno the vote blue crowd somehow by telling em you're supporting the devs no matter what because they did their best and "maybe try advocating next game sweaty"

Could be cool. Or could be i need more sleep

I haven't pre-ordered a game since Halo 2.

Midnight release, hundreds of gamers waiting in line at GameStop, telling stories, trading gamertags, having fun...

Games going digital killed the social aspect of pre-orders, since now you just push a button and you have the game. No worries about copies running out and having to drive a city over to the Kmart no one shops at to find one in stock.

It's a human condition. "I NEED everyone else's lived experience to be EXACTLY the same as MEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!"

They will all be pre-ordering no matter what they tell each other. What are they going to do, not spend an extra $50 for the pre-order only string bikini outfit?

The power of fomo and not having that pointless preorder exclusive treat. You see the preorder bonus is now play the game a week early and its incredibly popular for some reason

Oh this is pretty old. Gaming companies have become more and more predatory with their pricing schemes over the past 20 years or so. So some people who still haven't gotten over the very existence of DLC still harp about not pre-ordering stuff. Their problem is twofold. The gaming community at large is the sort of person who spends money on games instead of I dunno going out. If you aren't spending money on drinks or airline tickets it turns out that this game's subscription, that other game's DLC pack, and so on do pack a lot of 'entertainment hour per dollar spent'.

If I don't buy it now, the scalpers will get the finite copies of the game!

(I generally early access indie games that I really like the idea of, in the hopes I can vicariously live out some of the energy I used to get from game modding)

People here on Hexbear dot net were buying Starfield on launch day and getting confused/mad that a game dev that hasn't pushed out a good game in decades would push out another dud.

I think my last preorder -- and one of the few in the past 10-15 years -- was Octopath Traveler 2, and that was only because it was discounted and I knew I was going to get it anyway since I'd just played the hell out of the first one before even finding out that there was a sequel about to drop. All in all, I'd say it worked out.

Civ VII, though? Not a fucking chance, given how much of a DLC-riddled shitshow Civ VI currently is. And never, ever, ever preorder an Ubisoft or Bethesda product. Everyone should have figured this out by now.

Uhm yes. Is this a trick question?

It's the reason I gave up on gaming and now just play 10 year old games on a last gen system.

Not only do they need to be told that if you do tell them that they tell you not to tell people whatnto do with their money and will then pre-order even harder out of spite.

They were many times. That and the multiple tiers of super uber duper deluXXXe editions. You want to lock ovee half the game behind DLC and arbitrary pay walls? See you a few years when you bundle it together for 85% off on a Steam summer sale....if it's worth my time.

Yeah i only did it when you needed to reserve your physical copy from eb games but it only cost 5 bucks

its worse

they are such big babies that they are told and still do it anyways and then cry about it

I look at it like this, firstly sometimes there are cool pre-order exclusives that you wouldn't otherwise get when buying at launch. Sometimes pre-ordering is also cheaper (common especially with early access type schemes), and really it's riskless for the scrupulous buyer. If you feel like the game let you down, you can refund it. By pre-ordering and subsequently refunding, the trash studio sees that money enter their pocket and is then taken away from them again. It's a measurable metric to base success or failure off of. If you just don't buy a game because you waited until launch and found out the game was shit, they have no idea they lost a potential customer.

You think that's pathetic? What about people with a burnt 14900k (550 dollars) asking if they should wait for the next intel gen or go AMD?

I've preordered one game in my entire life, it was one of the Walking Dead games from Telltale. Literally a few weeks after preordering the company closed or something like that lmao

Yesterday I was really tempted to preorder STALKER 2 bc I don't know if it'll get pirated on launch tbh

I don't think I've ever pre ordered a game in my life, and I've been playing video games since I was 9 years old. I've bought a few special editions yes, but no pre orders. Only bought two games on release day as a teenager.

This was a thing already in 90's. Ultimately like with everything you just need to think for a second. I did preordered about two dozen or so games in last 30 years and never really regret it.

its me. Im baby.

Last thing i preordered was a launch 3ds, i ordered a colour that didnt get released lol.

Early access counts as pre-ordering?

If it does, then the only game I ever pre-ordered was BG 3 in 2020.

Lower price before launch + regional pricing was the catch.

Barely touched it before the release. And it was a good deal. It is a good game and the price skyrocketed in my region.