After the debacle that was Destiny 2, which I pre-ordered for $100 (which was a lot back then), I swore off ever pre-ordering games ever again. However Starfield is out soon, and I have been dying to play it it’s the whole reason I bought my Series X. So, do I preorder it?
You have much more to lose than you do to gain when you preorder. Just remember the biggest blunders in gaming in the past 2 or 3 years, and how you would have felt if you put money down on them. Just wait until launch day and pick it up then, or wait a day after it launches for the reviews to come out. You can wait.
Why not just get a month or two of game pass instead?
This is the way
Why would you pre order a game at all? Like sometimes they offer bonuses, but it’s just a way to trick you into giving them the money without seeing the final product. Just buy it day 1 if you want, but never pre order
Pre-order ❎
Pirate before launch ✅
On a serious note, you usually gain nothing of value when you pre-order (and if you do, that’s a big red flag). It’s usually best to just wait until the review embargo, and the inevitable leaked cracks if the game is popular, to see the public verdict if the game is worth it. With modern broadband it’s rare for a game download to last a week like it used to back in the day, so you won’t be missing out on much if you just buy the game on launch day, or more likely, on the following weekend when you can actually play it.
Pre-ordering is usually just a corporate ploy to hike stock prices and hype, and that money often won’t even be used in the actual development of the game. Specially considering the lay-offs (and burned out developers leaving) that happen right after launch.
I don’t understand pre-ordering games at all. Do they limit sales somehow? Can’t you just buy it on the day it’s released? I only play games when they come down in price so I’ve never tried to buy a game on release day.
(Books, however, I regularly pre-order but only when I know the author has finished the book and there’s a definite release date; this way it gets shipped to arrive on the release date and I can help authors get up the best seller list (that’s why you see all those obscure Marxists at the top of the NYT bestseller list all the time – it’s me buying one copy).)
No. You don’t preorder it.
The only reason why preordering was a thing to begin with was to secure last minute funding for small devs to buy the infrastructure they would need to support their game after release.
Starfield is not made by a small dev studio. They have billions of dollars behind them and preordering will not impact the course of its release, nor will preordering ‘reward the developers’, as they are paid in fixed wages and have no financial stake in its success beyond maybe a tiny token bonus. (This is also why we consider Piracy justifiable for non-indie games. )
There will be no material benefit for you to preorder vs buying once the game is released and public opinions on its state become available.
P.S, you’re on Lemmygrad. You’re not going to get a different answer.
Speaking as someone who played Mass Effect Andromeda day one and regrets getting Elden Ring full price, sometimes you can wait a little bit. Maybe save a buck or two on an early used copy, even.
