Yeah I’ll pre order any game that I plan on buying. There’s no practical reason not to.

Used to be I could preload games I prepurchase and would absolutely be doing that still, but that's pretty much never on offer anymore so I don't prepurchase even games I'm 100% certain I'll be getting.

I pre-order games. Steams refund policy makes it pretty much risk-free. Usually it's shortly before launch, if I want to play the game immediately anyway. For big games, reviews pretty much always come out before launch or on the day of, so I can still always cancel, if it looks bad. I don't remember regretting any of these purchases, even if I didn't like all the games.

No because it's stupid to preorder digital goods. I'll happily join early access to help fund projects I find interesting lile enshrouded.

No, it just doesn't make sense to me to do so. I mostly play single player games, so special skins to show you preordered are pretty pointless, and the most you tend to get is a discount on some DLC that I can just buy later, once I know I've enjoyed the game enough to warrant it, or items to give you a stat boost.

It's not like preordering a physical game, where at least I get an art book or something in exchange for handing my money over.

never

No. Heck, I don't even play Early Access games (with rare exceptions, like Satisfactory). I'm not paying to be a beta tester.

No.
My backlog is so big and my interested in gaming became so little I prefer watching YT or stuff on my Jellyfin server.
I wanted to play Helldivers 2 but decided against it because I had nobody else and now it's kinda in late-progress I won't even bother.

Once, Diablo 3. I figured it could not miss. It missed.

All they have to do is add a skin or some shit as a pre-order bonus and people will deposit money. It's absolutely crazy, especially with the state almost every launch is in these days.

Big games are like 50% off after a few months anyway, no point buying those at all until then.

Only twice and felt foolish after release. Stalker 2 was selling below pre order price on a trustworthy key site. And cyberpunk, not sure why I did that one.

I've pre-ordered games due to hype a few times and every time I do I get shafted and dev runs with my money. Now I stick to promising EAs. If I pay 20-30 bucks for EA, get some fun out of it and then dev runs at least I got some fun out of it.

I did pre-order KC:D II, but it's the first full price big title I've purchased in a long while. I was hoping to have a new GPU at release, but it looks like I'll have to wait a little longer. At least they'll have ironed out the major bugs at that point.

The reason I preordered the game was that there's a bonus quest, the game was 10% off and I can theoretically still cancel my preorder from Gamesplanet in case the reviews suck. It's not like pre-orders are irreversible.

Do I pay full price for games before they are available to play and are most likely not going to be finished upon release? No.

Preordering anything with no real or artificial scarcity doesn’t really make financial sense. It’s a predatory sales tactic to get people to part with their money sooner, in this case before customers have a chance to use software that is pretty much unreturnable. Gaming publishers love digital preorders because some customers end up paying full price for games they don’t even like and can’t even resell.

Sadly, for at least the last ten years or more, most non-online games are best played a few years after release date when they’ve had their bugs fixed or their ‘complete edition’ released.

No reason to. A while back, some publishers gave 10% off pre orders, I bought maybe one or two like that. Some do digital goodies which doesn't entice me at all (I'm DLC proof). I can download anything fast enough. So why would I pre order?

Almost never. The last one I digitally pre-ordered was Borderlands 3, and given how that turned out, I think I might buy BL4 on release day, if not a few weeks later

There’s no point because you do not know how the games are.

I'll do it to support indie devs. Though I haven't ever done it through Steam -- just Kickstarter

Does steam let you pre install? Only reason I can think of and I have never done it

I bought a pre-purchase once, and it was for Bloodstained.

Not only was I excited to play a new Metroidvania from the guy who made the best Metroidvania, but the price in my local currency was 1:1 to the dollar. I knew that this price was wrong and that it might go up after release. And I was right, the price increased.

Totally worth it and the game was amazing at launch.

With 14 days after release and 2 hours of playtime you can still refund. Maybe some just see it as the current day demo? Quite easy to see if it runs well and what the playability and average response is within that time frame. Like a wishlist that reserves the cash in advance.

Absolutely not!

(I pre-ordered stalker 2. Can't help that I'm a Stan for the series and mod scene. I was happy with this purchase.)

It can be hard to get over the urge if you're a fan of a series. The next game MUST be better... right? It's a hard thing to truly get too mad at others since it's pretty much human nature, even if we can all agree it's not healthy.

For me it really depends on the game, the studio, and the publisher. I preordered Firmament because Cyan has a good history. I might also pre-order a digital game if I think a game is particularly novel, or if I think I'm going to like it pretty much regardless of the reviews (e.g. I like the franchise it's from/ties into), the last reason is if there's some kind of in-game incentive to do so (e.g. pre-order and you get some in game minor boost/cosmetic/whatever) but that's really only a minor consideration.

I only pre-order Guild Wars 2 expansions, as it's my favourite game and I know that whatever I get, I'll feel that it was worth the money for the thousands of hours of fun I've got out of that game :)

But I wouldn't preorder anything else - I have a massive Steam backlog, and a few years after release I can get the properly finished, patched version of games with all the expansions for a fraction of the price (+ all the mods and community resources that had time to develop and mature). Last year I got Witcher 3 for like 90% off lol. No need to rush, there are so many older games I haven't played yet...

Btw I was a r/patientgamers member for years, I see that they also have a community on Lemmy :) https://sh.itjust.works/c/patientgamers

Yes. After clocking up 10,000 hours on Civ VI. Civ VII can take my money!

Yes, why? That's the stupidest thing to do.

Last game I preordered was World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade and I stood in line for 12 hours to make sure I was the very first to have it. Haven't preordered any game since then. They weren't distributed digitally back then, so running out of 'copies' was a real thing.

Now, I perpetually buy games that are 1-2 years old. They've been patched, they've been balanced, they're stable, and I can watch someone on Twitch beforehand to decide if it's worth purchasing.

I was the one trying to talk the friend group out of pre-ordering for years. Oddly enough, I haven't needed to do that in a while.

Might have something to do with how the last time that discussion happened, the game in question was Fallout 76.

I didn't even have to say "told you so" for it to never come up again.