Jimquisition: Previewed, Preordered, Prescrewed

cthulhuspawn82

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I'm really surprised that the horribleness of Colonial Marines came as a shock to everyone. I took a quick look at it during the big advertising push shortly before its release and said "This looks like it could be crap" Maybe its because I hadn't been following it like other people, or I might just be more cynical about games until I see the reviews.

Being a FPS, there should have been no surprise when this game ending up sucking. FPS is one of those genres that is just total crap in general, and every FPS should be assumed crappy until the reviews come in, and sometimes even despite good reviews. Why someone would per-order ANY FPS on faith is beyond me.
 

jimplunder

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May 15, 2009
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I rarely pre-order games. Thanks to Steam sales, I rarely buy games at full price any more either. I kind of think pre-ordering as a concept developed out of the fact that some companies were over budget on their games and needed the cash flow to finish it, or perhaps they spent so much on one project that they needed the cash to keep working on other projects. So for me, the rare pre-order I ever did was to support the developer in creating more content, but only if it was a developer I enjoyed for a franchise that I had enjoyed. But now, I agree that the whole concept of the pre-order exists for them to essentially milk money from the consumer before they release a product because they know it's going to be a bad product ahead of time, and they just want people to buy it before they find out how bad it is. The industry has taken advantage of the consumer in that regard, but the consumer is all too happy to foot the bill. Just give it a well-known name and people will throw money at it, regardless. Or, as was pointed out, promise the world and let the people give you your money and then when you release it, apologize (or don't) for not doing what you said. Game companies are turning into politicians. During an election (or game release) promise everything to everyone, make sure you get their donations, and once you're elected, just go back on almost all of it and justify it later when you run again.

As for trusting Gearbox, you honestly thought that the makers of Borderlands and Borderlands 2 would make anything other than crap? ^_^
 

HellbirdIV

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I can't remember the last time I pre-ordered a game... Maybe Diablo III counts, when I bought the Year Pass for WoW and then had to buy Diablo III anyway because I stopped paying the Year Sub when Mists of Pandaria made me realize just how cynical Blizzard had gotten.

Looking at this video, hearing Jim's arguments, it makes me feel like we're gearing up for another "Great Video Game Crash", at least in the console market. Publishers and developers taking their customers for granted, demanding too much of them because they've gotten complacent in their get-rich-quick schemes, and an audience that's growing to despise them for it and eventually will just outright abandon them.
 

Flunk

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I haven't been into pre-orders since DNF and after Planetside 2 totally stank, I doubt I'll ever pre-order again. I'll likely buy Bioshock Infinite, after it comes out, assuming the reviews don't say it's junk.

Thanks Jim for shouting from the rooftops what I've been telling all my friends for the last few months.
 

Roman Monaghan

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Nov 20, 2010
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Moral of the story: More demos.

"Oh, but demo's decrease game saaaaales"

Yeah, if your game is fucking garbage it will, cuz people will play it and see it's shit and not buy it. Though that is a good litmus test.

Everyone, from now on, if a game doesn't have a demo come out, assume it's shit and don't buy it. If there's no demo, the developer had no faith or confidence in it's product and wants to deceive you and lie to get your money for a substandard product. This is how we will know, from now on.
 

Bill Nye the Zombie

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My policy with pre-orders isn't trust the company, or the series, but Does it look fun, and if it's part of a series, did I have fun with the other games, and if I didn't play them, what did they do with the other games. You'd have to pry my wallet from my cold, dead fingers to stop me from pre-ordering Rome: Total War 2 and Europa Universalis 4. But I get where this is coming from. I've been very lucky with my pre-orders (Fallout: New Vegas, Shogun 2: Total War, and it's expansion Fall of the Samuri), however, games like Duke Nukum have shaken my faith a little. But it would take a big game to just flop, like the aforementioned games or even Bioshock Infinite, for me to give up pre-ordering.
 

Metalrocks

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it sure sucks if you pre order something and then its crap. i had almost the same feeling for ME3 but after they have fixed the ending that made me play it again, i dint see it anymore that tragic.
i have pre ordered AC3 and no regrets at all. even when desmonds ending wasnt really good but i dint care much about him anyway.
but gearbox really lost my respects after duke nukem. dint get borderlands 2 since i dint even like the first game. i actually dont look anymore at any games with the gearbox logo on it.

now i have pre ordered tomb raider and really hope this will not be a let down. crystal seams to care about their product and customers. after all, they did postpone the game till march to make sure the game is perfect condition.
 

FoolKiller

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EHKOS said:
I like how pirates will bundle all the exclusive pre-order bonuses from ALL the stores into the download.And yeah, I don't trust Gearbox anymore, which is sad.
Agreed although my faith was hurt when they said mechromancer was the bonus for Borderlands 2 and then only after I had dropped money on it did it come out that you had to preorder it at BestBuy or Gamestop. I was very displeased with this outcome.
 

TotalerKrieger

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Nov 12, 2011
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I never really got the point of pre-orders...at all, what exactly is the benefit to me as a consumer? Some worthless doo-dad that I can probably unlock by fiddling with the console commands or that the publisher will release in a patch a few months down the road?

Seriously anyone who buys a game on blind faith or trust is a fool, as we have seen many times in the past decade even highly regarded developers can release a crappy product. I fail to understand what I assume to be a mentality where you must have a game within the hour of its release to market. Waiting even just 24 hours can often provide invaluable information which makes for a more informed purchase.

Many of the ills associated with the modern gaming industry are for the most part the fault of people who buy into this crap...less mindless behaviour on the part of the consumer base will probably reverse this "snake oil salesman" mentality which has been growing in the industry. However, when I see news stories about people camping outside fucking best buy to purchase a fucking call of duty game the very minute it is released...I really doubt people will change and this current state of affairs will continue to get worse.
 

ResonanceSD

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Why would you pre order anything without knowing a thing about it? As a consumer, that's one of the worst possible ways to spend your money. Short of giving it to a Nigerian prince who will totally give you $30 billion zillion dollars in return.
 

Arcane Azmadi

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Jan 23, 2009
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Hit the nail on the head again, Jim. It's repulsive that a game as shit as Colonial Marines is going to wind up making so much money solely because Gearbox SCAMMED so many people into preordering it by LYING to them about the fucking game! If you make a shit game, you deserve to LOSE money, not laugh all the way to the bank by abusing the trust of your customer base! Gearbox can go and fuck themselves.
 

TorchofThanatos

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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.

Imagine you have a child. You give the child a project (lets say: pulling the weeds in the garden) and tell him that when he finishes his project you will give him a new video game. The child will get out there and start working hard and fast to get the project done. He knows that you will come check his work before you give him the game, so he does a thorough job. After he is done and you check the garden, you give him his game. That is how normal business practices work. Now lets see how the pre-order theory works in the same scenario. You tell the child that if he pulls all the weeds in the garden you will give him a new video game. The child goes out and starts working hard and fast, but half way through it he calls you outside to check the garden, you see his work and think he is doing a great job. Seeing as how he is doing so well, you say "wow, wonderful job. Here is your video game kid" and you go back inside. At this point the kid has the video game in his hands, how good of a job do you think he will do on the rest of the garden...

True if the kid is good he will finish the job at the same level he started it, but we are talking about developers who have a habit of screwing their customers over. These people will not continue at the same level they started at. They will rush the rest and go play with their new toy (or your money as it were).

This is why the practice is bad.
I understand the your reason but I don't believe that would ever happen, The game can and will be shipped out early but not because of your reason. The people who make the game do not get paid depending on how well the game sells. The producers or company make more money depending on how well the game sells. So yes, the producers could push out the game early if they wanted just the pre-order sales.

That being said I don't believe that a game will suck because they got lazy because of pre-orders. They game would have sucked weather they got pre-orders or not.
I do realize that games having the option to pre-order like a year in advance could possible lead to what you were talking about but I don't believe that it would ever happen. The game would suck not matter if it was pre-ordered or not. Don't count your chickens before they hatch, is a saying that works here. No company is going to say that they are just happy with the pre-order sales and they don't want to make more money.

I get what you are saying but i don't believe that would ever happen and really Gearbox only has one good game series (Borderlands). Jim said that the company had good will. Really? All I see is a group of people doing knee jerk reaction to one game that sucked. It is like my friends pre-ordering ff13-2 and getting mad at pre-ordering because his game sucked. FF-13 sucked.

I guess I am just really careful with with my pre-orders. The only risk I took was with Halo 4 and I am having lots of fun with it. I guess the lessen is be carful pre-ordering and know it is a risk but the bane of gaming? I didn't think so
 

Dire Sloth

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Jun 23, 2012
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Pre ordering itself isn't all bad. They want to know how many people are going to want their game when it releases.
 

loa

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I never understood why you would pre-order unless you're super impatient.
The inevitable upcoming flood of DLC people who buy the "complete edition" of the game later get for free while paying less pretty much guarantees you're getting screwed over.
A donation is what pre-ordering is and I see worthier causes for that than large companies with shitty anti-consumer business practices.
 

Lord_Jaroh

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Aardvaarkman said:
Jimothy Sterling said:
I don't pay for a meal before I've eaten it.
Really?

You've never been to a fast food restaurant?
You've never been to a bistro, cafeteria or smorgasbord that has up-front payment?
You've never been to a fine dining restaurant with a large group from work (or wherever), where you order from a pre-set menu and pay up-front?
You've never been to a wedding?
You've never been to a supermarket to buy ingredients to cook your own meal?

There are countless situations where you pay for food up-front. That doesn't excuse the completely stupid practice of pre-ordering games, but it's a completely nonsensical statement.

Also, does this position also apply to the Kickstarter funding of games, Jim? That's a kind of pre-order with even less certainty, where you may not even receive any product.
What's funny about all of those things is that if you are not happy with the final "product" you can take your product back for a refund...

Kickstarter is less like a pre-order and more of an investment, however.
 

Saviordd1

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Vault101 said:
I only pre order collectors editions....whats the point otherwise?
Saviordd1 said:
Mass Effect 3 is what got me out of preordering games, this just confirms it for more people.
.
so you wouldnt have played it had you known about the ending?

I would have bought/played it regardless of how good/bad it was, the difference here being that I'd go in without any pre conceived Ideas so I oculd make up my own mind...rather than have the game "ruined" for me I'd rather ruin it myself
Yeah well its my 60 dollars that I wasted on a bad game.
 

kburns10

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Sep 10, 2012
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I LOL'd at that intro! I wasn't quite expecting that, but if any game deserves a beatdown like that, it's Aliens: Colonial Marines.
 

Morbira

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Grouchy Imp said:
I think it's fair to say that most of us have been stung by pre-orders, but I'm interested to hear Jim's take on Kickstarters - surely the 'ultimate' pre-order.

As misleading as it may have been, Gearbox's A:CM trailer gave a vague hint as to final game content. At least people who pre-ordered this game had some rather hazy idea of what they were getting. Well what of the current 'darling' of gaming, the kickstarter? Asking customers to hand over their money with no idea whatsoever of what kind of game will emerge from said process and then expecting the same customers who paid for the game's development to then pay full price (and probably a pre-order bonus) for the finished product?!

It's been said before, but I'll say it again: How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit...
See, the problem is just that. People have begun to interpret Kickstarter as a pre-order hub, when in reality it is merely a more accessible way for the average consumer to become an investor in a product or idea proposed by an entrepreneur. That's why Kickstarter had to revise its terms of service to illicitly state that supporting a Kickstarter is not the same as reserving a copy of the object or service being pitched.

In that regard, I believe Jim would probably be supportive of crowd funding, though once again, it is an entirely different animal than what the general public has misconstrued it to be. Still, who knows? The man can speak for himself, as I'm sure he will one of these days.