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What Motivates a Preorder

What do publishers have to offer to get your preorder?

  • Gear, Skins, additional games, or other additional Digital goods.

    Votes: 13 25.5%
  • Art booklets.

    Votes: 7 13.7%
  • Physical props ie. busts, figures, etc....

    Votes: 4 7.8%
  • Price rebates or other financial incentives

    Votes: 21 41.2%
  • I don't purchase preorders. Ever.

    Votes: 21 41.2%

  • Total voters
    51
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As more and more companies push for people to preorder games, I'd like to understand why we are motivated to pay up front for goods, sight unseen. To that end, it seems reasonable to discuss that with a community of people likely to be invested in games before they are released.


To that end, what does it take to sway you to preorder a game? I'm not talking about something you'd never buy, but something you are on the fence about. Basically, that little extra push that a publisher can offer to get you to lay down your money.



I cannot start this without a few qualifiers. The last preorder I agreed to was Crysis 2. Being made a fool of by Crytek/EA soured me to the practice. The only other game I ever preordered was Pokemon Snap....I'll wait until the laughing stops.... The practice bothered me immensely in Mass Effect 2 (unique armors and guns depending upon retailer), but I'm more concerned now given the recent debacles of Colonial Marines and DNF. I'm actually looking forward to picking up the Witcher 2's collector's edition when the pricing is a little more reasonable though.

I want to know if the preorders are targeting us accurately, or are just a scattershot attempt by companies to make money. The practice is...interesting. Understanding it is the first step towards dealing with it.
 
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possibly market hype, social influence and being impatient?
 
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Might want to add "Desire to support the developer" to the list.
Which I have lost recently..
Preorders are seeming to be bait and switch now a days. I am waiting for final products from now on.
 
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Early Access
 
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You didn't have my option so I chose option one but the truth is I only preorder games that I want hard copies of (usually) sometimes I'll preorder because I want something they are offering as a bonus.

And the reason I preorder hard copy games is I want to make sure when I go to my local gamestop that I get my copy. Gamestop stocks 'x' amount of games and if the game is really popular they may sell out. So preordering it costs $5.00 at gamestop and then I know I'll have my hard copy on release day. Plus they usually open up at Midnight for big releases meaning I can get the game at midnight and go home and play.
 
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Price pretty much. Early access if I'm REALLY interested in the game.
 

brandonwh64

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Honestly it would have to be a game I loved in the past along with having a bunch of friends that were getting it as well and something with longevity
 
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I usually don't pre-order these days. Have so many games to play that I'll wait for really nice sales on Steam to purchase. If I'm lucky, will eventually get around to playing them too! For perspective I just started Borderlands (not II) last weekend.

A partial list,

Good: Diablo II, Fallout 3, Fallout:New Vegas

Meh: Civilization III. Nice tin, but game didn't live up to expectations set by Civ II.

Bad: Hellgate:London. Was hyper-hyped!

Biggest motivator for me are the physical extras and art books, so you can assume that I went for the Collectors Editions of the above titles.


Might want to add "Desire to support the developer" to the list.
Which I have lost recently..
Preorders are seeming to be bait and switch now a days. I am waiting for final products from now on.

Good reason, that's why I donated via Kickstarter to the Leisure Suit Larry remake. My first pre-order in a long time.
 
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If I want something enough and its reasonably priced I Might pre order but don't often after crysis 2 smashed that eagerness out of me
 
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I don't pre-order ever. I usually pick them up 6-12 months later. When some deluxe edition or whatever that called arrives (with patches, dlc and blah).
 

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I only preorder games I know I'm going to buy no matter what. e.g. SimCity
 

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If it's a game I really want I try to preorder it for the sake of it. If a new Jedi Knight game was announced tomorrow I would probably preorder it because it's a new Jedi Knight. I wouldn't be able to play it with my computers, but still.

I have no idea what they usually offer though. If they offered old fashioned physical boxes and proper printed manuals I would definitevly be interested. Not just Art stuff, but proper MANUALS.
 

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Well, obviously the companies do it to guarantee a sale - and an early one at that.

I don't normally buy a preorder myself. However, I have been convinced a couple of times with offers of lowered prices or extra DLC if I thought I'd like the game and those are the two options I voted for. If I suspected the game was iffy, then no amount of incentives would get me to part with my money.

What stinks is when the latest Call of Duty comes out at some stupidly high price with a preorder and fuck all incentives, no money off, no extras, no nothing. No damned way am I buying that on preorder! I'll get it when I'm good and ready.

Anyway, damned good question, lilhasselhoffer! :toast:
 
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I only pre-order a game if I know its going to be good and/or I want to play it on the first day.

That option isn't available.
 
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To address some of the good comments:

possibly market hype, social influence and being impatient?

Reasons to buy, fair. I was looking for why you would preorder if you were on the fence. I didn't account for social influences, but a developer can only do that infrequently. It was an oversight on my part.

Might want to add "Desire to support the developer" to the list.
Which I have lost recently..
Preorders are seeming to be bait and switch now a days. I am waiting for final products from now on.

A fair reason to buy. At the same time, publishers don't offer you a dev team. In this case you'd be purchasing the game even if there was no incentive from the publishers for preorder.

To be honest I would be guilty of this for only one company, Valve. Doesn't matter what they put out, or what they offer. Quality games are what is to be expected, and Valve delivers.

Early Access

Stupid, stupid, stupid! I should have included that, and it slipped by me. Thank you for correcting the stupid oversight.


You didn't have my option so I chose option one but the truth is I only preorder games that I want hard copies of (usually) sometimes I'll preorder because I want something they are offering as a bonus.

And the reason I preorder hard copy games is I want to make sure when I go to my local gamestop that I get my copy. Gamestop stocks 'x' amount of games and if the game is really popular they may sell out. So preordering it costs $5.00 at gamestop and then I know I'll have my hard copy on release day. Plus they usually open up at Midnight for big releases meaning I can get the game at midnight and go home and play.

Again, stupidity for forgetting earlier access. My bad.

The ability to have a hard copy generally isn't something I've considered. A hard copy bought three years after launch, and one partially paid for a month in advance are the same. My perspective may be skewed on this one though.

Additionally, you can select multiple items. I figure people have to have more than one thing that motivates people.


...
I have no idea what they usually offer though. If they offered old fashioned physical boxes and proper printed manuals I would definitevly be interested. Not just Art stuff, but proper MANUALS.

They still do that? Last time I got a computer game with a proper manual was..... I cannot remember. Of course, that might be Steam spoiling me. No printed manual, but not having to deal with Walmartians (sigh) is generally worth it.
 
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You forgot one : Deep pockets/I want it now!!
 
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In the case of newegg, a good price. It's normal for them to offer $15 off big title games in the months running up to release.
 

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Usually not a single one of those. The gimmick items you get with any sort of thing usually don't matter much to me. I usually just pre-order if I have the money at that time. Because then later I know it's possible I might be low on cash and not able to afford it. So better get it out of the way when I have that extra bit.
 
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I dont because dont know if a game is going to be good till its out. ex Aliens:CM
 
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Think of pre-ordering Tomb Raider just because of TressFX and seeing how it performs on my system.

So another thing could be new graphical features which utilize certain things within a GPU which you may currently own.
 
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I'll pre-order a game if I think a game is good and has a low enough print run that if I don't get it early, I'll have trouble getting it later. So this usually applies to sleeper hits from smaller companies that don't have the big name fame.

In the old days, special limited edition versions of games came with a lot of goodies: art books, soundtrack CDs, mouse pads, pretty figurines, etc. Nowadays, most special edition games don't offer much tangible goods. The Borderlands 2 chest was a nice throwback. Japan is still pretty good at this kind of stuff though. If I like a game enough to consider pre-ordering it, fancy stuff like that would push me over the fence.
 
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I can't believe the last two options are the most popular. Why?

1. Usually preorders offer special skins, weapons, apparel, etc to make paying full price more attractive. The idea being to get more cash flow to carry the project. Often times in fact a project isn't even carried through unless they get X amount of preorders. You don't shore up your cash flow by offering rebates and discounts.

2. The question is what motivates a preorder, so why should "I don't purchase preorders...Ever" even be an option?

I get the feeling most were responding out of wishful thinking, because most preorders don't in fact offer financial incentives, and saying you don't preorder at all is more like saying you're boycotting them than giving a motivation for doing so.
 
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artbooks and albums, I remember preordering one of the tales games years ago and my local funcoland(before gamestop bought them and ruined them) gave out the album and the artbook and a massive poster and some other stuff.

but nowadays its kinda pointless.
 
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There are only a handful of situatioins where I've pre-ordered, and usually it was the collectors edition of the game. WoW: WotLK and Starcraft 2 come to mind. I got them because the CE always come with amazing art books and various other goods, as well as in-game bonuses. I also have pre-purchased a bunch of games digitally (BF3, TSW, TERA, WoW Cata\MoP, Borderlands 2, Diablo 3, SWTOR) for early access to the game and\or to be able to play them the minute the game went live.
 
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...

1. Usually preorders offer special skins, weapons, apparel, etc to make paying full price more attractive. The idea being to get more cash flow to carry the project. Often times in fact a project isn't even carried through unless they get X amount of preorders. You don't shore up your cash flow by offering rebates and discounts.

2. The question is what motivates a preorder, so why should "I don't purchase preorders...Ever" even be an option?

I get the feeling most were responding out of wishful thinking, because most preorders don't in fact offer financial incentives, and saying you don't preorder at all is more like saying you're boycotting them than giving a motivation for doing so.

promotions.newegg.com/NEemail/Feb-0-2013/Couponing-28/index-landing.html?nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL022813&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL022813-_-EMC-022813-Index-_-E0D-_-GAME#MICROSOFTSOFTWARE

Newegg often runs promotions where you get $10 off of a preorder game. Maybe the brick and mortar stores don't do this, but you can find a preorder deal quite often if you actually look for it.


? Name a game that is going the traditional distribution method, that required a number of preorders before they committed to release. No, Tomb Raider's plan to make preorder numbers determine rewards does not count. It would be released regardless. No, the kickstarters don't count, because they aren't traditionally developed games.

The only game that may qualify is Rayman. The difference there is Ubisoft is a bunch of twats, who believe that holding one game hostage to the sales of another is a viable tactic to get their more questionable products to sell based upon the games consumers actually want to buy. The actual preorders of Rayman do not influence whether it comes to market though.


The question is what gets you to preorder. Do you stand against preorders? Do you disregard the (in your opinion) frivilous extras? Both of these are valid responses to why you would or would not preorder. If you would like a more accurate answer, I should have worded the choice "A publisher can't offer me anything that could get me to preorder."
 
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