Jimquisition: Previewed, Preordered, Prescrewed

Epic Fail 1977

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Hmm, quite a few people have already responded with "Yeah, good point Jim... but I'm still pre-ordering stuff."

Hey guys, I'm currently... er... "developing" a potion of eternal youth and accepting pre-orders via PayPal. Right now its a Work In Progress but it already makes you stay 21 forever. Oh and it makes you smarter and better looking. Pre-order now and receive a free T-shirt! PM me.
 

Arqus_Zed

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Funny thing, if I know that there will be a lot of DLC or a so called "season pass", chances are I'm just gonna skip the game till a "game of the year" edition is released. I did it for Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas and Borderlands.

Next up, Borderlands 2.

Also, I haven't pre-ordered a game since GTA IV.
 

Epic Fail 1977

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LordLundar said:
I have said this in the past but it does bear repeating.

Another Video Game crash is coming. It's inevitable. The industry at large has become so bloated and so distanced from it's consumer base that it can't sustain itself. Big ticket publishers are using kickstarter and other crowdfunding hubs (or trying to at any rate) simply because they can't get investors to back them anymore. So yes, a new crash is coming and honestly the THQ bankruptcy is just one of the first major publishers going down.
Preach it brother! THE END IS NIGH
 

IronSuplex

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I've always been too paranoid about a games quality to jump the gun and throw money at it before a very good amount of time has passed. I usually wait till the impressions from others has settled in about it. Lets just say I wont be buying any Spider-man games anymore.
PLUS, whats that song called when the video enters serious business mode, the one following Jesters Moon?
 
Jan 22, 2011
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can I just give one defense to pre-ordering games from gamestop?? For some one that has limited finical means such as myself, it's a way of making small down payment for a game I really do want. Say for example Nisa is going to release disgaea 4 for the ps-vita in 2014. I really like the franchise already and trust their quality for making games. This will allow me a 3-4 month period to pay off a 30-40 dollar game at full retail price with out having to scrap up all that money in one-day.
 

The White Hunter

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Saviordd1 said:
Mass Effect 3 is what got me out of preordering games, this just confirms it for more people.

I honestly hope people take this to heart and don't preorder games based on previews or brand recogn....



So much for that idea.
I'm not pre-ordering BioShock Infinite > > I made that mistake with BioShock 2 and was grossly disappointed, even though it isn't bad at all.

Really I very rarely pre-order things anymore, I used to in the PS2 days when you got something for it, I have a few statues and things that prove it, but these days the digital content that comes as a "bonus" is simply never worth it, and it's certainly not worth paying publisher dictated prices (£45 is a fucking rip off, I remember when games cost £30 brand fucking new and you got a finished product) for any of the retailer exclusive day one pre-order horseshit.

I'm also sick of "betas" which are glorified demos of buggy and unfinished games, released to the public with the promise that "we'll fix it soon", Battlefield 3 was buggy and unbalanced and the beta feedback reflected that, it got shifted out soon after anyway.

I've ceased pre-ordering on anything until I can inform myself of it's quality and value to me first, or in the case that I genuinely trust the brand and the publisher and developers. I've pre-ordered Sly: Thieves in Time because I trust Sanzaru and the media from it being out in the US already has proven to be relatively positive and has assured me that it will be good (it's also £30, which is very reasonable), and Luigi's Manion: Dark Moon, because I trust Nintendo and Miyamotos team to deliver a high quality product and not to lie to me.

Grr games industry.

Calm now.

Butter side down indeed capcha.
 

LordLundar

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Cecilthedarkknight_234 said:
can I just give one defense to pre-ordering games from gamestop?? For some one that has limited finical means such as myself, it's a way of making small down payment for a game I really do want. Say for example Nisa is going to release disgaea 4 for the ps-vita in 2014. I really like the franchise already and trust their quality for making games. This will allow me a 3-4 month period to pay off a 30-40 dollar game at full retail price with out having to scrap up all that money in one-day.
Layaways used to do that before they got largely phased out. In fact, the only difference between the two is with a layaway you were still paying in parts for something guaranteed to be there and in the expected condition instead of a promissory note that may not (and most likely will not) be true.
 

Lykosia_v1legacy

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This is a time when I'm happy that I've never pre-ordered games. I've always waited for reviews and feedback from other gamers before buying. I don't have enough money to spent on wishes.

Also, this same problem can be said about Kickstarter and other crowdfunding. It's nice that some people are trusting enough to give these people money for hopes and dreams. But I need to see the final product before I'm willing to give any of my hard earned cash.

Key thing that most people seem to forget is that these developers say and show us things about their products because they want to sell them. They're salesmen. And I've never trusted those. They don't care about you, they only care about how much they can sell.
 

4173

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Apparently Jim never frequents grocery stores, fast food restaurants or concession stand type vendors.
 

franksands

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I never preorder *anything*. As much as I can be hyped for things like Brutal Legend or The Cave ( 2 games I was completely nuts waiting for them to be launched), I always wait, see some reviews and then decide if I'll buy or not.
 

GAunderrated

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Milanezi said:
Mr Cwtchy said:
I see Jim's point, but that still isn't going to stop me from pre-ordering Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs if the opportunity arises.

Sorry if that makes me a 'moron', guys. I'll just go sit in the corner with the dunce hat.
Not at all I guess: Amnesia proved itself with the first game.
That was actually one of the points I believe Jim was trying to make is that just because the developer made one or so good games doesn't mean that they wont still screw you over with another game so don't give them your money until you can see a final product.

Borderlands 1,2, and hell even gearbox were a refreshing bunch and as for Aliens CM, everything beforehand looked so good and gearbox had a great track record so no one had ANY reason to doubt them...until they got the final product. That is the point. Stop giving companies money before they give you a product.

I'm honestly just tired of seeing all these scams like Aliens:CM, TheWarZ, and now season passes because people are just unable to even wait for the release date anymore to see if a game is good before throwing money at it.

Keep feeding the machine in the wrong way and you will soon not like how all they care about is promises and not content.

Edit: Yes I know the common counter argument is "well i've seen enough info to know I will like it" and with that I will say that information isn't enough anymore with all these scripted events and exaggerations. Wait for the final product, everyone wins. You get your great game, the developer gets money they earned, and shit like aliens:CM are less likely to happen again
 

MopBox

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I usually keep my buying habits about twelve months behind the release curve for this very reason. If you buy a game that's already a year old they're practically throwing the dlc content at you for free.
 

Catfood220

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I do preorder, mainly from sites like Amazon who don't take your money until the game actually ships and can be cancelled any time before it ships (or is about to ship). But most of the time I don't preorder until I've read 2 or 3 good reviews from trusted reviewers, which was a pain when the Ni No Kuni reviews came in and Amazon said they weren't taking any more preorders for it. This means I can get the game the day it comes out and it saves me from having to walk into GAME and have to put up with their sky high prices and pushy salesmanship. If I can't find reviews, I don't preorder and will buy it somewhere else if when the reviews come in and they are good.

There is one exception to the rule I have The Last of Us, simply because I have a strong trust in Naughty Dog that the game will be awesome.
 

abell

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This is actually an interesting problem for me. I work in finance, and a lot of my work involves trying to figure out how to move cash forward. The problem is that a producer's costs precede their revenues and cash tends to get pretty tight in those last couple of months. I would love to be able to use the preorder model in a lot of the businesses I work with, but, this model is almost totally unique to gaming. It's hard enough to actually get cash at the point of sale, let alone before it. I just find the entire method very interesting.

That aside, it has clearly been abused by the gaming industry. It's bad enough that publishers deliver broken products to their preorders (fun fact, do you know how preorders are accounted for? They're a liability on the balance sheet, usually in an account titled "cash in advance of sales," or something similar. That is, those who preorder are creditors to the publisher. I think you can make an argument that deliberate misleading advertisements, etc, represent a breach of contract with preorder custormers. Should check with an actual lawyer) The real problem I have is that the industry has attempted to force all buyers into preorders by the shitshow of artificially created release date scarcity. "There might not be any games available on the day we said you could buy it, so you better preorder and make sure you get your copy." That pisses me off way more than the sale of dlc nonsense and other tricks
 

Meatspinner

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4173 said:
Apparently Jim never frequents grocery stores, fast food restaurants or concession stand type vendors.
Redd the Sock said:
In fairness Jim, most of us do pay for our fast food before we eat it. This is true for a lot of mediums. We have to buy the book before we can read most of it. We pay in advance for the movie at the theater or buying the DVD. Hell any public show is cash up front. And this makes sense in a lot of areas, especially to a crowd you don't want to enable them to pay to their satisfaction level.
But with those you know what you are getting and those don't cost 60+ bucks
 

Reeve

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The best Jimquistions are the ones where Jim rages; and he's serious about it. Thank god for Jim.
 

ManInRed

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Imagine a world where the majority of a game's sales occurred a week after its release or later. Why it is almost as if people could buy things based on word of mouth feedback then. I guess it is only natural to hate any force trying to prevent this kind of world. From pushy pre-order packages, to every time a game discussed online is vehemently defended by people who have never played the game.

Of course the issue with "Aliens: Colonial Marines" is an easy one to avoid, don't trust and previews to a game that doesn't let lots of people play it. Even if everything shown in the demo was in the game, you still can't trust it will be a clear representation of the game. I thought we learn to stop trusting demo pictures and movies with Final Fantasy VIII. Even if consumers smarten up to some of these tricks, and folks reviewing games don't let companies get away with this, this is not going to cure the culture of gamers who are all too willing to pre-order everything. I am not sure if there is any way of changing people's attitudes, but here are some hair brain ideas:

Consumers have the power to just unanimously wait a week for a game, and put an end to this behavior.

Publishers could stop judging games by their initial sales and focus on what made games a long term hit, even without stopping their content hiding pre-order tricks. Or use that statistic monitoring on about how player play games might mean they could see when players stopped playing there games.

I hate to say this, but pirating and use games encourage publishers to feed this pre-order madness. So while I know I can't stop the practice, it might make some difference if enough people who do this form of smart shopping also found ways of getting money to the developer when it is a good game. Maybe if there is a movement of buying after release date, you could pirate on release date and buy it later if it was good. On the publisher's side I don't see a down side for having a pay after play option, even if players donate money to a game they like just to encourage a sequel or how about pay for free DLC everyone will get to enjoy. I'd like any such system if it went straight to the dev-team and not touch the publishers, as this would encourage both sides in utilizing this.

There is one type of game that does escape this behavior, and that's a game that encourages other games to be built base on it. Publishers should encourage this, from mods with their engines, to remakes, parodies or even fanfic games. As long as there is some way of monetizing it, I don't see a down side in this behavior from the publisher's point of view. And these later sales by their nature will always come in delayed waves after a well received game was released.
 

RaikuFA

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barbzilla said:
TorchofThanatos said:
I have only pre-ordered 6 games over all my years in gaming and I haven't been screwed once.
Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Halo 3, Halo ODST, Halo Reach and Halo 4 are all games that I have enjoyed and I don't regret a thing.

The problem with TB is his paranoia of the "Fans." A "fan" to him is a scary being who drags the video game industry back. An evil creature who can't be trusted and is the reason that, he feels, the industry is crap. I mean I also don't like his hatred to consoles but that is another argument.

Pre-ordering is not bad, If you like the free shit you get, do it. I don't get how being screwed on pre-ordering one game makes all of pre-ordering wrong. I get that you are angry because your game sucked but it is one game.
To answer your question at the end:
Pre-Ordering is a bad practice because it encourages sales before there is a product to sell. That in and of itself doesn't seem as terrible as all that, but it is. What we encourage by giving our money away before the game is made is allowing the publisher/developer leeway to commit acts that can skew the final product. They know the game will be successful no matter what they do at that point, so they can (if they choose to) stop production on the game you have pre-ordered and still make a profit. While it doesn't mean that is what they will do, it is something that can and has happened.
But what about localized games? The products finished all that needs to be done is translating the game. I can find the finished product on youtube to make sure I'm not lied to. Plus a lot of games I preorder are games that are on a first come first serve basis meaning if I don't pre order it, I can't be garunteed a copy down the road without paying double for just the disc/cartridge. Is preordering harder to find games bad for the industry as well?