General Discussion

This week in his MMOWTF column, Dan Fortier takes on the subject of pre-orders and whether or not we should be paying for them.

When we were little kids our parents would do their best to keep us from harm. They would yell “Hot!” if you tried to climb the fireplace or make you leave the kitchen if your tried to juggle the carving knives. Some things though can only be learned by experience and I don’t mean levels. Some people have to total their car before they learn to not drive like a manic, while others may require ten stitches before realizing that your bedspread is NOT a good substitute for a parachute. Pre-ordering an MMO may not be as dangerous as anything described above, but it can still be a great way to learn a lesson the hard way. This week the doctor is in and Pre-Orders are prepped and ready for surgery. Nurse! Scalpel and lots of Gauze!

Paying for a game before you get it is not a new concept. People have been pre-ordering things since cavemen would trade a small pebble to make sure they got the first dibs on the first fire stick before anyone else. Nowadays, pre-ordering an MMO usually involves some kind of gimmick or benefit that the folks who wait to read the reviews don’t get. It’s about as clever as those commercials that play all night long that tell you get a discount if you call in the next 15 minutes. What’s so wrong with paying more to get an edge over others you ask?

Read MMOWTF here.

Preordering is becoming the new cash cow for the unfinished MMO projects these days.  I would not touch a preorder unless it was from one of the already well known developers with good track records, like Blizzard for example.  A bad example of this was Pepetual Entertainment's cancelation of their Gods and Heros title, you have to persuade the reseller to give you your money back.  Most of the benefits from preordering have little affect on the game, they are usually more for display than substance.

Card games associated with the game are another method of separating you from your money, again using specific cards to provide in game items.  Personally I'd rather play the game then fool around with a silly card game myself. 

Another new tactic to separate you from your money is the founding member trick, where you pay a sizable amount to be able to play the game without charge for the life of the game.  A good example of a game gouging the public with this lately is Hellgate London, the game has mediocre reviews and limited replayability flagging founding members with possibly empty servers in the near future.

While most of these methods offer different ways for developers to increase their income, they are being misused by many of the less known publishers providing the genre with some black eyes.

Recently I had a pre-order for Hellgate from GameStop. When I went to go put a pre-order down for AoC and Warhammer on a giftcard,  they reminded me that I had the previous pre-order for Hellgate, which allowed me into the beta, and wondered if I wanted to buy it. I told them the game was crap, and that the only reason I got the pre-order was for the beta, so I didn't spend $50 on a non-refundable game. They put the $5 back onto my gift card without me asking them to. I only noticed it when I walked out and took a glace at my reciet. I think that if $5 really matters that much, and people don't want to pay $50 for a game that looks interesting, but turns out to be , just go to GameStop, and pre-order there. Also, if you end up liking the game, the $5 goes twords the purchase. Kind of a win/win there... except, you need to leave your basement to go there....

Ahaha this is one made me laugh. Pre ordering is nothing new and although some mention DnL for the pre ordering, this isn't the worse that happen as it did launch at least.

Many of you might not however remember the infamous Mourning MMO that never launched, took pre order but never refunded... and change ownership with promise we would get lifetime account but yet to hear about it still?

But then thats the risk with unknown company that start in this business, you cannot be sure that you'll get a game or nothing but if that can help the company to bring a finished product on the market then i'll gladly pre order their game if I like what I hear or see about it.

Originally posted by raihiryu

Recently I had a pre-order for Hellgate from GameStop. When I went to go put a pre-order down for AoC and Warhammer on a giftcard,  they reminded me that I had the previous pre-order for Hellgate, which allowed me into the beta, and wondered if I wanted to buy it. I told them the game was crap, and that the only reason I got the pre-order was for the beta, so I didn't spend $50 on a non-refundable game. They put the $5 back onto my gift card without me asking them to. I only noticed it when I walked out and took a glace at my reciet. I think that if $5 really matters that much, and people don't want to pay $50 for a game that looks interesting, but turns out to be , just go to GameStop, and pre-order there. Also, if you end up liking the game, the $5 goes twords the purchase. Kind of a win/win there... except, you need to leave your basement to go there....

Thanks for brining this up.  I think I mentioned it in a post a while back.  There really is no risk at all in pre-ordering from a Gamestop store.  As explained above, it's really a rental fee of $5 usually which may get you into an early version of a game to see how it is.  If you don't like what you see (and keep in mind, that what you see may or may not be in the final release), then you can always go back to Gamestop and ask to have your pre-order cancelled and have the money put toward something else, or a Gift card.  I've been doing this for years now, and never bought a pre-order that I didn't like.

There are a couple gaming stores in town that will sell popular launch titles only to those who have preordered.  I stopped going to those and now buy all my games exclusively from Best Buy, Walmart, or Target.  I tend to get the game a day or two after launch date which is about when it arrives at the gaming stores.

Net result, I took about $1000 a year elsewhere because I got tired of hearing, 'You didn't preorder...sorry.'

On more than one occasion I also preordered and was told, 'Sorry, there were so many preorders we sold out, but we will have a shipment in three days."  Meanwhile Best Buy has 20 copies on their display case. 

Well there are the preorder never release scams like Mourning,The Chronicle,Gods and Heroes;

but more typically the unfinished, incomplete, buggy, crappy game releases like Vanguard, Roma Victor, DnL, etc.; which preordering at Gamestop et al won't protect you from being hosed.

Solution: NEVER PREORDER. If you have not tested the game yourself, wait for the reviews.

Originally posted by Terranah

There are a couple gaming stores in town that will sell popular launch titles only to those who have preordered. ....

Net result, I took about $1000 a year elsewhere because I got tired of hearing, 'You didn't preorder...sorry.'

On more than one occasion I also preordered and was told, 'Sorry, there were so many preorders we sold out, but we will have a shipment in three days."  Meanwhile Best Buy has 20 copies on their display case. 

The idea of pre-ordering merchandise goes back quit a few years now... back before I started collecting comics near 20 years ago now. The concept then was to guarantee that you received a copy of a limited supply. The situation you discuss is completely to blame on the distributors for the stores. Why does Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and other stores have copies? My experience has shown me that the large retailers get favored over the smaller specialty stores in the quantity of a product they get shipped. Best Buy might order 100,000 copies of a game, and get 90% of them at lauch, but small specialty stores will order a 100 copies, and might get 50 at launch, most of which (if not all) went to pre-orders. (The numbers used are just pulled out of the air, and not reflective of actual statistics.) This is even more true for limited edition items, where people pre-ordering go on a waiting list, and aren't actually guaranteed anything. The other thing to look at with specialty stores: will they even stock the title or item if you don't pre-order it? The local Gamestop has one small shelf for PC games.

When you pre-order software from one of these places, there's usually a guarantee: get a copy of the software, or the deposit is refunded. This is a great practice for the retailer and the publishers, because it gives an indication of how well the game is going to sell at launch, and how many copies need to be cut and shipped to retailers, thus reducing costs and prices.

The concept of 'pre-ordering' a game that may or may not ship with no guarantees? Well, in the situation described in the article, I wouldn't call that preordering. You just bought the game, played it, and does it really matter if you get shipped a copy now? The 'safety net' of having reviews to read usually doesn't apply for at least a few days after the game is out, and then can the first reviews published be completely trusted? I don't feel that way. Unless the game takes 20 hours to complete, can you experience the game in a couple days to provide a solid review? (Yes, I know that the press is sometimes provided early releases so they can have reviews published, but these versions aren't necessarily the ones that get shipped.) Where the analogy of 'sky diving with a parachute' applies, in my opinion, only when you pay for the game from a publisher in full with no guarantee of refund or ship date, and no promises of even getting to play in beta.