Thereâs a time and place for everything, including taking the divisive, frequently anti-consumer culture of gaming preorders and making it work in your favor.
Back in 2013, Kirk Hamilton wrote a great post about Bioshock Infiniteâs manipulative preorder scheme
.
A few weeks later I came on board and rebooted Kotaku Deals (then called Moneysaver), with this
. This is also a good time to remind you that the Commerce Team
operates independently of Kotaku Editorial.
https://lastchance.cc/the-new-moneysaver-bioshock-infinite-pre-order-bonuses-5991369%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Killer preorder bonuses like money sit in stark contrast to Arkham Cityâs carving up of Batmanâs walk-in closet
, or the mess that was Watch Dogsâ preorder structure
, but at the same time theyâre still a part of the same perpetual machine.
Offer a real value to the user: money, credit, significant content, bonus free games, etc. Not costumes and weapons
Contain limited edition content (physical or digital), that we think will actually sell out.
The easy and recent example of the latter is Destinyâs Ghost Edition, which was a rare example of a special edition that included both significant in-game content fans of the game were likely to buy anyway, and very cool physical goods, not the least of which being the Ghost replica. That all adds up to this
happening.
The big danger of preordering is of course getting stuck with a bad game, but it doesnât actually have to go down like that.
Good retailers will:
Not charge you until the item ships.
Offer preorder low price guarantee.
Offer free returns on unopened items.
Honor price changes within a certain time after purchase or delivery.
Vitally, the first and last points there shield you from another divisive aspect of our industry: previews
and review embargoes. Good retailer policy is your safety net against even the trickiest of 11th hour embargoes.
https://lastchance.cc/apologies-if-we-wasted-your-time-with-that-preview-5985143%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Not supporting manipulative, anti-consumer practices is a great reason to stop
preordering games, but there are a lot of good reasons like money/credit, collectorâs editions, pre-installation, avoidance of spoilers, big day one multiplayer communities, and greater early trade-in values that make taking advantage of the right preorders worth your while.
https://lastchance.cc/stop-preordering-video-games-5909105%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
We cover all the best deals, not just the preorder ones, in our Kotaku Deals segment, and round up all the upcoming releases in our revamped Calendar
.
https://lastchance.cc/preview/the-game-release-calendar-1453053878%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
This post is brought to you by the Commerce Team
. We operate independently of Editorial, and if you take advantage of a deal we recommend, we may get a small share of the sale. We read the comments, and we want your feedback.
