Pre Purchasing Games

Darujhistan said:
Per-ordering has made gaming objectively worse and yet some will go through any amount of mental gymnastics to defend it, and their purchases, I mean look at SC, basically a cult at this point, 11 years on they're still having login issues, but that's fine...

:D
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I cant in all honesty say that pre-ordering has categorically made gaming worse, as theres always been utter shambles of games released, just look at past awful big name games that came out, like Frontier 2 over 20 years ago, a game so bad that PC Zone famously covered the game by putting a 2 page spread image of a turd on the pages of its magazine. Or another well known awful release , Dai-Katana, again 20 years ago, or Duke Nukem Forever, almost 15 years ago - all of which came before the pre-ordering era. Theres always been terrible games released but they've always been in the minority, they still are in the minority its just that its happening with bigger name titles now. Theres still truly superb games released often, stuff like Subnautica, Valheim, Elden Ring, RDR2, Disco Elysium, God of War, Dinkum, Vampire Survivors, Darkest Dungeon, Hades, Borderlands 2, Anno 1800, GTA5, Pathfinder 1, Pathfinder 2, Pillars of Eternity 2, Witcher 3, 2016 Doom, Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, Titanfall 2, XCom 2, Ori, Hollow Knight, Grounded, Slay the Spire, Project Zomboid....the list goes on and on, I could write hundreds here from the last decade.

AAA titles I think are definitely getting a lot more prone to being rather a mess at release (sometimes fixed later on, sometimes not) but I cant sit here and truthfully square the blame for that at pre-ordering specifically, I think theres much more than just one factor at play for why AAA titles are having more quality issues of late.

One thing is for sure though, I wont ever try to defend the titles that I do pre-order with mental gymnastics, I do with my money what I want to do with my money and nobody will ever dictate to me what to do with my money, the comparatively few titles that I do preorder works for me and ultimately of course all of us on here can but make sure that things in life work for us individually.

But yes... SC is nuts :D
 
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Tombstone said:
I cant in all honesty say that pre-ordering has categorically made gaming worse, as theres always been utter shambles of games released, just look at past awful big name games that came out, like Frontier 2 over 20 years ago, a game so bad that PC Zone famously covered the game by putting a 2 page spread image of a turd on the pages of its magazine. Or another well known awful release , Dai-Katana, again 20 years ago, or Duke Nukem Forever, almost 15 years ago - all of which came before the pre-ordering era. Theres always been terrible games released but they've always been in the minority, they still are in the minority its just that its happening with bigger name titles now. Theres still truly superb games released often, stuff like Subnautica, Valheim, Elden Ring, RDR2, Disco Elysium, God of War, Dinkum, Vampire Survivors, Darkest Dungeon, Hades, Borderlands 2, Anno 1800, GTA5, Pathfinder 1, Pathfinder 2, Pillars of Eternity 2, Witcher 3, 2016 Doom, Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, Titanfall 2, XCom 2, Ori, Hollow Knight, Grounded, Slay the Spire, Project Zomboid....the list goes on and on, I could write hundreds here from the last decade.

AAA titles I think are definitely getting a lot more prone to being rather a mess at release (sometimes fixed later on, sometimes not) but I cant sit here and truthfully square the blame for that at pre-ordering specifically, I think theres much more than just one factor at play for why AAA titles are having more quality issues of late.

One thing is for sure though, I wont ever try to defend the titles that I do pre-order with mental gymnastics, I do with my money what I want to do with my money and nobody will ever dictate to me what to do with my money, the comparatively few titles that I do preorder works for me and ultimately of course all of us on here can but make sure that things in life work for us individually.

But yes... SC is nuts :D
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Agreed. Some of the comments come of as agenda based a little.

I mean I am saying some games I want to play day one and pre-ordering is a way for me to get them cheaper. I explain there is zero down side as I can cancel the order at any time even after release as long as I do not redeem the key. Yet I still get comments saying "I don't get it". What's not to get? :p
 
Tombstone said:
I cant in all honesty say that pre-ordering has categorically made gaming worse, as theres always been utter shambles of games released, just look at past awful big name games that came out, like Frontier 2 over 20 years ago, a game so bad that PC Zone famously covered the game by putting a 2 page spread image of a turd on the pages of its magazine. Or another well known awful release , Dai-Katana, again 20 years ago, or Duke Nukem Forever, almost 15 years ago - all of which came before the pre-ordering era. Theres always been terrible games released but they've always been in the minority, they still are in the minority its just that its happening with bigger name titles now. Theres still truly superb games released often, stuff like Subnautica, Valheim, Elden Ring, RDR2, Disco Elysium, God of War, Dinkum, Vampire Survivors, Darkest Dungeon, Hades, Borderlands 2, Anno 1800, GTA5, Pathfinder 1, Pathfinder 2, Pillars of Eternity 2, Witcher 3, 2016 Doom, Oxygen Not Included, Rimworld, Titanfall 2, XCom 2, Ori, Hollow Knight, Grounded, Slay the Spire, Project Zomboid....the list goes on and on, I could write hundreds here from the last decade.

AAA titles I think are definitely getting a lot more prone to being rather a mess at release (sometimes fixed later on, sometimes not) but I cant sit here and truthfully square the blame for that at pre-ordering specifically, I think theres much more than just one factor at play for why AAA titles are having more quality issues of late.

One thing is for sure though, I wont ever try to defend the titles that I do pre-order with mental gymnastics, I do with my money what I want to do with my money and nobody will ever dictate to me what to do with my money, the comparatively few titles that I do preorder works for me and ultimately of course all of us on here can but make sure that things in life work for us individually.

But yes... SC is nuts :D
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I think you can categorically say that overall pre-ordering isn't a positive for gaming. I think pre-ordering has enabled devs/pubs to release push releases forward to meet earnings calls, knowing that they can pull the "We're really sorry/not sorry, we need to do better/we'll fix it later" defence card. It's just a standard operating proceedure now.

Everyone can predict the AAA game dev cycle step by step. If Starfield is a disaster, Bethesda will just bring out the same playbook the used for Failout 76.
 
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Noxia said:
I've just seen dinkum is early access so that's basically a pre-order lol.
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Yeah, Dinkum is brilliant, if you like things like Stardew Valley/Animal Crossing etc, its superb. Great fun in co-op too. Works really well, excellent performance, decent graphics and amazingly all done by just 1 guy
 
Darujhistan said:
I think you can categorically say that overall pre-ordering isn't a positive for gaming. I think pre-ordering has enabled devs/pubs to release push releases forward to meet earnings calls, knowing that they can pull the "We're really sorry/not sorry, we need to do better/we'll fix it later" defence card. It's just a standard operating proceedure now.

Everyone can predict the AAA game dev cycle step by step. If Starfield is a disaster, Bethesda will just bring out the same playbook the used for Failout 76.
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Dont get me wrong, I agree, its not a positive for gaming but if we're answering the original posters question ;

"Would PC games come out in this state without pre purchasing?"

The answer is a categoric (and proven by some of the games I listed) yes , yes some games would still come out in this state without pre-ordering.
 
Tombstone said:
Dont get me wrong, I agree, its not a positive for gaming but if we're answering the original posters question ;

"Would PC games come out in this state without pre purchasing?"

The answer is a categoric (and proven by some of the games I listed) yes , yes some games would still come out in this state without pre-ordering.
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Fair enough, then my answer would be "Yes, but there would be less of them". There's also a big difference between a game that failed on launch or afterwards because of any number of reasons, and one that failed because it was **** out the door with little effort or care.
 
Tombstone said:
Yeah, Dinkum is brilliant, if you like things like Stardew Valley/Animal Crossing etc, its superb. Great fun in co-op too. Works really well, excellent performance, decent graphics and amazingly all done by just 1 guy
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I've put it on my wish list but I will have to wait until it's released just because that's my personal preference. I got another stardew valley game called sunhaven that looked good and then I ended up hating it.
 
Tombstone said:
Dont get me wrong, I agree, its not a positive for gaming but if we're answering the original posters question ;
"Would PC games come out in this state without pre purchasing?"
The answer is a categoric (and proven by some of the games I listed) yes , yes some games would still come out in this state without pre-ordering.
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and some would not
 
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Darujhistan said:
Fair enough, then my answer would be "Yes, but there would be less of them".
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I would agree with that, I think there would be less of them, as I say, they are in the minority just as they've always been. Thankfully.

The logic and rules to apply today, for any gamer who is capable of intelligent thought and reasoning is - if you are thinking of preordering a game then dont do it blindly, RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH, watch streamers playing the game so that you can see how it performs, what the gameplay is like, how it looks and feels, read up on the title, look at the devs track record and all the other sensible things that people do before investing money into something. Do those things and you will hardly ever have a problem with a title you've preordered, god knows how far back I have to go to find the last title that I preordered that I ended up disappointed with.

(I would say that its more often AAA titles too but I would be misleading to say that because by their nature AAA titles will have more preorders than indie titles anyway of course, as well as it being much more widely apparent when a AAA title comes out in a right state than an indie title coming out in a right state)
 
Noxia said:
I've put it on my wish list but I will have to wait until it's released just because that's my personal preference. I got another stardew valley game called sunhaven that looked good and then I ended up hating it.
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Not tried sunhaven but when you eventually get to play Dinkum I think you'll like it (if you like Stardew Valley)
 
Nothing wrong with pre-ordering when you can just get a refund. And even more to the point, nothing wrong with pre-ordering something like D4, that will have had two free betas for everyone to play through before it goes live next month.

I'd rather pre-order a digital version of a game and then fetch a refund if the game is a pile of dogsh1te than order a physical copy that arrives a day too late.

This only applies to games that I'm confident in, because I have a good history with the developer delivering a good product.
 
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My parents pre-ordered castle of illusion or Jurrasic Park on the Mega Drive, can't remember which. Pre-orders have been here for as long as I can remember.

Pre-ordering isn't the be all and end all of the current state of many games being released today, the gaming industry isn't as simple as it was 20/30 years ago.

I'll be pre-ordering Diablo 4, I'll probably pre-order Final Fantasy 7 remake part 2 because I want to play them on day 1. If that angers you, cool :)
 
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