Why pre-purchase?

[Vexxx_]

I've been curious about this for a long time. I did pre-purchase Civ 5 way back when but it was a terrible experience. The game downloaded and then wouldn't play. It wasn't just me. It was almost universal. It took a month or so to get patched enough to work, but prior to that it was then put on sale so I got to pay more than others while I waited for it to be fixed. Other highly touted games have had many issues at launch as well, with much disappointment from people who have pre-purchased. This is not a secret. So, with so many games being offered for pre-purchase and the risk of initial problems I wonder, why do people take the risk? I decided after Civ 5 never to do it again and I've been rewarded many times for that decision because of seeing many games that I had interest in come out a mess of bugs and broken promises. So, if you would share, why do you pre-purchase?

[Ted]

Bruh... to call the GTA SA remaster simply bad is being kind.

It was over $100 here and I played it for maybe an hour between the 3 games. They somehow managed to make them look better while absolutely killing every bit of charm these games had.

So yeah, not buying remasters unless they are spectacular and even then... new games please devs!

[Layz]

good

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Escrito originalmente por ☎need4naiim☎:

They are extremely rare. But they exist.

Do you want to see a game WORTHY of a pre-purchase? Here it is:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2478970/Tomb_Raider_IIII_Remastered/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_brZq5OPggMVoxCiAx2FDgC1EAAYASAAEgIKTfD_BwE

Not since Embracer Group bought the IP, nope.

[☎need4naiim☎]

Escrito originalmente por cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Escrito originalmente por ☎need4naiim☎:

They are extremely rare. But they exist.

Do you want to see a game WORTHY of a pre-purchase? Here it is:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2478970/Tomb_Raider_IIII_Remastered/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_brZq5OPggMVoxCiAx2FDgC1EAAYASAAEgIKTfD_BwE

Not since Embracer Group bought the IP, nope.

:summerfish2023:

Is it Chinese (PRC)? As far as i remember, Embracer Group is from UK.

Edit: now that i checked, it is a company from Sweden. 🇸🇪

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Escrito originalmente por ☎need4naiim☎:

Escrito originalmente por cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Not since Embracer Group bought the IP, nope.

Is it Chinese (PRC)? As far as i remember, Embracer Group is from UK.

Country of origin has no bearing on my dislike for a company.

[Crazy Tiger]

Escrito originalmente por ☎need4naiim☎:

Escrito originalmente por cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Not since Embracer Group bought the IP, nope.

Is it Chinese (PRC)? As far as i remember, Embracer Group is from UK.

Edit: now that i checked, it is a company from Sweden. 🇸🇪

They're Swedish. It's the former THQ Nordic.

[☎need4naiim☎]

Escrito originalmente por cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Escrito originalmente por ☎need4naiim☎:

Is it Chinese (PRC)? As far as i remember, Embracer Group is from UK.

Country of origin has no bearing on my dislike for a company.

All right. What is the problem then with Embracer Group worth to take evasive action?

[J4MESOX4D]

Escrito originalmente por ☎need4naiim☎:

Escrito originalmente por cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Country of origin has no bearing on my dislike for a company.

:summercat2023:

All right. What is the problem then with Embracer Group worth to take evasive action?

They’ve be doing mass layoffs to cut costs after a deal they made with Saudi Arabia to the tune of $2bn went tits-up. They’re also sitting on a lot of iconic IP’s and aren’t doing much with them and that’s been made worse by these recent actions.

Conglomerates aren’t great for gaming especially ones that hold many dear IP’s to people.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Escrito originalmente por Ted:

Escrito originalmente por Spawn of Totoro:

One could also pre-order and wait a week for the reviews. They they could get the pre-order bonus if they decide to keep it or refund for what ever reason.

In my experience, pre-order extras are barely worth it at all and they sting even more when the game you paid out your hard earned money for is a buggy broken mess upon release. Something that happens all to often these days, sadly.

There is no benefit to the customer doing this, as Odra rightly pointed out above, it is just for shareholders and investors not you. They bribe you with junk to entice you to pay money first but people don't consider that bonus junk wont make a buggy trash game worth it either way.

The "bribe" (benefit) is what we get out of it. The extras. That skin, extra quest, ect. Also, pre-loading that some may need if they have a slow internet connection.

What I said still stands. If I plan on getting the game with in two weeks of release anyways, then I may as well pre-order for the extras, regardless if they are worth it or not. Then I can wait a week for the reviews (with out playing) and refund if it is warranted. Nothing really lost by doing so and something to gain.

Refunding would make more of a statement then delaying.

You can take advantage of how pre-orders work.

If people didn't pre-order, it wouldn't stop a game from being buggy on release, crashing, or server issues. It would be the same as it is now, just with no purchasing in advance and the loss of the benefits of doing so. The refunds after are what will cause the developer/publisher to panic.

[Ted]

Escrito originalmente por Spawn of Totoro:

Escrito originalmente por Ted:

In my experience, pre-order extras are barely worth it at all and they sting even more when the game you paid out your hard earned money for is a buggy broken mess upon release. Something that happens all to often these days, sadly.

There is no benefit to the customer doing this, as Odra rightly pointed out above, it is just for shareholders and investors not you. They bribe you with junk to entice you to pay money first but people don't consider that bonus junk wont make a buggy trash game worth it either way.

The "bribe" (benefit) is what we get out of it. The extras. That skin, extra quest, ect. Also, pre-loading that some may need if they have a slow internet connection.

What I said still stands. If I plan on getting the game with in two weeks of release anyways, then I may as well pre-order for the extras, regardless if they are worth it or not. Then I can wait a week for the reviews (with out playing) and refund if it is warranted. Nothing really lost by doing so and something to gain.

Refunding would make more of a statement then delaying.

You can take advantage of how pre-orders work.

If people didn't pre-order, it wouldn't stop a game from being buggy on release, crashing, or server issues. It would be the same as it is now, just with no purchasing in advance and the loss of the benefits of doing so. The refunds after are what will cause the developer/publisher to panic.

Even if you refund, you STILL handed over your hard earned money for a product that ultimately was not worth it. So the junk you got for giving them your money they didn't earn was not at all worth it.

Then you have to go through the process of refunding, when a bit of patience and not being wooed by junk could have saved you this. Or you could have put your money into something you already know is a finished and decent product of interest.

I never even claimed a game would not be buggy etc on release if people didn't pre-pay for them, so that is a strawman. However now you mention it, I guarantee if devs releasing buggy and broken games on release had an impact on day 1 sales, they damn well would get their **** together a lot more.

Money talks and handing over your money before you even have a digital product is not smart. Period.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Escrito originalmente por Ted:

Even if you refund, you STILL handed over your hard earned money for a product that ultimately was not worth it. So the junk you got for giving them your money they didn't earn was not at all worth it.

Then you have to go through the process of refunding, when a bit of patience and not being wooed by junk could have saved you this. Or you could have put your money into something you already know is a finished and decent product of interest.

I never even claimed a game would not be buggy etc on release if people didn't pre-pay for them, so that is a strawman. However now you mention it, I guarantee if devs releasing buggy and broken games on release had an impact on day 1 sales, they damn well would get their **** together a lot more.

Money talks and handing over your money before you even have a digital product is not smart. Period.

Worth is subjective. You don't really know if a game will ultimately be worth it or not, until you actually play it. A junk game will be junk, regardless. If one is interested in the game enough to buy on or close to release, may as well get a little extra benefit for doing so.

Not really much of a process. Click to request a refund and that is it. A new game is still a finished game. Even older, finished games, still have bugs and can crash.

Arguing not to pre-order simply because you give the developer money, isn't really much of an argument either.

Releasing a buggy game on day one happens all the time, despite how it negatively impacts developers. They still have not gotten it together. Truth is, they can't test everything or against every system. Only the worst offenders are the ones we remember.

Ever order food? You hand over money before you get it, yet that works out well. Not all food will be good when you get it, nor will the same item be the same every time. There are many times people pay for things they don't know how they will turn out in advance, often for far more then that of a game. For example, people pay to go on a vacation in advance.

Overall, pre-orders actually have extremely little impact on the end user. It is up to each if they feel the extras are worth pre-ordering for. There is no real reason to dissuade people from doing so as it doesn't really effect them in the end, other then a simple difference in opinion.

[wesnef]

For me, it depends entirely on the game. It's got to meet multiple criteria:
- will I definitely be buying the game Day 1, regardless?
- is there some meaningful bonus that I care about (like when Borderlands 2 gave you one of the character DLC free if you pre-ordered. That saved me $10)
- is the game so big that I'll want to take advantage of pre-load? (not everyone has under-1-hour download rates)
Etc, etc.

I've pre-ordered two games in the past few years, Cyberpunk and Starfield (didn't care about the pre-order bonuses there, just the pre-load). Both were good buys, I enjoyed them from day 1. I might have done one or two more, but the were Epic-first releases, so we were getting them on Steam 6-12 months afterwards, so it wasn't the same thing. /shrug


Waaay back in the day (PS1/PS2 era), I pre-ordered a heck of a lot more. Especially with niche titles (like many of the JRPGs at the time), you needed to pre-order to make sure your local shop got in enough copies. Plus, you got physical pre-order bonuses, like posters, soundtracks, collectables (I've still got my Chrono Cross deck clock, and Parasite Eve zipper charms), t-shirts, calendars, etc.

[Canadiangamer117]

Escrito originalmente por Anxiety:

Escrito originalmente por BJWyler:

Rarely, if ever, do I actually play the game on launch day, week, or month, however. There's no need to deal with the typical launch woes that come with a new release. For the most part, it's 6 months to a year before I get around to actually playing the game.

A year is a nice time gap for that. Usually the game either gets most of the initial patches, early bugs ironed out, maybe even some DLCs and definitive editions, it may even go on sale by that time... or it completely fails and gets abandoned, in which case you shouldn't have had to purchase it in the first place.

That is, if you have a desperate desire to get that New Game Smell, or just want to support the game no matter what, then more power to you, I suppose.

Or a new deck smell😉

[Dieter]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.