Guild Wars Reforged, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2, Trine 5 and Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution(on the deck). I find it hard focusing on a single game.
Enshrouded - it’s an action RPG/survival crafter/base builder that’s quite addictive. I’m surprised that it’s not more well known, because it’s incredibly fun. :)
Even though it’s early release, there is a TON of content already. It’s well worth buying now. I’ve got 600+ hours into the game (a lot of which was building sweet bases and had nothing to do with the quests, but yeah…), myself.
Browsed the steam winter sales, was tempted to purchase something, but instead remembered that I have Dishonored 2 and never played it, cause my old PC struggled a little with it. Now I’m playing through the original to refresh my memory for the sequel and I didn’t spend a dime on the sale!
Wtf. Of a physical copy? You got screwed more than most people in the comment section. You’re the only one to get screwed by a physical preorder, that I saw
I can’t specifically remember what games, but this definitely happened to me at toys r us several times. Back in the physical copy days you had to pre-order big releases most of the time and the pre-order was usually held but they often oversold because the distributor didn’t send all the copies they’d ordered.
It was toys r us for me too, I was able to get a copy a week later but there’s no point to preordering if they don’t honor the reservation & when you’re a kid that week feels like forever so it sticks pretty brightly in memory
I’ve been playing Metroid Prime 4. It’s ok, only more of what I expected, nothing incredible like Dread was for me. You can definitely feel how it’s cobbled together after being in development hell.
I finally picked up Dave the Diver on sale, looking forward to digging into that soon.
I used to more when things were more disc based from stores, but it’s rare that I do now.
Occasionally I still may if I have the money and it’s a game I know I want and will highly likely enjoy, if only for the pre-load capability. But it’s far rarer now. Sometimes they throw in some pre-order dlc, and if I know I’m going to buy it at launch anyways I may as well just technically pre-order it. But again, I do it much rarer now than I did a few console gens ago.
Early access is a bit of a different story, and I will sometimes buy an early access game if I like where it’s going and want to support it. But those are also pretty rare for me.
Hey, this one looks like it might be up my alley. I typically play more action based games, but I like to try and branch out now and then too. Thanks for the write up!
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.
Never, ever buy anything based on IP. That is pure familiarity bias, a trick to make you think it will be good. In the particularly susceptible, it can even create self-delusion and confusion. (X is good, therefore this other thing that licensed the name ‘X’ must be good. It doesn’t feel good, though. No, clearly it is my feelings that are wrong. X is good so ‘X’ must be good. It uses the same mouth sounds. How could it not be?)
A change in medium is inherently a different product and can never be the same as the original. As anyone who has seen a movie based on a book can tell you, there is zero guarantee the movie will have anything more than a passing resemblance to the book coughEarthseacough and maybe not even that. coughWorldWarZcough Oof, pardon my coughing. The bullshit fumes coming out of the marketing and licensing departments are making it hard to see.
You make some really good points. The game I’m referring to is Osiris Reborn from The Expanse series, my favorite book series of all time.
It’s not exactly an unheard of IP and the developer is what I could consider midsized. That’s why I was leaning towards not doing it at all.
My only motivation is how passionate I am about this series and wanting to see more games, books, shows, movies, etc set in that world. I want to be proactive in spending my money thoughtfully to encourage development in places I support.
Obviously, one preorder isn’t going to change that for this game and a preorder would likely do more harm to me than it would be to the series if I don’t preorder.
I’m usually pretty staunchly again preorders since I think it’s bad for players as a whole (and often for devs too), but, if I’m being honest with you, I would probably have done it if my favorite series was being done by a small indie dev team so they could have as much money upfront to make the game as good as it can be.
Never in my life. I want to read the reviews, at a minimum. Too many games with some booshit on launch day, if not at least several months after. I am incredibly psyched for the new Control game but it’ll be at least a few months before I pick it up.
Nowadays? Not a chance. Preorders nowadays seem to be more of a incentive to allow a studio to just not have a decent final product because people have already bought in.
What about Early Access Games?
If I really like the concept, yes.
Do you feel differently about Early Access vs traditional preordering?
Early access is not pre-ordering, and as such is treated extremely differently. Preordering tells me that the product will be finished on release, EA means that it’s going to need a lot of work for a finished product.
If you are open to the idea in specific circumstances, what are those?
I am extremly open to EA as it helps studios develop a product that otherwise may not be able to be created. Actual preordering is a strict closed door, there is very little reason in the digital world we live in to preorder a game.
How do you decide if a game qualifies?
I more likely will buy an early access game if I can open the page and not see:
Major blockers:
Lack of Linux support or compatibility
Reviews talking about the game being dead
Reviews talking about how the developer ignores the community
Update history either showing no changes or minor changes stretching back for a few months(the longer the gap the less likely I am to support the studio)
Opening the developer page and seeing they are actively working on a different game. (this is an instant deal breaker)
Minor Blockers
Developer responses in community pages saying “for support go to external site” usually discord. If you don’t want to support your game on the storefront, don’t use the storefront.
Update logs saying that they are actively working on DLC for their early access game. (free DLC gets a partial pass… but paid DLC for an Early Access game is a huge red flag for me)
No developer interactions in the community forums or an un-moderated community forum.
Toxic community in discussion forums or support channels (I understand this is out of the devs control at times but it still dissuades me from wanting to spend money on the games)
Thanks for specifying how you decide. I know most people don’t preorder at all and there is some skepticism toward Early Access. I expected most comments to just say that, which is why I really appreciate the detail you added.
Generally I wait for release, or more likely years after release before picking up a game to wait for thr cost to drop. There isn’t a need to preorder in a digital store, like steam, so there is zero rush.
Early access if someone I know and trust will vouch for it and play too. Valheim is the best example of this for me.
I have purchased the ‘higher tier’ for a few games over the last few decades to get specific bonus stuff if they are continuing a series and I know for a fact I will play it a lot. But I don’t do the ones where that must be done as a pre-order. It is possible I did those as preorders to download prior to the release date, but only if I could jave made the same purchase a week after release.
bin.pol.social
Ważne