And people wonder why we have the term "gamer entitlement"?

[LaoJim]

Maybe, at the age of 35, I've become old and out of touch, but...

I don't get this pre-ordering business.

I get it from the publishers point of view, if they can get a sale early, especially before reviews come out, then of course they're going to try.

But for a customer point of view? Sure if you get something extra. (Though extra skins, or one gun don't really appeal to me much), and if its a physical product that might conceivably sell-out (a new games console for example) that you absolutely had to have on day one.

This is a steam game, it's not going to run out, your not going to get it any earlier, why not just pay on the day of release, where's the downside?

I actually like this company, sounds like they are going to be selling a good game for a fair price, and are genuinely seem confused by the fact that people are queueing up to give them money early.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Rational decision making is now gamer entitlement apparently. I'm with that guy. Without some form of "bonus", there is really no point to pre-ordering. In fact, you could argue that deciding to hand over your money early for absolutely no benefit does more harm than good.

But yeah, he's the one that's entitled.

 

[Eve Charm]

Really this is gamer entitlement? I'm sorry but I basically did the same thing as the forum poster when I saw Transistor Pre-purchased... "ADVERTISED on the MAIN FLASH BANNER" clicked on it and said " what no bonus or discount. I with probably many others just stopped short of posting on the forum. When something is on the main flash banner it's usually something that just came out, or is coming out with a deal or on sale.

It's not even like the guy was being mean about it, why bother advertising a pre-purchase If nothing else is being done with it. That ad space would have done a lot of other games more good then Transistor. On the flip side of the coin, why risk my money on something as an consumer without an bonus or discount for doing so? I might as well just hold on to my money and make sure the game releases alright because it's not like games don't come out broken all the time ;p

 

[Redd the Sock]

Okay, even if there was agreement as to the entitlement behind this, why is it "gamer" entitlement? Does one, or a few asshats speak for all of us? If I work sales or customer service and I get a jerk, should I stereotype everyone of that jerk's age, race, economic background, hairstyle, brand of deodorant? Entitlement is pretty much everywhere, whether you pick up a controller or not.

 

[pyrokitsune777]

Don't you love people who complain about a game not being at the price they want it to be...(which is free by the way). It's almost as if a game that's about to be released is going to be priced at full.

 

[Risingblade]

I don't get it, this is a legitimate question. Most games nowadays give you an incentive to pre-order so at very least you're getting something for your gamble.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

Well, what is the benefit of a pre-purchase? Seriously, what is gained by buying it before it is out? If you aren't getting any extra features and there isn't any chance of a digital copy running out (barring the use of CD keys), I can't think of a reason to buy. Hell it sounds like it is him just being smart with his money, having tried it before judging it (somewhere) and wanting to keep his money from getting tangled up in something he can't play yet. He voiced his opinion on an public forum and you created a thread on a completely different site to complain about him having said opinion.

 

[shrekfan246]

But yeah, he's the one that's entitled.

Well, it's worth noting that it's only because of "false sense of entitlement" that the term "entitled" has a negative connotation in the first place.

All things considered, yes, gamers should be entitled to a little bit of goodwill from a developer or publisher if they're going to pre-order a game. Because there's no guarantee that what you're purchasing will be good, will be stable, will run well on your system, won't be filled with bugs, and in some cases will even launch. Sure, with a lot of developers we'll take it on their past endeavors to give more context with what we should expect out of them, but that's still not a guarantee; You're still spending money on something that has the potential to not work as it is intended. In general, being able to purchase at a discount or with bonuses means less risk on the consumer's part, which means a more likely sale, which means more money for the people responsible for the title.

 

[Anthony Corrigan]

Lets say your right, lets say it IS "entitled"

What do business experts say about "gamer entitlement"?

...
Which as I said last time, baffles me. The goal of a business is to be successful and to nurture the development of healthy long-term business relationships. Quality customer service. A business wants happy customers. Loyal customers. Even difficult customers, the kind that complain a lot, the kind that prompt the Gamer Entitlement mythology I?ve been reading about, are valuable in your business. And I?ve found some data ? some cold hard numbers ? to help us analyze exactly how important customer service is. Hopefully these numbers will help even the victimized game development companies see how it is bad business to ignore customer service.
...
https://www.hostmerchantservices.com/2012/03/customer-service-pitfalls-part-2/

And forbs?

...
The relationship between gamer and developer, and across the entire community, is a social and participatory relationship. Gamers may not work on the actual development of a title like Mass Effect 3, but they?ve invested their time and money and support into that franchise and there is no one ?proper? way to complain about the ending. Nor are angry fans merely ?entitled? or ?spoiled? simply for angrily voicing their concerns or asking for a new ending.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/13/mass-effect-3-and-the-pernicious-myth-of-gamer-entitlement/

I work in the retail sector, health sector and training sector. When I got my FIRST job the first thing we did as part of our induction was to watch a video by the company called I CARE, ie CUSTOMERS ARE REALLY EVERYTHING. now though my other positions, paid and voluntary don't have the same videos they all have the same focus. Its always about the customer and how we can serve them better. Do you think if you walked into a supermarket and they didn't have an item that the customer would be called "entitled"? do you think if they felt there was something wrong with there product that they would be called "entitled"? and do you think they would be dismissed? No, the very first thing we are told to do is say "I'm very sorry about that, how can I fix it?" and then DO fix it. We give out rain checks if items aren't available, we replace products if the customer has something wrong with them. We NEVER dismiss a customers opinion

A good customer experience will be told to 1-2 other people and it stops there but a BAD customer experience will be told to 8 people who will each tell it to another 8 people. That's potentially 64 sales lost because of one bad customer experience.

 

[Vegosiux]

Hey, I'm on board with any way to kill the hype. Not that I wasn't looking forward to this one, I was, and was even cautiously optimistic! But in the end, my position is that anything I buy needs to stand on its own merits, not on the hype surrounding it, and of course, I'm not giving anyone money if I'm not receiving what I'm paying for at the moment of the transaction.

Preorders are terrible and manipulative.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I can't see any reason to pre-order it if it's the same price with no extras. That doesn't mean the option shouldn't be provided. I have no idea why anyone would be annoyed about a preorder that is nothing special. I think it's somewhat stupid to preorder it, given the slim chance that it's shit, but when you trust the devs - which I think it is fair to assume in this case - then by all means. But negativity over not being offered anything for it is strange to me.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

The only reason I used to pre-order games was to ensure that I got them on the day of release in the post.

Now that we download online, I don't see any need to do this, so I understand why people would want an incentive to pre-purchase. Telltale do this by saying if you buy the season, rather than each episode as it comes, then you will 'save' money (at least you will spend less than if you bought them all individually). Which is meant to show value to customers who buy the game before it's even made.

If all that happens is you get the game, what's the point in pre-ordering it? Why not just buy it on the day when you want to start downloading it?

I don't think it's a matter of gamer entitlement. It's a matter of developers needing to incentivise people to pre-order. Apparently some people will pre-order regardless, but people like me need a reason to, so they won't be getting a pre-order from me. And the return is the developer gets to market itself with pre-order statistics and help build hype around their game, if it is succeeding in getting lots of pre-orders.

 

[Mojo]

Money doesn't grow on trees, well, actually, it does considering paper is made out of trees and money is made out of paper

Don't be silly; everyone knows money grows from Federal Reserve printers!

Paper money is actually made from 75% cotton and 25% linen. (Not that is matters, your argument stays the same.)

OT: The reason pre-orders were invented is because there used to be an actual chance that your local retailer could sell out on the game really fast and you had to wait until they restock. If you pre-ordered you had a guarantee that you could pick up your copy on the day of release. With digital games this problem disappears, so if a company wants me to buy their game before it actually exists, they really should offer you some sort of benefit if you ask me. (As many have already pointed out here.)

 

[Jon Watson]

Digital pre-orders are fairly pointless anyway. With retail products there are a finite number of copies at any one time. It is possible for the store to become sold out. Other than allocating your money ahead of time to ensure you make the purchase there is no benefit to pre-ordering a digital copy. Or withheld content, or free stuff - I'd consider free stuff like the half dozen games that came with pre-orders of that half-decent XCOM shooter.

Wanting to know if there's any point to pre-ordering something isn't entitlement, it's savvy shopping.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

It's entitlement because he had to say something. It isn't well enough for him to just wait for the game to release and then pay for the game when it's available to play. No, instead he had to throw a fit about how he needs extras to justify paying for the game; as-though $20 is going to appreciate so much in value over the next couple of weeks that only a moron would spend the money now without something extra to make-up for that lost value.

I'll grant though, that to some extent it isn't entirely his fault. His demands for "free first-day DLC" wreaks of him being spoiled by EA's "Project $10" or whatever they were calling it, and several other big-money publishers running similar schemes. Keep throwing a dog a treat, and eventually he'll just expect it.

But he did not throw a fit. He's just asking. There's nothing wrong with initiating a discussion. And he does have a point. With no incentive for the early adopter, there is virtually no reason to pre-purchase the game, unless you want to show extra support to your favourite developer.

Also I assume that "I played it and it was a good game" refers to Bastion as someone asks him whether he played it in one of the previous posts.

From what I've seen on the first page of that discussion, it's mostly rational people calmly discussing the incentives to pre-purchase a game that does no offer any pre-order bonuses. And I think that his question is a perfectly reasonable question to ask. The developer, however good they are, is asking you to pay for a product that does not exit yet and you're only given their word for it that it will be good when it comes out. Apparently there was a demand for the pre-order option which they complied with, which to me is a good enough reason to make preorders available, but that does not invalidate the question.

I do not think it's entitled to simply ask a question. I actually find your attitude of 'he should shut up and stop questioning the decisions of my beloved developer' much more worrying as it strives to prevent discussion. Remember, just because Bastion was awesome, that does not make Supergiant Games this unquestionable authority that can never make bad games or wrong decisions. And attempting to silence the discussion will not lead to anything good happening.

 

[AuronFtw]

Waiting to buy a game for the same price is entitlement? Where I come from it's called "logic." The game could very well blow ass. It could be buggy. It could be super short. It could have any number of problems that would hamper it being "worth" full price. When you pre-order, you're setting yourself up for failure. In a literal best case scenario, the game is perfect, and the money you spend early simply gets you a great game... but not any earlier than if you simply waited to buy it. There's absolutely no benefit to you for ordering, and paying, early.

Realistically, you're spending money early on a game whose quality you have no assurances about - and let's be honest, companies rarely ever make perfect games. If you simply wait to buy, you can poll friends who played it, or find let's plays or similar videos, etc to get a good feel for how much the game is "worth" before dumping your money on it. But by pre-ordering, you're locking yourself into a purchase you know next to nothing about, and the only solid info is hype from the devs, which is notoriously inaccurate at best and sometimes molyneux completely false.

Without wishing to cause offense, anyone who pre-orders is a sucker; giving your money away for the promise of a product and not for the product itself shows you don't care nearly enough about your money. Imagine buying a house or a car without first visiting it or taking it for a test drive. Ridiculous! This pay-first scam seems to be unique to entertainment - you pay for movies and games before being able to play them, and they're often not worth the cost. But knowing that, companies devise ways to gouge as much money as possible up front (season passes, preorders) and lie about their game via hype as much as possible to drive sales up before it launches and ends up being tripe on a bike. Even waiting until launch day, or the day after, is enough to gauge player reaction to a game's length and quality in order to help facilitate more educated spending of your money.

Pre-ordering is robbing yourself of that opportunity. Unless you have a money tree in your backyard and you don't give any fucks about wasting it, avoid pre-ordering anything, *especially* if there aren't any perks for it. Some free wallpapers or soundtracks or some shit to entice people to pre-order? Yeah, I can maybe see it, if you're already a fan of the artist/composer/developer. But lacking that, there is literally no reason to ever pre-order, and every reason not to.

 

[Win32error]

Well, I'm not all that big on pre-purchasing. For gamers, the benefits are fairly low. At best, you get some extra goodies and the developers get to sell some copies early on. At worst, you get lured in by some cheap gifts and you buy a horrible game.

But when it comes to this particular game, it's not really a gamble or anything. Unless they lost their touch completely, you're getting a great game with a great soundtrack (i had NO idea this existed, actually hyped up now), but with no apparent benefit to buying it early.

So...isn't it fine to ask that one question: If developers want to sell you a game before anyone can review it, then what exactly is the point of buying said game if you can also buy the EXACT SAME THING when there are reviews? The guys from Bastion? Yeah, I trust them. But this shouldn't be the industry standard, and I don't see any point in holding back until the release date so that I can read a few reviews.

 

[Jandau]

So, the publisher didn't offer any incentive for a preorder so someone thinks it's pointless to preorder? And this somehow a bad thing? Why? It's not like you'd better sign up as soon as possible because supplies might run out. There is literally no benefit to preordering for the customer in this situation.

And on the other hand, there's the whole problem with the "preorder culture" that's taken root in the gaming industry, and which has been covered amply by people like Jim Sterling and TotalBiscuit. If anyone is part of a "problem", it's the OP...

 

[ninjaRiv]

To be fair, why pre purchase? Why not wait until release? But, also, why NOT pre purchase?

The only thing that makes me pre purchase is if I know it'll be more expensive on release (like when Amazon offer pre order at £30 for a game that will be about £40 on release).

Free stuff makes me want to pre purchase, too. But, to be honest, it all comes down to price, personally. I wouldn't call this gamer entitlement, I'd call it being smart with your money.