Why Are We Sad About Pre-Ordering?

DarthMol

DarthMol

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Sadness is the primary emotion expressed on social media about pre-ordering games, according to one of Adobe’s marketing data arms. Their report is all very wishy-washy, but it can still start an interesting conversation: why do pre-orders make people sad, and why do we still do it?


The study put together by Adobe Digital Index about the games market includes numbers on “social emotions around pre-ordering”, looking at instances of folks chatting about pre-orders on social media and somehow breaking their tone down into five arbitrary emotions: joy; admiration; surprise; anticipation; and sadness.

Sadness came out top, at 33%.
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My guess is that even the term "pre-order" conjures up the memories of all the times you got burned by a pre-order game. This is certainly one of the reasons why I haven't pre-ordered in ages.
 
I feel as though people who pre-order should do their homework before doing so, so far I have pre-orderd Guild Wars 2 and Watchdogs, and have not been disappointed by ether of them, that is only because I had made sure to research the games, and watch gameplay trailers, instead of just cinematic trailers.

I believe the people themselves are to blame if they are sad about the game they pre-orderd, they hype up a game to such an extent that when they receive it, it doesn't match their over the top ideals making them end up disappointed. They should also realize that they are paying for something not "truly" finished yet, it is a gamble that they should live with and not complain when it doesn't go their way.
 
TechThief said:
I feel as though people who pre-order should do their homework before doing so, so far I have pre-orderd Guild Wars 2 and Watchdogs, and have not been disappointed by ether of them, that is only because I had made sure to research the games, and watch gameplay trailers, instead of just cinematic trailers.

I believe the people themselves are to blame if they are sad about the game they pre-orderd, they hype up a game to such an extent that when they receive it, it doesn't match their over the top ideals making them end up disappointed. They should also realize that they are paying for something not "truly" finished yet, it is a gamble that they should live with and not complain when it doesn't go their way.
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Watch dogs is not a great example, the game was buggier than Bear Grylle's pantry. It was a massive flop on releases and was a leading member of the the reasons not to pre-order culture that exploded after it's release.
 
Ike_009 said:
Watch dogs is not a great example, the game was buggier than Bear Grylle's pantry. It was a massive flop on releases and was a leading member of the the reasons not to pre-order culture that exploded after it's release.
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I heard a lot of people had problems with it, but i believe I only had two bugs, that were fixed with just restarting the mission i was on, i really liked that game was fun

But that was only my experience with it.
 
TechThief said:
I heard a lot of people had problems with it, but i believe I only had two bugs, that were fixed with just restarting the mission i was on, i really liked that game was fun

But that was only my experience with it.
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Kinda missing the point. No point saying you did your homework on a game that crashed that spectacularly. It's like the one guy who didn't die during an air crash saying the flight was lovely and he can't wait to repeat the experience.
 
I pre-ordered CODAW and was not disappointed at all! It's always a risk pre-ordering a game. Sometimes it's worth it.
 
HavocXphere said:
Pre-orders don't really do any good aside from helping the finance dept of the publisher.
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Exactly that. If enough people pre-order then the game is already making a profit before its released. Once it reaches that point then further polishing is no longer needed.

The other problem is that nobody wants to admit to being burned. So company A releases an unfinished game, Bob pre-orders said game. On release news site x says the game is broken, Bob comments that the game isn't that bad and X is exaggerating for views. After this Sam decides to buy the game believing bob and his friends saying it's good, the game is shit but A has already made its money.

Previously x reviewed the game, Bob waited for a review and then bought the game if it was good. Now bob buys a pre-order and joins the hype machine.

I will admit I'm guilty, I defended watch dogs in the first week even though it wasn't great. So when AC syndicate is released, ignore my comments. I pre-ordered the collectors edition.
 
TechThief said:
I feel as though people who pre-order should do their homework before doing so, so far I have pre-orderd Guild Wars 2 and Watchdogs, and have not been disappointed by ether of them, that is only because I had made sure to research the games, and watch gameplay trailers, instead of just cinematic trailers.

I believe the people themselves are to blame if they are sad about the game they pre-orderd, they hype up a game to such an extent that when they receive it, it doesn't match their over the top ideals making them end up disappointed. They should also realize that they are paying for something not "truly" finished yet, it is a gamble that they should live with and not complain when it doesn't go their way.
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No amount of 'homework' before release can prepare you for a game that is poorly optimized and buggy. Game developers don't normally tell their customers that their game is going to run like garbage before releasing it.

Then we have cases like Aliens Colonial Marines, where pre-order customers were simply lied to. How do you do your homework when what you were shown doesn't remotely match what you receive?
 
Graal said:
No amount of 'homework' before release can prepare you for a game that is poorly optimized and buggy. Game developers don't normally tell their customers that their game is going to run like garbage before releasing it.

Then we have cases like Aliens Colonial Marines, where pre-order customers were simply lied to. How do you do your homework when what you were shown doesn't remotely match what you receive?
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I agree one hundred percent, it really was terrible that they did that, and after reading through the responses you all gave, i believe the word "homework" was not the right choice. I think my original idea for what i was saying is that, you should be savvy about your pre-orders, yes Aliens Colonial Marines lied right to the public's face, and there would have been no way of really knowing that it would have ended up as it did, as with any game the devs will always hide the bugs and whatnot in their special gameplay videos and such where the footage shown is in a controlled environment as to get people to buy their game, but it is a risk you take when buying something that has not yet been completed.

I guess what i was trying to say in my original statement was that, you shouldn't just pre-order a game right off the bat, pre-order deals usually last quite a while, so people should make sure to get all the information they can before they finalize if they should pre-order or not. Again there is no way in knowing whether the game will end up buggy or not, and these days it appears to be mostly the former, but you do get those games that work absolutely fine, so i guess it all just comes down to trust. can you trust the developers in making a good well optimized game? If not then don't pre-order, wait for steam sales, gameplay vids, reviews, etc. Don't just pre-order because the cinematic trailer looked cool.

P.S Sorry if I seem to be all-over on this post, my brain works in mysterious ways.
 
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