Pre ordering is a scam.
But it wasn’t always like that. What do I mean by scam? Do I mean something you pay for and never get? No, instead what I am talking about, when I say scam, is that it is a business practice that in today’s time is not really needed, and it’s a practice that can end up biting the consumer in the ass.
If you couldn’t guess, this is “piggybacking” off of my “Early Access is a Scam,” post. I touched about pre ordering games a bit in that post but mostly focused on Early Access being a perk for it. But in today’s post I want to focus specifically on Pre-ordering.
Spanish
Hacer pedidos por adelantado es una estafa.
Pero no siempre fue así. ¿A qué me refiero con estafa? ¿Me refiero a algo por lo que pagas y nunca obtienes? No, en cambio a lo que me refiero, cuando digo estafa, es a que es una práctica empresarial que hoy en día no es realmente necesaria, y es una práctica que puede acabar mordiendo el trasero del consumidor.
Si no puedes adivinar, esto es “aprovechar” mi [“El acceso anticipado es una estafa”](https://peakd.com/hive-140217/@gamergeek56/early-access-is-a-huge -estafa-o-orel-acceso-anticipado-es-una-enorme-estafa-o-eng-esp) post. Hablé un poco sobre la reserva de juegos en esa publicación, pero me centré principalmente en que el acceso anticipado es una ventaja. Pero en la publicación de hoy quiero centrarme específicamente en los pedidos por adelantado.
Let’s get our terms defined first. What is pre-ordering? Pre-order is the ability to order something ( A game in this case) before it comes out with just a deposit or paying the full amount before X product actually releases. The video game industry started this practice way back when, but I never personally got into it until the 360/ps3 era as that’s when I would say that I got really into gaming. The idea of pre-ordering was simple. Pay upfront to make sure you get a game on the release day.
And back then this was more of an accepted practice. after all who would want to risk not getting a game they are dying to play at launch because the store ran out of copies? Pre-orders and midnight launches often went hand in hand. Back in the day, if you tried to get a copy of COD on launch day without a pre-order, there was a very high chance you’d be SOL. There were a few times I ran into this problem, not with COD but with other games.
Spanish
Primero definamos nuestros términos. ¿Qué es el pedido anticipado? El pedido anticipado es la posibilidad de pedir algo (un juego en este caso) antes de que salga con solo un depósito o pagando el monto total antes de que se lance X producto. La industria de los videojuegos comenzó esta práctica hace mucho tiempo, pero personalmente nunca me metí en ella hasta la era 360/ps3, ya que fue entonces cuando diría que realmente me metí en los juegos. La idea de realizar un pedido por adelantado era simple. Paga por adelantado para asegurarte de obtener un juego el día del lanzamiento.
Y en aquel entonces esto era una práctica más aceptada. después de todo, ¿quién querría correr el riesgo de no conseguir un juego que se muere por jugar en el momento del lanzamiento porque la tienda se quedó sin copias? Los pedidos anticipados y los lanzamientos a medianoche a menudo iban de la mano. En el pasado, si intentabas obtener una copia de COD el día del lanzamiento sin realizar un pedido anticipado, había muchas posibilidades de que fueras SOL. Hubo algunas ocasiones en las que me encontré con este problema, no con COD sino con otros juegos.
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And then there’s the problem of a lot of these games releasing just a bit before the Christmas season, meaning that there are a lot of kids that would want these games for XMAS gifts. I was one of them. For Christmas, my parents always got me two or three games that I wanted.
The year Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood was released, I made my parents know that it was the game I wanted for Christmas and that I cared about nothing else. Ahh, the good old days when the AC franchise was still good. My parents ran into a problem, though, where they couldn’t find any copies of the game before Xmas. Thankfully, they did find a copy, the last copy at that, at a GameStop a few towns over.
Funny story about that. Another woman just missed out on that copy by a few seconds, followed my parents out to the parking lot, gave my parents a sob story about how her kid wanted the game for Christmas and offered them $200 for it. They said no. If they pre-ordered the game… Well, they wouldn’t have ran into that problem.
Spanish
Y luego está el problema de que muchos de estos juegos se lanzan justo antes de la temporada navideña, lo que significa que hay muchos niños que querrían estos juegos como regalo de NAVIDAD. Yo era uno de ellos. Para Navidad, mis padres siempre me regalaban dos o tres juegos que yo quería.
El año en que se lanzó Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, les hice saber a mis padres que era el juego que quería para Navidad y que no me importaba nada más. Ahh, los buenos viejos tiempos cuando la franquicia AC todavía era buena. Sin embargo, mis padres tuvieron un problema: no pudieron encontrar ninguna copia del juego antes de Navidad. Afortunadamente, encontraron una copia, la última copia, en un GameStop a unas cuantas ciudades de distancia.
Historia divertida sobre eso. Otra mujer se perdió esa copia por unos segundos, siguió a mis padres hasta el estacionamiento, les contó una triste historia sobre cómo su hijo quería el juego para Navidad y les ofreció $200 por él. Dijeron que no. Si hubieran reservado el juego… Bueno, no se habrían encontrado con ese problema.
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But the days of pre-orders being a positive are just long gone, because over time they have just become another shady business practice. But why exactly is this?
There are a few reasons, one of which is that the point of pre-orders no longer exists. As I mentioned above, the entire point of people pre-ordering games in the past was to make sure they got a copy of a game on launch. But over the past couple of years, we’ve seen the industry push for a digital-only future. With Xbox laying off a lot of their physical media department, big department stores moving away from selling physical games, and even more recently the PS5 Pro being released without a disk drive.
Spanish
Pero los días en los que los pedidos anticipados eran positivos ya quedaron atrás, porque con el tiempo se han convertido en otra práctica comercial turbia. ¿Pero por qué es esto exactamente?
Hay algunas razones, una de las cuales es que el punto de pedidos anticipados ya no existe. Como mencioné anteriormente, el objetivo de las personas que reservaban juegos en el pasado era asegurarse de obtener una copia de un juego en el lanzamiento. Pero en los últimos años, hemos visto a la industria impulsar un futuro exclusivamente digital. Con Xbox despidiendo gran parte de su departamento de medios físicos, los grandes grandes almacenes dejando de vender juegos físicos e incluso más recientemente, la PS5 Pro se lanzó sin unidad de disco.
The video game industry wants all of our games to be digital. Meaning that you never have to worry about not being able to buy a copy of a game at launch, because digital games never run out of “copies”
There’s also the issue of not getting what was paid for. It has become a lot more common for developers to release half-finished products or products that are nothing like those that were advertised and it takes months, sometimes even years, for them to be the product they should have been at launch. I have a few examples of this.
No Man’s sky for instance. A game that was lied about left and right pre-release. And when it finally launched, it was nothing like what was being advertised. And it took the developers years to actually make it the game it was supposed to be at launch. And what did they do afterwards? They repackaged the game as No Man’s Sky Next and sold it for full price again for a couple of months. Although I do hear that the game is pretty fun.
Spanish
La industria de los videojuegos quiere que todos nuestros juegos sean digitales. Lo que significa que nunca tendrás que preocuparte por no poder comprar una copia de un juego en el momento del lanzamiento, porque los juegos digitales nunca se quedan sin "copias".
También está el problema de no recibir lo que se pagó. Se ha vuelto mucho más común que los desarrolladores lancen productos a medio terminar o productos que no se parecen en nada a los que se anuncian y les lleva meses, a veces incluso años, que sean el producto que deberían haber sido en el lanzamiento. Tengo algunos ejemplos de esto.
El cielo de nadie, por ejemplo. Un juego en el que se mintió sobre el prelanzamiento de izquierda y derecha. Y cuando finalmente se lanzó, no se parecía en nada a lo que se anunciaba. Y a los desarrolladores les tomó años convertirlo en el juego que se suponía que sería en el lanzamiento. ¿Y qué hicieron después? Reempaquetaron el juego como No Man's Sky Next y lo vendieron nuevamente a precio completo durante un par de meses. Aunque he oído que el juego es bastante divertido.
Cyberpunk 2077 is another one. Despite how much I love the game and CDPR, I’d be a complete fool to say that the game never had problems at launch. It was riddled with bugs and even though it didn’t take CDPR as long to fix the game as it did for Hello Games to fix No Man’s Sky, it still took them a decent while. With some people even arguing that it wasn't until the Phantom Liberty update did CDPR make up for the launch of the game.
Spanish
Cyberpunk 2077 es otro. A pesar de lo mucho que amo el juego y CDPR, sería un completo tonto si dijera que el juego nunca tuvo problemas en el lanzamiento. Estaba plagado de errores y, aunque a CDPR no le tomó tanto tiempo arreglar el juego como a Hello Games arreglar No Man's Sky, todavía les tomó un tiempo decente. Algunas personas incluso argumentan que no fue hasta la actualización de Phantom Liberty que CDPR compensó el lanzamiento del juego.
Another game, and I really don’t want to delve into it too much as I’ll go on a huge rant about it, is Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League.
And last up is a game I’m still pissed the hell off about to this day and that is the Saints Row Reboot. Pre-release the developers were promising that this game would be a return to the series roots but that was a lie. When the game launched it was buggy, it wasn’t fun, and it is very clear that the Woke culture that infects many aspects of the video game industry leaked over into the game making it a game that felt the furthest thing from SR as a game could be.
Spanish
Otro juego, y realmente no quiero profundizar demasiado en él porque hablaré mucho sobre él, es Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League.
Y el último es un juego por el que todavía estoy enojado hasta el día de hoy y es el reinicio de Saints Row. Antes del lanzamiento, los desarrolladores prometieron que este juego sería un regreso a las raíces de la serie, pero eso era mentira. Cuando se lanzó el juego, tenía errores, no era divertido y está muy claro que la cultura Woke que infecta muchos aspectos de la industria de los videojuegos se filtró en el juego, convirtiéndolo en un juego que parecía lo más alejado de SR como un juego podría ser.
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I list these examples to show why Pre-ordering games aren’t very beneficial to the consumer, in fact, it is quite the opposite. Game developers know that they already have your money, so they are more willing to release a game in an unfinished state and later fixing down the road with updates, such as Day 1 patches.
Pre-ordering games nowadays is just reinforcing this crummy behaviour from these companies. Look at Stellar Blade, a game that soared in pre orders thanks to Shift’s Up stance on being anti-censorship and then as soon as the game released a Day 1 patch came out that… guess what…. censored the game.
Spanish
Enumero estos ejemplos para mostrar por qué reservar juegos no es muy beneficioso para el consumidor; de hecho, es todo lo contrario. Los desarrolladores de juegos saben que ya tienen su dinero, por lo que están más dispuestos a lanzar un juego sin terminar y luego arreglarlo con actualizaciones, como los parches del día 1.
Hacer pedidos anticipados de juegos hoy en día no hace más que reforzar este comportamiento de mala calidad por parte de estas empresas. Mire Stellar Blade, un juego que se disparó en pedidos anticipados gracias a la postura Up de Shift de ser anti-censura y luego, tan pronto como se lanzó el juego, salió un parche del Día 1 que... adivina qué... censuró el juego.
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Back when I was younger, I would pre-order games all the time. I remember pre-ordering Saints Row 3, Saints Row 4, GTA V, Dragon Age Inquisition, etc. But the last game I actually remember pre ordering because I feared I might not get a copy of the game at launch was Days Gone.
Pre-ordering, as we know it in modern times, is a scam. But what do you guys think?
Spanish
Cuando era más joven, reservaba juegos todo el tiempo. Recuerdo haber pedido por adelantado Saints Row 3, Saints Row 4, GTA V, Dragon Age Inquisition, etc. Pero el último juego que recuerdo haber pedido por adelantado porque temía no recibir una copia del juego en el lanzamiento fue Days Gone.
Hacer pedidos por adelantado, tal como lo conocemos en los tiempos modernos, es una estafa. ¿Pero qué piensan ustedes?
la pre orden de videojuego antes era algo muy util y emocionante como dices, hoy en dia para mi gusto es una ridiculez, todo es virtual y siempre podrás adquirirlo en cualquier momento, algunos títulos hacen que puedas jugar un tiempo antes que el resto pero a no ser que te dediques a ser Streamer no le veo sentido a pagar extra por un par de días.
ademas como mencionas hoy en dia estamos acostumbrados a títulos que venden un trailer en lugar de un videojuego, son muy diferente todo lo que prometen o muestran a lo que realmente es el videojuego y muchas veces ni lo arreglan, simplemente lo dejan asi, por eso prefiero esperar a que un titulo ya tenga reseñas y hasta videos de gameplays completos para decidir si comprarlo o no. no quiero que me pase como a la gente de Concord este año, creo que el titulo era gratuito pero con transacciones en la tienda y los servidores cerraron en cuestión de meses por lo malo que fue el videojuego jajajaja
the pre order of video game before was something very useful and exciting as you say, today for my taste is a ridiculous, everything is virtual and you can always buy it at any time, some titles make you can play a while before the rest but unless you dedicate yourself to be Streamer I do not see sense to pay extra for a couple of days.
Besides, as you mentioned, nowadays we are used to titles that sell a trailer instead of a videogame, everything they promise or show is very different from what the videogame really is and many times they don't even fix it, they just leave it like that, that's why I prefer to wait until a title already has reviews and even full gameplay videos to decide whether to buy it or not. I don't want it to happen to me like the Concord people this year, I think the title was free but with transactions in the store and the servers closed in a matter of months because of how bad the video game was hahah
I honestly don't trust professional critics. I usually go by what the mass is saying and determine if I'll buy a game or not based on that.
What an interesting and educational read here, it was quite good to read you. I never pre-ordered a game in my life, if I ever did I don't remember it although I'm sure it never happened. I suppose that because of your experience in that subject you must have a very solid base regarding what you tell us here.
The way things are nowadays I guess it is a waste of time to make any pre-order of any game, there are so many complaints that you hear later, then you are left with a great uncertainty about whether the game really ends up being so bad, if it was me, in that case I would just wait for the final release and that's it, I would investigate a little in the opinions of the community and make a decision whether to buy the game or not. But well, everyone makes the best decision they see fit.
And that brief story of your parents with the lady who offered him 200$ for your game, that was a little sad on the lady's part, I guess he was desperate to get that game for his son.
Thanks for all the info bro! Nice to stop by and read you, greetings!
When developers were more trustworthy I had no problem pre-ordering a game. But the fact nowadays is that developers will lie about a game even after it releases. The whole situation with the Saints Row Reboot proves that. The developers were lying even after the game launched.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
The last time I pre-ordered a game was Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation back in 1997. After that, I just have not been into any games, or looking forward to any, that were worth putting money down upfront for.
I understand why people want to but as we moved to a digital era, meaning less "feelies" such as shirts, toys, physical items, as a thank you for pre-ordering, we get more and more digital stuff.
Sadly, a lot of game developers give that stuff to all the other players at some point too, making pre-ordering kind of pointless if you ask me. If you get an exclusive skin for pre-ordering but then the game has a major hiccup later and the publisher gives that pre-order skin away as an apology, then that is not fair to those that pre-ordered, at least not in my opinion.
Just like games like Fortnite that, now used to, have skins and items exclusive to the season, they are moving to a limited exclusivity on that item or skin. It puts a lot less pressure on gamers to play the game overall.
With pre-orders most are only offering 24 hours early access. What is that? My luck I would be working that day and miss out on it if I were to pre-order something.
Pre-orders as they are today make no sense.
They 100% don't make any sense. I can understand if a game plans on having a AH like shop where players can sell items they get, then having exclusive pre order skins would actually mean something. But like you said most games are now moving away from the "inclusive" part.
It is ridiculous how they have done pre-orders since the Xbox and PlayStation 2 era. That seems to be the first generation where anything of substance was not provided to pre-ordering fans. I can't remember how many times I saw a pre-order on PSOne or Sega Saturn that came with a shirt, related pins, sometimes even a small art book here or there (some of these were store specific pre-order bonuses and may not have been official).
The point is, pre-orders used to mean something. Now they seem like a way for developers/publishers to offset the last bit of development/delivery with fans paying up for a skin that will be available to everyone within a year of the game release, or an icon on their profile (also probably limited time wise, because, why not?).
Even just posters and that. There used to always be some momento that the player got instead of all this digital crap. Now it seems the only way to get something you can actually touch is buy pre ordering the collectors edition.
I never pre order games. I don't even remember the last time I paid a full price for a game(maybe dragon age origins?) I am not rich enough for that so I rather wait some months/a year and get a discount. Most of my games I bought with a discount. Last time I bought Dragon age 2, dragon age inquisition and Mass effect legendary edition for 15,97€. That was a good deal because I at least have a chance of earning that money back by posting my let's plays here. Witcher 3 for me is a perfect game but I am still not sure if I would pay full 60 for Witcher 4. And I would definetly not pre order it.
Last game I paid full price for was Baldur's Gate 3. I find now I'm gravitating towards older titles. No doubt though that I'll be buying Veilguard on launch even though I think its going to suck.
I think I will wait for a discount. 60 is a lot for something I am not likely to like. So far I don't like combat and companions don't seem that appealing. But then again I hated combat in dragon age inquisition but main story was quite enjoyable. Who knows maybe they will pleasantry surprise us...
Same here. I think inquisition was the newest game I played recently.
Oh yea it is. Here in canada a new game costs 110 with tax! I'll probably get it just for curiosity sake, and for posting on here.
Just imagine pre-ordering Assassin's Creed Unity or Syndicate cause you loved the AC 2-4 series. I only enjoyed playing till AC 4 and the rest looks like cartoons to me no matter how awesome they updated the graphics.
I did with syndicate and hated that game....
But I never pre ordered unity but I did pick it up at launch along with Rogue and despite the bugs I loved and still do love it!
So, you're saying Unity is good? I don't remember from where, but I guess I got a bad review about it so I didn't try it even though I had it on my bucket list. Gonna try it out soon.
I really enjoyed Unity. The parkour is easily the best in the entire series plus it added a fun little coop style of gameplay. The story... It isn't the best story but I loved it. There's more of a romance subplot than any other game.
But I do suggest that if you play the game that you read the book Assassin's Creed Unity afterwards as it shows us what Elise ( The love interest) was up to during the events of the game.
No Man's Sky was a complete disaster at launch. So many people were feeling robbed. Unfinished games are just an overall trend these days. No matter if you pre-order or not... of course, worse in case you pre-ordered. Back then they had to finish the game or there were no options to get fixes and updates later on. So, they kind of had a stronger motivation to finish it.
I think a part of the reason why it is a trend is because of pre ordering. Developers already know they have your money so they're not incentivized as much to "sell" you the game.
I have a feeling that any access you don't have will reward you with some rewards in the final version of the game. It's actually a way for the developers to get information about gameplay and bugs from other players, without the need to pay someone to do it. You really summed it up in that title.