Never. I hate the preorder exclusive bonuses; it’s anti-consumer bullshit, especially in an age where every game is available as a digital download, even the physical copies usually require downloads. Publishers are enticing customers to pay while hype is high, before the product is actually available, before quality has been proven and before reviews are published.
I hate gift cards for the same reason, you’re giving money to corporations before they’ve provided anything to you.
Hold on to your money, wait for reviews, then pay them for the finished product if you still want it.
I also think the rising launch prices of AAA games is bullshit, especially for singleplayer games. I’ll usually wait for a decent discount.
I often preorder games that I know are sure bets. I won’t preorder games that I’m not sure I’ll like or by a developer with a rocky reputation (Ubisoft, etc).
I love buying early access games. Many of the best games ever made spent a lengthy time in early access, and it was worth every penny. Some I’ve bought 2-3 times in early access on different platforms just to support the developers (Satisfactory, Factorio, Rimworld, Baldurs Gate 3). I just bought Satisfactory for the third time and it was worth it.
I never pre-order nor pay for early access. Examples are plenty, but a couple that spring to mind are New World and Ashes of Creation. (Even excluding the infinite early access of PUBG, and whatever the hell Star Citizen is).
For the former, their “beta test” was “yeah, it runs: ship it” and ZERO feedback was noted or actioned. The release day was The Single Worst game release I’ve ever seen, and 4 years later when Amazon decided to kill it, ALL of the beta bugs were still there. To be fair, it was a “pay once” game. With MTX, of course.
For the latter, people started by paying $300+ for “alpha access” and more recently $100 for the same thing. And it’s clearly 2-4 years away from being remotely ready for release. Those people are paying to do QA. And it will be pay-per-month on release, as if it was 2010.
If your FOMO overrides your other faculties, and you’re willing to put up with all of that, then fine. You do you. 👍🏻
Every pre-order bonus I’ve seen is a skin, title or other tat that doesn’t have any value beyond signalling that you pre-ordered the game.
Me? I’m done playing these financial games with video games. Until a game is released/GA, it’s vapourware and non-existent. But again: you do you.
I always wait for release, even if I’m planning it to be a release day buy. Early Access could be an exception if the product they offer is good even in that stage, like how I got Rhythm Doctor when they finished Act 4. (The game has recently came out of Early Access and it’s really good). A demo could incentivise me to preorder, a game I could give example for that is Diesel Knights. While it’s not available for pre-order yet, I would absolutely do so if it did. But nothing released : no preorder
Strictly against it in AAA titles, anything above 60 is a never buy in the first place for me but a putting a preorder for a game in that price range is something that is straight up NOT happening under any circumstance.
No, I wait 3 years usually. All bugs fixed, everything works, mods in great shape and price down 50%. Plenty of games older than 3 years also and much lower hardware requirements.
I made an exception for Elden Ring last time but that’s about it.
The only game I’ve ever pre-ordered was FF3/6 but that was because you needed a physical cartridge in limited supply to play it back then.
Preordering a game you can download digitally is the height of stupidity unless you specifically want to give an interest free loan to a creator you really want to support
I do early access only in very specific cases where it’s an indie studio and the game already offers a lot of value. E.g. Satisfactory was in early access for a long time when it was basically a finished game you could sink hundreds of hours into. But I read and watch a lot of reviews before I buy into one of those. Can’t do that with a pre-order.
I pre-order some games, especially table top, through crowdfunding and do enjoy interacting with developers and their early player base during beta testing / early access especially if I’m able to contribute in some way.
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Aktywne