I pre-order games I am hyped of and think they'll be a quality product. I also do it in order to support the company in question. Sure, some pre-order bonuses are good and all, but they are not a priority.

The one and only game I regret pre-ordering is Aliens: Colonial Marines. One game among many.

I can speak only for myself on this, of course.

I understand the motivation but it gives the company (publisher) more oppertunity to squeeze out an unfinished product. They already have your money so whats their motivation to finish the game proper? Unless its a small indie studio then they have way more to lose by pressing out something not yet done.

Masses of pre-orders actually contribute to the trend of games coming out kinda sorta broken.


I didn't even know what it was till yesterday. I loved Alan Wake and their previous titles. But I have not seen any game that has screamed to me "I must buy this console right nao"!

In the future when they are all 200 $ and under sure. I'm a frugal and paitient som bitch :D

In addition to the whinyness. Great advertising for a game. Never heard of it until this topic.

The conspiracy theorist in me hopes that crap guy got paid well for his silly meltdown.

*Caresses big box copies of Starlancer and Crimson Skies...*

This is a VERY WRONG misconception. A project usually has X amount of budget that can go up or down during development based on good or bad things. The budget includes people, money, and resources. Based on market research, companies can somewhat relatively predict a potential outcome of their sales. Opening up a project for preorder means that the project's budget will usually be X + amount from preorders. This usually means that the project has higher than required budget during the months between opening up the preorders and the release date. This higher budget then in turn allows companies to hire more people and spend more resources than they would have done with the previous no-preorders budget, resulting in an overall better project being made.

Preorders do not guarantee that the money will be there, but that they will potentially be there, meaning devs / pubs are willing to take a bit more risk and spend a bit more when they know that they might potentially get that money back.

Besides, any sane company should allow refunds if players are not satisfied with the product within a reasonable time.

Not when so many games are getting shipped in a torrid state.

You are essentially paying for the privylege of day one access to a potentially incomplete product.

That is not a "misconception".

http://www.craveonline.ca/entertainment/813645-heres-shouldnt-pre-order-games-2015

http://sapphirenation.net/pre-order-not-question/

https://bgr.com/2015/06/03/stop-preordering-video-games-fallout-4/

http://www.cnet.com/news/you-should-never-ever-preorder-a-video-game/

http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2015/01/01/your-new-years-resolution-stop-pre-ordering-games/126801/

http://www.geek.com/games/game-pre-orders-are-declining-and-its-obvious-why-1601467/

My GF preordered 1 game in her whole life... That was FF12, a PS2 game which can't get patches and has no online support. Safe to say, the game runs fine, and for a physical game it was actually when preordering made sense.

'We'll patch it later' shouldn't be the mentality of publishers, once it's out the gate that's how the game should be judged... FOREVER...

I don't preorder games, i don't have the money to.

That was what it was like "back in the day". Though preordering didn't make sense then either unless you just had to have it on release day. Until you rented it or played it at a friends house or (god forbid) read a reliable review you had very little proof as to the quality of that game.

Running out of copies was not the big deal it is made out to be in my experiance. Especially now. Digital copies put an end to that and the used/trade market makes nearly everything readily available.