this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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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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[–] CascadianBeam@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it’s an age thing a lot of times. It’s like telling my kids to brush their teeth because of my experiences with dental, or you can plug any example like that.

I can tell kids not to preorder all I want. They just haven’t had the opportunity to be burned as many times as we have yet.

[–] Syndic@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

I think it’s an age thing a lot of times.

I don't have numbers but I bet that a lot of people who preorder aren't kids but adults with a proper income. Kids as a group don't have the income to uphold the current presale figures, that's done by working adults who can afford to preorder a game and take the not so small risk that it's utterly shit.

If I want I could preoder a lot of games that come out this year without having to worry about the waste of money to much. I doubt that any regular kid can do that.

[–] DrQuint@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Decoy321@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That's a defeatist attitude. There are a lot more of us then you can fathom. If you're going to make assumptions on data you don't have, why not have hope?

[–] Syndic@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are a lot more of us then you can fathom.

Where? Here we have 1.2k potential users. The video does have 24k views. For big studios like Bethesda that's a rounding error! Skyrim for example sold 3.4 million physical copies alone at launch. I wouldn't be surprised if Starfield already has sold that many pre-orders.

I mean it's good to have such a discussion, but there are 10's of millions of people who regularely buy PC/console games. It would be silly to expect that such a huge amount of people could be reached easily by grassroot discussions of a few thousand people.

After all this whole pre-order discussion is by no means new. I've seen such for at least 5-10 years but in the end, pre-orders still happen on a gigantic scale.

[–] Decoy321@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You're looking at just one community. Are we the only community to have ever had this discussion? Is it impossible for other people to discuss this same topic with different people, at different times, in different places? Do you have objective data surveying any significant sample sizes?

If not, then you're just making assumptions. So why make worse assumptions instead of better?

And I don't actually care about the results, I'm talking about the attitude on principle. I'm not insinuating that we need to reach everybody. I'm questioning the assumption that they're reaching nobody.

[–] Syndic@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Of course other communities are also talking about that. /r/PCMR for example certainly does. But that doesn't change the fact that the people talking about it are very few and that they have little influence on the casual gamer in regards to their decision.

I mean look at how fucking hard it is for humanity to solve important issues where a lot more people are on board with. Compared to that, pre-order and the sorry state of gaming is utterly meaningless so of course a lot more people simply won't care.

But hey go ahead, I wish you the best of luck. I mean this seriously. But you can be sure that I won't bet any money on that side.

[–] Call_Me_Maple@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I miss the age of videogame demos, it feels like nothing but a distant memory now. And the only reason companies let people play their broken betas now is to gauge excitement for their games and fix any serious game breaking bugs.

[–] Syndic@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I miss the age of videogame demos, it feels like nothing but a distant memory now.

No it isn't! With Steam you can try most (if not every) game for 2h and return it if you didn't like it.

[–] Brochetudo@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

I recall pre-ordering EA's Battlefront back then. I only played it for 4 hours at most. Should have pirated it.

[–] bouh@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is no buying games anymore. You rent them now until the servers are down or Microsoft makes a new windows version.

[–] forgotaboutlaye@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

The exception to this is GOG -- They, and publishers/developers that release on their store, should be supported whenever possible.

Not perfect, but miles above the alternatives.

[–] Billiam@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Frostwolf@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Send_me_nude_girls@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] quatschkopf34@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Wait, Alan Wake 2 is finally coming? Didn‘t know it was actually still being developed.