Image alt text: An image of Steam’s top 10 best-selling games at the time of posting, three of which are marked as “prepurchase”
I checked the Steam stats and noticed that in the top 10 best selling games by revenue, there’s three games that aren’t even out yet. If we ignore the Steam Deck and f2p games, it’s three out of four games. They have also been in the top 100 for 4, 6, and 8 weeks respectively, so people just keep on buying them. I would love to know why people keep doing this, as the idea of pre-ordering is that there is a physical copy of a game available for you on release, but this is not a concern with digital items. So after so many games lately being utterly broken on release, why do people not wait until launch reviews to buy the game? If you touch a hot stove and get burned multiple times, when does one learn?
I stopped pre-ordering games long ago. THhe last 3 I ever pre-ordered were Shenmue 3, No Man’s Sky and Cyberpunk 2077. The all had a disastrous launch to some degree, and I said never again. I also pre-ordered Vampire: The Masquerade 2, but I cancelled it years ago. The last physical game I bought was Metal Gear Solid V, and it was a DVD with a fucking Steam installer inside.
Never again.
Only Capcom games. Their demos give you a pretty good idea of what the fully game is going to be and are usually even improved upon. So preordering is mostly a safe bet. Plus you get some early access goodies (which you can also get after release for some extra shmeckles).
Capcom feels like one of the only multiplatform devs that are actually still making games for gamers not for shareholders.
Nope, not a single reason to do so.
Preorder bonuses are worthless and are always available as dlc later on.
Rarely. I don’t think I ever have two years in a row.
Usually only if I’m very sure it’s a game I will get a lot of playtime out of due to past titles. For instance, I did pre-order Civ 7 because prior Civs have been the best hours-enjoyed-per-dollar investments I’ve ever made. No exaggeration, even accounting for DLCs I bought at full price.
Never. I only rarely buy a game within a year of release. Too fucking many good cheap or free games to justify paying msrp before it even gets reviews.
As a rule, no, but I’ll make some rare exceptions.
It has to be a small studio, I have to be pretty sure I’ll like their next game, and I have to have enjoyed their past game enough that it’s worth throwing them a few extra bucks.
For instance, I’m going to pre-order Slay the Spire 2.
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Mega Crit is an indie studio.
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I thought StS1 was exquisite, so I’m optimistic about a sequel from the same people.
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I playes StS1 for hundreds of hours, so even if the sequel is a whiff, I’d have got my money’s worth from them.
Similar goes for The Haunted Chocolatier, since I played the heck out of Stardew Valley.
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no i have fast internet so if i do buy a massive bloated game i can wait 20 minutes before playing it, or buy it the day of then remote download with the steam mobile app
I very rarely ever did. And when I did I made sure I trusted the studio and knew enough. But even with this preparation I was burned most of the time preordering.
Nowadays I notice a game I like and I wait for 1-3 years, then pick it up DRM free, with all the extensions and fully patched for oftentimes 15€ or so.
These days? No.
I used to when I had very crappy internet speeds, but these days I have a gigabit connection - and I swear the decryption process takes longer than it is to just download the game right after release in an unencrypted state.
And even back then I was very picky on pre-orders. I honestly couldn’t even tell you what was the last one I pre-ordered.
oh man I forgot about this. preload used to be such a big selling point but now it only takes a few minutes to download most games.
Used to be I could preload games I prepurchase and would absolutely be doing that still, but that’s pretty much never on offer anymore so I don’t prepurchase even games I’m 100% certain I’ll be getting.
If there is a game that i’ll definitely buy on launch and there is some real benefit for pre ordering, i might do it. But even then i’ll wait for the last few hours and “pre-order” then. If there is no benefit for me, why should i tell the company “i dont care about quality of your game, i’ll pay anyway”. Because that is how the ones making decisions will see pre order.
I don’t think digital pre-orders even include banking functionality. I wouldn’t know because I lack the nerd cred of ever pre-ordering a game
I bought a pre-purchase once, and it was for Bloodstained.
Not only was I excited to play a new Metroidvania from the guy who made the best Metroidvania, but the price in my local currency was 1:1 to the dollar. I knew that this price was wrong and that it might go up after release. And I was right, the price increased.
Totally worth it and the game was amazing at launch.
Never preorder.
No. I’m doing the opposite.
I’m currently playing PS4 games I have never played before.
You get them on ebay for like $10.
Can’t wait to play PS5 games in 5 years… 🙃
Can’t wait to play PS5 games in 5 years…
All six of them.
Sounds like you should join us over on [email protected]
