Poll: Are pre-orders for games these days ridiculous?

[Danceofmasks]

The only reason it's ridiculous, is because you can't expect a refund if expectations aren't met.
Go to a store and buy toys, or appliances, or clothes, and you can return stuff even if you just don't like it.

If everyone could get a refund if they wanted to, companies wouldn't be pulling most of this bullshit.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Of course nobody is forcing us to preorder. The same way nobody's forcing the industry to inflate their budgets to the point where a game needs to sell several million copies just to break even.

The consumers pretty much are. Riddle me this;

Say they cut production costs down to 1/4th of what they are now by cutting back on the graphics, and the voice acting, and whatever else is needed. How are they going to sell that game? How can they justify making you pay $60 for that game, when you can go and get a game that was made with high production values (and thus has good graphics, and writing, and whatever else) at a fraction of the price from the used bin?

 

[Vegosiux]

Of course nobody is forcing us to preorder. The same way nobody's forcing the industry to inflate their budgets to the point where a game needs to sell several million copies just to break even.

The consumers pretty much are. Riddle me this;

Say they cut production costs down to 1/4th of what they are now by cutting back on the graphics, and the voice acting, and whatever else is needed. How are they going to sell that game? How can they justify making you pay $60 for that game, when you can go and get a game that was made with high production values (and thus has good graphics, and writing, and whatever else) at a fraction of the price from the used bin?

Riddle me this: If you dropped the budget to 25%, why can't you reduce the price at by half, and you're still going to get a 100% return on the investment after breaking even since your sales revenue is halved while your expenses are cut down to a quarter?

So assuming I sold exactly enough to break even as it is; then I cut down the expenses by 75%, selling the same amount of copies means that my sales revenue is double my budget even if I halved the price.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Once they appear to be cutting content for pre-orders or Day One DLC (hi ME3!) then it goes too far.

Cut concepts and gameplay modes that are not going to reach the gold deadline are accepted or rejected be me on a case by case basis. (note, how scummy the publisher (Hi EA!) or Developer reputation is precludes any sort of press release evidence).

 

[Smooth Operator]

They always were, not just for games for everything, it is simply buying shit you know nothing about.
But of course consumer lust trumps common sense so this shit is just going to keep getting worse, and Valve is pretty much the main innovator in this nonsense.

 

[Kyrian007]

I'll never pre-order again. I pre-ordered Zelda: Twilight Princess. And waited. Then they pushed back the release date. Then they made it Wii exclusive (I had pre ordered before they even announced it would be ON the Wii.) Before I just bought it for the Wii they said it would have a Gamecube release. So I continued waiting. Then they pushed back the release date...

I waited over 2 years to get a game I pre-ordered, a year after it's release on a console system it wasn't supposed to even be on when I pre-ordered it. Never again.

 

[Ickorus]

Just as a note, many would say the specs of the PS4 (and gameplay footage from it's upcoming games) are far more important than the bit of plastic wrapped around it.

Oh and Defiance has gameplay all over the place and held a beta weekend event last weekend with beta keys being handed out freely.

OT: I don't see the problem really, it's up to the people themselves if they want to blow their money on something they don't really know anything about, perhaps I can think they're silly for doing so but still, it's up to them.

That said, if a dev has a track record for good quality games (or, at least, games that you like) then I don't think supporting their next move is at all silly, it's consumer loyalty that the developer, for whatever reason, has earned.

To use an example from another entertainment medium, there is a particular author who I adore, anything she writes I will buy without a seconds thought, am I silly for doing this? I don't think so since she hasn't ever released something I've been disappointed in.

Other authors have disappointed me, however, and I choose to wait and see with their stuff.

So saying "This developer released a crappy product so all pre-orders are stupid" is like saying "This totally different author released something crappy so now I don't trust this author who has never disappointed me".

 

[King Aragorn]

I don't really see what's wrong with it. Some people do pre-order without seeing a thing, some pre-order closer to release dates, some wait for more offers to appear before pre-ordering *CE's and that kind of stuff*, and some don't pre-order at all. It's all optional, you decide.
Pre-ordering all in all is a risky thing. Sometimes, you don't even get what was shown, ACM being a good example, as the game got universally panned over things such as that.

Me pre-ordering or not really depends on the game and the people behind it.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Only pre-order if you're getting a significant discount or good bonus content. Otherwise it's the worst idea ever.

 

[DionysusSnoopy]

For an established series it does bother me less like GTA:V all the pre-order PR says its out spring 2013 still. I think its the ones when a date is not set that are annoying but that is due to my circumsatances as I tend to move around a bit so for some i'm just like i don't know where i'm going to be living so i can't pre-order. Also the preorders i get are the ones that come with additional bonus content. I tend to avoid collectors Editions unless its a series that i enjoy and the new game comes after a break. The only 2 I have are Bioshock Infinite and Halo 4. I did have the Witcher 2 but I traded that in.

In relation to consoles I will probably pre-order my next one just need to decide either PS or Xbox and currently Playstation has the upperhand as the rumours about the Xbox are discouraging (I wish they would announce) and I believe that Sony will probably have better quality exclusives this cycle. Also AC4 apparently getting exclusive content on the PS4/PS3

 

[Lilani]

This is something I've been noticing a lot with retailers these days, but recently whenever a new game gets announced with something like a teaser trailer with no gameplay footage, they immediately get put up on retailers stores for pre-order. This has happened with upcoming games such as Defiance (haven't seen any gameplay at all), Destiny (no gameplay, and from what I understand the game isn't even being released this year), and most recently the Playstation 4 (console hasn't been revealed, only specs and the controller) and Battlefield 4 (while it did show gameplay footage, this has just been shown this week, why is it up for pre-order?).

So with all this pre-order madness going on that a lot more people are picking up on, my question to the community is do you think this is all ridiculous? Do you think that the game needs to have some gameplay footage shown to justify going on pre-order? Do you think it's right to put a console on for pre-order even though the console itself hasn't been revealed? And even when gameplay footage is shown, do you think that the game should be put on a pre-order list immediately?

Whatever your opinion, as always, leave your comments below and thanks for reading.

I think DoPo hit it on the head. While yes a lot of games don't "deserve" to be pre-ordered and a lot of publishers are pushing pre-orders more than ever before, it's still ultimately the customer's decision, and if they don't know how to properly gauge what to invest their money in then perhaps they should waste some money and learn a lesson. While it's hard to know for sure what a game will be like before you play, there are usually some pretty obvious indicators to look to. Just looking at SimCity you could have guessed it was going to be a bad investment. It was built on the model that failed Diablo III, gameplay was significantly altered from the previous game, and EA still hasn't humbled itself and admitted it has a few problems when it comes to customer service and fulfilling customer desires. So there are your biggest indicators, right there: The history and reputation of the dev and publisher. Also, verdicts from beta testers, and reviews usually come out a week or two before the game actually does, which still gives you plenty of time to preorder and reap whatever benefits come with it.

The only game I've ever preordered in recent memory is Portal 2. I knew what sort of quality to expect from Valve, so went for it. And I got an awesome game for 10% off the launch price :3 I may preorder Remember Me, but I think I'm going to wait and see the reviews first. And the Double Fine Adventure and the new game from the Bastion crew will definitely be getting all of my monies as soon as they are ready to take it.

 

[Joccaren]

The fact that pre-orders are available at this time is not ridiculous. Some people will want to pre-order them now, and why stop them from doing what they want?

The fact that people pre-order such games with no knowledge about them is ridiculous. Why you're willing to put down $60+ for a game you know nothing about is beyond me. Makes no sense. If you've got gameplay footage and some reasonable amount of information on it, fine, but when you know nothing beyond the fact that it exists... No.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I don't think so. I still preorder games. Preordered Tomb Raider for $33. Preordered BioShock Infinite and Borderlands 2 because I had loved the previous games in the series. Some people say it is stupid to preorder based on that, but I find it stupid to base "your" opinion on whether to buy a game or not off a review score number or some guy with an inflated ego and a youtube account.

 

[DoPo]

I think DoPo hit it on the head.

Hey now, I think Zhukov said it better - in only three sentences. But thanks

The only game I've ever preordered in recent memory is Portal 2. I knew what sort of quality to expect from Valve, so went for it. And I got an awesome game for 10% off the launch price :3

Hey, me too! Well, I also got Worms: Revolution, however it was only because you got Worms Armageddon with it and I was actually happy to pay the pre-order price for WA alone. So worst case scenario, I got a game I want for a price I was comfortable with and something I won't play, best case - I got two good games, so it was a sweet deal. I, umm, haven't actually played Revolution, though - I tried it and I thought it was OK but I've yet to go through it more thoroughly.

 

[Phishfood]

I think anyone who pre-orders a game in the current climate is a fool. These terrible "always online" games you won't get to play on day 1 no matter what you do. Then there are fiascos like Aliens. Combine that with encouraging the crazy "buy at X and get Y exclusive thing" that is all too common and I think pre-ordering is just encouraging practises bad for the customer.

 

[Furioso]

I voted yes, but there are exceptions to everything. For example, the recent pre-order deal for Bioshock: Infinite on Steam netted you a copy of Bioshock 1, some TF2 items, AND XCOM: Enemy Unknown. I was already planning on buying XCOM, and I didn't have Bioshock 1 on steam, so even if Bioshock: Infinite had sucked (and it's awesome) I would have been pretty happy with the deal anyways.

 

[Epona]

I am and have been sick of seeing too many games advertised in stores or on Steam that aren't available. Try to imagine walking into a furniture store and half of the merchandise was simple pictures of furniture for pre-order. It's ridiculous.

 

[snekadid]

Number of times games are unbuyable because they sell out (in the digital age) = almost zero. Number of times it's important that you didn't get to play on day one (with all the patches and server crashes) = 0

Number of times stores discount the product on day one anyway = always.


There is no reason to ever preorder. It's just a silly thing to do, even for games you really like. There is basically 0 advantage to it and it allows publishers to grab your money and run

I don't know about you, but I pre ordered Infinite and am having a TON of fun and got x-com for free. Looking at everything that goes on in this game I never once got the impression the developers were running away with my money. And once I'm finished with Infinite, I get to start X-com free of charge and I got the first bioshock to give to my friend to introduce to the series.

And you can roll dice and get sixes. EDIT: Was being a dick, sorry

REEDITED: Okay so we can apply maths to this. The point is that the people who preordered Aliens Colonial Marine thought they were getting a good game too, just like you did. Just yesterday someone was describing Activision as 'stealing' because they'd bought The Walking Dead Survival before reviews came out.

So first off, did you get the standard discount on your preorder or full price?

Assuming you got the discount, XCom: Enemy Unknown is worth ?30 at the moment and Bioshock Infinite is ?30 so providing you wanted XCom, you're almost getting XCom with a Bioshock free which seems like an excellent deal.


But did you buy before or after it was clear that the preorder were going to reach the correct level? If before then you were gambling on them reaching that level, else you were stuck with a game you'd preordered taking risk of loss with no advantage to preordering. Since that % is unknowable we can't crunch the maths to tell if you were gambling with the odss in your favour or against you.

If you preordered after, then that was an exceptionally good deal and probably the one time a preorder made sense. Even if Infinite sucked it wouldn't matter because they'd given you a free game that people knew didn't suck.

The maths doesn't normally work out like that though, most preorder bonuses are really only worth ?10 tops when take into account the standard day 1 20% discount which means you need to have the odds of preordering 4 games and having none of them suck before you even break even on that deal.

In general the companies know the companies have all the data and they wouldn't offer a deal that they didn't think made more money for them than their consumers so it's like any other form of gambling. Lots of people do it and lots of people can have pleasant experiences but the odds are always adjusted so the house collectively wins. In your case congratulations on an excellent deal

I haven't preordered games in 2 years until Bioshock Infinite and that's because greenman had the best deal ever. Let's do that math, Bioshock(the first) $20, x-com is at $50, 1 free game of my choosing from 5 available(I grabbed Civ 5 because I had all the others) $30, and $15 worth of store credit for a $60 game.

60-30-15-20-50= -55, so I effectively gained $55 in value over what I paid and that's assuming the game was a complete waste.

Otherwise, yea, don't bother preordering.

I haven

 

[porous_shield]

I don't think so. I still preorder games. Preordered Tomb Raider for $33. Preordered BioShock Infinite and Borderlands 2 because I had loved the previous games in the series. Some people say it is stupid to preorder based on that, but I find it stupid to base "your" opinion on whether to buy a game or not off a review score number or some guy with an inflated ego and a youtube account.

What's wrong with basing your purchase off of someone's opinion of a game? Good reviewers back up their opinion with fact and are very though so you can get a sense of the game. Even if you don't agree with them, you can can see where they are coming from with their points. I don't think you understand what reviews are or how to use them if you're making that point.

Preordering is only worth it some of the time and it's always a gamble. The game can be absolute crap so the preorder bonus has to be substantial to make up for the fact you're buying a game sight unseen.