5 Reminders NOT to Pre-Order Games This Year ~ We used to demand trials before buying before, what happened? ~ Stop Pre ordering Games
Honestly, if the idea of no trials don’t bother you, there are plenty more reminders why YOU shouldn’t preorder.
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I am going to keep pre-ordering games on solid platforms like Steam. The pros of pre-ordering tend to outweigh the cons. But people here, and on Reddit, love to exaggerate the cons of pre-ordering. As long as I can painlessly return a game if it turns out to be a stinker, it's not a big deal.
Preordering might not be so much of an issue with platforms that have solid return policies. Steam might be alone in that sphere. Regardless, preorders encourages companies to release buggy, unfinished products just to inflate their numbers. And even if this is not problematic in the short end, if all companies do this, even with return policies, it’s the user/gamers who suffer with a flood of inferior products.
Many months before a game is released, the game is feature complete and they only fix bugs. Do you believe a single publisher will delay the release of a still buggy game because of the lack of preorders? No way. They'll release it anyways, because fixing bugs takes time, takes money and if there's already low pre-order numbers, they as well can decide that this extra money spend isn't worth it.
This whole don't preorder topic is illogical. My favorite comment so far on Reddit was: " but people forget to refund". That's their issue and not of pre-orders.lol
If anything the publisher sees interest in the game from preorders and will found/agree to more DLC or sees enough interest to greenlight the sequel right away. Which both is great for the devs. Maybe even delays a buggy game, because all the pre-order could guarantee a giant success, which would only be possible if the game is mostly bug free. You see you can easily twist the argument around.
They're not always feature complete. Plenty of games are crunching to finish things last minute and sometimes do last minute cuts because they can't finish things.
But I agree that they'll usually release at the announced date regardless of the game's final state. To be fair to them, advertising is insanely expensive and ad campaigns are often planned with a specific release date in mind. Some software is never gonna be 100%, too, and does need some pressure to just accept some issues or cut some things.
But usually it's just a plain old disconnect between devs and higher ups/project managers. Estimating software dev is insanely difficult and higher ups in charge of the final calls are often either not devs, too insulated from the devs, or sometimes just egoistic to listen to anyone but themselves.
What are the pros of per-ordering? I can't think of any other than promotional DLC that is normally worthless.
If you buy at shops like Green Man Gaming you can save $12 or so at launch.
Drawback is no refund if it's shit
There are also the pre-order bonuses, like cool skins or early access. Caveat emptor on the actual value proposition.
You mean access to locked content unless you pay sight unseen. Hardly a benefit.