Remember shareware?

Pepperidge farm remembers

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.

Cyberpunk was the nail in my pre-order coffin, fuck those clowns and their shitty releases. I don't want the game to be good and playable 3 years after I bought it.

Oh and for the fan bois if the game was so good when released, why did they have to do a complete overhaul of basically the entire game to make it good?

The release was trash and the game released with as little product as possible while charging people full price.

The only game I've ever done that for in any way was Pillars of Eternity, and that was because I never expected the Kickstarter to succeed so explosively.

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 started waiting for like a year after release. I don't have as much time to play anymore.

The only game I've preordered in the last like 5 years is Pikmen 4, and only because I enjoyed the demo so much.

I have never pre-ordered a game.

I have however pre-ordered collectables which "come with a game" (despite the collectables likely being more than the game) or the privilege of being able to hang out with my friends at midnight to collect a game on release. And of those games Halo 2, Halo 3, and Battlefield 3 were the only 3.

These days there is even less reason to pre-order, but where I lived and the local small game shop, sometimes the only way to get a game within the first MONTH of release was a pre-order, where the store would literally..... Pre order. Its not a pre-order for you at the store, its the store ordering it from the distributor / publisher.

The very first game i ever purchased on Steam was a game where i went in for the 3rd week in a row and they said "sorry, still not had any come in for re-stock".

And now even more than ever is a BETTER time to pre-order. "Back in my days" good fucking luck being able to return a game if the 7 seals of security purity were not damaged. now, almost universal refunds for digital goods from most of the major game platform hosts.

I don't pre-order really but I do get tempted with 18% off pre-order deals at various PC shops online