Topic: What's the Point of Pre-Orders?

@skywake What are YOU talking about? He literally said that his methods are not mere predictions (biased and subjective) he said it's based on "homework" and "grounded evidence", implying that there's some sort scientific approach. He said anecdotally that he's close to 99% accurate (he said something along the lines that only 3 out of 273 or so games he ever ordered online was ever a dud). He even offered to create a thread predicting quality of games (which I said I support to prove his case).

Now of course I'm assuming he likes games of quality as everyone else (regardless of the specific genre) and also because he talked as if this method is applicable to everyone else/the majority (only those subjected to being disappointed he said are the "idiots" and supposed that vast majority of preorder and have good results on average), therefore these games he chose would have pretty good reviews (because the reviewers nowadays are based not only on a review of a few, but the general public ie 'everybody else' eg Metacritic has both aggregate scores of major websites and your random Metacritic users).

"Smash Brothers...", true. I didn't disagree you can't somehow predict quality of games, in fact I agreed with him. I'm just saying that it's not as accurate as he seem to suggest. Examples of great series ("history") that had terrible sequels, offshoots or just okay games but subpar, buggy on release, underwhelming iteration in comparison to original or series in general (or heck great games, later ported horribly to another system): Dragon Age 2, ME:A, almost all 2000 and later Sonic games, Devil May Cry 2, Rome 2: TW, classic examples like Zelda 2 and Castlevania 2 (SMB 2...I actually like this game but I agree with many voices that it's not as good as SMB1 and definitely not of 3). And tons more (for every great game review there's at least a dozen of bad or mediocre ones).

Lots of people preordered those or would've bought them simply because they liked the prior games.

Unless of course your standard for gaming is just bare minimum (that no matter what the game quality on release is like you'd "like it" nonetheless), then I'll just shut up. lol.

As for Metacritic, then don't use them. I'm just risk averse because iMHO there's no reason to in this day and age...you can get all the games you want ASAP and make sure it's decent, by simply waiting for reviews or general reactions (it's 2018 news comes out in real time and you can buy games digitally if you really gotta have it ASAP).

Again that's not only good for individual consumers, but its great for gaming in general. Many of these bad games I mentioned above were NOT financial duds for them; many of the games actually made decent sales/profits---why many companies continuously release mediocre games (much can be attributed to pre-order sales).

"Misread..." No I did not. That's exactly what I said. I didn't remember him thinking that either. Regardless, that's what I'm saying: at least 57% of all online buyers will use/have used store pick up recently. JDA (which published the original survey) stated that store pick up services increased 20% in two years. And further circumstantial evidence is the expansion of site pick up by Amazon (largest online delivery) in the last two years (if site pick up demand is not becoming bigger, why would Amazon do this?)

The relevance of this point is that games today are not rare commodities nor hard to acquire (that'd require you to pre order). My point is you can get almost all AAA releases almost on command by various means: digitally (the real trend shift), delivery, site pick up or buying in store...and I just find it hard to believe that people "have to" preorder outside of convenience, incentives (like discounts or dlcs/bonuses) etc.

Lastly, I apologize to people if my thoughts on pre orders offend y'all. Do what you want to do, I'm just merely having a conversation challenging it.

I only pre-order limited editions that I fear may not be readily available upon release. And occasionally games with a pre-order bonus, but only if I do not reasonably expect to be able to obtain the game for a cheaper price elsewhere at launch. If the limited edition is simply a larger box with a bunch of useless trinkets, then I am not interested, hence why I skipped the Australian release of Bayonetta and opted for the Japanese edition, which included the first game on cartridge, a bonus worth forking over extra for.

It's quite amusing. I was buying a few sale Pokémon plushies at EB Games yesterday and the attendant tried to coax me into preordering the Let's Go games. I told him that I intended on buying the boxed editions of both, but I thought I'd be polite and just say that I'll be waiting for a better deal closer to launch (EB charges full price for everything, at least at launch). Considering that the two games are going to cost me AU$260 at full retail price, I would much rather be cautious and wait for one of the department stores to (hopefully) offer the games at even a slight discount, as $260 for the Let's Go games is going to be a bit of a tough pill to swallow given how little they have to offer. To put things into perspective, the limited editions of Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon had cost me a total of AU$140, and they contain a lot more content than what Let's Go seem to be offering.

I would definitely pre-order if, say, there was a limited release of a major game on a 32GB cartridge (while the wider release is shipped on a smaller cartridge with a mandatory download). So far, nobody has extended the option. Quite frankly, considering the added costs of microSD card storage, I don't understand why anybody would opt for a smaller cartridge option when the extra cost for a 32GB edition will also cover the cost of what one would ordinarily have to pay anyway out of their microSD card (in fact, it should be cheaper as a 32GB ROM cartridge would be cheaper to manufacture than a rewritable microSD card).

@Lloiddd
We're simply talking about whether or not it is possible as a consumer to have a reasonable idea of whether or not we'll personally enjoy a thing before purchase. You can usually get a pretty solid idea of whether or not you personally will enjoy a game from trailers and previous experience with the genre/series. And no, nobody here is saying that they're at 99.9% predictor of how well a game will be reviewed. We're just saying that it's not hard to know whether or not you'll like a game or not before paying for it.

Now I don't personally care for pre-orders because the main reason to pre-order is to secure a copy. That's not a thing now that it's possible to download the game if you can't find a physical copy. But I think you're taking it to some kind of extreme here. It's a bit much.

I still don't know what your point is here. The stat was that 57% of people in the US who purchased items online have used in-store pickup at least once in the last year. I mean, that service does have a value. If you were to order a TV online you might want it delivered to and held by your local electronics store so it's not left out the front of your house. Or you might order food at a fast food place while you're on the way there so it's ready by the time you get there.

In any case, I don't see what any of those stats have to do with pre-orders. It literally has nothing to do with online shopping or picking up stuff in store. I mean really. Did you not stop and realise that you can pre-order games off-line and purchase games to be shipped to your house without pre-ordering?

@Lloiddd Well, putting aside my generalized shift toward digital distribution, I still pre-order pretty much every major game I own because I know that, 95% of the time, I'm going to enjoy what I buy and want it on release. And of the small number of games I've bought and not enjoyed, the majority of those purchases were spurred by reading reviews and user impressions, but ultimately not really caring for the game myself.

Bottom line: I trust my gut and prior experience with developers over reviews and user impressions, because the former approach rarely fails me.

Also, preordering physical games allows me to save money (both by getting discounts on new games and by scheduling out my major purchases throughout the year to control my backlog and discouraging impulse purchases).

Tbh so far the ones that I regret on buying are ones I end up keep asking friends if it's worth it or not... The ones I researched properly myself and was sure about, tend to be something I really enjoy.

That's why I kinda got confused when people said they don't enjoy something they have researched a lot on, because shouldn't that mean that they didn't research it ish? Not sure o.o)

@skywake
Huh? Again bro, I did not say you cannot predict the quality of games (I don't know how many times I have to say that). I'm just saying that it's not worth taking a risk because...THERE'S NO REASON TO in this day and age.

We're more empowered today as consumers if you we just took the time to do due diligence. You have reviews up the wazoo (Youtube, gaming websites, social media etc. etc. etc.) and you have a dozen huge websites that aggregate user and professional scoring systems.

"No one is saying 99%..."
Um are you Jason because I'm quoting HIM (who I had conversation with when you butted in) and he said this: "I've been doing this for years. You know how many bad games I preordered? 3. Out of 265 games" (first page of this thread).

Simple math that's 98.8% accuracy. YOU didn't say it (and I didn't say you did). But he sure did. I don't know where you get the "we" because I wasn't talking to you until yesterday. lol

"Taking a bit too much..."
No I'm not. I'm simply asking people to be better consumers. I didn't say never to preorder (in fact that's part of my first post). If you live a geographically isolated areas (like some of the posts here) where there's only one or few sources of games, incentives that are cool, discounts, rare editions (like the guy posted above) etc.

Those are all valid reasons. My issue is why preorder when none of those things apply (even so why risk it when some of those do eg some of incentives like small discounts and dlc's are too little and extra content so insignificant vs. risking a full price on a bad game)?

Games, esp. major releases are not rare nor hard to acquire for vast majority of Americans. You can buy/acquire anything same day with little or no hassle ON COMMAND (again buy it digitally, pick it up or delivery albeit you might have to wait a day or two...hell in some US cities Amazon would deliver it to you in a couple of hours lol) so even if you wait (to make sure the reviews are good) there's pretty little change that you have sacrifice. Thus preordering baffles me because it treats games like they're a rare commodity (companies sure want you to think that way tho lol) when it's clearly not.

"I still dont..."
Yes exactly. My point was never to say that all gamers or that this is a gaming related stat (it's retail in general, where gaming market is part of since almost all retail stores here in the US sell them). He said that "nobody" does store pick up (the only reason why I posted it to prove to him that a lot of people do). Even then my only point is that site pick up is just ANOTHER way besides delivery and digital why in general very little reason why you 'have to have' game asap that you have to preorder it. I'm just baffled that people preorder (as if it's gonna run out of games) when you can buy a million different ways on the same day.

"I don't see how it relates..." I didn't say it did and yes I do not know that. lol I don't know how many times I gotta say it: the point is simple, if you can get games a few different ways on the same day (again granted you're not the exceptions that I mentioned in the first post ie isolated geographical area), why risk getting a bad game by preordering? When you can just wait for reviews and then make a better decision later on that day and still have it in your hands a few hours later?

I think you're misconstruing his point vs. mine. He's the one that preorders automatically and gets it delivered (according to him it's because of convenience + not worried because he's got a psychic talent of sorts)...I've argued from the get go that there are various multiple ways to get a game that it nulls the need to preorder (because for vast majority of Americans, the supplies are not gonna run out lol).

@Ralizah Good for you. And hopefully it stays that way.

You're obviously not American (just surmising from the vibe I get, not meant to offend, and I if I did ie by guessing your national origin, I apologize) because I know Americans who "impulse buy" in fact by preordering games.

They essentially throw good money after very little research (if you put money on a game that you only know by "name", very little gameplay or any media release, if that's not impulsive I don't know what is...) expecting the best results.

FYI I think the average preorder date start in the US I think is six months and there are companies (like GS) that aggressively push it (sometimes the release date are not even solid lol).
with the purchase.

Bottom line, as someone who both preorders both digital and physical usually when there's discounts and bonuses, i think preordering overall had harmed the industry due to publishers abusing it to secure money through marketing in games they know are not up to snuff. However i also know very plainly when i order based on decades of buying games what to expect from a specific studio, publisher, series, and genre in advance. Based on e3 coverage, other coverage, and early gameplay footage, it's not difficult to know what a game is like in 2018. Newer gamers without decades of experience from all major publishers won't have that reference to judge by however. Reviews can provide good insight, but at this point I'm at the point i can tell if i agree with a critics slant or not.

People like me, jax, be ralizah probably don't represent most game buyers. Most probably lack the diverse and long term knowledge to use as frame is reference, do the people here are probably going to have a very different perspective.

@Lloiddd Actually, I am one of the dirty Yanks on the site. I also preorder a lot of games six months to a year in advance... for series I follow religiously (almost anything from Atlus, Zelda, Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem, etc.), or if gameplay has been shown off extensively. Stuff I think I'll like but have concerns about I usually don't preorder.

This all only applies to Japanese pubs, though. I almost never preorder anything from Western pubs. Too unreliable.

@Lloiddd
There's a difference between knowing what games you'd like and knowing how good all games will be. I reckon I'd have about the same track record for "getting it right"

I preorder because it's cheaper for me with Amazon Prime. Simple as that.

And the games I do pre-order are games I do research on like Daemon X Machina and/or games in trusted series, like Mario, Xenoblade, and Metroid.

If you're smart about your pre-orders, you won't regret a big majority of them.