Normies will continue to pre-order games. You are just shouting at clouds. Please stop wasting our times with these posts. The battle was lost years ago.

I agree with this; we used to pre-order back when physical copies were the only way to get a game, in order to reserve a copy. Now they use it to squeeze extra money out of you for "exclusive content." As somebody who is as militantly against exclusive content (because it screws over late adopters) as always-online content, I can't agree enough that digital pre-ordering needs to die.

every game has a built in trial these days. trial the game for up to 2 hours in the first 2 weeks of buying it, and if you don't like it, steam refund it.

You don't need to pre-order anything except limited edition collector's releases of which there will be relatively few physical copies. You don't need to pre-order EA Sports titles, Bethesda titles, Halo, Gears of War, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, and especially not digital games. Pre-ordering systems are inherently anti-consumer. Even systems that don't require a down payment on the game, still exist to prove to publishers that pre-ordering is a viable way to make money. Not only that, but your personal information is now in a database that you don't control or can consent to 3rd party access. Just don't do it.

I don't bother pre-ordering anymore. Can't afford to. Most AAA games are £60-£70 on release (up to £90 if you want the Upgraded Super Deluxe Gold version). I wait until a game goes on sale before I buy it. By then all the bugs have been patched and most of the DLC has been released so you get a better experience.

I wanna talk about DLC. I bought a physical copy of Fire Emblem Engage. I also bought the DLC. I had to go out to take someone somewhere and wait, so I brought my Switch. The game was running before I left home. Had to connect to the internet to resume the game while I was waiting for the person.

Steam makes it so easy to refund games that I'm not sure what the point of all this is anymore.

I played the Lies of P demo for almost 6 hours. First pre-order in years.

Last game I pre-ordered before was Cyberpunk 2077, of course that turned out to be a huge lesson. I no longer pre-order anything, Lies of P was the exception because their push for people to try the game themselves along with their reaction to feedback was reassuring. Plus with early access to the game at a date that is perfect for me to dive in based on my schedule, seemed like a good time to show some appreciation.

Oh yeah? Well what about the new thing to do that's even better than pre-ordering. Take Starfield for example. Wanna play it earlier than everyone else? Well their early access option is the one for you.

"Anyone can dive in then if they're willing to pay the price - it's only available to those who buy the expensive Constellation Edition of the game (for roughly £250/$300) or the Premium Edition (for about £100/$100)"

Edit: deleted comment was additional edit, realised I could just edit original comment

I pretty much don't even buy a game after it's been launched now and I wait a couple of months to see what happens. They haven't bought out a game since Halo that I've cared enough about to even buy on day 1 and it's not like I don't have a fat library of other games I already enjoy.

Stop it

I just played the trial for Pikmin 4, then pre-ordered the game

I stopped preordering awhile ago but honestly I just stopped buying games in general. I already have enough games to last me a lifetime and there is just so much trash getting released that I skip it all together.

Thank you for the reminder. I will promptly pay attention to it, and yet, have 0 impact on the world as this issue is a big numbers problem and we're the small numbers.

Nobody tells me what to do with my own money.

I usually only pre order when I'm 99% sure I'm gonna love the game and it's made by a company with a good reputation of having games be good at launch Ex: Zelda tears of the kingdom

I only preorder games that have a demo.

My local currency is devaluating by the second, the price I see today may not be the price tomorrow.

I love this advice for 99% of games, but I pre-ordered Baldur's Gate III around three years ago now and have been able to play Early Access as a result.

Cyberpunk was the nail in my pre-order coffin, fuck those clowns and their shitty releases. I don't want the game to be good and playable 3 years after I bought it.

Oh and for the fan bois if the game was so good when released, why did they have to do a complete overhaul of basically the entire game to make it good?

The release was trash and the game released with as little product as possible while charging people full price.