Pre-ordering video games used to mean securing your disc at a retailer before they sold out on launch night. Now it means paying full price (or more) for a p...
Honestly, if the idea of no trials don’t bother you, there are plenty more reminders why YOU shouldn’t preorder.
Developer here - currently indie but was in the machine at one point. Cold hard fact is that demos hurt sales for AAA games, and pre-orders get cash in the door today to keep the lights on. With millions and years invested, they must hedge and limit risk as hard and as quickly as possible.
If demos hurt sales, that means that game devs depend on gamers buying games they don’t actually end up liking right? I understand making games has become pricier and pricier, but if the whole business model is dependent on “We want to trick people into getting stuff they don’t want”, then we have a problem.
The reality is probably closer to the flightily nature of us as gamers - We mostly just want to try the game because some part of it seems fun, if that can be tried for free with a demo, why buy it now that we got our fix? Why would a big AAA take that risk?
If people get enough from a free demo maybe it’s time to make shorter cheaper games, and start churning out 2 hour playtrough 15usd games, but with high quality graphics/acting/voices/etc. Or just abolish capitalism and make fun games no matter if they sell or not 😂
I personally agree with that sentiment. Rather than demos, I lean into cheap early access indie games that seem cool on steam, and use subscriptions to check out bigger games (humble choice and xbox gamepass). Tons of games to try, while still less than one “full” game in cost each month.
Absolutely! The numbers show they gain roughly double the sales with trailers/footage and no demo, they won’t budge until boycotts reverses that. Same with microtransactions we all hate; they basically just print money.
I don’t really understand how this is measured? I attempted to look up some research on it, but it seems most articles that say this are referencing one conference by Jesse Schnell who basically just correlated games with demos, sales, and expected sales. What measure is used to figure out if a demo causes someone to not buy the game? I suppose if they measured presales that were cancelled after a demo, but most anticipated games don’t have demos anyway so the data is already skewed in the favor of “no demos.” Does it take into account outliers like FFXVI? Highly anticipated game with a demo that sold very well…
I would venture to guess that the data is skewed because lots of AAA games don’t have demos and lots of indie games that might not have been purchased anyways trying to get a little markershare, but there seems to be such little research on it.
If you have an actual study on the topic, I would be very interested in seeing their method of results.
My cousins who are in their late 20s probably spend more time watching playthroughs than playing the games themselves. I think part of it is they simply can’t afford to buy all the games they want to play. Another part is some games are just a good story that can actually be viewed and experienced through a playthrough.
Personally, if the game is easily available to me, I’d prefer to just play it.
Availability is the thing though. Some games could be really demanding, or have a huge install requirements. Like I’m certainly never going to buy a console and a copy of the last of us to play it, that’s something I can just watch the cutscenes for. But then there was the new Zelda game and I refused to watch anything on it and only play it blind, knowing that watching people play the story would just worsen my experience lol. I’d say most games you can just watch to get the “gist” of it anyways. Also playing games uses more mental energy then just simply watching it.
I played the Lies of P demo for almost 6 hours. First pre-order in years.
Last game I pre-ordered before was Cyberpunk 2077, of course that turned out to be a huge lesson. I no longer pre-order anything, Lies of P was the exception because their push for people to try the game themselves along with their reaction to feedback was reassuring. Plus with early access to the game at a date that is perfect for me to dive in based on my schedule, seemed like a good time to show some appreciation.
Emphasis on the “enjoyed the demo” here! You can safely buy a game if you can play the demo without troubles - it’s extremely rare to see a game become worse between demo and release, unless it’s to add Denuvo.
Thank you for the reminder. I will promptly pay attention to it, and yet, have 0 impact on the world as this issue is a big numbers problem and we’re the small numbers.
That’s a defeatist attitude. There are a lot more of us then you can fathom. If you’re going to make assumptions on data you don’t have, why not have hope?
Where? Here we have 1.2k potential users. The video does have 24k views. For big studios like Bethesda that’s a rounding error! Skyrim for example sold 3.4 million physical copies alone at launch. I wouldn’t be surprised if Starfield already has sold that many pre-orders.
I mean it’s good to have such a discussion, but there are 10’s of millions of people who regularely buy PC/console games. It would be silly to expect that such a huge amount of people could be reached easily by grassroot discussions of a few thousand people.
After all this whole pre-order discussion is by no means new. I’ve seen such for at least 5-10 years but in the end, pre-orders still happen on a gigantic scale.
You’re looking at just one community. Are we the only community to have ever had this discussion? Is it impossible for other people to discuss this same topic with different people, at different times, in different places? Do you have objective data surveying any significant sample sizes?
If not, then you’re just making assumptions. So why make worse assumptions instead of better?
And I don’t actually care about the results, I’m talking about the attitude on principle. I’m not insinuating that we need to reach everybody. I’m questioning the assumption that they’re reaching nobody.
Of course other communities are also talking about that. /r/PCMR for example certainly does. But that doesn’t change the fact that the people talking about it are very few and that they have little influence on the casual gamer in regards to their decision.
I mean look at how fucking hard it is for humanity to solve important issues where a lot more people are on board with. Compared to that, pre-order and the sorry state of gaming is utterly meaningless so of course a lot more people simply won’t care.
But hey go ahead, I wish you the best of luck. I mean this seriously. But you can be sure that I won’t bet any money on that side.
I don’t often preorder, but when I do it’s because I know I won’t regret my purchase, and I know I want a physical copy to arrive on day 1. Of course I know there’s some risk, but if I felt a game really was that risky then I would wait, I just buy the ones I feel are safe bets.
I know what developers and series I like, and if one of my favorite games is getting a sequel I know I’m playing it. Even if the sequel isn’t quite as good as the prior game I liked, they’re never bad enough for me to not want to play them at all.
I suppose it helps that my tastes lie far enough outside the kinds of mainstream AAA games that are prone to totally botched launches that I’ve never been truly burned.
But isn’t the deluxe edition just the base game + battle pass + plat? Kind of contradicts your second sentence.
I bought the base game, and am still confused what all the options are/were. But reading over it all again since the first season drops in nine days, I think a battle* pass is a bunch of cosmetic shit, store credits, and a 20 level boost. Supposedly all stuff that can be ground for in the season (after having bought the base game, of course),
True, but I only bought for the beta and early access. It came with it. But im not going to buy any additional ones. I don’t care about the cosmetics, only the one’s you can unlock through gameplay I will go for.
It would have been nice if they went the Fortnite route, so that you can earn enough currency through the battle pass to buy the next one. If you don’t spend it all in the store on cosmetics.
so that you can earn enough currency through the battle pass to buy the next one
Blizzard of course develops World of Warcraft, and it has a mechanism to buy game time with in-game currency (or at least used to). So it’s interesting they have no way to in D4. Though I guess they really fucked it up in D3 with trying an auction house there early on.
The only game I’ve ever done that for in any way was Pillars of Eternity, and that was because I never expected the Kickstarter to succeed so explosively.
I mean if anything Windows is super backward compatible. I would agree with the consoles…but windows? Yeah maybe Linux with proton works better nowadays for older games… but I would not say a new version of Windows breaks your old games, there might be exceptions but it’s not that common.
There has basically been a single “event” in recent memory that a new version of Windows broke compatibility with thousands of games: Windows 10 came with a security patch that broke SafeDisc DRM. Which a tonne of games from the 2000s decade used on their CDs. Ultimately, I don’t blame Microsoft. These games were purposely (via a third party) exploiting a security bug in the operating system, and it eventually got fixed.
Apart from that, Microsoft have always (going back to Windows 95) been explicitly supporting backwards compatibility of old software, though obviously there are always exceptions as software uses undocumented features of the OS that break over time.
Factorio is pretty good, allows you to download any version of the game for any OS as many times as you want as long as you own the game (also allows downloading from site even if you bought from steam), doesn’t need internet connection to run, the multiplayer is player hosted (exception is authentication and optional blocklists)
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
Developer here - currently indie but was in the machine at one point. Cold hard fact is that demos hurt sales for AAA games, and pre-orders get cash in the door today to keep the lights on. With millions and years invested, they must hedge and limit risk as hard and as quickly as possible.
If demos hurt sales, that means that game devs depend on gamers buying games they don’t actually end up liking right? I understand making games has become pricier and pricier, but if the whole business model is dependent on “We want to trick people into getting stuff they don’t want”, then we have a problem.
The reality is probably closer to the flightily nature of us as gamers - We mostly just want to try the game because some part of it seems fun, if that can be tried for free with a demo, why buy it now that we got our fix? Why would a big AAA take that risk?
If people get enough from a free demo maybe it’s time to make shorter cheaper games, and start churning out 2 hour playtrough 15usd games, but with high quality graphics/acting/voices/etc. Or just abolish capitalism and make fun games no matter if they sell or not 😂
If a demo is enough of a fix for a customer, then that’s got to mean that something wrong with the product overall.
Good games keep you engaged, bad games you leave alone.
I personally agree with that sentiment. Rather than demos, I lean into cheap early access indie games that seem cool on steam, and use subscriptions to check out bigger games (humble choice and xbox gamepass). Tons of games to try, while still less than one “full” game in cost each month.
Companies 100% have a right to skip demos and sell pre-orders. And people have a right to boycott those.
Absolutely! The numbers show they gain roughly double the sales with trailers/footage and no demo, they won’t budge until boycotts reverses that. Same with microtransactions we all hate; they basically just print money.
I don’t really understand how this is measured? I attempted to look up some research on it, but it seems most articles that say this are referencing one conference by Jesse Schnell who basically just correlated games with demos, sales, and expected sales. What measure is used to figure out if a demo causes someone to not buy the game? I suppose if they measured presales that were cancelled after a demo, but most anticipated games don’t have demos anyway so the data is already skewed in the favor of “no demos.” Does it take into account outliers like FFXVI? Highly anticipated game with a demo that sold very well…
I would venture to guess that the data is skewed because lots of AAA games don’t have demos and lots of indie games that might not have been purchased anyways trying to get a little markershare, but there seems to be such little research on it.
If you have an actual study on the topic, I would be very interested in seeing their method of results.
The study was they tracked sales across multiple games for years, here’s the first example I came across in the wild from ten years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us6OPbYtKBM&t=640s
Preordering is 100% why the last console gen was full of half-assed releases. It has to stop.
Because you can just watch gameplay now
My cousins who are in their late 20s probably spend more time watching playthroughs than playing the games themselves. I think part of it is they simply can’t afford to buy all the games they want to play. Another part is some games are just a good story that can actually be viewed and experienced through a playthrough.
Personally, if the game is easily available to me, I’d prefer to just play it.
Availability is the thing though. Some games could be really demanding, or have a huge install requirements. Like I’m certainly never going to buy a console and a copy of the last of us to play it, that’s something I can just watch the cutscenes for. But then there was the new Zelda game and I refused to watch anything on it and only play it blind, knowing that watching people play the story would just worsen my experience lol. I’d say most games you can just watch to get the “gist” of it anyways. Also playing games uses more mental energy then just simply watching it.
I don’t pre-order really but I do get tempted with 18% off pre-order deals at various PC shops online
I played the Lies of P demo for almost 6 hours. First pre-order in years.
Last game I pre-ordered before was Cyberpunk 2077, of course that turned out to be a huge lesson. I no longer pre-order anything, Lies of P was the exception because their push for people to try the game themselves along with their reaction to feedback was reassuring. Plus with early access to the game at a date that is perfect for me to dive in based on my schedule, seemed like a good time to show some appreciation.
The only game I’ve preordered in the last like 5 years is Pikmen 4, and only because I enjoyed the demo so much.
Emphasis on the “enjoyed the demo” here! You can safely buy a game if you can play the demo without troubles - it’s extremely rare to see a game become worse between demo and release, unless it’s to add Denuvo.
I only do this with Nintendo games, and only the flagship ones like Marios and Zeldas.
Say what you want about Nintendo, but they have a pretty good quality control.
Thank you for the reminder. I will promptly pay attention to it, and yet, have 0 impact on the world as this issue is a big numbers problem and we’re the small numbers.
While following the advice of not pre-ordering games may not change or save the industry it can still save you a lot of money and time.
That’s a defeatist attitude. There are a lot more of us then you can fathom. If you’re going to make assumptions on data you don’t have, why not have hope?
Where? Here we have 1.2k potential users. The video does have 24k views. For big studios like Bethesda that’s a rounding error! Skyrim for example sold 3.4 million physical copies alone at launch. I wouldn’t be surprised if Starfield already has sold that many pre-orders.
I mean it’s good to have such a discussion, but there are 10’s of millions of people who regularely buy PC/console games. It would be silly to expect that such a huge amount of people could be reached easily by grassroot discussions of a few thousand people.
After all this whole pre-order discussion is by no means new. I’ve seen such for at least 5-10 years but in the end, pre-orders still happen on a gigantic scale.
You’re looking at just one community. Are we the only community to have ever had this discussion? Is it impossible for other people to discuss this same topic with different people, at different times, in different places? Do you have objective data surveying any significant sample sizes?
If not, then you’re just making assumptions. So why make worse assumptions instead of better?
And I don’t actually care about the results, I’m talking about the attitude on principle. I’m not insinuating that we need to reach everybody. I’m questioning the assumption that they’re reaching nobody.
Of course other communities are also talking about that. /r/PCMR for example certainly does. But that doesn’t change the fact that the people talking about it are very few and that they have little influence on the casual gamer in regards to their decision.
I mean look at how fucking hard it is for humanity to solve important issues where a lot more people are on board with. Compared to that, pre-order and the sorry state of gaming is utterly meaningless so of course a lot more people simply won’t care.
But hey go ahead, I wish you the best of luck. I mean this seriously. But you can be sure that I won’t bet any money on that side.
I don’t often preorder, but when I do it’s because I know I won’t regret my purchase, and I know I want a physical copy to arrive on day 1. Of course I know there’s some risk, but if I felt a game really was that risky then I would wait, I just buy the ones I feel are safe bets.
I know what developers and series I like, and if one of my favorite games is getting a sequel I know I’m playing it. Even if the sequel isn’t quite as good as the prior game I liked, they’re never bad enough for me to not want to play them at all.
I suppose it helps that my tastes lie far enough outside the kinds of mainstream AAA games that are prone to totally botched launches that I’ve never been truly burned.
I pre-ordered Diablo 4 deluxe edition because I know I will pour 100’s of hours in to the game.
I will however never buy any battle passes or other store items because of it not being free to play.
But isn’t the deluxe edition just the base game + battle pass + plat? Kind of contradicts your second sentence. I bought the base game, and am still confused what all the options are/were. But reading over it all again since the first season drops in nine days, I think a battle* pass is a bunch of cosmetic shit, store credits, and a 20 level boost. Supposedly all stuff that can be ground for in the season (after having bought the base game, of course),
True, but I only bought for the beta and early access. It came with it. But im not going to buy any additional ones. I don’t care about the cosmetics, only the one’s you can unlock through gameplay I will go for.
It would have been nice if they went the Fortnite route, so that you can earn enough currency through the battle pass to buy the next one. If you don’t spend it all in the store on cosmetics.
Blizzard of course develops World of Warcraft, and it has a mechanism to buy game time with in-game currency (or at least used to). So it’s interesting they have no way to in D4. Though I guess they really fucked it up in D3 with trying an auction house there early on.
The only game I’ve ever done that for in any way was Pillars of Eternity, and that was because I never expected the Kickstarter to succeed so explosively.
Remember the shareware days when up to a third of a game was given away free? Good times. I still copied those floppies though.
deleted by creator
There is no buying games anymore. You rent them now until the servers are down or Microsoft makes a new windows version.
That’s a sad state of gaming. And I’m glad we have millions of game for emulation if that’s the case.
I mean if anything Windows is super backward compatible. I would agree with the consoles…but windows? Yeah maybe Linux with proton works better nowadays for older games… but I would not say a new version of Windows breaks your old games, there might be exceptions but it’s not that common.
There has basically been a single “event” in recent memory that a new version of Windows broke compatibility with thousands of games: Windows 10 came with a security patch that broke SafeDisc DRM. Which a tonne of games from the 2000s decade used on their CDs. Ultimately, I don’t blame Microsoft. These games were purposely (via a third party) exploiting a security bug in the operating system, and it eventually got fixed.
Apart from that, Microsoft have always (going back to Windows 95) been explicitly supporting backwards compatibility of old software, though obviously there are always exceptions as software uses undocumented features of the OS that break over time.
This take is up there with “you don’t buy beer, you just rent it.”
That’s a terrible analogy. Renting implies it can be taken away even after you use it.
Beer can be taken away after you use it. Much more of a hassle, but it’s possible.
Once I breathe out the good parts as CO2, best of luck
The exception to this is GOG – They, and publishers/developers that release on their store, should be supported whenever possible.
Not perfect, but miles above the alternatives.
Shoutout to the game devs selling on itch.io too!
I stopped buying from there once I got a steam deck. If they had a native client I’d go right back to the majority of my purchases from there
Yes I’ve done heroic or bottles or whatever. Not worth it
Factorio is pretty good, allows you to download any version of the game for any OS as many times as you want as long as you own the game (also allows downloading from site even if you bought from steam), doesn’t need internet connection to run, the multiplayer is player hosted (exception is authentication and optional blocklists)
I gave up on that. I just don’t care anymore. No, that’s not true. I actually care somewhat.
People preorder, game comes out, game is shit at launch, they get into a furious rage online, I chuckle.