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[Kagus]

I've pre-ordered one game in my life, and I ended up regretting it.

...but I've also had two girlfriends in my life, and I ended up regretting both of them. Still open to the idea of a third.


And I can tell you which has been the more expensive investment...

[scourge728]

Honestly, AFAIK Nintendo has had like two major flops (virtual boy and wii-u, assuming you could call the virtual boy major, it was pretty interesting to think about though) along with some minor ones

[CABL]

Meanwhile, I'll wait for the GOTY version of Cyberpunk 2077 with all possible expansions after a year of its release or so, then I'll buy it with a discount of 50% off or so.

[Flying Dice]

No pressure to, but like with the HBS Battletech kickstarter this is one of those ones where I'm willing to demonstrate support for the idea alone.

Not really sure battletech was the best example to use there. It was okay at best.

It's pretty much the perfect example of what I'm talking about, really. I'm talking about laying money down because it's something you desperately want to see coming from a dev that has good odds of making it happen. It may not be everything you want in the end, but you're demonstrating that there's a market for exactly that sort of game if it's done well.

Battletech, even though it wasn't everything I wanted, was still pretty damn good. More importantly, if it had failed financially, with the MechWarrior license still in the clutches of those hacks at PGI, the entire franchise would have been kaput -- "It doesn't make money, clearly that means that nobody wants games like that" being the commercial attitude.

I have wanted for decades a proper first person open-ended SF/near-future RPG. That's why I love STALKER and Warframe so much despite the numerous problems with each. A game that does the same sort of thing, but with all the rough edges smoothed down and a cyberpunk aesthetic? That's damn near the center of my strike zone for this sort of thing. Lord knows we're not ever going to get it from the likes of Bethesda or Bioware.

[nenjin]

I'm on the fence about preordering it.

But the truth is release week is a shit show for every game, whether it's online or not. While I'd like to support their release, I'm not sure I want to put myself on the hook for bugs interfering with my enjoyment. If I preorder, I'm gonna want to play it on release day. If I buy it a week later, I don't face that struggle.

[Iduno]

Meanwhile, I'll wait for the GOTY version of Cyberpunk 2077 with all possible expansions after a year of its release or so, then I'll buy it with a discount of 50% off or so.

And by then all of the suckers people paying to beta test will have gotten all of the major bugs fixed. And it's not like they'll decide "well, we made the game, but only got 100 pre-orders, so shut it all down."

[forsaken1111]

It's pretty much the perfect example of what I'm talking about, really. I'm talking about laying money down because it's something you desperately want to see coming from a dev that has good odds of making it happen. It may not be everything you want in the end, but you're demonstrating that there's a market for exactly that sort of game if it's done well.

Battletech, even though it wasn't everything I wanted, was still pretty damn good. More importantly, if it had failed financially, with the MechWarrior license still in the clutches of those hacks at PGI, the entire franchise would have been kaput -- "It doesn't make money, clearly that means that nobody wants games like that" being the commercial attitude.

I have wanted for decades a proper first person open-ended SF/near-future RPG. That's why I love STALKER and Warframe so much despite the numerous problems with each. A game that does the same sort of thing, but with all the rough edges smoothed down and a cyberpunk aesthetic? That's damn near the center of my strike zone for this sort of thing. Lord knows we're not ever going to get it from the likes of Bethesda or Bioware.

I understand what you're saying but this isn't a kickstarter where the backers are providing the money to make the game. The game is mostly made. You are supporting them, yes, but they're not going to stop at this point if you don't preorder.

And saying "Well it's CDPR so it must be good" is a trap. There was a time when I'd have said "Well it's a Bioware game, must be good!" Same could be said for many studios which have since become poor shadows of themselves or sold off to a big company.

[scourge728]

You CAN pretty much say that about Nintendo though, the games they make tend to be pretty good even if the console is mediocre

[nenjin]

Also Witcher 3 wasn't the buggiest release ever, but it had its fair share. And in any quest-based RPG, there's always bugs in the logic that can be show stoppers for a while.

CDPR's stated reasons for desiring preorders are probably legit: big preorder demand can entice other retailers to carry the game. But that seems like icing on the digital distribution cake at this point, and doesn't really motivate me to throw my money down now. Even though CDPR isn't going to do the Epic Two Step Shuffle with their release, those kinds of shenanigans have really soured me on preordering anything, even more than I already was.

Remember when preordering stuff actually served a tangible purpose because there was limited supply and unknown demand, and if you were willing to pay up front you were guaranteed to get your's first?

[Trolldefender99]

I find it strange people make such a big deal out of people pre-ordering games.

People waste their money going to sports events
People waste their money on coffee shops
People waste their money on fast food (which is more expensive in a month if someone relies on fast food daily, than one single game)
People waste their money (and time) on electricity by watching netflix /tv/movies all day

Countless things people waste money on (and time), but only pre-ordering games is targeted as a problem?

I'll spend more than 60 dollars in a month going to mc donalds because I can't drive and there is no grocery store around, and the only places around are actually more expensive than a month of mc donalds. No one seems to see that as a big deal compared to a vastly cheaper mundane 60 dollar fee that is less expensive than food. Homeless people can beg on a street corner and make more than that in a single day if they choose the right spot lol.

And to add, my uncle wastes so much money buying tickets for a bunch of people just to go to a boring mundane waste of time baseball stadium to watch his sports team play. To me that is a bigger waste of time and money than a game that might be bad but I still have fun with bad games because games are just entertainment. Granted sports games are entertainment, but if one sees pre-ordering games as a problem there should be countless problems they can complain about with all the junk people waste money and time on. In fact, one can say in todays modern world there is an endless supply of junk people waste money and time on lol. I think jewelry for example is a massive waste of money because its literally useless except for looks lol. But oh no pre-ordering a game is suddenly an issue for people lol.

Then movie tickets here are almost half the price of a 60 dollar game. A single movie ticket for one adult here is close to 30 dollars, its like in the 20s or something, close to 30 with tax. Yet people willingly spend that, but then when it comes to games they suddenly cheap out and complain about the price or pre-ordering or early access or whatever it happens to be that is vastly cheaper than a movie ticket or food or most anything else.

[nenjin]

Countless things people waste money on (and time), but only pre-ordering games is targeted as a problem?

Countless other things are more important than forum debates and video games, yet here you are. See where that train of thought goes?

The BFD with preordering is the culture in producing games it's helped create. People are voting with their wallets by not preordering, which is what we're supposed to do if we want to have any impact on this industry that we partake in.

It'd be like you taking an interest in the lack of grocery stores in your area and someone going "Kids are starving in Africa, what's your big complaint about an endless supply of readily available food."

[n9103]

You CAN pretty much say that about Nintendo though, the games they make tend to be pretty good even if the console is mediocre

As long as we're ignoring their obsession with gimmicks and the numerous (poorly done) edutainment spin-offs... yea, sure.

[Trolldefender99]

Countless things people waste money on (and time), but only pre-ordering games is targeted as a problem?

Countless other things are more important than forum debates and video games, yet here you are. See where that train of thought goes?

TFD with preordering is the culture in producing games it's helped create. People are voting with their wallets by not preordering, which is what we're supposed to do if we want to have any impact on this industry that we partake in.

It'd be like you taking an interest in the lack of grocery stores in your area and someone going "Kids are starving in Africa, what's your big complaint about an endless supply of readily available food."

And (sadly in this example) the vast majority of people don't care (like most people really don't care about starving people in africa or all the trash and pollution that comes out of china and poorer nations since I never see anyone campaign for any of that or protesting the trash from china's rivers or protesting about giving food to africa or much of any of that). Most people really don't care sadly in the grand scheme of things, but a small group does.

But to gaming...

Its like the same people that are on reddit that always hate EA, but EA still sees vastly more success than one would think by reading reddit. Think its like 5% of gamers even use forums or reddit at all, more use facebook but most gamers just mind their own business and do what they want...avoid a game, pre-order a game, buy an early access game, whatever it happens to be.

I saw on captain america sub-reddit when the first movie came out, all of the subreddit was gonna boycott the movie for some reason. Forgot why. Movie ended up a massive success, but if one went by reading that sub-reddit you'd think it was the majority of people.

There'll be those who never pre-order, but as seen by the top sells on GOG, amazon and steam (not sure where else didn't look past that)...cyberpunk 2077 is hitting top sold list on those 3 sources. That means the people saying "pre-ordering is ruining gaming" or "don't pre-order games!" are really a vast minority.

To sum it up, my point is people waste their money on countless things...but its the persons choice to waste it or not or spend it on whatever they want as long as its legal. If its illegal, they have the freedom to do that but high risk going to prison. But pre-ordering games isn't illegal, so people are free to pre-order or not to pre-order. Its laughable though on reddit how anyone who pre-orders a game often gets heavily downvoted and a bunch hate them for it. I said I pre-ordered AC Odyssey back before it was released and some dude went on a huge rant how I need to kill myself and stop destroying gaming...he got banned for the first part, but it did make me laugh how he thought pre-orderers were the bane of the world lol.

[nenjin]

So you're leveling disdain you cultivated on reddit at the people here, because we also happened to make the personal choice not to preorder?

The stakes are also higher now. People who preordered crowdfunded games get the terms changed on them at the drop of a hat now, Epic has normalized that. So if what platform you want to play something on is important to you, it's now an additional risk you take when preordering. Especially this early. (Not that preordering closer to release is any guarantee previous statements will be honored either.)

[Chiefwaffles]

Eh. I think pre-ordering a game that's 10 months away and that has no incentive for pre-ordering is very dumb. The hysteria over pre-orders is overblown, though, in my mind. Do what you want, and I'll just silently and very mildly judge you.

Cyberpunk 2077 looks pretty bland, too. Instead of actually exploring cool cyberpunk themes, including things like transhumanism and whatnot, they just do "OOH YOU'RE A MERCENARY WHO WAS BETRAYED YOU CAN HAVE SCISSOR ARMS!" to me it just feels like a huge squandering of the possibilities.
I'm also not a big fan of CDPR, personally. What with the transphobic jokes and working conditions, and the frustration that all that gets ignored for this one company because they care about the gamers (rather they just base their marketing around that; not that they actually do anything differently).