this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
30 points (85.7% liked)

Games

44141 readers
1099 users here now

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.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform

By type

By games

Language specific

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Dremor@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Dremor@jlai.lu
PerfectDark@lemmy.world
30
Do you preorder games? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) by W3dd1e@lemmy.zip to c/games@lemmy.world
56 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
  • What about Early Access Games?
  • Do you feel differently about Early Access vs traditional preordering?
  • If you are open to the idea in specific circumstances, what are those?
  • How do you decide if a game qualifies?

I’m interested in the community thoughts on preordering and I’d love to have a thoughtful discussion on the matter.

Personally, I’m against preordering, except in specific situations where I want to actively support the development of a game.

I have been thinking about this because there is a game I’m considering preordering from a medium sized studio, but the reason I want to preorder is for the IP, rather than the game and it goes against my typical stance on this. The game is based on my favorite book series and part of me wants to encourage more games be made based on this series. At the same time, the book series has found commercial success and as a whole does not need my help.

I did name the specifics here because I’m hoping to encourage discussion on preordering as a whole, rather than my example, but if you want to know, I’ll drop a comment and we can have a discussion in the comment thread. :)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] LostWanderer@fedia.io 2 points 10 hours ago

I don't preorder as a rule because unlike in the past when there was a limited amount of physical copies at any given time...The Digital Age has rendered preordering a pointless endeavor that major companies use as metric to decide success (which is honestly not the best play). However, it has helped influence the major corps when it came to pricing issues, The Outer Worlds 2 for example got a price drop because people cancelled their preorders. Another reason why I don't preorder is because quality and getting a feature complete game is not guaranteed even with a 1.0 release. Cyberpunk 2077 really burned me as it was one of the messiest launches that I've seen (aside from No Man's Sky); the Cyberpunk 2077 launch experience cemented my rabid disdain for the practice of even once in a great while preordering. I will only buy games after reading reviews from trusted sources, if there are too many launch day issues...Then it won't be purchased at the time or at all later on if those issues aren't resolved permanently.

In short: Early Access is a risk, that can often make a game that would've never released, become a feature complete game. However, you must always understand it's a risk. Evaluate the odds, ask yourself if you are willing to burn money in the hopes of getting something good.

At Length: My feelings on Early Access are slightly different. As users can actively shift the quality, priorities, and overall vibe of a game that is in progress. I only buy Early Access games that I believe will succeed and be influenced into excellent games; it's like taking a gamble a Kickstarter, the project, despite such monetary support may never leave early access and becoming fucking shit. While 7 Days to Die is in a redemption arc, it mutated wildly from Alpha to Alpha, and was rushed into a 1.0 state without addressing fundamental gameplay issues. Wholesale removing and changing fundamental elements that make a survival game, well...A survival game. Later getting readded in a weird and not properly balanced way, much to the chagrin of the fans of the game. If you plan on buying Early Access, assess risk first. Then purchase!