Don’t. Preorder. Video. Games.
The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans
Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.
At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.
Comments
149 responses to “Don’t. Preorder. Video. Games.”
Oh cool, Deus Ex is available for preorder. Thanks for the heads up Luke!
well given you have Zombie in your name it shouldn’t be a surprise you want to be a sheep to buy into stupidity
http://i.imgur.com/b5w5ZUQ.gif
Such blatant racism. I’m disappointed in you.
I am also disappointed. It is due to a lack of education.
#zombielivesmatter
#equalityforbraineaters
#dyslexiczombieseatbrian
That was rude and uncalled for. Even if you disagree with someone you shouldn’t insult them. People can have different opinions than you.
Yep looks like Luke is phoning it in again…..
Yay, incomplete game for people that don’t pre order
I didn’t know alternate skin, some soundtrack, some comic and bonus random mission is classified as incomplete game. Must be hard to please you.
All things that would be included in game as unlockables, mere years ago
It’s additional content, not removed content. They’re only made because they’re worth money, you wouldn’t have gotten them at all a few years ago because there was no incentive to spend resources making them.
Wait ’til it hits PSN/XBL in a while and the download size for the “Downloadable” content is 1MB.
Pessimistic, but probably true.
That’s demonstrably not accurate.
Please do demonstrate it then, I’m genuinely interested to see. What I described above is how it works at the companies I’ve worked at in the past.
DLC being developed pre release as a pre order bonus uses funds that should be spent on the vanilla game at release available to all. To take resources and devote them to raising funds prior to release is dishonest. Your companies were clearly wrong in their approach.
Additional resources are purchased using a different revenue stream. No funding for the base game is removed from the base game. They’re essentially different projects from a funding perspective, made separately and funded separately.
You haven’t demonstrated how this is ‘not accurate’, you’ve just made incorrect assumptions about how funding is apportioned during development.
@zombiejesus
Nah, afraid your mistaken. Unless of course you want to provide evidence for your claims. That would always be helpful. At this point your “companies I’ve worked at” is unsubstantiated. My “time spent at NASA” lead me to that conclusion. And unless your “companies I’ve worked at” are making Deus Ex Mankind Divided, its doubly meaningless.
You said you could demonstrate how my statement was inaccurate, but you haven’t yet. Let me know when you get around to it.
@zombiejesus
You made the claim, you back it up. Or at least back up your other claims to professional knowledge. Or don’t. Its the internet, its okay to be wrong.
I made a comment based on my experience, I don’t particularly care if you believe it or not. I’m not going to publicly announce my personal details so you can verify where I’ve worked in the past, especially not to someone with a chequered history here like yours.
I told you once before, choose your battles. This isn’t the right one.
@zombiejesus
If you won’t back up your claim, its quite easily dismissed. If you ever do provide evidence, maybe we can discuss the topic further.
As far as the rest of your comment goes, you really should just stick to the topic and not attack the person instead. That is specifically mentioned in the community guidelines for this site. By all means provide some form of evidence for these accusations.
http://gfycat.com/MistyBowedInganueEDIT: I assume this discussion is the battle you are referring to. Not sure what you mean about it not being the right one?
Several years ago games came with Manuals that had stories, artwork and pictures in them. Now days we’re lucky to get a pamphlet with the controls on it. I admit we now have far more complex games and better in game story telling but a lot of me misses when manuals where useful and games came with maps and notepads for writing passwords or other handy things down.
I miss those days of my mum driving me to the game shop to purchase that new N64 game I’d been saving seemingly months for and then reading the manual cover to cover on the drive back home. They don’t make ’em like they used to!
You want to talk about “removed content”? Well now they’ve removed THE RELEASE DATE and are only giving it back if enough people preorder it. “Released 4 days early”? Bullshit, what they mean is “we’ll intentionally release it 4 days late unless enough of you saps pay up”.
Their shameless greed knows NO bounds.
We know they didn’t do that because video games with retail releases always come out on Tuesday in the US and the 23rd of February is a Tuesday. So it is 4 days earlier than the scheduled release, they didn’t push the release back 4 days.
That what everyone thinks, but mere years ago, such a thing doesn’t exist.
And to add to the point, if you don’t have those preorder bonus, you can still experience the full game just fine.
It is an issue when core part of the game is part of the DLC, now that is the issue, not this.
And yet I can remember pre-ordering a special edition of Command and Conquer Tiberian Sun so I could get pre-order extras such as the awesome soundtrack…. That was released in 1999 so, hey, that’s only nearing 2 DECADES ago that pre-order bonuses existed! I get that games back then usually came with a bit extra in general, but it also was often kinda superfluous stuff anyway. The only things that feel even vaguely “new” here (ImO) are Tier 3 and Tier 5, and frankly the only one I’d be annoyed about is Tier 5 cause just release the game to everyone at the same time geez.
Plus, y’know, games are actually far more amazingly crafted nowadays… and generally cost a lot less cause you can actually shop around… I guess I’m just old cause it seems gaming is a lot more awesome nowadays than it used to be *sits on my porch*
Mechwarrior 2 had the soundtrack burned to the same disc as the game itself, you just chucked it in your CD player and skipped to track two. I was ecstatic as an eight year old when I worked that out!
Awww yeah I can remember having a few games like that… And having to make sure you skipped the data track to avoid the massive staticy-noise that played 😛
so did gta 1 & 2
Are you a marketer?
Are you an entitled gamer?
I feel I should be entitled to a complete product.
You disgust me. =P
You complete me. 😉
You bastards! 😉
Hm.
So, without the additional content is the complete game, and the game+additional content is the… what. ‘MORE complete game?’
That’s marketing bullshit. Things are complete or incomplete, not complete and extra-complete.
It’s called complete + bonus. Not complete and extra-complete. How did you even get extra-complete from?
As I already mentioned, these bonus stuff does not contribute at all to the overall progression of the game. Don’t have the soundtrack? That is fine the game doesn’t need it, it is just gonna be at the bonus section that no one ever clicks. Additional skin? Looks cool but sometimes make game scenes out of place, same as before, the game doesn’t need it. Extra in game mission to get more XP and does not contribute to the main story, not even an issue. Digital comic viewed in game under bonus section that no one ever goes to.
WOW must have been quite an incomplete game without those pre order bonus. God forbid this game from being released. No one can have the “full experience” without the soundtrack and the comic.
You are definately a marketer here to astro turf. Your posts are full of sarcasm and even outright calling me entitled. There’s no way any sane person can defend these blatant anti consumer practices.
What makes pre-order an anti consumer practice?
In what way does it impact you as a consumer to such a disadvantage that makes it you hate such a thing?
In this case of Deus Ex, pre ordering the game could potentially unlock extra skin, digital soundtrack, extra in-game mission, digital comic and 4 day early release.
If you could kindly explain which of those bonus have a negative impact that the act of providing these bonus is an anti consumer practice?
None of the bonus’ negatively impact the experience, they only improve it. Of course that’s of no comfort to the people who get a lesser version if they don’t play into the AAA scheme of collecting money from people before a product is complete, let alone known to be a good game. The best they can hope for is the “opportunity” to pay some money to the publisher down the line to unlock these bits post release in some special DLC pack.
Without pre-order’s customers are able to make informed purchasing decisions based on actual post release assessments. If a game is bad, the sales go down. If a game is broken, again the sales go down.
With pre-ordering most people are far more likely to sit on a broken or bad game after release. This is either due to simple laziness or holding onto the hope that the situation improves because the either marketing did it’s job, or due to a personal affinity for the franchise, and the user has formed some kind of emotional attachment. After all the people most likely to be caught up in the idea of missing out on “stuff” by not pre-ordering are more often than not are going to be those who have gotten hype.
This helps insulate publishers against potential flops by baiting the money out of the customer base ahead of release, the bait being small pieces of content (content that would have previously been simple un-locks) out of the game and dangling it like a piece of meat on a hook over a tiger cage.
There is legitimately no reason for the pre-order system to exist. Everything they are presenting here could be part of the base game without any additional effort. Games don’t run out of stock any more, retailers receives copies of games by the boat load and with the digital market backing it up supply outstripped real world demand long ago.
The ONLY reason this carries on is for the benefit of Publishers and Retailers, not you.
Pre-order culture is a festering, pulsating lesion on the sphincter of gaming and the onus is on the consumer to rebuke it publicly in the hope that it will finally go away.
Based on your comments, it seems that the main issue pre-order is with consumers that that is either lazy or holding onto the hope that the game will become better, avid franchise fan or those that cannot miss out. These causes publishers to exploit consumer using pre-order tactics to reel sales in.
Sounds like issue with both side but why is the blame pointed to Publishers and Retailers but not consumers as well?
Consumers need to smart up in buying games so publishers could not exploit that weakness. Publishers are doing what they can to procure sales while consumer should do what they can to get the product with satisfaction.
@letrico Can’t reply any deeper. You’re response is basically making my point, and everyone else’s point for us. You are suggesting that people wise up and don’t let themselves be exploited. This is literally the whole idea of hammering home the point that people shouldn’t pre-order.
We are trying excise the path to exploitation to the detriment of nobody bar the people who initiated this predatory practice. If pre-orders go away, everyone gets a complete product and nobody can get burned by paying for a flaming pile of garbage(even the easily taken in).
@Korwin: Not quite… pre-orders by themselves is not necessarily a *bad* thing. The same as “DLC” and whatnot.
What people need to do is to *selectively* and *intelligently* choose *when* to support it and when *not* to do it.
For example I am more than happy to preorder JRPG LE’s from Atlus, NISA and IF because they do put some effort on the packaging *and* they do great work w/ JRPGs
I would’ve also pre-ordered anything from CD Projekt Red because they over all make a premium product and continue to support their games even well after launch. There is no way in hell however I would touch any preorders from WB/EA and the like because it’s normally a cheap cash grab w/ rubbish “exclusives”
The point here is blanket “don’t do X” never helps. It ruins it for the rest of the folks who actually do genuine releases and games.
That’s ridiculously faulty logic, especially from you. If you go to buy a car and they offer you custom licence plates or a special non-standard paint job for a bit extra and you decline that offer, is your car incomplete? Of course not. The car is the base product, it’s complete as sold and you can get additional items on top for extra if you want.
Yes, and all cars were sold without extras until sometime in the 2000s, I guess?
No, the fact is, something changed in selling games a few years ago, and it was marketing.
It used to be that if content was being made, it was sold with the game, or included in the next expansion. Now it’s ‘sold’ separately, either as ‘we’ve waited long enough, we already have these assets let’s get some more money out of them’ DLC or as pre-order bonuses. Retailer exclusives.
I don’t mind the argument about day one DLC, which is the result of Devs needing to keep paying their artists while the game goes through certification and their designers are working on the next title. I appreciate that – it’s an efficient use of resources. That argument does not apply to the already-shown, already-made before the game is out pre-order bonuses. They’re custom-made just to sell pre-orders. That division of attention, that segmenting of game options is something that never used to happen.
Book or soundtrack extras are fine… they’re obviously extra to the game. But in-game assets? The question is WHY are they extras? Why are they NOT the base game? What is so special about what it took to code those assets that they weren’t included or needed to be charged more for? Because someone in marketing drew that line, and that line was based on what extra they could charge. It demolishes trust in the value of the product you’re buying. How much of a game is being developed to NOT be in the base game, now, but to inflate the total price of the game?
I’m disgusted by the drawing of that line, I don’t think it should exist. Make the game and sell it whole. If you have bits to add later, do it later, not crafted well in advance so you can show it off, then sell it separate for extra.
This is especially unforgivable when it comes to retailer mutually-exclusives, such as in Dishonored (which could conveniently be purchased for a premium several months later when the exclusivity deal was over), where your only option to experience all the content was to buy half a dozen copies from different stores.
But to delay the release date? That’s a new level of shamelessly manipulative withholding.
Sure, it’s absolutely likely that this is a stunt and the ‘required preorders’ will be reached no matter how many preorders there actually are because they get to decide what is enough, and haven’t told anyone what that is… but all that means is that at best it’s a base and deceitful gimmick to encourage participation in the ‘joy of community preorder’ by threatening an arbitrary change of availability that has absolutely no reason grounded in logistics or contracts.
For most parts I’m on your side, but I’m curious how you feel about mutually exclusive content. My biggest example would be Soul Caliber console exclusive fighters. In this example we gamers often don’t rage at the missing out of content so much as we argue “our favourite system got the better deal”.
These exclusives don’t concern me as they usually don’t impact a game noticeably. I feel a little competition is healthy and microtransactions/dlc will never go away now, they are a part of gaming life. Pre built assets as dlc (far cry 2 flamethrower, 500kb DLC in general available before or during a ‘day one update’) is despicable though.
I’m still strongly opposed. I’d want ALL of the fighters, not just particular ones.
Destiny’s a great example. I got the PS4 version of Destiny, but folks I know on the xbone were locked out of the additional strike for what seemed like the longest time and there was nothing they could do about that other than buy a PS4 and play with PSN friends instead of their XBL friends. It’s utterly unreasonable for anyone to actually go and do that, so the net result was that while my friends and I were grumbling about the ridiculously small heroic strike playlist, these guys were experiencing the ridiculously small -1 strike playlist. It’s manipulative – you want to play these things when they’re fresh, not later when you’re done and the game is trying to get your attention back.
Where it shit me most was with Dishonored, though. A bunch of really cool bonuses, ALL of which I wanted, dictating where you bought the game. It was later all released as DLC, which to my mind is actually better than the retailer-locking.
Plenty of companies still release expansions, they just label them as DLC these days because that’s what it is – you don’t go to your game shop and buy a physical expansion pack for games any more.
The assets are extra and not in the base game because they cost resources to make. The resources they assign to the main game make the content of the main game, and that’s paid for with the game’s retail price. The resources assigned to additional content make that content, and that’s paid for through different channels.
Of course there’s a line drawn, but it’s not by marketing, it’s by project leads. Any game, whether it sells additional content or not, draws that line. If they didn’t, games would never be released. Yes, these particular ones are made to help push preorders, but if they weren’t made for that reason, they wouldn’t be made at all. You’re not having content cut from the base game, you’re getting additional content that wouldn’t have been made otherwise. If you don’t want it, don’t get it, but you haven’t lost anything you were otherwise going to get by it happening.
The release date is meaningless and the 4 day early release is equally as meaningless. You don’t gain or lose anything from it, it’s just a number on a sheet.
Vendor exclusives are a separate issue that I don’t agree with, but this article isn’t about that, it’s about the preorder bonuses listed in the image.
Expansion packs used to be made well after release and typically reached a consensus on how much added content or value they represented for the consumer.
DLC may be the delivery method of expansion packs now, but as this article demonstrates: it covers a lot more variety of product to sell, all varying in quality and value.
Now we have this content of questionable value being made and sold well before the games release, so it doesn’t compare to expansion packs at all. It’s a relatively new way of doing things by comparison; it forces consumers to re-evaluate the value of their purchase in ways they never had to before.
I’ve heard this rationale so many times and it’s just baseless speculation. While the same can be said for our lamentations of ‘incomplete games’, at least we’ve the benefit of hindsight: games indeed used to come feature complete in comparison to some modern games today; some games today indeed have content that when held up to scrutiny, we deliberately portioned out for separate sale.
Of course the marketing dept. is involved those ‘project leads’ you mention aren’t the design directors, or the art leads, or the game directors. At best they’re producers, but you can’t get away with setting up specific pre-order bonuses without months of planning what you’re going to sell and how and you need marketing for that. To say “it wouldn’t exist if they didn’t!” is pure speculation as each game and its product plan is unique to that project. There’s just no way to know what would have or have not been made until it’s for sale.
And paying for release is not meaningless, they intend to make lots of money using this strategy and if it works then more companies will do it – proving that you can get these suckers of customers to pay for anything.
Sure, I’ll grant that it’s speculation to the extent that that’s how it worked in the game studios I worked for or with in the past and what I heard from colleagues about places they used to work at, and I’m making an educated guess that other companies work the same way. The counter-argument is also speculation, there’s no actual first-hand evidence available here. I don’t think it’s fair to characterise my comments as baseless speculation though, I made them based on experience.
When I say the date is meaningless, it’s because it doesn’t change anything of any importance. Regardless of when it happens, the game still releases and it still contains the same things. It doesn’t matter for consumers one way or the other and it’s really unlikely any customers care enough about that particular bonus to preorder because of it when they otherwise wouldn’t have so I don’t expect it to benefit the publisher either. What it looks like to me is them saying ‘well we’re out of ideas and/or content budget so let’s just tag something useless on the end so it rounds out to 5 tiers’.
@zombiejesus
Well I was unaware of your experiences so I respect that they’re not just speculation. However I don’t know if you can be specific about them and I’m going to guess that you cannot.
Which is unfortunate because that still puts your argument on the back-foot. The consumer experience is very one-sided: if they buy something and it’s a lemon, well too late. All their experiences they can go into nice detail and looking back we can all see what has changed.
When I say the release date bonus is troubling, it’s not because it actually affects the product, just that it affects value. I certainly don’t want publishers treating customers with this ever deceasing lack of respect, that this is something worth customers money. If they’re all out of ideas, then they should stop while they’re ahead.
I understand what you mean about the release date and value, I just think it’s negligible even from the publisher’s perspective. Only time will really tell on that one, that’s just my instinct.
I try not to say anything specific as far as my past work goes. I don’t work in games any more but I’m still a developer. Unfortunately the games industry is often brutal for employees and business software really does pay a lot more. I will say that one place I worked was BigWorld before they were bought out by Wargaming.
Attack the argument, not the poster.
And your analogy is severely incorrect.
I did attack the argument, and my comment ‘especially coming from you’ wasn’t an attack, it was an observation.
Would you like to elaborate on why you think the analogy is incorrect?
Further discussion prevented by moderators.
You’ve just used the iwin button.
Sorry? What are you accusing me of doing exactly?
‘especially for you’ is a compliment (sort of).
‘even for you’ would be an insult. 🙂
Right. It’s because you have a history of decent logic (even if I disagree with the conclusion) that this particular argument was surprising. Wasn’t intended as an attack but my apologies regardless.
No, I dig the mutual respect thing. The initial barb was just a weak and glib throw-away, but I do fundamentally disagree (morally) with the concept of game asset ‘extras’ to be ‘sold separately’ when they’re designed at the same time as the rest of the game. There’s no reason except marketing to sell them separately, and I have a strong objection to that.
Like I said, I don’t mind the stuff they design after the thing’s gone gold and been sent away for the next few months of publisher wrangling, but portioning off things separately for no reason other than to sell them separately? There’s no good reason for that that isn’t grounded firmly in marketing.
‘Especially for you’ is an incredibly bad Jason Donovan song that I didn’t need to be reminded of
A mission that is finished prior to release and potentially involves story elements? It would be a scumbag move if they put that behind DLC, let alone when it’s pre-order exclusive.
No, this sort of thing shouldn’t happen. The soundtrack and art book I don’t mind so much (although if I were to pre-order it I would be very annoyed that I wouldn’t even get both the art book and soundtrack as they’re on the same tier), but a mission is a pretty bad move.
Oh boy! If I pre-order I can play it 4 days early? Awesome! Better pre-order a few copies just to make sure everybody can get it early as well.
Write. A. Real. Article. Luke
That’s the preorder DLC.
But only if you subscribe to the season pass first.
To be fair to him in this case, he did link to a real article that he wrote on this very topic. There’s not a lot of point in re-treading the same ground with another, but it is worth reminding people because this pre-order malarkey is total BS.
He links to a pretty complete article he already had written. Why repost the same text again?
Luke is butthurt about companies finding way to give incentives to preorder game. Besides, Deux Ex is a solid title and major improvement has been listed from the first game. put $10/$30 down to preorder and cancel if needed.
I really wouldn’t describe this as “butthurt”. The current pre-order culture is terrible and unnecessary. It does not benefit the consumer in any way.
Not really. Preorder has always been the same. Just people are getting dumber to not cancel their preorder when they notice something is wrong, like game embargo was lifting on the same day of release, unconfirmed specification/last minute specification changes.
Those are red flags that people should watch out for.
Sure, but pre-ordering used to make sense. Your local store only got X copies of a game at launch, so you put your name down to make sure you got one.
Scarcity is not an issue these days (at least for digital copies), and pre-ordering is only providing benefit to the publishers.
How did you come to the theory that pre-ordering is only providing benefit to the publishers?
You drop a preorder -> cancel the preorder before release -> Publisher prints more based on preorder number given by retailers but lost a sale – >They lose money
Preorder does not benefit publishers at all, thus they keep trying to bring out preorder bonus to get guaranteed sales.
Preordering is fine, purchasing a broken game is not fine.
> Preorder does not benefit publishers at all, thus they keep
> trying to bring out preorder bonus to get guaranteed sales.
Huh?
That preorder copy will likely be sold by the retailer eventually anyway. The publisher won’t lose by it. Most preorder bonuses are basically nonphysical; providing extra copies costs at most a few cents. Even if the game is broken, some people will not cancel; those are extra sales, extra money in the bank.
Fundamentally, the publishers wouldn’t provide this sort of bonus if there wasn’t an advantage for them. There are several advantages (better marketing, sale of some copies that would otherwise not be sold if the game were broken) which is why they push preorders.
That is probably why you do not know how pre order works.
You put a preorder -> retailer take note of the preorder number and order stock from supplier -> at certainly interval, retailer gather the unsold stock and return back to the supplier -> supplier then goes back to the publisher.
Fundamentally, publishers try to push sales with pre order bonus but if no one purchases the game in the end, it is still a loss
Selling 1m stock to publisher does not guarantee 1m copies sold. If the game only sold 100k copies, the rest of the 900k goes back to the supplier which then goes back to the publisher as a loss.
They certainly do not benefit from the pre order. It is just a gauge of interest that could potentially project the sales figure estimation.
And how is that by any chance publisher’s fault when it is people’s stupid decision to not cancel? We can’t just put blames on publisher just because people keep buying the broken game to support them.
“You don’t even know what a write-off is.”
“They do, and they’re the ones writing it off.”
How does that work with digital downloads?
They get the money up front… which funds development… hell, they could just stick that money in the bank and let it accrue interest – regardless, they benefit from each and every pre-ordered dollar.
@cffndncr
That is why refund exist in pre order. Sure they take the money up front, but at the same time you are in control of your money. If the gameplay they present to you was disappointing, just cancel it and get your money back. Sure you might miss out maybe .10 cents of interest over the course of one year. But I doubt anyone would put $60-70 waiting for interest in bank.
@cffndncr The publisher and the developer don’t get the money up front, the retailer does. Preorders are a retail mechanism and publishers cooperate because the big retailers are kingmakers when it comes to whether they’ll stock your game or not. That money doesn’t get to the publisher (and then later to the developer) until the units ship and the retailers are billed.
I didn’t say it was the publisher’s “fault”. I was disputing your claim that the publisher does not benefit. The publisher benefits from increased sales; preorders increase sales; ergo the publisher benefits. It’s a solid bet that even if the game is a poor one, some of those preorders will result in sales that would not have occurred if bought later rather than earlier.
I don’t “blame” publishers for wanting to make money. That’s their business. But those bundles are offered for preorders because they expect to increase sales thereby, not because their sales managers are nice people who like to do nice things.
If the publisher doesn’t to benefit from increased sales, they need to get into another business.
If the publisher is offering extra stuff for preorders without expectation of increased sales… they STILL probably need to get into another business.
Look at titles like Watchmen or The Order: 1886, or Assassin’s Creed: Unity. Games massively hyped before release, undoubtedly widely preordered, which disappointed fans massively. Are you trying to say that every preorder was cancelled? If so there’s a bridge I can sell you…
There are a lot of other negative side effects. Probably the biggest being that chains like EB and JB use pre-order bonuses to muscle out the competition. It’s pretty hard for an independent store to compete when the major stores were selling the game twelve months earlier with content that parent companies in the US discussed distribution of before the game was even announced. It’s why EB will take a pre-order on literally anything. If you put down $10 on a rumored SEGA console the worst case scenario is that they eventually refund you, best case scenario they secured your business before the competition had the chance.
So to be clear. In your mind the problem is that people are letting themselves be exploited through the pre-order/marketing system. Not that the companies are actively trying to exploit the user base in the first place?
For me, there is nothing wrong with publishers making pre-order bonus to get sales and consumer to pre-order to “support” (for the lack of better word) publisher and to get the bonus.
It is a one to one relationship where both benefit from that action, unless of course if the game is broken then it is unfair for the consumer but consumer is protected by different things, such as game returns and refunds. Unhappy consumer can get a refund from the purchase rather easily.
I am quite confused to how people constantly says that consumer is victim and how pre-order program is an act of anti-consumer.
Given the idea scenario, publisher gives pre-order bonus, consumer pre-order for the bonus, game releases and plays without issue. That is certainly nothing wrong with that flow and relationship.
In this case, the pre-order bonuses are nothing much and purely cosmetic but if the case that pre-order bonus includes core part of the game, I will go on an outrage as well.
I would say, keep the hate for those that deserve the hate. Deus Ex pre-order bonus is nothing to get mad about and it is safe to pre-order if you wish. Not to mention if you are unhappy, just refund or cancel the pre-order hassle free.
A solid title? Last time I checked it wasn’t even out yet, do you have a time machine (and can I borrow it for a while)?
Assuming the answer is no, why are you encouraging people to ‘put $10/$30 down’ on something you’ve never even tried? Nevermind the time machine, can I have $10/$30 right now? I’ll give you something great for it in a few months (I promise, really) but then it’ll cost a bit more (and might actually be complete crap, or simply not work… lol Batman).
You probably have not played many games before, not sure why are you hanging around here but that is fine if you want to troll around.
Do I look like I’m asking you to pay if you can’t afford it? In case you completely misread my statement, you can cancel and preorder anytime to get back your money. Good point bringing batman, everyone was refunded their money if they wished.
Not sure if you are just plain ignorant or does not know how pre order works. Probably best if google and read around before writing a dumb reply.
What? I never said anything about affordability or said anything ‘trolly’ was just pointing out how silly it is to encourage others to pre-order.
Apart from dodging the issue, you never explained any reason why someone should pre-order. Price? No lol. Reserve a copy? Not really needed anymore. Bonuses? Ah, stuff that should be included anyway..
Sorry but I have played games and I have ‘read around,’ I think you’re the ignorant one here. The pre-order culture is detrimental to games in general. Eg. Dragon ball Xenoverse had an entire playable character locked into pre-orders, Forza 6 has about 6 different ‘retailer exclusive’ cars as pre-order DLC (not available post-launch) meaning you need to buy the game 3-4 times+ get the DLC pass for all cars.
I’ve explain plenty of times, just that you think my point was invalid because bonuses were “supposed to be included anyway”. Then who on earth would preorder anymore?
I have never stray from my point being discussion of Deus Ex preorder bonus, Not talking about other games here.
Let’s stick to the main point of the discussion shall we. Tell me what is wrong with preordeing Deus Ex.
How would someone know whether the game is solid at this point in time? No one has seen the final game yet. There are other games that seemed solid from pre-release footage and came from established studios, but still ended up having big problems on launch (Assassin’s Creed Unity and Batman Arkham Knight on PC to name a few).
All pre-ordering does is tell the publisher that you’ll buy a game based on the name alone before it is possible to know the contents. It’s not as if there is a shortage of copies of most of these games on launch (especially when you factor in digital distribution), so why exactly should you put down $30 now?
Letrico, I have to question anyone’s judgement when they refer to Deus Ex as a ‘solid title’, despite the acting in the series being some of the worst in gaming history (seriously, it makes Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus look like a quality thespian adventure!).
Really? What makes you hate Deus Ex so much? Well not mentioning the earlier titles since the new Deus Ex is the sequel for Human Revolution. In terms of gameplay, HR was pretty decent as a reboot classic. People complaint about the boss fights making them unable to play without killing but I have no issue with that since I uses MGS as my stealth benchmark.
I’m interested in why you hate the game so much too. Care to elaborate?
Or, how about we DON’T preorder and instead encourage developers/ publishers to just make the best product possible and then sell it for a single price.
It’s not 1994 anymore, they aren’t going to have trouble manufacturing enough cartridges to meet demand, the preorder culture has zero benefit for the consumer. Is the game going to be perfect? Of course not, but whatever flaws it has could be worked on during the time they spent on the “bonus” mission that intelligent people won’t get to play.
It’s all just a scam. Don’t get super pissed off about it if you don’t want, but as a consumer there’s no need to excuse or support publishers who do this kind of thing.
Also you should grow up.
Perfectly fine by me if you don’t pre-order. I’m not telling people to pre-order or not to pre-order. I’m telling people it is perfectly fine to pre-order and nothing wrong if you want to do it. Why would you be judgemental and judge people or forcing others to follow your action?
As a consumer, I pay for what I want. I can pre-order now and cancel later on if they present the gameplay.
How is pre-order a scam?
Please do not tell others to grow up when you responded so immaturely. It just backfires to yourself.
The scam is not the act of pre-orerding itself. Its the factors surrounding it:
Bonuses of questionable value.
Exclusively lock-downs forcing pre-orders to certain vendors.
Manipulative marketing.
Pre-order ‘culture’.
Artificial scarcity.
While there’s plenty of intellectual argument about why ever “paying for something before you can have it” is either good or bad, I’m sure most people have nothing against the basic transaction of “making a kind-of early lay-buy.”
What we’re against is what it’s turned into.
I’ll preorder 3 copies because you can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my dad.
So what’s this article telling us with Deus Ex the more pre orders the more content we get?
Some more info would be good…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Vx4_prmvo the fair and reasonable total biscuit sums it up perfectly
Oddly enough that link is to a huge article he wrote on the subject. It’s worth reading.
5 Articles below this, sexy Ryu skin when you Pre-order.
This! I approve of beards. Needs more beard. Also, lumbersexual.
You’re not my supervisor
Don’t Do What Donny Don’t Does
Still gonna preorder KH3
Yeah sure make it even harder for decent games to be produced because publishing companies don’t see presale numbers and therefore don’t fund talented development needs the way they need to. Make it harder for people to buy the games they want because retailers don’t know what numbers to order. We’ll all be happy with only COD and FIFA on store shelves, right?
Some people like to preorder games. I like to preorder because I get excited about games, and there’s always a handy reminder that something’s about come out. It also means I can pay off bits and pieces in advance. Plus, if I decide down the track that a game might not be worth my time and money – I can just cancel my preorder! Such wizardry!
Basing dev studio funding on how many preorders marketing can generate out of their upcoming title is the worst possible reason to create a game that I can think of, and is a prime reason to discourage preordering behaviour.
Yep. A lot of people want Call of Duty! Make more Medal of Honor!
There, I fixed it for you 😉
Seriously none of those reasons are good reasons to give someone else your money.
You have to give someone else your money because you can’t save for yourself?
You give people money because you’re excited?
There’s a damn good reason why publishers push so hard for pre-orders and that’s because there’s a financial benefit to them. That benefit comes at an expense though, it comes at YOUR EXPENSE.
It’s because they know that you’ll give them money because you’re “excited”, it’s because they know that once you’ve paid for most of it in increments that you’re more likely to complete the purchase of a game which you may not otherwise buy and it’s because they’re happier holding on to your money than letting you do it.
Unless things are genuinely going to sell out (which shouldn’t happen to any software anymore) then there’s no way in hell you should preorder anything, and nor should you be expected to.
First of all, I’m not saying the whole practice of preorders is a good thing – I’m just saying it exists and there is obviously a market for it because publishers keep pushing them. I’m saying there are people out there (myself included) that are well aware that it’s (most of the time) a pretty shitty way of doing things – but still enjoy the culture of hype.
Preorders shouldn’t matter as much to the industry as they do but the fact is, they do. Vote with your wallets and all that but the notion works both ways – the market responds to the consumers so preorders aren’t going anywhere any time soon.
Until that changes I’m going to keep my preorders for Disgaea (because without my order my local store wouldn’t be getting stock), Project Zero Limited Edition (because I’m happy we’re even getting a local physical release unlike the US and I want that to continue) and my Shovel Knight amiibo (because every store is getting only 4 or something crazy!).
By the time stuff has a release date and preorder options, the funding is long in place. “COD and FIFA” type games are the only things I’ve ever gotten the EB preorder sales pitch for.
Reserving a copy – great.
Generic crap ‘bonuses’ they whipped up on the side, to trick people into buying early before bad reviews or store sales kick in – not so great.
[DATA EXPUNGED]
I have always found it a bit perplexing for those that spew “do not pre-order” and then go out and buy the game day one, what’s the difference one day makes?
Click the statement to see an elaboration 🙂
Read the article he linked to, which is his own article answering that very question [from a few months back]
@badger @edenist
Fair enough, half the time the links at the end of Plunkett “articles” just links back to the same page.
While I don’t particularly care for what they’re offering here I’ll at least give them credit for trying to make pre-orders better (or at least more interesting). It’s not incredibly inspired, they’re just ripping off Kickstarter stretch goals, but it’s something. I mean a big part of the anti-pre-order movement is that it encourages them to release buggy crap and that they bait people in with exclusive content that amounts to a Happy Meal toy and a sucky art book, and those are totally valid complaints, but if publishers start improving pre-orders and tackle those problems that’s a better solution than simply boycotting pre-orders until publishers give in and go back to what worked 20 years ago.
It’s a bit naive to think it’ll happen, but if good pre-orders address the many issues with the system and become the standard it could make games with crappy pre-orders look bad and force publishers to raise their game. In that scenario everybody wins. Gamers get pre-order bonuses that are actually worth their time and publishers get what they want. Right now pre-orders suck but it’s mostly due to the publishers trying to min-max the deal in their favour. In theory all it will take is a few people proving that correcting that imbalance results in a better reception which leads to improved profits.
Exclusive to EB Games!*
(*In Metro areas and for store managers third cousins only.)
I approve of this reminder.
I literally just pre ordered the Uncharted 4 collectors edition. I understand why pre ordering can be bad but if I didn’t pre order games I wouldn’t have a sweet Fallout 4 pip boy edition heading my way in November.
Pre ordering is a must for collectors editions that are going to be scarce.
I think collectors editions are the only exception to the rule because there is a limited number of them. There is no limit to the amount of steam download copies.
Yeah, exactly this. There are only 2 reasons I pre-order.
1. Collectors Editions (ones I want are few and far between, GTA V on 360 was the last one I bought).
2. Every now and again a game is coming out that I know I’ll never sell/trade and I’m super keen to play it day 1. These games I wait till the week of release, buy it digitally so I can pre-load and play it the moment it unlocks.
Four sentences in the title… one would think that would make it a long title however in this case there are a few too many periods.
Given preorders can be refunded with no issue (aside from the psych 101 confirmation bias and being more likely to go through with the purchase), my only real problem is with the early access. Good luck to anyone who wants to wait for reviews but doesn’t want the game spoiled for them. In this day and age, it’s hard enough to do even when it’s only reviewers (and the occasional regional fan finding a store breaking street date) that get early access, let alone what happens when half the fanbase gets their hands on it four days early.
“Preorder or you’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of avoiding spoilers.”
Unless the “4 days early” thing is moving the actual release date, and not another “preorder bonus,” which is a little unclear.
By preordering you’re showing extra interest and giving the publisher/developer a bit of extra money prior to release. I don’t think anybody can disagree with that. The question is what do the publisher/developer do with preordering. If there are a known, finite limited number of people who will buy the game, then yes, preordering reduces incentive to make a good game, because there are only 10 000 people who will buy the game at one stage or another. I doubt this is the case, as things like good word of mouth seem to be a huge factor on whether a game is successful, meaning that there is a huge potential range of possible buyers.
I think it’s important to bear in mind there is two main reasons a game sucks. One is poor design (ie, thief) the other is the game is unfinished/buggy usually due to running out of money (ie the latest batman game) (of course, it could be both). No amount of Preordering will save a shit design. But Preordering could be similar to kickstarting a game, giving funds and additional incentive to improve the game further before release, in order to make even more sales. I wouldn’t be surprised if publishers gage the interest (including preordering) to determine how much they should do to support a game prior to release.
Not that I’m saying this is always the case, it’s a question of how optimistic you are about the publisher and developer. But bear in mind, with steam and other digital vendors offering refunds, I doubt publishers are going to be as willing to take preorders for granted.
I preordered Max, not for the bonus but because I was going to buy it anyway. Had money wasting away in my account, this way I can play it tonight without having to try and get to a store during business hours. Preloaded and ready to go.
Still think games should include a season pass for those that buy in the first month at full retail rather than wait for a discount or bundle a few years later.
It’s a waste of your money. EB is basically acting in their own interests. (Yeah I get that they have a business to run)
NEW SEGA CONSOLE COMING IN 2018. PRE ORDER NOW!!
DON’T DELAY, ACT NOW, SUPPLIES ARE RUNNING OUT!
*EB will hold your money and make interest on it until it needs to be moved on, just like gift cards!*
Yay for capitalism! But hey if you want that cheaply made dust collector go right ahead!
Jim Sterling rant on this. I agree with him to be honest.
Jim Sterling is always the voice of reason. I laughed at this particular example.
WHY THE HELL NOT LUKE!?
But seriously, I only preorder if there’s a collectors edition I really want. Most sell out, so if there’s some trinket I want for my man-cave shelf I’ll take this route.
Don’t bother :P. From what I find out above, majority of users are anti pre-order without knowing the reason why, just following the masses. Not to mention a certain someone get pretty upset about missing out on content that was exclusive to pre-order only so he developed great hate towards pre-order, and upset at the same time since he will keep missing out.
Always pre-order a collector’s edition if you really like it. There is literally no loss in doing so since you can just cancel the pre-order and take back the money when you change your mind.
*high five’s all-round*
So apparently nobody knows why they don’t like pre-orders unless they have a reason you agree with?
Again with the pre-order bashing?
Seriously it costs between $0 and $10 to pre-order, you can then price match on pickup, or you can return the game later and keep the pre-order content.
There is nothing wrong with pre-ordering.
Shh…. People does not know how pre-order works. They think pre-order is paying full money up front and they can’t take back the money when they cancel/return.
While it is illegal, many stores (not just games) keep the deposit if you cancel on a pre-order (because they’re conflating a pre-order with a special order).
@Letrico (couldn’t reply to earlier comment… boo!)
But where is the benefit for the consumer? Sure, for me as an individual I don’t miss out on too much interest, but with lots of preorders the interest starts to add up for the publisher.
My gripe is… instead of the money (regardless of the amount) sitting in my bank account, working for me, it’s sitting in the publishers account, working for them. Sure, I can take the money back when I want, but between the payment and the cancellation, the publisher benefits and I don’t.
You are right, in terms of interests over the course of time, it will definitely benefit the publisher only. But how else would a publisher earn money to sustain their business?
Business and consumer are completely different, a business must find way to get money to sustain their operation. Consumer just pays and wait for the item to be delivered. Comparing the risks involved, consumer have no risk except if the game is broken on release, which as a consumer you are protected to such event and could get a refund. Businesses have no protection, once you take your money away, sure they get to keep the interest, but it is still a massive loss.
It would be unfair to treat publisher the same as consumer. If no one pre-order games anymore, I doubt the whole gaming industry could stay alive.
A couple of things.
1. Pre-orders are a relatively recent phenomenon, and the games industry got by just fine before they existed. I think this is the crux of alot of peoples’ dislike of preorders – they are inherently just a way to charge consumers for a game 6 months before the game actually comes out, which never used to be a thing.
2. I get that it benefits the publisher / retailer / whatever to get preorders… but where is the benefit for the consumer? You are asking me to essentially pay up front for something you won’t give me for another 6 months. This isn’t a Kickstarter, where if you don’t get my funds then the game won’t happen.
3.
Hardly. Particularly for digital downloads, with in-game-only preorder content (like DE:MD). There is literally no loss to the company if you cancel the pre-order. They simply don’t have to give it to you, and still get to keep whatever interest they earned on your money in the meantime.
Look, here’s what I think this whole debate boils down to. Pre-orders used to have a place in the game retailing space – retailers needed to know how much stock to order, we got some neat physical benefits to go with it no harm no foul. However, now that we have transitioned to digital games, which are downloaded, and come with digital-only preorder bonuses… it’s an antiquated concept that it being milked by retailers and publishers to get some cash up front for little to no benefit to the consumer.
And yes, you can cancel your pre-order at any time… but what’s the point of doing it in the first place?
As you said, pre-order bonus and the likes are quite new in the market. The reason why it come into existence is because of the reason you mentioned in (2). They do notice that there is no incentive in pre-ordering thus trying to give benefit/bonus to people that pre-order with those bonuses.
For (3) they do have losses, the lost a sale. To you it might feel like it’s just a CD-Key, so no loss if they did not give it to you since they can give someone else and there is infinite number of cd-key they can generate for digital sales. Yes you are right that it is just a cd-key but each copy sold is the money they earn to recoup from the development of the game. It is almost free to generate the cd-key but these keys have value. Each copy is some developer’s salary and the amount of copies sold will determine if the company can continue operate or cutting staff.
In the end it is just whether you want to put the money up front for some bonus from the publisher or wait until it goes on sale. I would try to support publishers that deserve support. It is not like games are not affordable. One less coffee for week and you could pre-order a physical copy.
If no one is willing to pay and wait for the game to go on sale, which company will continue developing games?
The big problem is games-as-a-business and not games-as-art. Hell, Squenix investors have been very vocal about asking how they can get more return on their investment earlier in the development cycle, because the concept of spending three years sinking money into something that won’t earn money until it ships is a super unattractive concept for investors.
The flip to that is they’re asking customers to pay for something that isn’t finished and no-one actually knows if it’s any good. They’re not buying the game, they’re buying brand and marketing and hope and dreams and other fluffy unreal things, which are a lot easier to sell without necessarily actually delivering.
If I have to choose between what’s a bad deal for customers and what’s a bad deal for investors, I choose what’s better for customers.
Pre-orders, by and large, don’t get cancelled (with notable exceptions like the xbone, which was likely solely responsible for Microsoft’s massive backflip on the online-only anti-trading DRM). It’s too much effort. So any money Publishers can get from the pre-order crowd is pretty much money in the bank.
I’m strongly opposed to this. I want publishers to be selling games, not dreams. I want their sales to be based on the strength of the developers, not the strength of their marketing team. Because the end-result of rewarding marketing over development is that they pay more attention to marketing over development. Which is exactly what HAS happened in the last 5-10 years and it’s bad.
We’ve gone from pre-release trailers having ‘This is in-development footage, not indicative of the final product’ disclaimers not being a plea not to judge the game unfairly harshly because it’s not finished, but as a side-mouthed warning that the final game actually won’t and can’t ever look as good as what they’re showing now. This is NOT an improved state of affairs.
Edit: And to answer your question: PEOPLE WHO LOVE GAMES will continue developing games, which is as it should be. Developers will always be making great games because it’s what they love. And when they make a shit-tonne of money from doing what they love, business will come sniffing around their heels again because they are pathologically incapable of leaving large quantities of money in the hands of creators. And we will come full circle. Do not try to play off the idea of publishers needing to be exploitative or manipulative to make money as being good for gaming. It is not. It is good for publishers. The games will still get made.
You seem to have missed my point. We are talking about the difference between pre-ordering and buying the game on release. Both of these give the same amount of revenue to the publisher, just at different points in time. Yes, sales determine the games success, but not pre-orders vs. post-launch orders.
We aren’t talking about people not buying the game at all… just not pre-ordering it. This would be a pretty crappy gaming site if the journos were saying not to buy video games. However, preordering has become a cash-generation strategy. Throw in a bunch of cheap-to-develop extras, get people forking out the cash 6 months early, and rake in those sweet, sweet interest payments. It’s all about moving the revenue stream to pre-launch. Why wait for launch when we can make money now?
Don’t get me wrong… I am happy to back indie studios who want to crowdfund their games (which is effectively pre-ordering, no?). These guys need your support to make the game. Ubisoft? Not so much.
So what should I do if I want the collectors edition? I want that steel book cover and figure but don’t want to support the pre-order orientated industry.
Well then you’re screwed!
I remember when we could all have our cake and eat it too! I mean sure pre-ordering was kinda good in the early 90s when gaming was just too niche and short supply runs were common.
Then games got popular. Early 2000s if you wanted that special edition? Well everybody’s buying games now, plenty of copies and if we’re fresh out, look at these reasonably priced second-hand ones!
Then games got reeaaaally popular. Now people pay anything to get their hands on the extremely rare editions, never discounted, scalpers charge that special extra. Pre-order is the best way! The only way….
My general opinion on pre-orders is that if a pre-order comes with something that you feel is worth whatever the additional cost is then you should pre-order it. If not, don’t pre-order it and pay a reasonable price for the game instead.
Pre-orders don’t have to be some evil marketing trick. You DO have the self control to NOT pre-order games. Sometimes the little extras that are included in pre-orders are things like a soundtrack or a figurine, and those can be nice for collectors. I’m sure all the people that ordered the Fallout 4 collector’s edition will be happy with their Pip-Boys, and those are something that wouldn’t otherwise be available for purchase. Is it bad that people had the option to order them? And most importantly, did it hurt the people who didn’t order them but still want to play Fallout 4? No, it didn’t. If there is some in-game bonus for pre-orders then it’s usually either some little unnecessary cosmetic thing, or a 15 minute side-quest that will either be out as DLC for a dollar or two sooner or later or you can watch someone else play it on YouTube and get essentially the same experience for nothing.
If you don’t pre-order a game you can still buy and play the damn game when it comes out. Until developers start expecting you to pre-order games to get a necessary component for the game to be completed you just need to decide for yourself if it’s worth your money before you know exactly what you’re paying for. Simple as that.
Feral; even less chance of me ever buying this now.
I never asked for this
My first and last pre order was Aliens Colonial Marines. I don’t need an article to remind me to not make the same dick move ever again.
Fuck preorder. For ever.
/endcrywank
Ugh.
I freaking hate preorders and I have to really resist punching my friend when he tells me to preorder that game I’ve been looking forward to. The only game I’m preordering is Rock Band 4, so that the devs know that there is still a demand for the plastic rock genre.
Don’t. Tell. Me. What. To. Do.
You’re. Not. My. Real. Dad.Jokes aside. I only preorder special editions that have artbooks, soundtracks or amiibos. These are usually limited so preorder is kind of necessary. This bullshit Deus Ex is pulling. I care not for.