I have to imagine it's a holdover impulse from the days of physical media where stores had limited copies. Why anyone would preorder a digital download is beyond me, unless there are some perks.

i would preorder games from a studio i like to boost their capital while they are still developing. it seems better than them having a lower budget or getting shady investors. but somehow those who are worthy are the same folk who dont do preorders😂

The last time I preordered a game, I had played a leaked alpha build for a while before release, for like 40 hours. It was pretty broken, but it was a lot of fun, so I figured it was fair to pay for the game already.

I'd say there are very exceptional cases where it isn't absurd to preorder, but those are less than 1% of all preorders that actually take place.

The only game I preordered was Monster Hunter Rise. They offered a demo that I played longer than most games currently in my library and it was polished and showed no performance issues. It showed me that it was the game I wanted it to be. So I nabbed it for a preorder discount deal from a 3rd party, legit storefront to save some cash. And it was my favorite of the series and my most played individual title. Maybe that’s all rationalization of something I still shouldn’t have done, but if you are discerning, it works.

Depends on if it's a series I'm heavily invested in or a dev I really want to support. I'm massively into the trails of series and if I could preorder those I would.

I preorder the next expansion for FFXIV. But I have played the game for 8 to 9 years. Other than that I wait to see what happens when a title drops

If I want to play on release day, I would preorder to preinstall the game while I am working so I can play it when I get home. Also, preorders usually have bonus items, like physical stuff.

I preordered the collectors edition of Elden Ring, and White Snow edition of NieR Automata, for example. Both came with a wide variety of various physical goods that were exclusive to those preorder editions.