We may be in different regions. At least none of my peers would buy games without seeing the demo first. But you do you :) or maybe you’re right and I just misremembered. The point is, we used to demo games before buying them and thus companies are incentivized to put out complete games, no dlc needed.

With regards to steam, yeah that’s a good point. But not all games are available on steam. And not everyone has a credit/debit card.

They’ll get discounted a few months after release. As an encouraging note, I never bought Starcraft II. Then I went all in with it when it became free to play. :)

Most games are actually most expensive at launch. A year after release their prices tend to be half. If not, discounts and other promotionals will surely come your way.

I’m not a youtuber, not a content creator. Just sharing this as a way to start discussion. And with your post, I think it achieves the intended purpose.

You added perfect examples of why we must not support these insidious business practices.

You definitely dodged a bullet, albeit you have to jump through hoops and headaches. Your scenario is one of many why preordering isn’t a good thing, especially with an infinite digital product.

Furthermore, it parallels the recent talk around lemmy how some companies are making it hard to cancel subscriptions.

All of it treads a soft “lock-in” policy that may turn into a hard “lock-in” to some who are not as assertive as you. I know some people would just “let it go” in the spirit of “avoiding confrontation”.

And games these days are digital copies. It’s not like the supply is limited.

Steam is not the only game platform out there. Some would also prefer to buy direct to companies. Some games aren’t on steam. There are many reasons why it’s still reasonable to warn people NOT to preorder games, especially since there’s a trend of companies releasing broken, buggy games at launch.

Preordering might not be so much of an issue with platforms that have solid return policies. Steam might be alone in that sphere. Regardless, preorders encourages companies to release buggy, unfinished products just to inflate their numbers. And even if this is not problematic in the short end, if all companies do this, even with return policies, it’s the user/gamers who suffer with a flood of inferior products.

That’s a sad state of gaming. And I’m glad we have millions of game for emulation if that’s the case.

You’re taking it too literally. I meant demand as in trying it first for free BEFORE buying. Without trying it, how can we know if the game is good to play. Sorry for the miscommunication. English isn’t my first language

To be honest, 2 hours is not enough to trial a game. I recall demos and trials in the old days can last 14 days, some for 30 days, if memory serves me right.

Rune factory 3. It’s not popular anymore, nor do I see it talked about but I still play it from time to time. Sometimes I leave it open just to listen to the music/background and sometimes I fire up youtube and my speaker just to listen to its OST.