Pre-ordering games

Ensuring you have a copy of something with limited supply/getting it delivered on release day
Preordering digital shit is pure cancerous Judaism and anyone who does it should be shot

do lots of people still buy these shit games?

Originally the idea was to reserve one of a limited number of physical objects that were likely to sell out (not just vidya but also books or whatever). This morphed over time to a way to jew consumers out of cash before reviews tell them otherwise. Much like expansions turning into shitty DLC the original concept was a fair deal for both sides but when publishers realised they could abuse it for a profit all bets were off.

They're only good for securing niche games. Some store don't stock niche games if nobody pre-orders them, or the print is so small if becomes next to impossible to find post launch.

I'm just surprised so many people still buy this shit to even remotely warrant a scarcity panic.

Well when I was a kid and I wanted to get Ogre Battle for the SNES from WaldenSoftware I had to preoder it. That was pretty useful I suppose. Ordered the strategy guide too. This was pre internet for anyone outside of college, enthusiasts, and government days mind you.

If something is actually scarce and hard to acquire, there is a benefit of securing it before it becomes unavailable. Like some obscure weeb game or the latest hottest seller that's flying off the shelves. Maybe even a collector's edition.

Otherwise, there's no benefit at all. It's especially dumb when doing it for digital purchases because that scarcity doesn't exist. The only thing it adds is "preloading" that only people with really shit tier internet really need to worry about.

...

I think, years and years ago when stores would only get a finite amount of physical copies delivered to their store, it was was a way of securing a copy for yourself on release. However, now that everything is digital it's a pure scam.

Pre-ordering is so a company can get your money for a product you have yet to own, that way a customer has no bargaining power since refunding is more difficult.

Yep.

Well, I pre-ordered Yakuza 0 because looking for a copy after the release after Yakuza 3 and 4 in my experience is very difficult in my country. Mainly, because Sega doesn't sell enough copies and not many are into the Yakuza games.

Did the same with Persona 5.
Albeit, I also just want the goodies in the Take Your Heart Edition because it's probably going to be one of my last games played alongside Yakuza 6. Though after those two games are out, I'm going to stop playing any new releases and just work on my backlog of vidya and animu. The video games industry is shit and I can't think of anything else to look forward to anymore.

They generally don't outside of manufactured scarcity (looking at you Nintendo) but most people don't stop to think it through.

Only reason I did was to get something collectable. Years ago I per-odered the sega megadrive collection and got a sega vinyl with it.

Now most of the shit you get is just in game purchases like weapon skins or some other micro-transaction garbage.

I remember back in the day there was a few games that only got enough prints to fulfill what the pre-orders numbers were

but muh pre order bonuses

Exactly only reason I got was because I specifically preordered it. Ogre Battle was not a particularly sought after game or genre when it released and they didn't print many copies. I was lucky to even hear of it in time to preorder it.

I worked at FUCKING GAMESTOP for a while and saw some really great niche games come in one shipment and then never again. With games like those, I also encountered customers who assumed we'd have 500 copies of the game, but we'd get 3, and 2 were preordered. On a couple occasions, all of the copies we got were only for preorder customers.

Here's the thing that they don't always tell you: GameStop uses preorders as a hype metric. It's like an assbackwards version of kickstarter where a company will gauge their production run and unit allotment based on preorders and very little else.

Finance - Time value of money.
Due to inflationary pressures, money now is worth more than money later. Pre-ordering gives the company more many to play with than if you were to give them money on release date.

...

Amazon takes 20% off preorders for Prime users

Cool story, bro.

Best Buy takes 20% off of all games for GCU members.

The idea is that you get a better deal if you pre order but it's really a trick.

Hello fellow oldfag. Before when you wanted to get that hot game (GTA 3 for example) you would go the store the day it would come out and they were constantly getting sold out….everywhere. Sometimes for a week or two and you had to call them to see if they got a few copies.

I was able to get everything I wanted at launch including SotC, Jaws Unleashed, Rome TW and Dune 2 for the PS1.
And I live on a backwards ass island, you either live on the most remote island imaginable like Australia or you're lying.

stupidity tax, like lotto tickets

The actual, non-meme function of pre-orders, is to signal to managers how much demand there is. If the number is high, the manager shows it to the shareholders as proof that he shouldn't be fired because he must be doing something right, look at this big number!

Addendum: This also has a beneficial effect for retailers; for them, pre-orders are effectively an interest-free loan.

None of those you listed were house hold names or had a large cult following upon release. You could buy them because no one else wanted them in your local area. Also because you lived on a piss-ant island you had a market where people couldn't drive in and buy up all the local stock.

Back then on the main land if demand was high copies would sell out every where before you even got a chance to think about reserving one. It even extended to consoles, when the PS2 launched no one got one until after the holiday season unless they managed to get on the local pre-order list to buy one of the few consoles the store had or paid ridiculous mark up. That year people were buying imported PS2s for $800+ between Thanksgiving and Christmas. An American PS2 after Christmas was still a $600+ investment assuming you could find anyone willing to sell one.

stop speaking

Forgot to add: Just to get on the list to pre-order a PS2 was $20-$50 up front depending on the store. That wasn't a guarantee that you'd even get a console it was just to keep people from gaming the list in an attempt to buy them all. No one had any idea how many consoles they'd be getting since Sony only shipped 1 million consoles to the states and didn't even get 3 million shipped by March of the next year.

So what it has a cult following, that translates to maybe two copies sold at the local game store anywhere outside of a large city. Of course it was in stock, you were one of the few people that even knew it was coming out. We're talking mid-late 90s here when most normalfags didn't even play video games much less kept up with a magazine or browsed the web.

I think you may legitimately be a retard

Either
Or

Stop posting anytime you fucking newfag.

Hmmm when was that game released again?

You're probably the same type of faggot that spends half his time here complaining about the quality of the posts.

Now this is damage control
With posts like yours I don't blame him
I was using 2K P2P shit like Limewire and Emule before your newfag consolefag ass even knew about pre ordering games.
You seriously going to tell me that Burnout and Tekken didn't have cult followings now?
Shadow of The Colossus, Dune 2 and Rome neither?
Fuck out of here.

Well once upon a time it was to secure a physical copy because there was a chance they'd run out on release.

But nowadays, that's only gonna happen with the biggest of biggest times and even then only like one out of fifteen times. Now, it's just used to show investors and publishers that the marketing campaign works and is worth the retarded investment (and is encouraged by pre-order bonuses).

To financially support your favourite developer/publisher/franchise.

Yes, because buying after learning if the game is shit or not doesn't provide the same result.
I keep forgetting this fucking place still has its share of brand loyal retards that will eat up any shit thrown at them

at this point, nothing save for maybe guaranteeing something you want day-1 gets delivered on time.

there was a time when pre-orders dictated units shipped to stores, so if you wanted something popular or niche, it was a smart move to put 5 bucks down on it so a copy would be held for you and maybe you'd get a fun trinket too. but now every publisher ships a gorillion copies to even the most bumblefuck nowhere gamestop, assuming you even use gamestop compared to the vastly fucking cheaper amazon

pre-orders on digitial releases is fucking baffling, at most you'll get some shit in game content you'll never use.

but i admit i tend to pre-order stuff online the week before it releases if its a game i want to play day-1 and has a physical copy

It's so all the companies can acquire millions and millions of dollars without giving anything in return. Then putting all those millions in banks where they receive interest to pad out their balance sheets and acquire goodwill with investors and banks themselves (easier to receive loans). This is why they push pre-orders so hard and so early. The longer they keep that money before giving you anything in return. The more money they make.

jews jewing jews

Okusan NTR

>>>/a/

Waiting for tales of berseria to release on steam.
You can "pre-purchase" it now, essentially a pre-order, but there's literally no point to it since it's a digital download, there is no limited supply, there are no extras for doing so, no discount.

Pre-ordering is getting stupider by the day.

If you're supporting your favourite brand, you're doing exactly that - supporting it, not paying for the product in question.
When I pay for something I don't immediately get, I treat is as a donation, with possible bonus in the future.
Same logic applies for backing crowdfunded games.

I still have my Septim coin from the collector's edition of Morrowind.

I'm still pretty happy about that pre-order.

Nigger, you're a fucking retard.

OH GEE WHO COULD THIS BE?

To get extra shit. Extra literal shit.
Unless you're going for a collector's edition, or Steam isn't jewing you with a pre-purchase and actually giving you decent things, there really is no point in preordering.

Pic related as one of the very few things in recent memory I considered a preorder/purchase on.

even back when preordering was a big thing, i'd go to the store on release day and ask for the game, they'd ask if i preordered and i'd say no, then they would hem and haw for a moment, then reach down behind the counter and pick up a copy from the gigantic stack of boxes they had. it was always a joke unless you lived somewhere where they weren't going to order the game normally.

...

Being a dumb consumer whore?

Which is what this industry thrives on.

That's fuck all

for indie games they can be cheaper than the final product,
yookee laylee for example was 15 bucks pre order while the game will retail for around 30 bucks or so

This. Every game can be purchased on launch day, the new Halo or Steins Gate 0 it doesn't matter.
Any decent game store in this day and age should stock games if they want to compete with webstores or PSN.

Ideally it used to be simply to show interest in a game so stores knew how many copies to order, the publisher how many to produce for the initial print, etc, with early buyers given some free physical item at times for doing so. Nowadays it's just to get some of (if not ALL) the customer's money sooner, and any bonuses are extremely likely to be DLC bullshit because few companies actually want to do physical extras outside of pricy Collector's Editions (though a few still opt to, like Atlus printing up a full color softcover artbook for Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, which was free with a first print copy).

Of course, both then and now, there's a lot less reason to preorder extremely popular mainstream games that sell well (and is liable to be low priced in the aftermarket and/or given more prints), compared with more niche sorts of games that might only see a single print. There's also the issue that current systems having access to the internet and internal storefronts reduces the availability reasoning for preordering even less for those that don't care all that much about having an actual copy of a game, and some companies sadly opt to cut out physical production altogether to begin with; and yet companies will STILL push the preorder/prepurchase shit with digital versions of games (and the benefit of being able to preload only does so much when so many games now have day one patches because they were either put online or shipped out before bugtesting was finished).

If no one wanted something, few preorders were probably placed and thus few copies likely even shipped. Looking at something like Dual Hearts (which came out stupidly close to Kingdom Hearts out here; not sure if Atlus opted to be retarded or Square wanted to kill potential competition), I've only ever seen a total of three copies at stores locally myself, and I recall some guy on half/vr/ years back lamenting that his area never saw a single copy of it (at least going off his own experiences in searching) because not a single copy was preordered. I remember when I went to pick up a copy of ToCSII myself last year, the manager opening the store that morning said that had I not put in an order, that particular store wouldn't have bothered to ask for any copies to be shipped to them despite the game being a new release.

New Game is otakushit garbage

Anybody who thinks digital sales compete with physical discs (with the actual content on them) in this new age of shit is stupid. The only people who think digital is good are people who want to lose their libraries when an online marketplace inevitably loses a license with some retarded bullshit excuse like "We lost the ability to package the music, so we removed the game entirely. We only license the software to you, you don't own shit fuck off."

Any "bonuses" given out lately are in the form of DLC they charge 10$ for later to inform people who didn't preorder that they can eat a dick.
Digital releases do not replace physical releases for both convenience and actually owning a real copy of the game. If a company doesn't offer a physical version of the game, don't buy that game, it only encourages the practice. Inform them why you didn't. Will they care? No, but it's better than being fucked over and over by a company that doesn't give a shit about their releases.

It still surprises me some that, as greedy a company as Namco is, the preorder cameo outfits for the PS3 Tales games have remained preorder only (and thus retain some significance) instead of later being made publicly available for further profit, the way that a lot of games seem to go with theirs. Could have done without the ones for Xillia 2 being made a $130 CE only perk though (in Japan they were a regular old first print/preorder bonus), and I'd honestly prefer some sort of physical item than the idea that if one doesn't pre-order, you're not getting all the game might have originally been set to come with.

Yeah, I get that, and I think a lot of anons feel the same way. The average pleb that just wants to play a game doesn't though. All I was saying is that compared to the past, where console and handheld games were physical only, overall availability was more of an issue compared to now (ignoring the existence of piracy for a minute).

That probably has more to do with the PS3 slowly winding down so the releases on it are slightly less significant over time.

That's entirely what publishers are banking on with Preorder DLC now.
Preorder DLC is punishment for not bankrolling the unfinished game.
Collector's Editions are, rightfully, supposed to be a copy of the game that comes with physical goods that the more hardcore fans of the series would want instead of additional DLC or "just" a copy of the game.
Publishers releasing CE comprised of what is essentially just the season pass are cancerous. It's becoming more common because it's lower effort and essentially allows them to sell preorders of preorder DLC tickets instead of actually having to manufacture action figures or art books for real CE goods.

I don't know, Graces f was the first one on the PS3 that the west saw, and that was a good while still technically being brought a good while after that version originally released in Japan, it was still years before for the PS3 started to die down in releases, and the Kyle, Rutee, and Judas outfits have remained preorder only.

At the very least with eastern games that have staggered releases, the west isn't (or at least shouldn't, provided a technically competent company is involved) the guinea pig for those games, the way we are for western developed titles. In cases like that you can at least see what Japan thought of a game long before it comes overseas. Though it ought to be said that that doesn't factor in actual localization quality, and unfortunately these days all too many games get ruined by trigger happy localization teams, or failed authors with jobs as editors that think they can write better than the game's original author, so even a game that was considered good in Japan is something to be potentially leery of dropping money on until you hear otherwise that the western team did their fucking job right.

Yeah, I have to agree that those "drop $X and you'll get all the DLC we come out with for this year" is absolute trash. I don't get how that sort of thing became acceptable, but I assume it would be because the average pleb is fine with dropping money on a promise (hell, it's how new systems sell; give Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo money up front for a few launch titles and the "promise" of more worthwhile games down the line that may or may not get delivered on that fast).

This.

A lot of preordering is because day 1/week 1 sales are pretty much all the publishers care about and preorders are how they insure all their sales are frontloaded into the first day. So it makes sense why they want to sell preorders. In order to accomplish this they frequently offer bonus incentives to consumers whether in the form of additional content or discounts for preordering.

Yes in terms of digital there is absolutely no danger of the game "selling out" with the exception of certain scams, but there still is a benefit both to the consumer and the publisher. The question is is the benefit worth the risk?

As I have said here
I pre ordered a bunch of games and they all turned out shit. I pre ordered Grid 2, Payday 2, cs:go, beam ng.drive (that one is actually pretty decent) and Wreckfest.

You may ask why, well, I have a good paying job and when you have over 1k sitting in your account it's easier to throw it away for shit. I regret most of them by now.

Grid 2 was a game I wanted a long time. As you may know there are no good racing games on pc, Grid 1 was a lot of fun so I pre ordered Grid 2.

Payday 2 was basically the same. Payday 1 was a pretty decent game. Devs released a dlc and even allow you to play on those maps if you didn't bought the dlc. I just thought that it would be impossible for guys as nice as them to make a bad game. Who could have known that they would flood payday 2 with dlc, microtransactions and shit maps?

Now cs:go may be a total meme game now, but it wasn't back then. Back then hpe was working on the game and they where closely working with the community. They were actually implementing shit in the game we asked for in the forums. It just makes you feel special when the devs listen to you like that and because of that I bought it. Again, couldn't have known that Valve would add tf2 like skins to the game.

Wreckfest… Well I fell for their propaganda. They said no big publisher wanted to work with them and that we had to support them in order for them to make a game like that.

ehehehehe. If they only had to edit otherwise faithful, correct translations they wouldn't be so bad. They're essentially writing really awful fanfics with the scenes they receive. It would not surprise me if they don't even hire translators for a lot of releases.

It became acceptable because people didn't punish for it and, as much as people like to pretend they are savvy consumers, they all fall for hype and preorder when they see a nice pair of titties.

As much as I hate to defend publishers… there is a reason publishers and licensing/walled gardens happen. Imagine the PC market (particularly Steam) and then imagine it happened on consoles. In the past a lot of publishers didn't really support games that were a bit offbeat that ended up becoming decent. Now that publishers aren't really needed because of the ability to self publish for nearly pennies if somebody is searching for a publisher and doesn't get it there is generally a REALLY good reason for it.

Well shit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Shekel

Typically, a surname represents either a job title or defining feature of the original family head.

When I was younger I bought most of my games from a single "mom and pop" vidya shop, which is still alive but more like Gamestop now. Back then if something big was coming out, they called ME that shit is coming out and if I want to reserve a copy I should do it now because they'd run out of copies pretty quick. It didn't cost anything either.

Anyone know who came up with the fee for pre-ordering?

I remember those times. Back then it was the best way to avoid day 1 shortages, which happened a lot more often than now since there was still trust in tge industry and AAA gaming was the height of gaming. Also, to help sell you, the games would have bonuses for early purchase to get you ahead early on, like weapon unlocks, multiplayer maps, guides, etc. Got a keychain from R6V2 I used for years at no extra price, meaning it was legit incentive to purchase early. They had your money, you had the game plus extra bits for the normal shelf price. It was a fair investment back then.

Early access used to be a nice and cheaper way of getting a game for cheaper while also getting word out about game quality, mechanics, themes, and so on while also giving feedback to the developers and letting the players assist in stress tests. Once again, it was a mutual investment.

Then it all got fucked up when profit became more important than product quality and , in some cases, completion. Early access let developers fuck off with money made on incomplete products, scamming the players and asking for more money with cash shops and such to "stimulate development". Preorders began to suffer as games like Aliens: Colonial Marines knew they could ride the success of the preorders by cherry picking good, albeit scripted, moments and keeping the rest of the game hidden. Even once beloved devs like Ubisoft, who had a slee of great titles, started using prerendered CGI movies as representations of their games, deumming up on preorder benefits, and then the final product was lackluster by comparison. It became a business if selling hype, not the games themselves.

>shekel (n.) early 13c., sicle, via Old French and Latin, from Hebrew sheqel, from shaqal "he weighed."
Possible that the family weighed (ie. merchants), the word just seems to recent to be a surname.

Well their argument was that they make a very specific game and publishers told them that nobody would buy those.

It's 100$ to submit to Greenlight if you want Steam and there are dozens of other places to sell a game in a way that makes a publisher not required unless you just really want a cash advance/advertising budget. At the same time a lot of people who seek publishers now release really shitty games and they know their games wouldn't sell otherwise (No Man's Sky was shilled to hell by Sony and, of course, was shit) and just want the free advertisement because they're "legitimate" from being published on consoles.

I think it was free back then, those 100$ fee only got added after people flooded greenlight with fake bullshit like "we want gtav" and shit like that.

It used to exist because before downloading games digitally was a thing stores would often run out of physical copies of hotly anticipated games so pre-ordering existed for the sake of making sure you were guaranteed a copy. Now-a-days we live in an age where most people digitally download so physical scarcity no longer exists, meaning pre-ordering is now nothing more than a scam to fool retards into giving money to a game which is months away from release so devs can get lazy and shit out a half broken game.

Well some games have small discount if you pre-order and you can always refund them on steam if you didn't like it.

You know how people should put on a condom, but think blowjobs are fine raw. Then they get a random STD and wonder how it happened.
It's kind of like that.

You know Steam refunds in most areas on the Earth was a recent addition right? Previously only the EU had provisions for digital refunds.
Also
You may as well gargle semen.

mate, if you are going to buy a game anyway you might as well take that small refund + the dlc bonus.

It isn't a refund or a bonus. You are gambling on the game being shit, wasting anywhere between 40-150$ (depending on CE) and rationalizing it by "saving" 3$-10$ and some cosmetics. Preordering a digital game (with no real scarcity) is contributing to cancer. If you were going to buy a game regardless of it being shit you should kill yourself.

YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE GANDALF THE GREY!

I'd rather not be blown than get a blowjob with a condom on.

the original purpose was if there are limited copies of something you could reserve yourself a copy of it. But with video games, it's pointless because there will always be enough

Just to get collectors edition. Some reselling fuckers asks retarded prices for them.