Last game I pre-ordered was Pokemon Soul Silver.

Since then, no.

Me personally, I'll never pre-order a game. Pre ordering is different from early access because i actually get the game even in a unfinished state.

All that said, it depends on the game. Timberborn has been the only early access game I felt has been worth it. The Devs are still putting out regular updates and have vastly improved the game since i bought it. Its been very fun to play from the beginning and has only gotten better.

Compare that to something like cyberpunk, yea I'm good. Couldn't imagine how that must of felt to preorder that and get that mess on release. I think the main difference is the studio. AAA games I rarely buy anymore. Indie games though? Thats where I'm at.

1. Watch_Dogs (2014)

2. No Man's Sky (2016)

3. Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)

Nah I'm good ...for like. Ever

no, I've never done that. I've never seen much of a discount so I've never had any incentive to

I used to a lot as a kid. It was pretty much the only way to get some more obscure games.

I pretty much stopped in the mid 2000s except for some collectors editions of games that I was 99% sure were going to be great Halo3, Fallout3, New Vegas etc. I still do the same thing now with the odd switch collectors edition xenoblade chronicles, the final fantasy pixel remasters, unicorn overlord but those were games I was 99% sure would be finished at launch.

The rest of the time I wait a year or so until the game is half priced and finished.

I never pre-order. I broke that rule exactly once and pre-ordered No Man's Sky, boy did they make a fool out of me. Never again.

There are plenty of games I play that are on early access, the qualifier is whether the game is in a playable state and is fun to play (by account of online reviews or friend's recommendations).

Nope. Trust has been broken too many times. I don't even buy anything anywhere near release anymore. I won't buy anything anymore unless it's either an indie game or its on sale and even then I deep dive the reviews and make sure I'm not wasting my money.

Last, and only time, I ever got to preorder was BioShock Infinite. Got the game an a guidebook ( still have that guidebook, even if I've never really used it ). Was kinda lackluster, IMO, but at least I got the game and didn't have to wait outside for hours like my brother did for GTA V.

Nowadays I stay away from preorders because they're basically all digital and you don't even get anything besides maybe early access for a week and some useless cosmetic things that eventually get handed out to everyone who wants to buy it. At least in the case of triple AAA games.

I haven't seen much for preordering for indie titles besides being a kickstarter backer. Even then, I was able to not be a kickstarer for one of my favorite gamed released the last couple years ( Broke the InvestiGator ) and still managed to snag some of the leftover kickstarter rewards. Never backed one besides a tie-in comic for the game, so not much of an opinion either way since I don't have enough experience to say one way or another.

As for early access, it depends on the game and if it either looks interesting to me and/or if I've seen someone else play it and looks fun. It's the main reasons I got into games like Peggle, Shotgun King, Dungeon Clawler, etcetera. All games I saw plenty of videos on and/or played demos of, if they had a demo.

I don't have a problem with early access so long as your game isn't early access throughout its whole life cycle. A game that has been in development as early access for 3 years? At that point, if you're still giving updates, why not put it in alpha or beta and be upfront about it? I swear some devs don't do that so they can just disregard all criticism of their title because It'S sTiLl In EaRlY aCcEsS.

We Do Not Preorder

Seriously, don't reward this kind of anti-consumer bullshit.

The only acceptable justification I can see is if it's an indie dev who has really, truly earned the trust of their players and proven that they will work tirelessly to deliver the product people want. And even then I'd be very, very unlikely to. I'm crazy excited for both of Owlcats upcoming games and I still haven't pre-ordered them, for example.

Pre-orders encourage bad, buggy, incomplete or deceptively marketed releases by juicing day one numbers without any need for the dev / publisher to actually release a worthy product.

I don’t think I’ve ever pre-ordered a game. I’ve always been a patient gamer.

The only game I can recall purchasing during early access was Vampire Survivors. It was cheap as hell at $3 and was due to launch in about a week or so. There wasn’t a downside to getting it for me.

I got screwed over so many times with both pre-ordering and early access, that I never pre-order again and I very rarely buy early access games. I honestly don’t really buy any game at full price anymore and I only buy early access if a developer hasn’t abandoned a previous game and releases regular updates, unless if they have a really good reason to leave a long time between updates (looking at you Detail Valley).

I never pre-order, there is no benefit.

Early access is misleading, there are games which are "released" and would barely count as early access and vice-versa, so I just treat them equally.

The criteria for me is that based on reviews or some gameplay footage it seems like I can get £1/hour worth of enjoyment out of it. I tend to look for how many hours do people have when they leave reviews and how many have they played since, rather than just what they say. If I'm unsure if I'll like it and there is not enough videos or reviews to give me certainty, i may take a risk on £10 and below games depending on how bored I am at the time.

I pre-order games I know I'd buy on launch. Some titles I just know I'll play, regardless of reviews - E.g. Sequels to games I love like the Witcher 3 or any of the Dying Light games.

I'll also do Early Access if I want to play the game early and am okay with jank, E.g. Hades 2, Windblown.

Nope. Only game I EVER preordered was fallout76, because I've been a fallout fanboy forever.

I learned.

THE ONLY REASON TO PREORDER IS TO ENSURE YOU HAVE A COPY ON LAUNCH.

Do you think they will run out of digital copies of you to download? (Just in case someone doesn’t know, that's not how digital downloads work)

It’s that fucking simple. Pre-order bonuses are almost never worth it on their own, and even for those that are, you’re enabling and supporting a predatory/anti-consumer practice.

I preorder Indie games, because even if they turn out to be crap I want them to make another one and get better at it !

I relentlessly fuck over AAA publishers by buying keys on resellers, and I have no remorse about it.

no i wait until they're at least 50% off. no exceptions. unless someone buys it for me.

Never preorder. Will do early access, mostly from indie devs.

I pre-ordered ff8, they ran out anyways. Lesson learned.

Why would anyone still be preordering? It's a complete gamble with no payoff. Preordering made sense when games were on physical media, but there isn't any stock limit on digital goods.

I “built” my first desktop (that’s a whole story) for Cyberpunk. I preordered the game. Suffice to say I’ve never preordered a game since

Pre-ordering existed for the customer's benefit back when all games were physical and you wanted to guarantee you'd have a copy available for you at launch. At some point, companies realized that they could use it to forecast success or, more nefariously, entice you to buy a stinker of a game before you've had time to hear that it sucks. I haven't bought physical games in a while now, but when I did, the last time I had a hard time acquiring one at launch was more than 20 years ago (I remember Halo 2 being the mile marker for when companies got to be pretty good at meeting demand). In the digital space, it makes even less sense. They still do pre-order incentives sometimes, for the same reason as above, even when the game is good, but the bonuses are so throwaway anyway that it usually doesn't matter. Digital storefronts on PC have a pretty good refund policy, so if you're diligent enough, you can pre-order the day before it comes out, get the bonus, let the dust settle on review scores, and decide if you want to keep the game with the pre-order bonus or just refund it. There's very little risk in that. Without a pre-order bonus, there's absolutely no reason to bother, and quite frankly, I don't feel good about supporting those bonuses in the first place.

I have no issue with early access games, especially if the game lends itself to the model, which would be anything sufficiently sandboxy that can be heavily modified by changing some variables or adding a single mechanic. Larian's RPGs are very freeform in the ways they let you solve problems and can be upended by different powerful abilities and whatnot; roguelikes are perfect for this model, because you're replaying them a lot anyway; regardless of genre, the ones that would catch my eye are the ones that are looking for gameplay feedback and not outsourcing QA for finding bugs to a bunch of paid customers. The real problem with early access for me now is that there are so many finished games coming out all the time that look interesting that it's difficult to justify playing one that's not done.

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.

Never pre-order.

I do early access only in very specific cases where it's an indie studio and the game already offers a lot of value. E.g. Satisfactory was in early access for a long time when it was basically a finished game you could sink hundreds of hours into. But I read and watch a lot of reviews before I buy into one of those. Can't do that with a pre-order.

No preorder for me. I almost do the opposite. I buy games after they get cheap in 1 to 5 years, lol

I often preorder games that I know are sure bets. I won’t preorder games that I’m not sure I’ll like or by a developer with a rocky reputation (Ubisoft, etc).

I love buying early access games. Many of the best games ever made spent a lengthy time in early access, and it was worth every penny. Some I’ve bought 2-3 times in early access on different platforms just to support the developers (Satisfactory, Factorio, Rimworld, Baldurs Gate 3). I just bought Satisfactory for the third time and it was worth it.

No

Never. Why would I pay early for a digital copy of a video game? I can just buy it when it comes out, or better yet, when it goes on sale.

Never. I won't buy a game until I've tried it. If no demo is available, I'll pirate it first, and then buy it later if its good.

Definitely no preorder, I'm not buying a cat in a bag for no real benefit. Kickstarter is a bit different because the game might not be made at all if you don't back, but in that case I'll definitely research the people involved to get a better picture on how reliable they are and if they really need Kickstarter-style funding in the first place.

For early access, I try to judge whether the current state of the game is already worth the price. Games like Minecraft or 7 Days To Die provided great value even before their 1.0 version.

Never. I hate the preorder exclusive bonuses; it's anti-consumer bullshit, especially in an age where every game is available as a digital download, even the physical copies usually require downloads. Publishers are enticing customers to pay while hype is high, before the product is actually available, before quality has been proven and before reviews are published.

I hate gift cards for the same reason, you're giving money to corporations before they've provided anything to you.

Hold on to your money, wait for reviews, then pay them for the finished product if you still want it.

I also think the rising launch prices of AAA games is bullshit, especially for singleplayer games. I'll usually wait for a decent discount.

I very rarely used to, and now I absolutely don't ever since I pre-ordered Anthem...

I stopped after Cyberpunk.

I always wait for release, even if I'm planning it to be a release day buy. Early Access could be an exception if the product they offer is good even in that stage, like how I got Rhythm Doctor when they finished Act 4. (The game has recently came out of Early Access and it's really good). A demo could incentivise me to preorder, a game I could give example for that is Diesel Knights. While it's not available for pre-order yet, I would absolutely do so if it did. But nothing released : no preorder

Strictly against it in AAA titles, anything above 60 is a never buy in the first place for me but a putting a preorder for a game in that price range is something that is straight up NOT happening under any circumstance.

I only preorder a game if I know I want to play it right when it comes out and want to be able to preload the game, and if it comes from a developer I know will not disappoint me (FromSoftware, Kojima Productions, anything from Yoko Taro, etc.).

In the past I used to preorder to reserve a physical copy as soon as it was released, but there is generally no need for that anymore. This makes me both happy and sad, because for all the hassle it was, I kinda miss some aspects of the simpler times. In some ways, I do wish the world could rewind to the 2000s.

Early Access is different from preordering because you gain access to the product instantly, and generally can influence the direction of the game in a hopefully positive way. Providing feedback on what works and what doesn't is an important part of playing and early access game. A lot of people seem to ignore this.

Never. If it’s something I really want or from developers I respect I may buy it on release. Otherwise we wait for sales.

I could be open to kickstarter or something, that’s how Divinity Original Sins 2 got funded, but there’s a level of transparency and trust there that isn’t quite the same as preordering. Perhaps this is a silly distinction to make, I havnt really thought about it very hard, but preordering feels like being scammed nowadays and supporting something on kickstarter simply doesn’t.

I don’t really care for early access because i already don’t have enough time to play all the games I want to play so…there’s no extra room for me here. I will simply go play something else until your game is ready 🤷‍♀️

No. I've pre-ordered a couple in the past though. Diablo 3 is the only one that comes to mind though, also the last one I ever did. I can't think of any company that has a good enough track record for me to even consider it. Not even Paradox.

Also, since you don't have to worry about copies running out anymore there is really no reason to anyway. It was only a concern when everything was physical.

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.

I buy mainly physical games.

Will I preorder a AAA game that will have 18,000,000 copies sitting around after 6 months? Hell no.

Will I preorder a physical title from a small-medium dev/publisher that I will never see again? If they have a track record of making stuff I like.