Is pre ordering is a terrible idea?

[BiscuitTrouser]

Ive been thinking about pre ordering. Particularly with the sem-recent mass effect debacle. It all seems to stem from people complaining after pre ordering. I dont want this to descend into an arguement about mass effect so ill summarise my conclusions about pre ordering:

1. Youre getting something based entirely off PR and advertising - two things known to exhaggerate and distort the true quality of an item.

2. You might as well be purchasing a "mystery box" from a stranger on the basis that his last mystery box contained something good.

3. If you then complain that the mystery box contains something terrible, as they tend to do at times, youre entire point is undermined by the fact your PURCHASED the mystery box despite having very limited knowlegde of what was inside it.

4. It seems like an obvious company scheme to say "Let them buy item X before its true quality can be appraised and they realise they might not want it!"

Ive realised now that, other than for those who are very impatiant, pre ordering is a system designed pretty much to screw you over. This is why they offer bonuses if you DO pre order. Because youre taking a huge risk. No other industry would ask you to spend money on a promise of a product you have never seen. Pre ordering actively hurts the industry because it asks that fans feed a company blind to the quality of the product made.

It doesnt apply a strong enough pressure to publishers who dissapoint their fans. Why SHOULD they make the third installment in any series good? At all? Pre order revinue will give them nice earnings no matter what the quality is.

Basically i see no good reason to pre order. What do you think about pre ordering? Do you think as an industry we should scrap it?

 

[endtherapture]

After ME3 I'm never pre-ordering again really.

Arkham City left a foul taste in my mouth, pre-ordering gave me a barely functional game, with no DLC which is coming for free in the GoTY edition, and 6 months later it's a tenner on Steam.

I'm honestly just gonna wait for games now, turns out so much cheaper and better value in the long term.

Only game I'm ever pre-ordering is The Witcher 3 because I know CDProjekt will deliver.

 

[Jamash]

I pre-order almost every new game I buy and have yet to be disappointed.

I only buy game I'm sure I want and pre-ordering means I get the game delivered to my house a few days before the release date, it means I usually get the game for less than the RRP and it also means I get pre-order bonuses for buying a game I was going to buy anyway.

You say "No other industry would ask you to spend money on a promise of a product you have never seen", but that's blatantly not true.

New build houses require you to pay a sizeable deposit in order to secure a house before it is built and lots of car and boat manufacturers take advance orders on unreleased models, again requiring a sizeable deposit or the amount paid in full. In both cases the deposit required is many times greater than the cost of a new game, so it's a much greater risk, yet it's a very common practice.

While it's true that you can look around a Show Home or view a prototype, that's not the same as the finished product you'll be buying, but these are the same as game demos and previews.

Maybe I'm just a savvy consumer and have the luck of only buying games I know I want, but even if the risk wasn't worth it, it's only the price of a new game, less than a day's work, so it's not really a big risk at all.

In fact, it's much more of a risk for the game developers and publishers to spend millions creating, manufacturing and distributing hundreds of thousands of copies of a game, than it is for a consumer to buy one copy (that they can return if they're not satisfied).

Without pre-orders to gage espected sales figures, game companies wouldn't take the risk of making many copies of a game available to you to buy, or they wouldn't take the risk of making new games at all and focus solely on DLC expansions for games that have already sold.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I only preorder for games I truely want to get so most of the time it wasn't a waste. True about the bonus stuff since I tend to preorder to get double points of that company so I save some money and I'm a sucker for those limited edition when you preorder.

 

[Goofguy]

I consider it about taking it on faith. For all I know, Max Payne 3's previews thus far are all just amped up when the game in reality is utter crap. However, I liked what Remedy did with the first two games and I have faith in Rockstar that they will put out a good product.

 

[Don Savik]

Haha....AHAHAHAHA.....ha. You're funny bro.

Yes its putting an investment down, but 9 times out of 10 I can watch gameplay videos before a game comes out. Also demos. I'm not a retard that buys games because I saw a cool ad. Any simple minded idiot can look up information on a game.

That's like saying buying any game before playing it is a scam.

 

[Ectoplasmicz]

I only pre-order when the game in question is one that I absolutely desperately cannot wait for and want. Unless It's absolutely essential, then I won't bother, I can wait.

 

[distortedreality]

I only pre-order when i'm sure, and I make my decision only after being informed from sources other than marketing and PR.

Tbh, if you pre-order a game based off of marketing, you deserve whatever you get, no matter how bad the end result is.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I don't see how it's so bad. You don't put any money down unless it's a special/collectors edition and you're guaranteed a copy of the game, providing you get it in the allotted time. For titles I knew I was going to get at release like Uncharted 3, Saints Row the Third, TESV:Skyrim, inFamous 2 I put down a pre-order, got my bonush points and items and was pretty happy. The only time I was let down by a pre-order was Prototype...

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I only preorder now if it's something I really want badly on the first day like skyrim. Games seem to be going down in price so fast nowadays.

 

[Rude as HECK]

I'm not sure where "putting an investment down" comes into it; I only know of one store that takes your money in advance, and that's optional. Even small deposits seem limited to CEs.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

6 weeks ago my response would of been.. dont be so cynical, some preorders are great.. receives pre ordered ME3 collectors edition and finishes it.. dont waste your time on preorders

This is the event im talking about. That whole thing wouldnt have happened if customers had waited until after release to buy it. A lot of people in the thread are touting the whole "im smart enough to tell a good game from a bad game". Sometimes its literally impossible for demos or trailers to reveal the fault in a game that makes it not worth buying. Mass effect 3 is a prime example.

You say "No other industry would ask you to spend money on a promise of a product you have never seen", but that's blatantly not true.

New build houses require you to pay a sizeable deposit in order to secure a house before it is built and lots of car and boat manufacturers take advance orders on unreleased models, again requiring a sizeable deposit or the amount paid in full. In both cases the deposit required is many times greater than the cost of a new game, so it's a much greater risk, yet it's a very common practice.

While it's true that you can look around a Show Home or view a prototype, that's not the same as the finished product you'll be buying, but these are the same as game demos and previews.

The thing with a game is that the product being a surprise is a feature. That means the company simply CANNOT show you the whole product. Instead what has to suffice is people playing it through and telling you "Yeah it had some faults at parts X and Y" without getting into specifics since the entire game cant be revealed through demons and trailers. The company of course will never do this since that would lose them sales.

This is different from cars and homes since the entire product in its entirety is viewed and discussed. No surprises. No hidden bits. The trailer couldnt reveal the ending of ME3 for obvious reasons. But thats the killer. Now I, without the ending being ruined, can be informed about its failings after release and make an informed decision to buy or not. Those pre ordering simply cannot know about the entire game and any of its huge glaring faults. It is impossible.

 

[Doclector]

Well, here in the UK, most pre-orders are free, you usually only pay when you get it, and if there's a deposit it's often five pounds that you can get back if you decide not to buy it, and it gets taken off the price of the game if you do.

Honestly, there's usually little reason not to pre order something you're interested in.

Sure, if you buy a game on launch you're taking a risk, but it's not as if you haven't done some research via gameplay videos, previews, and, because america often gets things before us, some reviews. Pre order bonuses can be annoying, but unless the bonus is absolutely horrible, nobody's forcing you to buy on launch or not at all, unless the game hasn't been stocked well, and that's not usually a dick move by publishers, it's usually just incompetence. E.G; Konami.

 

[Fishyash]

I only pre-order when I am 100% sure I am not going to regret it. Obviously the pre-order bonuses are a good incentive, but I won't pre-order unless I have seen enough footage or I have already played a demo of the game.

Demos, previews, betas, news and forums etc. are enough of a basis for me. I have yet to be screwed over in regards to this.

In regards to mass effect, I've never played it, but...

It's still just an ending. I personally wouldn't regret purchasing a game just because of an unsatisfying ending.

 

[Lilani]

No other industry would ask you to spend money on a promise of a product you have never seen.

Never seen a movie, have you? Or built a house? Or ordered food from a restaurant with no pictures on the menu?

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

No other industry would ask you to spend money on a promise of a product you have never seen.

Never seen a movie, have you? Or built a house? Or ordered food from a restaurant with no pictures on the menu?

I see movies after they release. As such i have multiple sources of feedback that can tell me if a movie is good without spoiling it.

Houses when built are planned very carefully and no surprise is left to the purchaser. No surprises. No features that are unplanned. No sudden "there is no roof".

Ordering from restauarants that have been open a long time means i can ask friends and the internet if the food is good. This example would only apply if i went there on its opening night.

My entire point with the preorder thing is that you are getting a product that NO one has properly sampled 100% of yet to give real feedback. Third party feedback. All of these things can be done with your examples. The house can be 100% reviewed. An unreleased game obviously cant because it would ruin it. You can only see a little. You might miss the glaring flaws.

 

[dimensional]

very rarely preorder in fact I cant remember the last time I did sometimes I will buy the game on day one (or near to it) but this is also getting rarer mainly because most games lose value fast so all I have to do is wait 12 months tops and I can buy 3 games or even more for the price of 1 which is awesome.

That being said I dont think there is anything wrong with preordering I tend to do a fair bit of research into the games I am interested in and so am rarely disappointed although inevitably sometimes despite all your research you find yourself at odds with the product but if in the very rare situation I am determined to get a game on day one and the preorder gives me free stuff I may as well preorder as I was going to buy it anyway.

 

[Lilani]

No other industry would ask you to spend money on a promise of a product you have never seen.

Never seen a movie, have you? Or built a house? Or ordered food from a restaurant with no pictures on the menu?

I see movies after they release. As such i have multiple sources of feedback that can tell me if a movie is good without spoiling it.

Then do that with games. Here, on this very web site, they provide reviews for all major releases. If you don't want to pre-order then fine, just don't. But don't tell the rest of us we shouldn't be spending our money on what we want based on whatever information is good enough for us. Yes, things can go wrong when pre-ordering, but if you think it's the only time things can go wrong then you are mistaken. After hearing wonderful reviews about Captain America, I went to see it in my hometown theater, only to be disappointed when the sound was absolutely jacked in the only theater they were showing it in. We stayed for 20 minutes until my talked my parents into leaving, considering it sounded like the speakers were outside halfway across the parking lot. We did get a refund, but we still had already spend $30+ on snacks on top of the tickets.

Also, my dad works in the heating and air business. He's seen every kind of problem in new houses imaginable. Doors hung the wrong way, poorly planned wiring and duct work for AC, improperly spaced studs, main support beams cut straight through by the saws of careless construction workers, improperly hung sheetrock, inadequate or incorrect insulation. Sure these are unintentional, but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been prevented and didn't cost the homeowner money and time.

Shit happens. Preordering is a convenient system for people who know they want to buy things on launch day. Could it be used better? Yes. Personally I'd love to see developers make "day-one" DLC free to preorders and those who buy in the first few days of release, so those who were dedicated enough to buy on launch don't feel like they're having their wallet further assaulted. But for now it is what it is, as publishers ever so slowly get a grip on how they should be treating their customers.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Could it be used better? Yes. Personally I'd love to see developers make "day-one" DLC free to preorders and those who buy in the first few days of release, so those who were dedicated enough to buy on launch don't feel like they're having their wallet further assaulted.

Of course thats what i do with games. Thats the entire introduction of my thread.

This is a thread discussing the pros and cons of pre ordering. I think its terrible. Im not telling you or demanding you to do anything. I pointed out why i hated it and invited you to tell me your opinion for the sake of discussion because thats what im here to do. Discuss. I am in no way telling you that you shouldnt pre order because i say so. I said i didnt understand why anyone would pre order and invited you to comment on my assessment of the system. Youre making this look far more confrentational than it was meant to be. Im telling you that investing in a product like this is a risky choice.

The "Could it be better" is exactly what we are here to discuss. I fear you have mis understood the point of me making this thread. I think it definately CAN be better. Thus i pointed out all the risks taken with pre ordering and commented that as of now there isnt always a real reason to take such a risk. The introduction of rewards might be a good idea.

 

[Lilani]

The "Could it be better" is exactly what we are here to discuss. I fear you have mis understood the point of me making this thread. I think it definately CAN be better. Thus i pointed out all the risks taken with pre ordering and commented that as of now there isnt always a real reason to take such a risk. The introduction of rewards might be a good idea.

I saw that, but your thread title is pretty polarizing and leaves little room for discussion ;-) It's like opening up a thread where people share their thoughts on faith and calling it "religion is a load of horse shit," you know?