Image alt text: An image of Steam’s top 10 best-selling games at the time of posting, three of which are marked as “prepurchase”

I checked the Steam stats and noticed that in the top 10 best selling games by revenue, there’s three games that aren’t even out yet. If we ignore the Steam Deck and f2p games, it’s three out of four games. They have also been in the top 100 for 4, 6, and 8 weeks respectively, so people just keep on buying them. I would love to know why people keep doing this, as the idea of pre-ordering is that there is a physical copy of a game available for you on release, but this is not a concern with digital items. So after so many games lately being utterly broken on release, why do people not wait until launch reviews to buy the game? If you touch a hot stove and get burned multiple times, when does one learn?

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    No.

    Especially the big studio games.

    They almost always go on sale 3-6 months past release, and they’ve been patched at least once.

    You get a better, cheaper game.

  • Vespair@lemm.ee
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    5 days ago

    I would have pre-ordered Civ7, but then they announced it has Denuvo so now instead of pre-ordering I’m just not going to buy it at all.

    Fuck denuvo and fuck corporations who think their customers should just bend over and accept whatever bullshit they offer for the “privilege” of playing their game.

    There is so much good indie gaming content these days, we don’t need these abusive mega-corp games.

    • stom@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      When starfield released and tried this “early access for extra cash” nonsense, the game was cracked before the regular release was even available.

  • CouncilOfFriends@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I don’t think digital pre-orders even include banking functionality. I wouldn’t know because I lack the nerd cred of ever pre-ordering a game

  • kerrigan778@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    The reason people do it is poor impulse control for the dopamine hit from buying something they want. I’m pretty sure anyone claiming another reason isn’t being honest with themselves or others.

  • qevlarr@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Hissssss 🐍

    Don’t preorder, what the hell are you people thinking?!

  • EndlessApollo@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I almost never preorder any game I’m not 100% sure I’ll play no matter what. Sometimes I’ll do it with online games in 90% sure on bc my internet is horrible and I like being able to get started on the download asap

    • EndlessApollo@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      For example I’m gonna preorder the new Fatal Fury game even though I’m not super confident in SNK to put out a functional game, but I know it’ll have fun gameplay and worst case scenario it’ll get fixed in a while. Being able to download early is worth for me even if I won’t download in time to play early, and worst case scenario it’s completely nonfunctional and I just refund it until it works

  • Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    Last game I pre-ordered was Cyberpunk 2077. Yeah, it’s a fun and really good now but when it released it was basically unplayable until Phantom Liberty was released. I had already said I would never pre-order a game and I made an exception for CDPR and got Cyberpunk, and I was immediately burned. For real-sies this time, no more exceptions. I will never pre-order another game until the day that I die.

  • Slayan@lemmy.ca
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    5 days ago

    Last game i pre-ordered was fallout 4 hahahaha. So no i don’t pre-order anymore. I even waited for a discount on baldur’s gate 3 before buying it, that was a feat of it’s own.

  • stardust@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    Never because I’m cheap and also I don’t want to pay a premium for a buggy unoptimized experience. Even when I had the game pass trial I didn’t play games day 1, since games needed several patches to be acceptable.

  • LouNeko@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Only Capcom games. Their demos give you a pretty good idea of what the fully game is going to be and are usually even improved upon. So preordering is mostly a safe bet. Plus you get some early access goodies (which you can also get after release for some extra shmeckles).

    Capcom feels like one of the only multiplatform devs that are actually still making games for gamers not for shareholders.

  • w3dd1e@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    I do preorder digital games but not just anything I’m excited about. It has to come from a single dev or small dev team that I specifically want to support, and help fund their progress. In this example, I’d preorder Haunted Chocolatier by ConceredApe (dev behind Stardew Valley).

    OR, if the game is made by studio with a stellar track record or an absolutely phenomenal game. These more rare but their are a few. These also need to treat their dev team and customers well. No crunch. No shady micro-transactions.

    For example, Hades 2 is something I would consider preordering. The next game by Larian Studios might also be on that list.

  • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Rarely. I don’t think I ever have two years in a row.

    Usually only if I’m very sure it’s a game I will get a lot of playtime out of due to past titles. For instance, I did pre-order Civ 7 because prior Civs have been the best hours-enjoyed-per-dollar investments I’ve ever made. No exaggeration, even accounting for DLCs I bought at full price.

  • truxnell@infosec.pub
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    6 days ago

    Not digital. I used to preorder popular games way back before digital was a thing as supply could be tight, but it makes zero sense in a digital world where they can’t run out of supply.

    Especially with how the trend today is release and drop hotfixes (or in some cases just laugh to the bank) I won’t drop $$$ until its in a good state