Spot on. For me it was the Deus Ex franchise. One of the only games that was left that I would pre-order not caring about price, just wanted to support the franchise. But Square Enix messed up big time. Now not only will I not pre-order a deus ex game, but unless I am dying to play a game they publish, I will only buy at bargain bin prices. They ruined my favourite franchise the greedy *****!I don't see that as a bad thing in context.
CDPR have more goodwill credits with me than any other company out there, they have fully delivered on all 3 games so far.
As a counter-example, Bioware had a fair amount with Baldurs Gate, KOTOR and the original ME series, but they have lost almost all of it due to their current spate of problems.
The only other franchise that is an insta-buy from me is Borderlands (yes, I even enjoyed the Pre-Sequel).
People pre-ordering Modern Call of Battlefield XIV are the problem
The only game I will likely pre-order and do so with season pass is Cyberpunk 2077 in the foreseeable future. They deserve the support.
That said I just remember that pre-ordering with a place like cd-keys at the right time can mean getting a game at a decent price, usually a fiver or more cheaper than the release day price. I did it with Resident Evil 7 recently and did not regret it. So there could be the odd exception to the rule above in order to save money. Tekken 6 comes to mind for my next game, if it manages to hit £20 or so price point before release.
