- What about Early Access Games?
- Do you feel differently about Early Access vs traditional preordering?
- If you are open to the idea in specific circumstances, what are those?
- How do you decide if a game qualifies?
I’m interested in the community thoughts on preordering and I’d love to have a thoughtful discussion on the matter.
Personally, I’m against preordering, except in specific situations where I want to actively support the development of a game.
I have been thinking about this because there is a game I’m considering preordering from a medium sized studio, but the reason I want to preorder is for the IP, rather than the game and it goes against my typical stance on this. The game is based on my favorite book series and part of me wants to encourage more games be made based on this series. At the same time, the book series has found commercial success and as a whole does not need my help.
I did name the specifics here because I’m hoping to encourage discussion on preordering as a whole, rather than my example, but if you want to know, I’ll drop a comment and we can have a discussion in the comment thread. :)
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.
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Watch_Dogs (2014)
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No Man’s Sky (2016)
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Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)
Nah I’m good …for like. Ever
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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).
Exactly this. If it’s already fun, and especially if the early access price is good, then buying a somewhat janky game that will get better seems fine.
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.
I did pretty much the same, but then Kerbal 2 happened. I had that game in wishlist for like 5 years and damn they played us dirty.
Very disappointing when that happens, I agree - but that’s the risk we take as people who pre-order!
My nightmare pre-order was Star Citizen, to the point that I now despise Kickstarter.
any of the Dying Light games.
My man 🤜🤛
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.
