Did you ever pre-order games when you were a kid?
This is either going to make me sound very young, or very old, but I remember pre-ordering games like Goldeneye 64 and Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64 just to make absolutely certain that I would be able to play them day one. This was a genuine concern of mine!
I remember pre-ordering these games months in advances, and when release day finally came, I would call the store over and over again until they finally said “YES! WE HAVE IT! PLEASE STOP CALLING!!!”
Sadly… I’m not kidding.
But times have changed, and I’ve finally wizened up; I’ve made the decision to stop pre-ordering games completely. Game shortages don’t exist in the age of online distribution platforms like Steam, and besides… I don’t need to play games day one anyway. Here’s why…
Encouraging Bad Behavior
What was the last game you played that didn’t have a day 1 patch?
I can’t for the life of me remember, and I have a feeling you can’t either. Games are becoming more and more complex, and with that complexity comes expense. Games aren’t cheap to make, they cost millions. The problem, is that in order to cut costs, game studios often cut corners, ie: compressing development time.
This is terrible for the developers (insane amounts of overtime), and it’s bad for you as a gamer. Short development cycle + large scope = crappy game.
There’s no doubt about it, but what does this have to do with pre-ordering? Simple: when you pre-order a game, you’re effectively paying the publisher and developer before having tried the game. The game could be a broken mess come release day, and there’s often nothing that you can do about it. This happens all the time!
Battlefield 4 is a great example. It launched back in October of 2013, and the game is still hilariously broken. It takes only a quick visit to /r/battlefield_4 to see countless examples of broken or completely missing functionality, and BF4 has been out for months. What incentive does Dice have to fix the game? They already have your money, and probably had it before the game even hit the digital store shelves.
Pre-ordering a video game encourages bad behavior in the games industry, ie: releasing broken games. It’s also not very practical for you as a consumer.
Let’s say that you pre-ordered a copy of Thief on Steam, and saved yourself 10% off the eventual retail price of $59.99. You’ve just “saved” yourself about $6, and probably got a bit of “free” DLC to boot. Great, you say… until the game comes out.
You play it for an hour, it’s terrible, and you delete it, never to play the game again. You’ve just lost $53, and an hour of time. Congratulations on pre-ordering, sucker!
On the other hand, if you had opted not to pre-order, and instead waited to see initial reactions and read reviews, you would have seen that THIEF is terrible and saved yourself $53.
This works both ways too… if the game was actually good, you would have had to pay the regular retail price, but isn’t that worth playing a game that’s actually good?
I sure think so, and I hope that the next time you get excited about a game, you do yourself a favor and wait until it’s released to spend your hard earned money on it. I promise you, it’s really for the best.
