Games

I preorder FromSoft Souls games, thats it. But I have been a huge fan since PS3 Demon's Souls, and I even preordered that one, I havent been burned yet by them as I have gotten well over 300 hours on each title.

Literally everything else? Hell no.

No.

Especially the big studio games.

They almost always go on sale 3-6 months past release, and they’ve been patched at least once.

You get a better, cheaper game.

Never preorder any game.

I would have pre-ordered Civ7, but then they announced it has Denuvo so now instead of pre-ordering I'm just not going to buy it at all.

Fuck denuvo and fuck corporations who think their customers should just bend over and accept whatever bullshit they offer for the "privilege" of playing their game.

There is so much good indie gaming content these days, we don't need these abusive mega-corp games.

I don't think digital pre-orders even include banking functionality. I wouldn't know because I lack the nerd cred of ever pre-ordering a game

The reason people do it is poor impulse control for the dopamine hit from buying something they want. I'm pretty sure anyone claiming another reason isn't being honest with themselves or others.

Never. There's no point, it's not like there are a limited amount of copies that I'll miss out on if I don't reserve mine.

Hissssss 🐍

Don't preorder, what the hell are you people thinking?!

These days? No.

I used to when I had very crappy internet speeds, but these days I have a gigabit connection - and I swear the decryption process takes longer than it is to just download the game right after release in an unencrypted state.

And even back then I was very picky on pre-orders. I honestly couldn't even tell you what was the last one I pre-ordered.

As a rule, no, but I'll make some rare exceptions.

It has to be a small studio, I have to be pretty sure I'll like their next game, and I have to have enjoyed their past game enough that it's worth throwing them a few extra bucks.

For instance, I'm going to pre-order Slay the Spire 2.

• Mega Crit is an indie studio.

• I thought StS1 was exquisite, so I'm optimistic about a sequel from the same people.

• I playes StS1 for hundreds of hours, so even if the sequel is a whiff, I'd have got my money's worth from them.

Similar goes for The Haunted Chocolatier, since I played the heck out of Stardew Valley.

Only indie games, because I like to support indie developers.

If there is a game that i'll definitely buy on launch and there is some real benefit for pre ordering, i might do it. But even then i'll wait for the last few hours and "pre-order" then. If there is no benefit for me, why should i tell the company "i dont care about quality of your game, i'll pay anyway". Because that is how the ones making decisions will see pre order.

I pre-ordered No Man's Sky and that was the first and last time I pre-ordered anything.

Beyond the painful lesson, pre-ordering is just a large risk that you're going to get a crap game - which is doubly unpleasant because you've basically paid good money to buy yourself a feeling of frustration and the experience of having been scammed - and all that you gain from pre-ordering a digital game is at best being able to play the exact same game a few minutes or maybe hours earlier than if you bought it on day 1, which is a "gain" not worth taking on that risk.

This is even more so in this day and age of totally overhyped bullshit and industry reviews being either pretty much paid for or done against beta versions hence not mentioning software problems such as bugs and slowness.

In fact I would even advise against buying a game on the first week or month for similar reasons - you want to reduce the risk of wasting your money and of frustration, by waiting for others to have played it and user reviews to come out and by buying later you'll probably going to end up with a better version of the game because the worst post-release bugs will have started being patched.

You could say that from the point of view of the buyer, it doesn't make business sense to pre-ordered a digital good for which there is no scarcity.

Last game i pre-ordered was fallout 4 hahahaha. So no i don't pre-order anymore. I even waited for a discount on baldur's gate 3 before buying it, that was a feat of it's own.

Never. I only rarely buy a game within a year of release. Too fucking many good cheap or free games to justify paying msrp before it even gets reviews.

Only Capcom games. Their demos give you a pretty good idea of what the fully game is going to be and are usually even improved upon. So preordering is mostly a safe bet. Plus you get some early access goodies (which you can also get after release for some extra shmeckles).

Capcom feels like one of the only multiplatform devs that are actually still making games for gamers not for shareholders.

I can think of 2 legitimate reasons for doing this - either putting the money down now so you don't have to come up with it later, or so you can preload it and have it available right at release.

Only games I'm super confident I'll love. Never got screwed over.

Nope, not a single reason to do so.

Preorder bonuses are worthless and are always available as dlc later on.

Rarely. I don't think I ever have two years in a row.

Usually only if I'm very sure it's a game I will get a lot of playtime out of due to past titles. For instance, I did pre-order Civ 7 because prior Civs have been the best hours-enjoyed-per-dollar investments I've ever made. No exaggeration, even accounting for DLCs I bought at full price.

I very rarely ever did. And when I did I made sure I trusted the studio and knew enough. But even with this preparation I was burned most of the time preordering. 

Nowadays I notice a game I like and I wait for 1-3 years, then pick it up DRM free, with all the extensions and fully patched for oftentimes 15€ or so.

I stopped pre-ordering games long ago. THhe last 3 I ever pre-ordered were Shenmue 3, No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk 2077. The all had a disastrous launch to some degree, and I said never again. I also pre-ordered Vampire: The Masquerade 2, but I cancelled it years ago. The last physical game I bought was Metal Gear Solid V, and it was a DVD with a fucking Steam installer inside.

Never again.

I pre-order games. Steams refund policy makes it pretty much risk-free. Usually it's shortly before launch, if I want to play the game immediately anyway. For big games, reviews pretty much always come out before launch or on the day of, so I can still always cancel, if it looks bad. I don't remember regretting any of these purchases, even if I didn't like all the games.

No, it just doesn't make sense to me to do so. I mostly play single player games, so special skins to show you preordered are pretty pointless, and the most you tend to get is a discount on some DLC that I can just buy later, once I know I've enjoyed the game enough to warrant it, or items to give you a stat boost.

It's not like preordering a physical game, where at least I get an art book or something in exchange for handing my money over.

No.
My backlog is so big and my interested in gaming became so little I prefer watching YT or stuff on my Jellyfin server.
I wanted to play Helldivers 2 but decided against it because I had nobody else and now it's kinda in late-progress I won't even bother.

Yeah I’ll pre order any game that I plan on buying. There’s no practical reason not to.

No

no i have fast internet so if i do buy a massive bloated game i can wait 20 minutes before playing it, or buy it the day of then remote download with the steam mobile app

I did pre-order KC:D II, but it's the first full price big title I've purchased in a long while. I was hoping to have a new GPU at release, but it looks like I'll have to wait a little longer. At least they'll have ironed out the major bugs at that point.

The reason I preordered the game was that there's a bonus quest, the game was 10% off and I can theoretically still cancel my preorder from Gamesplanet in case the reviews suck. It's not like pre-orders are irreversible.

Do I pay full price for games before they are available to play and are most likely not going to be finished upon release? No.

Preordering anything with no real or artificial scarcity doesn’t really make financial sense. It’s a predatory sales tactic to get people to part with their money sooner, in this case before customers have a chance to use software that is pretty much unreturnable. Gaming publishers love digital preorders because some customers end up paying full price for games they don’t even like and can’t even resell.

Sadly, for at least the last ten years or more, most non-online games are best played a few years after release date when they’ve had their bugs fixed or their ‘complete edition’ released.

Not anymore. Mostly for 3 main reasons.

• The only reason I'd ever preorder something now is if there's a significant risk of stock running out quickly. That's not a thing with digital games, ask there's no need to consider it.

• I've been burned far too many times by getting shitty games on day one, after having fallen for all the fake hype, deceptive marketing, sophisticated astroturfing, and paid-for reviews. Now, as a rule, I'll wait for about 2-4 weeks at least to see what the community sentiment is before I buy something.

• And finally, games are fuck all expensive now. 70 dollars is already a bridge too far for many of the bug-riddled, unfinished slop big corpos push out these days. And then there's "speculation" that RockStar will price GTA6 at a 100 dollars, giving all the publishers out there the precedent to do the same with their own titles. I'll just take my time and wait for them to go on sale for at least 50% off before I consider getting something. (P.S. I say speculation, but I'm almost entirely convinced that it's a deliberate industry psyop to get people primed for this insane price tag and reduce the sticker shock-induced backlash)

No reason to. A while back, some publishers gave 10% off pre orders, I bought maybe one or two like that. Some do digital goodies which doesn't entice me at all (I'm DLC proof). I can download anything fast enough. So why would I pre order?

Used to be I could preload games I prepurchase and would absolutely be doing that still, but that's pretty much never on offer anymore so I don't prepurchase even games I'm 100% certain I'll be getting.