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[Column] General: Passing on Pre-Orders
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
On Wednesday, June 3, RPG fans were treated to their first official look at Fallout 4. There’s no feature list, in-game footage, or release date, but pre-orders are already open. Is pre-ordering now really a good idea?
Read more of Jessica Cook's Tales from the Neighborhood: Passing on Pre-Orders.
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Comments
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I've always seen pre-orders as a way to get the payment out of the way and forget about it until release. Nothing has ever stated that you cannot cancel a pre-order if you change your mind.
This "pre-order phobia" is becoming increasingly ridiculous.
There really is no reason to risk it for a single player game. I can see needing to preorder to get your bonus items or an early start in an MMO, but for single player games? No need.
Besides I am like a lot of people who have filled up our Steam inventories during sales, so there are plenty of games I already own that I have not beaten or even played. Fallout is tempting, but after Sim City and Civilization Beyond Earth, I will wait to see what other gamers have to say before paying full price. If the game is a let down I will wait until a sale brings it down to a more appropriate price.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
I, too, am all about waiting for steam sales for games that I don't "HAVE TO HAVE RIGHT NOW!!!". I have no issue waiting for a better price as I have a tremendous library at my fingertips to keep me going.
Now as far as my console library, I tend to wait to see reviews unless it's something I know I'll play a lot. If it's something I don't need right away, well then I will wait to get a pre-owned copy at a decent price.
A first i though i would just plop down the pre-order money and be done with it.
But then having actually took a second to think about it, What would i actually gain from giving them the money now?
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With MMO's I do not pre-order at all. Every single launch that I've seen is just too chaotic on so many levels it's not worth it to endure that mess and frustration. For single player games..hmm. No. I haven't come across one in years that I felt compelled to buy at full box price as soon as I could. I tend to wait 6 months or so when there is a price reduction, and a couple of patches have been made to smooth the gaming experience.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Fallout 1, 2 & 3 were rpg with metacritic scores of 82-91. Indicative of good games. FO:NV had problems, so it doesn’t bode well for preorder success. Why do high profile companies go the preorder route? Because of the economy we don’t live in the world of 10 or 20 years ago. Even though the customer base has been asking for a FO 4, in the board room a FO 4 is not a sure thing. Why the early PO, because FO:NV was bad. Therefor FO 4 will be a poor investment, PO is a test to see if the public wants it. If they don’t want it(not willing to spend full price sight unseen), why make it?
Waiting for a steam sale? That’s the clearance bin for games. Why make a game, if the customer base if waiting for the clearance bin to buy. I’m not expert enough to speak on the impact of canceling preorders. But I can say that it is huge.
When it comes to the world of retail sales, the numbers of twitter followers is meaningless if it doesn’t equate to pre order sales. Will we see more blind pre orders, and crowdfunding of AAA projects? Will we see gas price hit $5+?Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
You say Fallout NV was a bad game, but ... that's just your opinion and doesn't seem to be shared by the majority. 84 on Metacritic - users and critics alike. I love the game, have put in over 200+ hours on it.
I don't think there's any doubt Fallout 4 is going to make them a fortune, pre-order or no.
I actually find it more bothering that people feel so willy nilly about everything, especially committing money, most companies themselves have a no refund policy flat out when you buy from them, it's places like Amazon, Gamestop etc.. that are in the business of overstating demand by offering no commitment based pre-orders. These things don't work in a bubble, where do you think all of these "so and so sent X amount of boxes back to the publsiher" articles come from not long after a games release? A lot of that can be attributed to early access deals and testing entry, people get their fill long before a game even releases.. In turn they cancel that pre-order. This isn't everyone of course, but it's enough, I just find it ridiculous. Hence my no regrets statement, it's on me not them...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
In general i also am very skeptical about pre ordering. I actually pre order some games because i though i would never regret it and later OPPPSSS my bad ....
We have cases like EA selling games that are not finished and then selling the rest of the game in paying dlc.
We have Ubifail selling Unity a broken game from the start with major problems to make it run.
So i kinda agree some companies just want your money and those that pre order sometimes get ripped off .
About those reviews and game footage iam even more skeptical we all know these days good reviews are payed companies like EA or wathever just bring the big bag of money and suddenly a crap game is the second coming in the gaming industry its the game of "OH MY GOD THIS GAME IS AWESOME" and then we start feeling great by the purchase and opppps my bad ..."Did i say the game was awesome in my review???? i meant the money that i have filled my pockets is great!!!!"
And the comparisons stop there BECAUSE i have seen some people comparing early access to the game And that cannot or will EVER be compared.
We can compare a game like Sims 4 or Simcity or wathever that their release company sell as finished with other games in same standing and not compare games finished with alpha builds that you are buying your way into.
Also one small thing about fallout 4 i honestly believe the release date will be way shorter then one year.
I doubt that a company that EVER has done and E3 decides to the first time in their existence to do an E3 just to show some montage of the game i do believe we are going to get a release date on E3.
Also few bits and pieces of some leaked information here and there is leaving to believe the game will be released this here around October.
So to finish you guys are not buying a pre alpha for any kind of game and you are not buying an mmo that no one ever heard of and then expect it to be a great game on release or in the alpha build or wathever the stage is.
On fallout 4 we are buying a finished product that is likely to come out this year from a company that so far as always delivered a good product (at least for me).
So usually i do not pre order any game but for a Bethesda game i open a exception .
I've been done with pre-ordering and early access and all that since the ArcheAge $150 thing. That's a lie. Actually, I did pre-order GTA V and The Witcher 3. But that's it. I'm done.
I won't even pre-order FO 4 or Elder Scrolls VI. I don't trust anymore.
Have to disagree with that comment. I can post innumeral examples of franchise games that have come out with very poor quality games just to sell more titles. Throwing money at these imbeciles just perpetuates the pre-order madness.
People that buy them just encourage studios to continue putting half finished or poorly thought out games on the market.
Pre-ordering is an antiquated concept. Back in the day when games were all box copies and you wanted to make sure you didn't have to wait an unknown period of time before the next shipment (or two) arrived at your nearby stores, you pre-ordered. There is no line anymore (except for collector's editions with physical goods). You can pre-order if you want, but there is no scarcity of product.
I honestly don't mind pre-ordering for single player titles I know I'm gonna play (i.e. Dark Souls 3), but the MMO world has completely flipped upside down where you can spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars during alpha and beta, but the game is "free to play" at launch. It's pretty obvious they've just moved the marketing and sales timeframes up. So instead of a $50-$60 game at release, they ask multiples of that for "early access" allowing you to subsidize the game for everyone to play for "free" at launch. And then there's the cash shop which we all know has been a frighteningly successful model.
I never preorder single player games. I even rarely buy any single player games on release date.
Usually I wait some time (maybe weeks, month/s or even longer) till the smoke has settled. Sometime after release there is much more reliable information (reviews, videos, maybe a demo etc) available which helps me to judge whether the game is worth my money and especially time.
Nice side effect is that I get the games much cheaper then and they also include some of the DLCs and all for less than release date price. The speed in which the price decreases is also a good indicator whether the game could hold its promises or was just another PR stunt. Quality games usually don't drop in price as fast as garbage.
I always preorder, as most places like Amazon do not charge until they ship.
Also with Amazon, if you have a preorder in place you can get good deals. I saved about £20 on AC IV Black Flag Skull Edition, and it was cheaper than the standard edition, as Amazon have had it on sale on it at one time during the preorder period. The same thing happened with Watch Dogs Dedsec edition on PC. I ended up keeping them as i did want them, but if I didn't want them I could have sold them and made a profit.
If the price does not drop a week before launch and I am skeptical about the item then I cancel the preorder, and no money has been taken.
I also use a payment card that only gets funds on it when I want it to have funds, and most of the time it is on zero, and when Amazon want to take funds, I transfer money if I want it, and retry card, or if I do not want it I cancel the preorder.
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