It’s asking the question you answered in your second sentence. Pre-release, are you half empty or half full?
I pre-order if a game is something I know I want to play. Last year that was Travis Strikes Again, CoD: Modern Warfare, Jedi Fallen Order, Astral Chain, Doom Eternal, Samurai Shodown,and the Sega Genesis Mini. Still waiting on Doom of course.
It’s good to see it’s about 85% positive. I thought it would be closer to 50-50. Even when I walk away from a “bad” game, I’m still thinking about the cool things it did. Usually there’s stuff there that’s worth my time.
I stay pretty positive pre-release. I’m only likely to follow a game before release if it’s from one of three or four brands I’ve been playing since I was a kid, so riding the hype rollercoaster is part of the fun, even if it’s a lackluster game.
I get cynical when I start to focus on a particular set of expectations for a game. (E.g. playing Witcher after watching the Netflix show or playing Civ while reading some history). Either my expectations aren’t suited to the game or my enthusiasm quickly fades when I start a new book or show.
So I tend to replay games I enjoy a lot rather than sampling all the cool stuff that’s out there. If I find something new it’s usually because there’s persistent and positive buzz.
See, that’s something I’d never do. a) Why bother? I’m not going to get it any quicker. b) I don’t know I want to play it until I find out if it’s any good.
I think I pre-ordered maybe one game last year and I couldn’t tell you what it was, just something in a known quantity franchise that had a meaningful discount.
The only reason I ever (rarely) pre-order is if the game is offering some pre-order incentive. If I know I’ll be getting that game anyway, then I go ahead and pre-order a day or two before release, just to get those bonuses. Usually it’s some trivial un-important thing, but, eh, why not.
But again, that’s only if I’m already a big fan of the studio or the previous game in a series. (For example, DiRT Rally, Jedi: Fallen Order).
I follow developers, not publishers. I’m pretty confident in certain developers to give me games I want to play. All of the above had that going for them. I also did get pre-order bonuses in some cases including an extra $10 off on the next game for buying that game in the case of Call of Duty and I think Fallen Order too. Best Buy does some good deals that way. I also use in-store pickup.
So? I don’t care who is bringing the game to market. I care about who is doing the work of design and development. Those people determine the quality provided they aren’t rushed to release something before it’s complete.
Paying attention to the people who make the games you like is an easy way to know what to look for next.
Over the years I’ve developed a sense that you have very particular views about video gaming as a hobby and I think this topic relates to that. It feels like you genuinely believe that a lot of people “hate play” games. I’m not exactly sure how you construct a scenario to properly get to that point - something like you pre-order a game but do so out of habit, don’t expect much, play it and then just bitch about it all day long.
In other words what you’re implying are that gamers here are some kind of obsessive compulsive collectors that collect games that they don’t particularly like.
I think the bitterness that people exhibit here (at times) isn’t because they approach a game from a half-empty perspective, but rather that they were disappointed on delivery after their expectations were made too high by marketing.
I don’t buy games that I don’t want to play, so personally I’ve never approached a game from a half-empty point of view. But, I will say, i’m more skeptical of sequels and rehashes than new games - both in giving new genre sorts of games more leeway and expecting more from sequels of sequels. But this doesn’t mean I won’t buy them or approach them with some enthusiasm, it just means that they have a higher bar to clear before I purchase them, which could mean waiting for reviews and not pre-ordering at all.
If the premise of this post is this is really about managing pre-order expectations and an assumption that everyone pre-orders everything, you might be surprised that pre-ordering is less common than you expect.
Sorry, I had at one point written something like “it’s not my job to to lend publishers money” and I thought you were responding to that, but looks like it didn’t make it into my post.
Of course, but it doesn’t mean you have to buy them before they’re released.I look for games from developers I like, but I’m not going to commit to buying them without solid evidence that the specific game is good, or a big discount.
Of course, if there’s a discount and you’re talking about something like CoD where the game doesn’t really change much year to year anyway, that’s another matter. I don’t really have any games like that - I tend to dip in and out of annual franchises, or in the case of sports games, just play the old ones on EA Access.
For me, with a few exceptions (e.g. Tetris, Madden), story, character and writing are very important when playing games. It’s certainly not the only thing I enjoy about games, but it’s a crucial component and has been back since my first experiences with point-and-click adventure games as a kid. And as I get older, and expose myself to more great literature and films, my internal standard for what qualifies as good writing rises–or rather, my lower bound for the quality of writing I can tolerate rises.
Combine that with being at a point in my life where I have much more money than free time, and I can’t help but be more critical and will quickly ask myself why should I continue playing this game when there’s another one there I could be enjoying more?
It seems very odd to me to pay a decent amount of money for an entertainment product and approaching it expecting to be disappointed in it. I mean, maybe if you’re a reviewer or podcaster and it’s part of what you do, sure. But if you’re just Joe GameConsumer, I don’t get it at all.
Half empty. I used to be a Half full, once upon a time. What changed for me was the last 5 day 1 releases I purchased. Two of them were all so bug ridden, I’m talking showstoppers, that it soured me, one of those I felt defrauded. The other 3 were all gigantic disappointments, or misrepresented the type of game they were. Others were my own fault, I shouldn’t dabble outside of genres I don’t enjoy, because no matter how many times I am convinced that they are examples of elevated beyond their genre, I still end up not enjoying myself. I am looking at you Visual Novels. You suck.
I am never buying launch games again, including cyberpunk. I will wait a year, see if they are any good or if they contain surprise mechanics, or bug ridden shit shows. I never minded paying full price, as long as I enjoyed myself. Now I’ll get the benefits of sales and no surprises. I expect I will be a half full gamer down the road. What I will miss is buying a game that I never heard of, at launch, and finding out what a gem it is, or just going in with no expectations, no clue and just going along with the game.
If you’re worried about a game being dumbed down or simplified but you wait for the reviews… you’re basically approaching it as half-empty right, pre-release. If the reviews and word of mouth alleviate that worry, great, buy and enjoy. It’s not that… weird.
My two last day-one purchases were Sim City and Mass Effect 3. I. . . stopped pre-ordering. The world, it appears, continued turning, and I’ve had fun with games since :)
I’m also in the “pre-order only with great incentive” camp. I don’t pre-order often at all – and I rarely buy games in their first few months, even – but sometimes if it’s a game I’m really excited about and it gets me some kind of early access via alpha or beta I might pony up. Maybe twice in the last 3 years though. Usually I’ll wait for a sale that brings it down into at least the $30 neighborhood.
Last games I bought early at full price were RDR2 and…uh…gosh I don’t even remember. I have a massive backlog and not a lot of gaming time. I rarely hurry.
