Recently, I was asked if preordering from existing franchises was all right
Frankly, recent examples like AC Unity amd Batman Arkham knight and heck, even No mans sky have shown that preordering is indeed stupid. Two of my examples are from existing franchises. Draw your conclusion.
Or do you remember Sim City, the worst game in the franchise? Or Diablo 3 which was quite literally unplayable due to shortage of servers? Preordering existing franchises can bite you hard.
Preordering is buying into the unknown. The only decision ground that you have is PR material and PR material tends to deviate from the truth (Aliens: Colonial marines anyone?) PR is carefully crafted incomplete information. It’s not honest. Preordering is dropping money on something you know you’re being lied to about. Not to mention review embargos. Every time a review embargo is issued, I read “We know our game sucks, but we’ve spent billions on PR so they’ll buy it anyway”. That is of course not always the case, but that has been the case in the past more than once. So why putting down money on the fancy shell instead of waiting for someone else (critics) to open the box amd tell you what’s inside?
Were talking about video games here, not fresh fish. Games don’t rot. If you play a game months after release,you won’t get an inferior experience. Au contraire, you’ll get a better game! A couple parches later, improved stability and balance, and you may even end up paying less because you got it on a Steam sale.
But what about multiplayer games? What’s about the fun to be had before the game dies off a couple of months after release? (I am not kidding, yours truly was asked that question for real.)
More reason not to preorder. If the game dies after a couple of months, then you’re better off not buying it at all. Great games, however, are alive and kicking 12 months or longer after release.
A quantum of Steam 