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Pondering the point of pre-ordering

Microsoft versus Sony, Battlefield versus Call of Duty and Forza versus Gran Turismo. These are some of the rivalries that can get people talking about console wars. “Game On or Game Over” is your place to get inside the minds of Nicholas and Andy as they seek to find the true meaning of gaming and tackle some of gaming’s most controversial subjects. Both are award winning authors – although the awards haven’t been mailed or created yet — but trust them. Would they lie to you?

Andy: Well, here we are, the middle of October, the time when most gamer’s wallets scream in agony as AAA release after AAA release flood the market. I don’t think there is ever a time during the year where gamers are inundated with the message “preorder now!” We see it in magazines, TV ads, inserts in games we buy and even on our console’s dashboards. It’s become a rite of passage really. A game gets announced, the hype machine starts up, people pre-order the game, wait six months and then they get the game.

Here’s the thing though… why? (For the purposes of this discussion let’s ignore collector’s editions, which can be a little tricky to come by depending on the game.) Why do we need to pre-order games anymore? Way back when pre-orders were first started, they were a legitimate means of securing a copy of the game on release day. This was back when games were limited print runs, publishers didn’t ship hundreds of copies to each retail location and we didn’t have to pick and choose which retailer to get our sacred ‘pre-order bonus’ from.

Let’s look at some of the major games coming out; Halo 5, Black Ops III, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, Fallout 4, Need for Speed and Star Wars Battlefront. I am willing to bet, on release day without pre- ordering any of those games, I could walk into GameStop, Wal-Mart, Target or Best Buy and get every one of them with no issue. The whole pre-order scheme is a ploy that I refuse to take part in anymore. The only game I have pre-ordered for the Fall line-up is Fallout 4 and that’s the Pipboy Edition. Before I get too high on my soapbox on this issue do you have any opinion on this?

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Nicholas: It’s a pretty interesting question when you think about it. When I reflect on my gaming purchases as of late I can certainly recognise that I’ve been pre-ordering a lot less games, if not this year then certainly this generation. For starters, I think the main reason is something that you’ve touched on in your opening statement – in that, games aren’t difficult to come by anymore. For the greater part, I’ve been able to walk into any retailer (although I really only purchase from either EB Games or JB Hi-Fi) and ask for a recently released title and get it still in shrink-wrap. Surprisingly, it was F1 2015 and Rare Replay that I had issues getting a month after launch, but those two aside, I’ve had no other issues buying everything else I currently own on my Xbox One.

I remember that a few generations ago though this wasn’t the case, and often I’d have to go from store to store to try and get the latest release for my N64 or Gamecube, but that’s not been much of an issue since the Xbox 360.

I think the other reason I used to pre-order games was for collector’s editions, but I find myself doing that less and less these days. When I think about why that is, part of it is I’ve been fortunate to get a few ‘bigger’ games for review, but the other is I’ve just found myself not caring as much anymore. I open my cupboard and I see boxes of collector’s editions that have never been opened, and it’s a game of Tetris just trying to stack them somewhere. Syndicate will be the first AC game that I don’t have a statue for, but you know what – it doesn’t bother me anymore.

When I think about why people continue to pre-order games, in-light of the reasons above that we don’t anymore, I think it’s perhaps a force of habit mixed with the power of the hype machine. People know they can get a game any time after launch, but they want to make sure that they’ll definitely get it on release. They get swept up with the fancy trailers and promos and for $10 upfront, it’s not really an issue. What do you think? Am I fairly close on my assumption?

Andy: Alright, now that you’ve had your first shot at this I’m going to jump up on this here soapbox and talk about one of the biggest pieces of this farce called pre-ordering. A game is announced at a convention, through a “leak” or some other avenue. The hype train starts chugging along the track and the message “pre-order now” starts popping up all over. Being the dutiful gamers we are we march right into our preferred game store and plop down the pre-order price- usually $5-$10 for a normal edition of the game. Then we go about our business. Pre-order right away and there’s a good chance you don’t even know when the game will be coming out, and an even better chance that you don’t even know what the game is about aside from a few slickly cut trailers and CGI videos.

But, that’s not even my main complaint. What happens to that $5-$10? It doesn’t get sent to the developer or publisher because there is no sale of a product. So, whichever retailer you pick they essentially are using you as a temporary bank and for all intents and purposes you are giving them a small loan to do whatever they want with it. The more you put down on a game the more of a loan you are giving them. Add to that, if you pre-order a game well in advance and for whatever reason you forgot you pre-ordered it, they won’t call you a month after the game’s release and say “Hey, Nicholas we see you pre-ordered Bioshock Infinite three years ago and you haven’t picked it up yet. We’re you planning on picking that up?” No, what they’re going to say is… absolutely nothing. That’s free money for them and they didn’t have to do a damn thing to get it.

Contrast this to when you pre-order a game from Amazon and they don’t charge you a thing until the game ships. That’s the way pre-orders should be done, not as a way to generate artificial revenue for retailers. I know neither of us really know the answer this this question, but maybe you can help me look at it from a different angle. If Amazon and Best Buy can get by without charging a pre-order fee, why is it if I want to pre-order something in a brick and mortar store I have to put down a deposit? It’s an odd double standard and makes it just seem even more shady to me.

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Nicholas: I can understand where you’re coming from, but it seems like some of these issues seem to be US-specific – or at the least, not much of an issue in Australia. Here the major retailers (JB Hi-Fi and EB Games at least) will send you an automated text the day before the game is released to remind you to pick it up. That way, if a gamer forgets to pick up their game it falls back on them. Ultimately though I always find that cases like this are the responsibility of the gamer. If you’re willing to pre-order a game a months/years in advance, then you should probably keep tabs on it yourself. Although I’d assume that if you’re keen enough to pre-order the game that you’ll definitely keep watching and waiting for its release regardless.

Perhaps I’m wrong here, but I don’t find it much of an issue with a company asking for a (small) deposit in order to guarantee a copy of the game on launch. As far as the gamer is concerned they’ve reduced the amount payable, and from our point of view, whether it goes to the developer immediately or at the end when the stock is actually purchased by the retailer for resale seems irrelevant. If in the event the game is released and you don’t get your copy then you should be entitled to a refund. As long as this happens, I’m OK with it. Whether a business accepts a deposit is up to them, and as long as the deposit decreases the final amount payable, there’s no problems in my eyes.

A question I’d be interested in asking is – do you see pre-orders existing through retailers for much longer? If we are moving towards digital distribution and embracing models like Steam for consoles, will pre-ordering become obsolete if we all make purchases via the Xbox Store/PSN or the publisher directly?

Andy: I think retailers are going to fight tooth and nail to get those pre-orders continuing to roll in. Think of It this way, when they get a customer to pre-order a game that is at least two visits to their store; one to pre-order and one to pick up. That’s assuming someone doesn’t come in a time or two to pay more on it.  I think we’ll continue to be peppered with “pre-order now” messages as well as seeing all sorts of ads about “exclusive” pre-order bonuses scattered across retailers.

That actually ties in nicely to another reason I am less inclined to pre-order games anymore. I am almost always guaranteed to not get the entire game that’s available. We’ve talked about it a little in the past, but I see no reason to go out of my way to pre-order a game when the bonus to do so is piecemealed across half a dozen retailers. Sure in most cases those bonuses don’t amount to much, but they still leave a bad taste in my mouth knowing that I essentially have to pick and choose based on which retailer has the “best” bonuses. Imagine getting a bag of Skittles and finding out you can only get the red ones at Wal-Mart and the green ones on Amazon. I don’t mind single pre-order bonuses, but they should be for the act of the pre-order, not the act of a pre-order and then tied to what retailer you pre-order from.

If pre-ordering a game was still about just guaranteeing a copy of the game because of limited supply then I would be OK with it. How it is now, with the massive print runs and all the gimmicks begging us to pre-order I just feel like I am dealing with a used car salesman. As I’ve been typing this last part of my reply something has started to sink in. I think one of my biggest contentions with the whole pre-order aspect is it just reeks of desperation. Not in the sense that it’s coming from the developers, but from the retailers. Developers and publishers are going to get the sales regardless, pre-orders are now more about retailers fighting each other for that sale. That’s where pre-orders have lost their way I think. That’s why we see the fragmented bonuses and that’s one the of things that is the most off putting to me.

Does that make sense to you? I’ve never really thought about it in those terms before, but now it makes complete sense. Do you think we’ll ever get back to a time when there is no, or only one, bonus for pre-ordering? Should we be asking for that may be a better question?

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Nicholas: First, foremost and most importantly, let me just say that if Skittles were sold in individual colours, and the red ones were being sold at Wal-Mart, then believe me, no-one would ever buy Skittles from other than Wal-Mart. Now that we have that answered, back to the topic at hand.

Ultimately, I don’t think we’ll be moving back to a pre-order bonus that is uniform across all retailers anytime soon. Like you’ve said above, and like we discussed a number of months ago when Gamestop were working with developers to create exclusive content, this is how retailers are able to better secure sales at their stores, and if this is the only thing separating their offering from another then there’s no chance they’re going to pass it up. I mean sure, if enough people stop pre-ordering all together then perhaps these practices would start to settle down, but let’s face it – that isn’t happening anytime soon.

You mentioned that you don’t pre-order games as much anymore because these store exclusives leave a bad taste in your mouth, and that often what they’re offering are pretty negligible. By that token though, wouldn’t it be better to pre-order at least somewhere at get something? I agree with you that passing them up often won’t change your game marginally, but do you think that by deciding to not pre-order, that it’s going to make a difference overall? To put the question back to you, do you personally see this changing anytime soon? If not, what would have to happen for this to shift back to how they were a decade ago?

Andy: Ah, but see if I pre-order something just to get at least something for it then I am being part of the problem and feeding the cycle. The publisher and retailer don’t have a little check box that says “He pre-ordered this even though he didn’t want to.” They just see it as we had bonus content ‘X’ and got this number of pre-orders, it’s working! Granted, is me not pre-ordering the latest greatest game going to change anything with how the industry does things? No, not at all, but it will be a moral victory for me to not feed part of the problem.

Sadly, I don’t see this changing anytime soon. I think retailers will always want to fight for as big of a piece of the pie as they can possibly get. I think we will go the opposite way actually. I think we will start to see games more fragmented and levels or complete side missions removed from titles to be used as pre-order content. This will be the retailers best way to fight the digital push and to keep customers coming through their doors. We’ve already seen this happen with games that are different between consoles. In Watch_Dogs there was a PS4 exclusive mission and I believe an Xbox exclusive mission. With Destiny, PS4 players had an exclusive Strike mission for a year before it finally hit Xbox. Like you said above, GameStop is in talks to create exclusive content, what’s to stop Wal-Mart or Best Buy from doing the same thing? Answer is, nothing. Sure, gamers will complain about it but you know as well as I do at the end of the day we will still buy the game from somewhere and when we do that retailer will think they won that transaction.

Here’s the conundrum for me. I like video games, and I like supporting the developers that I feel are making great games. To me the whole pre-order thing isn’t initial support for them, it’s support for the retailer to keep upping the ante with bonuses and exclusive content. No matter where I get the game from that retailer gets an extra +1 to their bottom line and that is what is really getting to me. So go digital right? Well, yes but then I have no leverage with the game down the road when I’m done with it. With the last generation of games I thought I should keep all my games because I never know when I’ll play them again. Well, more often than not that answer was “I’ll never play them again.” So I have been getting rid of my Xbox One games as I finish them now.

As we close out this week’s discussion I wanted to go back to basics here. We both agreed earlier that the basic concept of why you should pre-order a game is no longer to guarantee you a copy of the game, because they will be all over the place. If that’s not the case anymore why should we pre-order a game? You can argue about the pre-order bonuses but most of those bonuses will be available for purchase with the season pass, or some other type of DLC. So, it’s not truly exclusive. How did gamers so easily fall into the trap of thinking we had to pre-order everything? Are we truly that gullible?

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Nicholas: I think it can be broken down to two simple reasons. The first is to guarantee limited and collector’s edition that may or may not run out if you decide to wait until release day to see if there are any extras left over. Some CEs are fairly average but with most Ubisoft titles for example, there’s usually always a figurine, an art book and a soundtrack to accompany it, and I think this is perhaps the best reason why people pre-order. For the rest, those who don’t care about the steelbook cases and Assassin’s Creed figurines, I think it’s just eagerness and excitement getting the best of them. I don’t think the majority of gamers pre-order the majority of their games, but I think there are fans of particular franchises who pre-order ‘just in-case’ and because they love the series. For those people it isn’t about ensuring they get the game on launch in-case they sell out, but more so them just being able to tell themselves that no matter what, they’re playing the next Call of Duty or Need For Speed on launch.

Ultimately, I think pre-orders have mostly lost their purpose for me, and as I get older, my interests change and my free space falls, the need to have those super collector’s editions seems like a waste of cupboard space and money. For those who do still pre-order, good for them. I guess I might miss out on the occasional side mission, car pack or perhaps weapons bundle, but I think I’ll live. Beats dealing with micro-transactions I guess!

Tune in next time for the next instalment of Game On or Game Over. If you have any ideas for our next article, feel free to contact Andy or Nicholas on Twitter.


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About the author

Nicholas Simonovski

Events and Racing Editor at Stevivor.com. Proud RX8 owner, Strange Music fan and Joe Rogan follower. Living life one cheat meal at a time.

About the author

Andy Gray

From the frozen land of Minnesota, I was the weird kid that begged my parents for an Intellivision instead of an Atari. My love for gaming has only grown since. When I’m not gaming I enjoy ice hockey and training dogs. I’m still trying to get my Elkhound to add to my Gamerscore though, one day this will happen.