Situationally. I carefully consider the developer in question to try and judge the risk of failure, while also considering the chances that my contribution will actually make any meaningful difference to the likely outcome.
Basically, if it’s a passionate and seemingly competent indie dev working on something that I personally want to see become a reality in the world, I might throw some early money their way despite the obvious risk. If it’s a tentative and inexperienced indie dev with goals too big I’ll probably wait and see. If it’s some AAA publisher who don’t actually NEED the money and have a high chance of fucking everything up anyway, they can shove their preorder and preorder bonuses right up their own ass where they belong.
If there are reviews out and I’ve looked at some raw gameplay from a streamer getting early access or something then I might pre-order mere hours away from release if there’s some benefit in doing so.
Otherwise absolutely not in the digital only age. Can’t run out of copies.
I don’t consider Early Access a pre-order. If I buy an unfinished game it’s because there’s enough content from my point of view at that asking price that even if the game never gets finished I’ll still be satisfied with my time/money spent.
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.
It is extremely rare - I do it when I have some form of dedication to the developer, or their rare variety of ambitious game. I may not have even done it once this year.
So I think that matches the OP’s feelings of buying early in support. Largely, it doesn’t matter.
It’s a rare breed of game that gets me pre-ordering these days. It has to be something I know I will want, from a dev/publisher with a proven track record of making good shit and not being exploitative to customers, and be more about multiplayer than single.
I haven’t pre-ordered for any other reason since they stopped giving you physical swag for doing so (and it only was $5 down and could be cancelled for a refund while still keeping the swag and digital distribution wasn’t even a thing, so they actually could run out of copies).
I don’t think anyone should preorder. It’s a predatory way to suck a full price of the game or even higher than normal price out of customers by using often laughably cheap benefits to drum up FOMO.
For me personally, I rarely have interest in brand new AAA games, which are the most guilty of pre-order sales tactics, so the problem more or less solves itself.
Early Access games can be a different story. I’m more willing to throw money at a small studio or solo project that appears to have some passion behind it. Even so I only spend with the mindset that whatever state the game is in might be all I ever get, so match the price to that expectation. I recently played through Deathtrash. It’s unfinished and is historically slow to get updates, however for the $11 I got it for on sale, it had a lot of content and I felt happy with what I got.
Project Zomboid is another example of a “permanently Early Access” game. It might never get out of Early Access but it has so much content now that $20 is a perfectly acceptable price. The history of devs supporting it and the community around it means support for it is unlikely to simply disappear.
Physical copies, yes. If it's a game I absolutely know I'm definitely buying and I want it badly enough to spend full price and I want to play it on day 1, I'll preorder to ensure it ships on day 1. Because if I actually ordered it on release day, it'd take a few more days to ship. Last game I preordered was Kirby Air Riders, and I'm very happy with that purchase.
As for Early Access, my criteria is to just evaluate the game in its current state - if it offers enough to be worth buying now, I'll buy it now.
Preorder, no. I don’t usually buy brand new games. FF Tactics remake was the most recent and I needed to see a few days of reviews to build the trust to buy it. Maybe if Fromsoft releases another one-player game I’ll consider that. I’m not sure the types of developers I usually buy games from tend to even do preorder, it seems to be bigger studios from what I have seen.
Early access, yes for a few select indie developers that I want to support. ATLYSS because it’s priced low and looks great. Into the Unwell will be a day 1 purchase once it reaches early access, since I have played the closed beta and know I want it. Trinity 64 will be another one I’m excited for if it gets an EA release. I’m ok with EA for these because they’re the types of games I yearn for and I want more of them, and I know my contribution makes an impact to the devs.
I don't preorder as a rule because unlike in the past when there was a limited amount of physical copies at any given time...The Digital Age has rendered preordering a pointless endeavor that major companies use as metric to decide success (which is honestly not the best play). However, it has helped influence the major corps when it came to pricing issues, The Outer Worlds 2 for example got a price drop because people cancelled their preorders. Another reason why I don't preorder is because quality and getting a feature complete game is not guaranteed even with a 1.0 release. Cyberpunk 2077 really burned me as it was one of the messiest launches that I've seen (aside from No Man's Sky); the Cyberpunk 2077 launch experience cemented my rabid disdain for the practice of even once in a great while preordering. I will only buy games after reading reviews from trusted sources, if there are too many launch day issues...Then it won't be purchased at the time or at all later on if those issues aren't resolved permanently.
In short: Early Access is a risk, that can often make a game that would've never released, become a feature complete game. However, you must always understand it's a risk. Evaluate the odds, ask yourself if you are willing to burn money in the hopes of getting something good.
At Length: My feelings on Early Access are slightly different. As users can actively shift the quality, priorities, and overall vibe of a game that is in progress. I only buy Early Access games that I believe will succeed and be influenced into excellent games; it's like taking a gamble a Kickstarter, the project, despite such monetary support may never leave early access and becoming fucking shit. While 7 Days to Die is in a redemption arc, it mutated wildly from Alpha to Alpha, and was rushed into a 1.0 state without addressing fundamental gameplay issues. Wholesale removing and changing fundamental elements that make a survival game, well...A survival game. Later getting readded in a weird and not properly balanced way, much to the chagrin of the fans of the game. If you plan on buying Early Access, assess risk first. Then purchase!
There are currently 2 developers where I’ve pre-ordered before and would do so again but only because there was an additional upside to the pre-order (I don’t care about 3 cosmetic skins as pre-order bonus).
Larian Studios I’ve bought Baldurs gate 3 early in early acces because I’ve loved DoS2 and the early previews of BG3 blew me away. My main purchase motivations were showing interest in the product and I’ve considered playing EA to give feedback. However it got clear pretty early that the game will be awesome and I wanted to play it completely blind, so I’ve never really played the early acces.
-Fromsoftware They track record was so stellar that I’ve bought the collectors edition of Elden Ring, which IMO also counts as a pre-order. Don’t regret it till this day.
I guess both of my cases are prime examples since both of them became incredible games and won the GotY in their release year. I would consider pre-ordering smother in the future.
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