Do you pre-order digital games? If so, why?

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... 🙃

https://xkcd.com/606/
Sounds like you should join us over on !patientgamers@sh.itjust.works
Can't wait to play PS5 games in 5 years...

All six of them.

I almost never preorder any game I'm not 100% sure I'll play no matter what. Sometimes I'll do it with online games in 90% sure on bc my internet is horrible and I like being able to get started on the download asap

For example I'm gonna preorder the new Fatal Fury game even though I'm not super confident in SNK to put out a functional game, but I know it'll have fun gameplay and worst case scenario it'll get fixed in a while. Being able to download early is worth for me even if I won't download in time to play early, and worst case scenario it's completely nonfunctional and I just refund it until it works

Absolutely no reason to, you pay more for a buggier version. I generally wait until there's a good sale.

Last game I pre-ordered was Cyberpunk 2077. Yeah, it's a fun and really good now but when it released it was basically unplayable until Phantom Liberty was released. I had already said I would never pre-order a game and I made an exception for CDPR and got Cyberpunk, and I was immediately burned. For real-sies this time, no more exceptions. I will never pre-order another game until the day that I die.

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

Hissssss 🐍

Don't preorder, what the hell are you people thinking?!

No, but I have purchased Early Access games on Steam.

Honestly, I’ve got lots of hours in Early Access games. That said, they were like $20 when I bought them in EA and as content gets added and they get closer to launch, the price goes up.

I don’t think that’s the same as pre-orders though.

The only digital game I’ve ever preordered was City Skylines 2. I was on vacation the day it came out and didn’t want to miss out on playtime and waste my PTO. Definitely worth it, and I enjoyed it and the lead up to release. (I’m on the fenced whether I enjoy it more than the first, but that’s mostly because I’ve got so many add ons for the first that the second seems like it’s missing things. But it worked well for me and I got hours and hours of playing in that day.
What incentivizes you to pay money for early access games? Wouldn’t you rather wait until it’s done and have a better experience?
- Some of them are in a fine state as-is.
  
  I guess maybe for an adventure game or something, you want to have one playthrough and to get as complete of an experience as possible.
  
  But for most stuff I play, like roguelikes/roguelites, that's not really an issue. For example, Nova Drift, an action roguelite, is out of Early Access now, but I played it for a long time in EA, and it was a perfectly reasonable game in that state. Same thing for Caves of Qud.
  
  I do think that buying Early Access is only really a good idea if you're going to be okay with the developer terminating development tomorrow and still feel that you're better off having purchased the game -- incomplete or no -- than not.

Only if it's a game I'm going to play regardless. I pre ordered FH4 and FH5 and I easily have 2k+ hours in both of those games.

You are assuming the reviews have any bearing on whether I want to play the game. This is a risky assumption.

When Cyberpunk was busted and everybody was hating that's what prompted me to jump in. I went and got a PS4 physical version of the 1.0 last-gen release when I could find one on sale, even though I primarily played the game on PC. It's one of my favorite gaming artifacts. I like it more than any collector's edition nonsense.

Also, what reviews? I don't know if I know what "reviews" for videogames even mean anymore.

Anyway, to answer your actual question, if there is a discount at launch (which is increasingly a thing, which is kind of sad) or a decent preorder bonus I can prepurchase. I don't mind. Otherwise I just get things when I get things.

Never because I'm cheap and also I don't want to pay a premium for a buggy unoptimized experience. Even when I had the game pass trial I didn't play games day 1, since games needed several patches to be acceptable.

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.

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.

No, one time there was a highly anticipated game that I really wanted.

Walked into the store after checking a couple reviews and bought it full price.

Ask the clerk, he confirmed there is never shortages or anything like that for physical disks.

Imo, there is even less of a reasons to preorder digital copies, what are they gonna do, run out of bandwidth?

I think there's only been one game that I've pre-ordered digitally, and it was Cyberpunk 2077 on GoG the day it was supposed to release early for pre-orders.
Ask the clerk, he confirmed there is never shortages or anything like that for physical disks.

Small town?

When stuff only released on disc stores can only get so many copies. Even if it’s a 100 or so, there’s no guarantee they’ll have enough on launch day to even satisfy demand. People would line up the night before as well.

So if you wanted to make sure you got a copy of a good game to play day 1 with your buddies, you HAD to preorder and hope they weren’t out, since they also held stock to sell day of.
- No, there is a finite amount, agreed. However, the cost of making and shipping is minimal in the overall production cost. If no they need 100, shipping 120 is easy. Any excess can be used for following weeks and months sales. The gamer doesn’t want to miss out, but the company is much more likely to take active steps to ensure they don’t miss out on a sale. In the age of digital, even if they did sell out, it can still be pirchaesed online. So, it is high risk, low reward to preorder.
  
  So, while missing out on day one is possible, it’s extremely unlikely and so preordering is basically a free loan and handing over money before there is a chance to assess quality.

I do preorder digital games but not just anything I’m excited about. It has to come from a single dev or small dev team that I specifically want to support, and help fund their progress. In this example, I’d preorder Haunted Chocolatier by ConceredApe (dev behind Stardew Valley).

OR, if the game is made by studio with a stellar track record or an absolutely phenomenal game. These more rare but their are a few. These also need to treat their dev team and customers well. No crunch. No shady micro-transactions.

For example, Hades 2 is something I would consider preordering. The next game by Larian Studios might also be on that list.

Spot on. Larian, fromsoftware, supergiant and concerned ape are some of the few where i would preorder.

Not digital. I used to preorder popular games way back before digital was a thing as supply could be tight, but it makes zero sense in a digital world where they can't run out of supply.

Especially with how the trend today is release and drop hotfixes (or in some cases just laugh to the bank) I won't drop $$$ until its in a good state

Not counting Kickstarter projects, which I rarely back anymore, no. I'll wait for reviews and probably a sale.

No.

Especially the big studio games.

They almost always go on sale 3-6 months past release, and they’ve been patched at least once.

You get a better, cheaper game.

I would have pre-ordered Civ7, but then they announced it has Denuvo so now instead of pre-ordering I'm just not going to buy it at all.

Fuck denuvo and fuck corporations who think their customers should just bend over and accept whatever bullshit they offer for the "privilege" of playing their game.

There is so much good indie gaming content these days, we don't need these abusive mega-corp games.

When starfield released and tried this "early access for extra cash" nonsense, the game was cracked before the regular release was even available.

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.

Mega Crit is an indie studio.
I thought StS1 was exquisite, so I'm optimistic about a sequel from the same people.
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.

No because it's stupid to preorder digital goods. I'll happily join early access to help fund projects I find interesting lile enshrouded.

Never preorder any game.

No. Heck, I don't even play Early Access games (with rare exceptions, like Satisfactory). I'm not paying to be a beta tester.

All they have to do is add a skin or some shit as a pre-order bonus and people will deposit money. It's absolutely crazy, especially with the state almost every launch is in these days.

Big games are like 50% off after a few months anyway, no point buying those at all until then.

never

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.

Only games I'm super confident I'll love. Never got screwed over.

Haven't played the other two, but have been playing monster hunter for almost 20 years now. Capcom is wysiwyg when it comes to monhunbo. And the recent releases have had exclusive pre-release gear (albeit ones with short lived usefulness). And while they and hello games are still releasing new content for free, they can have my money any time they want.

I trust my credit card more with Sean Murray than my wife.

I pre-ordered No Man's Sky and that was the first and last time I pre-ordered anything.

Beyond the painful lesson, pre-ordering is just a large risk that you're going to get a crap game - which is doubly unpleasant because you've basically paid good money to buy yourself a feeling of frustration and the experience of having been scammed - and all that you gain from pre-ordering a digital game is at best being able to play the exact same game a few minutes or maybe hours earlier than if you bought it on day 1, which is a "gain" not worth taking on that risk.

This is even more so in this day and age of totally overhyped bullshit and industry reviews being either pretty much paid for or done against beta versions hence not mentioning software problems such as bugs and slowness.

In fact I would even advise against buying a game on the first week or month for similar reasons - you want to reduce the risk of wasting your money and of frustration, by waiting for others to have played it and user reviews to come out and by buying later you'll probably going to end up with a better version of the game because the worst post-release bugs will have started being patched.

You could say that from the point of view of the buyer, it doesn't make business sense to pre-ordered a digital good for which there is no scarcity.

There’s no point because you do not know how the games are.

The reason people do it is poor impulse control for the dopamine hit from buying something they want. I'm pretty sure anyone claiming another reason isn't being honest with themselves or others.

Never. There's no point, it's not like there are a limited amount of copies that I'll miss out on if I don't reserve mine.

No, it just doesn't make sense to me to do so. I mostly play single player games, so special skins to show you preordered are pretty pointless, and the most you tend to get is a discount on some DLC that I can just buy later, once I know I've enjoyed the game enough to warrant it, or items to give you a stat boost.

It's not like preordering a physical game, where at least I get an art book or something in exchange for handing my money over.

I'll do it to support indie devs. Though I haven't ever done it through Steam -- just Kickstarter

I pre-order games. Steams refund policy makes it pretty much risk-free. Usually it's shortly before launch, if I want to play the game immediately anyway. For big games, reviews pretty much always come out before launch or on the day of, so I can still always cancel, if it looks bad. I don't remember regretting any of these purchases, even if I didn't like all the games.

So why not just buy it on the day of the launch? See the reviews, or even better yet wait a few days before seeing actual reviews and not reviews against free/early access copies?
- Reviews almost always come out several days to a week before release so by the release day I’ve seen them all. In addition to that, lots of the genres I like have well known players in the community who often get a chance to play early builds for marketing purposes so you’ll get an idea of whether the game’s at least worthwhile WELL before release. And if the game ends up being terrible, well Steam doesn’t care if you pre ordered or bought the game at launch, they’ll refund you just the same.
  
  And when games I like come out I usually want to play them at release so if I waited for the game to release to buy it I’d have to sit there and download it first. You’d also lose out on any pre order bonuses which are often like free access to paid content which saves you a little money in the long run, or maybe you get to play the game early.
  
  I guess the idea behind not preordering is you don’t want to get bamboozled into buying a bad game? But the thing is once you’ve been playing games for awhile and you know what you like, it’s actually REALLY hard to be tricked into buying a game you won’t like. It is very easy to tell when a game is going to release with issues or be something you don’t like. In 20 years of preordering games I think the only time I ever got duped by a game was No Mans Sky, but to be fair they put a lot of effort into lying about that one, to the point that I was able to get a refund on it outside of the refund window. So it still worked out.
- Sometimes I want the freebies you get with the pre-order, sometimes it's about pre-loading.
  
  before seeing actual reviews and not reviews against free/early access copies?
  
  "Actual reviews", because you can only have an opinion on something, if you paid for it.

I've pre-ordered games due to hype a few times and every time I do I get shafted and dev runs with my money. Now I stick to promising EAs. If I pay 20-30 bucks for EA, get some fun out of it and then dev runs at least I got some fun out of it.

No.
My backlog is so big and my interested in gaming became so little I prefer watching YT or stuff on my Jellyfin server.
I wanted to play Helldivers 2 but decided against it because I had nobody else and now it's kinda in late-progress I won't even bother.

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.

I agree with this take. MH Wilds will be my first prepurchase since RE4. The RE4 demo blew my mind and the Wilds beta had me hooked.

Yes. After clocking up 10,000 hours on Civ VI. Civ VII can take my money!

You've spent like a sixth of the time since release playing it? Damn. What's your playtime across all the games?
- Well... I will admit a lot of those hours were from falling asleep with the game running.

Occasionally, there will be a game I want to play as soon as it releases - even then, I’ll maybe wait until the last hour before release to “pre order”, just as one last fuck you to the concept.

No, I was thinking about civ7 but was unsure because, while firaxis is very talented, I do not trust 2k, once they added denuvo I decided to not even buy it at launch even if the reviews are positive (and £120 for the founders edition is stupid, especially since, if the game is updated like all previous civs, it will be necessary).

I will be waiting for denuvo to be removed (because it always is) and for a sale.

I'm going to preorder monster hunter wilds, I'll do it the day before and pre-download it. Does that count?

theres no difference between preorder and buying on release date

so if youre buying it anyway, may as well preorder and cancel it if reviews are sketchy

And you can even return it, if it's released and you haven't installed it... Or if it's on Steam, and you played it less than 2 hours.

There really isn't a lot of reason to strenuously avoid pre-ordering if you're pretty sure you'll buy it at release.

And even better, a lot of games have pre-installs that can save you time at release. You could be playing the game instead of being mad that it isn't downloaded yet.

No. Any game I might possibly consider pre-ordering isn't going to magically disappear. I was gonna make a comment about how there's probably no guarantee about return policy on Steam for pre-order games, but I looked it up and can't make the argument I was gonna.

Either way, I would much prefer to wait for a game to be on sale on a much later date because at that point any major game ruining glitches/bugs should hopefully be patched and price will be cheaper. Generally, I don't tend to buy games over a certain price anymore. Price varies, but right now it's over $20USD since I'm on a college financial aid budget. And no, I don't include $19.99 as under the budget because that's absolutely marketing bullshit that I think should die.

Also, I don't like pre-ordering games since you usually don't get any real world bonus items anymore (at least from triple AAA titles anymore). Granted, I've only ever done 2 IRL pre-orders in my life, but I was extremely disappointed about not getting anything besides access to free DLC for the Borderlands Pre-Sequel game compared to how I got a full guide book for BioShock Infinite, which was more than enough to make me thrilled (even if I've never actually used it once).

Plus, at this point, pretty much every single pre-order game I see (unsurprisingly all triple AAA) is a game I know I'm not gonna like, so it's pointless for me.

I was the one trying to talk the friend group out of pre-ordering for years. Oddly enough, I haven't needed to do that in a while.

Might have something to do with how the last time that discussion happened, the game in question was Fallout 76.

I didn't even have to say "told you so" for it to never come up again.

Yes, why? That's the stupidest thing to do.

Absolutely not!

(I pre-ordered stalker 2. Can't help that I'm a Stan for the series and mod scene. I was happy with this purchase.)

It can be hard to get over the urge if you're a fan of a series. The next game MUST be better... right? It's a hard thing to truly get too mad at others since it's pretty much human nature, even if we can all agree it's not healthy.

Does steam let you pre install? Only reason I can think of and I have never done it

Almost never. The last one I digitally pre-ordered was Borderlands 3, and given how that turned out, I think I might buy BL4 on release day, if not a few weeks later

What's the difference between doing your way and maybe wait a day or 2 until gameplay is published?
- Well I mean my way is waiting until gameplay is published, as well as making sure the story isn't ass. I'm gonna let my coplayer decide if he wants to get it day one, but I imagine he'll hold out for a bit
  
  Wrt BL3, we were gonna buy that on release anyway because we'd done the same for every other entry and DLC since the day BL2 came out. If we'd waited a few weeks, the only difference would be that we're prepared for the story to be ass

Do I pay full price for games before they are available to play and are most likely not going to be finished upon release? No.

Preordering anything with no real or artificial scarcity doesn’t really make financial sense. It’s a predatory sales tactic to get people to part with their money sooner, in this case before customers have a chance to use software that is pretty much unreturnable. Gaming publishers love digital preorders because some customers end up paying full price for games they don’t even like and can’t even resell.

Sadly, for at least the last ten years or more, most non-online games are best played a few years after release date when they’ve had their bugs fixed or their ‘complete edition’ released.

No reason to. A while back, some publishers gave 10% off pre orders, I bought maybe one or two like that. Some do digital goodies which doesn't entice me at all (I'm DLC proof). I can download anything fast enough. So why would I pre order?

Yeah I’ll pre order any game that I plan on buying. There’s no practical reason not to.

This is the first comment I see that actually answers the question. Why on earth are people down voting is beyond me..

Now though, I'd love to get more details about the thought process as I myself never preorder anything ?

Edit : I've seen your answers to other comments, I guess it makes sense, all good reasons
- Yeah people avoid pre ordering because they don’t want to signal to the publishers support for a game before they know it’ll be good. And that’s a perfectly valid reason not to pre order. But it’s also the only reason not to pre order, and it’s more political than practical.
What if the game launches and you find out everyone is saying it is incomplete, doesn't run properly, and is crashing their consoles over and over?

That would be the practical reason I would think of for not just outright purchasing something that hasn't come out
- That kind of thing would likely be made known through reviews that come out a few days to a week before release in which case you could just cancel your preorder. And even if they didn’t, Steam’s refund policy doesn’t care if you preordered or not, you can get a refund either way.
  
  If it’s a console game and the problem is bad enough that it’s crashing consoles, even with refund policies as restrictive as Sony’s, they will issue refunds in cases like that, as we’ve seen a lot of in the past couple years.
  
  The only actual negative scenario that’s left is you play it and you just don’t like it, and you’re not on PC so you can’t get a refund. But not preordering a game doesn’t really solve that problem. If you buy a game on the PS store two weeks after release and it turns out you don’t like the game you’re no better off than if you pre ordered it and didn’t like it. Generally people don’t pre order games that they’re not sure they’re even going to like.
Interesting. I can’t see any practical reason TO preorder. Are they going to run out of digital copies? Am I going to forget to buy it? I’d rather wait for reviews and a couple patches.
- You get content only available if you pre order
  
  You get early access to the game
  
  You get some amount of later expansion content for free
  
  you can preload the game so when it releases, you can just begin playing it.
  
  There are lots of practical reasons TO preorder something, thought it’s not always all of those things. And you can both preorder something and “Wait for reviews” because the vast majority of the time, reviews release before a game releases.
  
  For example, Civ 7 comes out on the 11th, if you pre order you get the benefit of getting to play it on the 6th, and the reviews for it all released today, the 3rd. That means I’ll know today if the game sucks and I can just… cancel my preorder if I wanted to. Then in a couple days I get to play the game early, so in case the reviews were all paid for I get to see for myself if I don’t like the game, and if I don’t like it, I can cancel my pre order.
  
  In case I don’t cancel my pre order, I also save $10 on Civ packs I would otherwise be paying for. If I waited for release day to buy it, I’d lose out on the benefits of pre ordering, but gain nothing.

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.

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.

Nope, not a single reason to do so.

Preorder bonuses are worthless and are always available as dlc later on.

I did pre-order KC:D II, but it's the first full price big title I've purchased in a long while. I was hoping to have a new GPU at release, but it looks like I'll have to wait a little longer. At least they'll have ironed out the major bugs at that point.

The reason I preordered the game was that there's a bonus quest, the game was 10% off and I can theoretically still cancel my preorder from Gamesplanet in case the reviews suck. It's not like pre-orders are irreversible.

I would make a very rare exception and pre-order only certain titles, like if there was a new Civ Game, cause I knew I was going to get it immediately anyway and sometimes they'd let you pre-load.

But with the new Civ being nearly $170 CAD for the full version, I'm not even doing that anymore. I look forward to the real Civ VII release date of sometime in the 2027 Steam Christmas sale lol.
- The last game I preordered was CP 2077. Wasn't even mad because I got a decent price for a physical copy and it was worth it for the memes alone.

Last game i pre-ordered was fallout 4 hahahaha. So no i don't pre-order anymore. I even waited for a discount on baldur's gate 3 before buying it, that was a feat of it's own.

Only indie games, because I like to support indie developers.

Only twice and felt foolish after release. Stalker 2 was selling below pre order price on a trustworthy key site. And cyberpunk, not sure why I did that one.

Last game I preordered was World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade and I stood in line for 12 hours to make sure I was the very first to have it. Haven't preordered any game since then. They weren't distributed digitally back then, so running out of 'copies' was a real thing.

Now, I perpetually buy games that are 1-2 years old. They've been patched, they've been balanced, they're stable, and I can watch someone on Twitch beforehand to decide if it's worth purchasing.

I can think of 2 legitimate reasons for doing this - either putting the money down now so you don't have to come up with it later, or so you can preload it and have it available right at release.

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.

There are very few reason why I might choose to pre-order a game:

I know for sure I want to play the game on launch day and dont want to deal with downloading the game all day
the pre-order comes with physical goods that I want
the game is made by FromSoftware or Yoko Taro, I know I am basically guaranteed to like anything from either of these
the game is part of an intellectual property that I like and I want that property to be successful, and I would have purchased the game anyways

Thats really it. Generally niche instances, I don't find myself pre-ordering games all that often anymore. I pre-ordered the Collectors Edition of Elden Ring, the White Snow edition of NieR Replicant 1.22 (still waiting on that Gestalt 1.22 DLC). But other than those two, I haven't felt compelled to pre-order anything else. I learned about Dino Crisis on GOG too late if it even had a pre-order period, but I did buy it on release day.

As far as I remember, I've never bought anything in my life that I couldn't enjoy immediately after payment (not counting delivery time if it had to be ordered and shipped). I did buy early access games, or games at full price on release day (twice only, Overwatch and Baldur's Gate 3), though.

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

If I have trust in the developers that the game won't be an absolute shitfest (i.e. they have an okayish track record) and I want to play on day one to be part of the community, yes. That said, the last game was Elden Ring and the next is Monster Hunter Wilds, so that doesn't happen very often.

Nightreign and Subnautica 2 are also on the list, I'm not too hyped about anything else this year.

If I have trust in the developers that the game won't be an absolute shitfest (i.e. they have an okayish track record)

The problem is that virtually every series has some point where it has bad releases, or we'd just have enormous, permanently-running game series.

I can think of an extremely few very-long-running series that I have a pretty consistently solid opinion of what I've seen, like The Legend of Zelda, but even there, there were what I'd call lemons, like the second game in the series. I am out of date on Final Fantasy, but as I recall, at least when it launched, Final Fantasy XIII was...not good.

But the vast majority of series, even those that have managed to get five or six releases, which is a long time to have a successful series of games, wind up coming out with worse releases at some point. I mean, teams change, expectations change, people take technical or design or business risks that don't pan out.

It's especially frustrating when a game is fairly unique. I loved Kerbal Space Program, and there isn't much else like it, but the attempt to develop a sequel really did not go well.

And even where series keep going, some people don't like them even if they liked earlier games. I personally like Starfield quite a bit, consider it to definitely be worth the price. But a lot of people who did like earlier Bethesda games did not like Starfield.

Honestly, I kind of prefer the Paradox model to the "series" approach, in an era of digital distribution. I play a game, and keep buying DLC as long as I like the game. They do smaller releases that incrementally expand the game. Reduces risks for the player as well as the publisher. That doesn't work for every genre, can't do an adventure game like that, but it does work for games that are very replayable.

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.

Once, Diablo 3. I figured it could not miss. It missed.

it would have to be one hell of a sale or a ton of perks added, and be something i was gonna buy at release anyway--which i do not do often: the last game i bought the week of release was hl2.

If I know I'd be buying day 1 anyway, yes I'll preorder. I know I'll be playing Avowed day one because it looks like my cup of tea, and I'll be playing Wilds day one because I have a ton of friends who want to play it together.

I don't buy a lot of games that have pre-order any more but no, I don't. If I want to buy it before it is released and have a pre-order I do it the same day or just the day before release but I think I will stop with this too.

If I actually have faith in the developer, plan on getting the game at launch, and it has some extra in-game goodies, I might pre-order it.

I pre-ordered Elden Ring and SOTE. I won't pre-order Nightreign because I'm not sure if it will be something I like, as it doesn't even sound like an official Fromsoft game; it sounds like a mod made by a teenager.

No, I do not pre-order games. I have joined some early access campaigns for games I was very interested in, like Kerbal Space Program and Satisfactory, but...generally "pre-order" is something the BIG studios that are all owned by Microsoft now do, they don't need the funding to get the game done. Meanwhile, Subnautica wouldn't have made it to 1.0 without their early access campaign.

Especially now that games are often distributed via internet download rather than physical disc or cartridge, it's not a matter of making sure you can get a copy. The last game I pre-ordered was Majora's Mask.

I find it interesting four of the top 10 sellers are Free To Play.

Not really. The one exception I made in recent times was Cities Skylines 2 after I had 400+ hours in the original, and that was only due to a 30% off sale days before release. Though I wouldn't recommend it for most, I still have 42 good hours in it so it was worth my money.

Otherwise I'm a very patient gamer.

I've stopped preordering most games, partially because of a backlog, partially because games like 2077 ruined my trust in even "good" companies (and no, I do not think 2077 deserves the redemption arc the Internet gives it). I did however pre-order Path of Exile 2 by a week because I had A) played a beta experience which was terribly fun B) followed all of the content creators talk about the beta's they played and how even when they complained it felt like choices I'd like (more action focused combat) and C) the preorder I got came with keys for friends I wanted to distribute ahead of time. So I knew for sure I was going to play it, like it at least enough to justify the price, and that I wanted to preload it for a launch party.

Pretty much the biggest and best reason to preorder is for the preload so you can play at launch. But not every game needs to be played at exactly the launch time (in fact we struggled on launch day of poe2 but did eventually get to play) and all pre-orders should be done as close to the launch date as possible so you can get an easy refund if it sucks.

Isn't POE2 FPT?
- PoE2 will be Free-To-Play upon 1.0 launch. For now it's in what they're calling Early Access (a Beta period) and requires a €30 euro key. I believe they said they did this because it wasn't the complete game, they were still looking for feedback, and it's a bit janky in terms of balance.
  
  So far it's been worth every penny, many times over, but I also think the promise they deliver on in the first three acts they fail to deliver on in the end game. I'd recommend people wait if they have other games or ARPG's to play. I'd also recommend anyone who loves ARPG's, if they have run out of content elsewhere to give it a try without hesitation. It's a fantastic game and the best arpg on the market in almost every aspect.

I only pre-order Guild Wars 2 expansions, as it's my favourite game and I know that whatever I get, I'll feel that it was worth the money for the thousands of hours of fun I've got out of that game :)

But I wouldn't preorder anything else - I have a massive Steam backlog, and a few years after release I can get the properly finished, patched version of games with all the expansions for a fraction of the price (+ all the mods and community resources that had time to develop and mature). Last year I got Witcher 3 for like 90% off lol. No need to rush, there are so many older games I haven't played yet...

Btw I was a r/patientgamers member for years, I see that they also have a community on Lemmy :) https://sh.itjust.works/c/patientgamers

For me it really depends on the game, the studio, and the publisher. I preordered Firmament because Cyan has a good history. I might also pre-order a digital game if I think a game is particularly novel, or if I think I'm going to like it pretty much regardless of the reviews (e.g. I like the franchise it's from/ties into), the last reason is if there's some kind of in-game incentive to do so (e.g. pre-order and you get some in game minor boost/cosmetic/whatever) but that's really only a minor consideration.

You haven't been burned then?
- Not yet or at least not badly. I have respect for people who have been burned to make their decisions but I also target games/publishers that I already trust. A game from a company I've never heard of will probably not get pre-ordered.

With 14 days after release and 2 hours of playtime you can still refund. Maybe some just see it as the current day demo? Quite easy to see if it runs well and what the playability and average response is within that time frame. Like a wishlist that reserves the cash in advance.

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.

I preorder FromSoft Souls games, thats it. But I have been a huge fan since PS3 Demon's Souls, and I even preordered that one, I havent been burned yet by them as I have gotten well over 300 hours on each title.

Literally everything else? Hell no.

No

Never. Apart from the pre-order bonuses that I refuse to accept there's really no reason to. The game's still there after I have seen the reviews. I have fast internet and a fast SSD, so even if I could pre-download that would realistically only save me an hour or something even for the largest games.

I get lost in the hype and I do, last one was armored core and cyberpunk before that

I will say this, the hype is also entertainment and I had more fun with the buildup to cyberpunk than with the game itself and I'm glad I experienced it all, steam servers crashing was wild

The real cyberpunk was the friends we made along the way unironically

I read so much about the lore of cyberpunk before the release just to be met with a boring mess.

Not anymore. Mostly for 3 main reasons.

The only reason I'd ever preorder something now is if there's a significant risk of stock running out quickly. That's not a thing with digital games, ask there's no need to consider it.
I've been burned far too many times by getting shitty games on day one, after having fallen for all the fake hype, deceptive marketing, sophisticated astroturfing, and paid-for reviews. Now, as a rule, I'll wait for about 2-4 weeks at least to see what the community sentiment is before I buy something.
And finally, games are fuck all expensive now. 70 dollars is already a bridge too far for many of the bug-riddled, unfinished slop big corpos push out these days. And then there's "speculation" that RockStar will price GTA6 at a 100 dollars, giving all the publishers out there the precedent to do the same with their own titles. I'll just take my time and wait for them to go on sale for at least 50% off before I consider getting something. (P.S. I say speculation, but I'm almost entirely convinced that it's a deliberate industry psyop to get people primed for this insane price tag and reduce the sticker shock-induced backlash)

I mean, Civ is a pretty established line of games. If you are into those things you probably know you’re going to get the new one. Same for Monster Hunter, especially with this one returning to world’s formula, which was hugely popular, and having multiple betas people could have tried to before prepurchasing. I assume kingdom come deliverance is the same.

No issue preordering a game I know I’m going to get either way.

But with new games, or AAA shit, or titles I may enjoy but are not a guaranteed buy, then preordering is stupid as hell.

Steamdeck top 4. Yeah right Valve.

It's ordered by revenue.
- like steam controllers back in the day when they were always top 10 in those ”top seller” lists.

No. I am fairly sure almost everything on the top seller lose is also in my ignore category.

Very rarely, usually out of interest for the bonuses or out of spite to a circlejerk that has formed against it. Have they been great games? No, but they have also not turned out to be bad games or something I did not expect, as I did my homework.

Nope. I used to pre-order ESO expansions because you got some cool mounts or whatever, but I haven't played that in years.

Also try not to give into early access either.