• What about Early Access Games?
  • Do you feel differently about Early Access vs traditional preordering?
  • If you are open to the idea in specific circumstances, what are those?
  • How do you decide if a game qualifies?

I’m interested in the community thoughts on preordering and I’d love to have a thoughtful discussion on the matter.

Personally, I’m against preordering, except in specific situations where I want to actively support the development of a game.

I have been thinking about this because there is a game I’m considering preordering from a medium sized studio, but the reason I want to preorder is for the IP, rather than the game and it goes against my typical stance on this. The game is based on my favorite book series and part of me wants to encourage more games be made based on this series. At the same time, the book series has found commercial success and as a whole does not need my help.

I did name the specifics here because I’m hoping to encourage discussion on preordering as a whole, rather than my example, but if you want to know, I’ll drop a comment and we can have a discussion in the comment thread. :)

EDIT: thank you all for the thoughtful discussion on this! I expected most people to slam preordering, but there was some very thoughtful dialogue here and that is why I appreciate you, Lemmy!

  • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    131·
    il y a 6 mois

    We Do Not Preorder

    Seriously, don’t reward this kind of anti-consumer bullshit.

    The only acceptable justification I can see is if it’s an indie dev who has really, truly earned the trust of their players and proven that they will work tirelessly to deliver the product people want. And even then I’d be very, very unlikely to. I’m crazy excited for both of Owlcats upcoming games and I still haven’t pre-ordered them, for example.

    Pre-orders encourage bad, buggy, incomplete or deceptively marketed releases by juicing day one numbers without any need for the dev / publisher to actually release a worthy product.

  • toebert@piefed.socialEnglish
    9·
    il y a 6 mois

    I never pre-order, there is no benefit.

    Early access is misleading, there are games which are “released” and would barely count as early access and vice-versa, so I just treat them equally.

    The criteria for me is that based on reviews or some gameplay footage it seems like I can get £1/hour worth of enjoyment out of it. I tend to look for how many hours do people have when they leave reviews and how many have they played since, rather than just what they say. If I’m unsure if I’ll like it and there is not enough videos or reviews to give me certainty, i may take a risk on £10 and below games depending on how bored I am at the time.

  • Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    8·
    il y a 6 mois

    Why would anyone still be preordering? It’s a complete gamble with no payoff. Preordering made sense when games were on physical media, but there isn’t any stock limit on digital goods.

    • popcar2@piefed.caEnglish
      1·
      il y a 6 mois

      I very very rarely pre-order but if reviews are out and you’re already planning on buying it, it could be worth it. Some stores provide a discount for pre-ordering games, I got Elden Ring for 15% off before it even released which is nice.

  • BigBenis@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    il y a 6 mois

    I never pre-order. I broke that rule exactly once and pre-ordered No Man’s Sky, boy did they make a fool out of me. Never again.

    There are plenty of games I play that are on early access, the qualifier is whether the game is in a playable state and is fun to play (by account of online reviews or friend’s recommendations).

    • oopsgodisdeadmybad@lemmy.zipEnglish
      4·
      il y a 6 mois

      Exactly this. If it’s already fun, and especially if the early access price is good, then buying a somewhat janky game that will get better seems fine.

  • termaxima@slrpnk.netEnglish
    6·
    il y a 6 mois

    I preorder Indie games, because even if they turn out to be crap I want them to make another one and get better at it !

    I relentlessly fuck over AAA publishers by buying keys on resellers, and I have no remorse about it.

  • thetrekkersparky@startrek.websiteEnglish
    6·
    il y a 6 mois

    Nope. Trust has been broken too many times. I don’t even buy anything anywhere near release anymore. I won’t buy anything anymore unless it’s either an indie game or its on sale and even then I deep dive the reviews and make sure I’m not wasting my money.

  • galaxy_nova@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    il y a 6 mois

    I “built” my first desktop (that’s a whole story) for Cyberpunk. I preordered the game. Suffice to say I’ve never preordered a game since

  • Fades@lemmy.worldEnglish
    61·
    il y a 6 mois

    THE ONLY REASON TO PREORDER IS TO ENSURE YOU HAVE A COPY ON LAUNCH.

    Do you think they will run out of digital copies of you to download? (Just in case someone doesn’t know, that’s not how digital downloads work)

    It’s that fucking simple. Pre-order bonuses are almost never worth it on their own, and even for those that are, you’re enabling and supporting a predatory/anti-consumer practice.

  • AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip
    English
    5·
    il y a 6 mois

    Last, and only time, I ever got to preorder was BioShock Infinite. Got the game an a guidebook ( still have that guidebook, even if I’ve never really used it ). Was kinda lackluster, IMO, but at least I got the game and didn’t have to wait outside for hours like my brother did for GTA V.

    Nowadays I stay away from preorders because they’re basically all digital and you don’t even get anything besides maybe early access for a week and some useless cosmetic things that eventually get handed out to everyone who wants to buy it. At least in the case of triple AAA games.

    I haven’t seen much for preordering for indie titles besides being a kickstarter backer. Even then, I was able to not be a kickstarer for one of my favorite gamed released the last couple years ( Broke the InvestiGator ) and still managed to snag some of the leftover kickstarter rewards. Never backed one besides a tie-in comic for the game, so not much of an opinion either way since I don’t have enough experience to say one way or another.

    As for early access, it depends on the game and if it either looks interesting to me and/or if I’ve seen someone else play it and looks fun. It’s the main reasons I got into games like Peggle, Shotgun King, Dungeon Clawler, etcetera. All games I saw plenty of videos on and/or played demos of, if they had a demo.

    I don’t have a problem with early access so long as your game isn’t early access throughout its whole life cycle. A game that has been in development as early access for 3 years? At that point, if you’re still giving updates, why not put it in alpha or beta and be upfront about it? I swear some devs don’t do that so they can just disregard all criticism of their title because It’S sTiLl In EaRlY aCcEsS.

  • BigTrout75@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    il y a 6 mois

    No preorder for me. I almost do the opposite. I buy games after they get cheap in 1 to 5 years, lol

  • Tigeroovy@lemmy.caEnglish
    3·
    il y a 6 mois

    I used to more when things were more disc based from stores, but it’s rare that I do now.

    Occasionally I still may if I have the money and it’s a game I know I want and will highly likely enjoy, if only for the pre-load capability. But it’s far rarer now. Sometimes they throw in some pre-order dlc, and if I know I’m going to buy it at launch anyways I may as well just technically pre-order it. But again, I do it much rarer now than I did a few console gens ago.

    Early access is a bit of a different story, and I will sometimes buy an early access game if I like where it’s going and want to support it. But those are also pretty rare for me.

  • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    3·
    il y a 6 mois

    no, I’ve never done that. I’ve never seen much of a discount so I’ve never had any incentive to