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whats the big obsession with PREORDERING?!
Gnomeland Security
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
(please dont move my little humble thread)
Im not really into the video game market as hardcore as i used to be. Because of this, i think that something has passed me by and left me beside the roads of change.
When did the industry become so obsessed with PREORDERING your game?
Reason i bring this up is that i made the mistake of going to Gamestop the other day to check the release date on Rainbow 6 Vegas 2. While i could have done this online or by phone, we were walking around the courtyard and it seemed like a nice stop. So i look at the bigboard and i ask the nice gentlemen behind the counter about the release date. His first question to me was *do you want to preorder it?* Thats not what i asked kind sir, i was wondering when its set to be released. Hes response was that if i hadnt preordered it i better do so.
Why?
What is this obsession with preordering?
Quick BIO on myself. Im a 30 year old engineer recently married and very involved in the community (grumble grumble). I play Warcraft (so that eats my little free time) and i purchase about 2-3 360 games a year. Im obviously NOT the target demographic of gamestop, but even so im constantly harassed whenever i go near there about preordering. Did i miss this massive shift in the industry?
Ive only preordered 3 games in my entire life... 2 of which went badly. Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess i had preordered 2 YEARS before it finally came out. And, when it did come out, i had to wait an additional month for it to come out to the game cube because i refused to buy the WII version. I preorded the gamecube version , heres my ticket (rotting faded and moldy) wheres my gamecube version? sigh. So no, i will not preorder a game whos street date will constantly move. I remember being told i should preorder WOTLK as everyone said it would street in Feburary... well.. today being the 29th and amazon now playing the game in december, i think im safe.
The other bad experience i had was with gears of war. I preordered it after being pressured into an artificial shortage mentality. I went in for 3 straight days to my local game stop while the guy told me *their order hadnt come in yet*. I finally gave up and bought it at Target. I had the game preordered like you asked, and have to wait 3 days cause they cant find your shipment? thanks. So even when i AM forced to preorder a game, there is no absolute i will even get it before all the chain stores have it. Why?
I dont understand i guess... thats why im posting this thread here... can someone shed some light on this for me?
THank you
Im not really into the video game market as hardcore as i used to be. Because of this, i think that something has passed me by and left me beside the roads of change.
When did the industry become so obsessed with PREORDERING your game?
Reason i bring this up is that i made the mistake of going to Gamestop the other day to check the release date on Rainbow 6 Vegas 2. While i could have done this online or by phone, we were walking around the courtyard and it seemed like a nice stop. So i look at the bigboard and i ask the nice gentlemen behind the counter about the release date. His first question to me was *do you want to preorder it?* Thats not what i asked kind sir, i was wondering when its set to be released. Hes response was that if i hadnt preordered it i better do so.
Why?
What is this obsession with preordering?
Quick BIO on myself. Im a 30 year old engineer recently married and very involved in the community (grumble grumble). I play Warcraft (so that eats my little free time) and i purchase about 2-3 360 games a year. Im obviously NOT the target demographic of gamestop, but even so im constantly harassed whenever i go near there about preordering. Did i miss this massive shift in the industry?
Ive only preordered 3 games in my entire life... 2 of which went badly. Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess i had preordered 2 YEARS before it finally came out. And, when it did come out, i had to wait an additional month for it to come out to the game cube because i refused to buy the WII version. I preorded the gamecube version , heres my ticket (rotting faded and moldy) wheres my gamecube version? sigh. So no, i will not preorder a game whos street date will constantly move. I remember being told i should preorder WOTLK as everyone said it would street in Feburary... well.. today being the 29th and amazon now playing the game in december, i think im safe.
The other bad experience i had was with gears of war. I preordered it after being pressured into an artificial shortage mentality. I went in for 3 straight days to my local game stop while the guy told me *their order hadnt come in yet*. I finally gave up and bought it at Target. I had the game preordered like you asked, and have to wait 3 days cause they cant find your shipment? thanks. So even when i AM forced to preorder a game, there is no absolute i will even get it before all the chain stores have it. Why?
I dont understand i guess... thats why im posting this thread here... can someone shed some light on this for me?
THank you
Gnomeland Security on
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I could be wrong, I just thought that was a pretty backwards sales tactic when I heard of it.
The emphasis on preordering is Gamestop policy, unfortunately.
Yeah, that does happen a bit more frequently then one would hope. It happened to me firsthand when the newest Mario game came out: the register jockey told me that since I didn't preorder they couldn't give me a copy out of the cardboard box filled with Mario and nothing else.
So I went to Best Buy and got it there.
Don't blame the register monkeys, they are pressured to get you to preorder.
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
I'm not particularly inclined to help them figure out exactly how many they need on their shelves. Doing that helps them execute their predatory "sell more used games because we don't keep new games in stock" practice. From the point of view of a publisher or developer, it makes them the exact amount of money straight-up piracy would.
Though otherwise I never bother.
If i WANTED to preorder a game, id do it online where id get a nice discount + some random tshirt/plushie for ordering early. When i walk into a B&M store, im not looking to preorder but instead to buy. I thought companies realized this... hence why they discount online yet charge full price for walking in their door.
Im saying that in the last 4-5 years since ive been detached from the industry this practice of grilling customers to preorder games when they walk into your store must have changed radically.
I understand how the company can further benefit, but it seems to violate the customer's will.
Does that make more sense?
That really happens quite rarely though
Exactly. Just about every time a gamestop is sold out, I can go right around the corner to a Circuit City or Best Buy and they almost always have a huge stack of them.
then my question still stands: If you want to pre order a game and not *worry* about it, why not just order online?
why do you have to walk into a brick and mortar store to order a game?
see my point... its a service which isnt justified under their business model (in my opinion)
I would never preorder from a Brick&Morter unless that preorder included shipping to my house.
Also, I sometimes preorder to keep from forgetting to purchase when it is released.
MWO: Adamski
My only reasons for preordering are convenience like Quid said or like with the WoW expansion pack CE, I got a bunch of other stuff with it.
I like examples like this one:
My friend pre-ordered Rock Band from EBGames. He wasn't able to get his in the first shipment...or the second shipment...and ended up just going to Best Buy and purchasing it there. Obviously not needing two bundles, he didn't pick up his copy from EBGames and therefore lost his deposit (which was only like $10 or something, but nevertheless).
I'm sure a lot of people pre-order games and never pick them up.
There were a limited number of preorders available from Toys R Us. When I tried to preorder it there, I learned that a bunch of people had camped out overnight and were given tickets that guaranteed them a preorder when they opened. That was when I knew I had severely underestimated the demand for the Wii.
Like others, the only time I'm interested in preordering is when you get cool stuff for it. I preordered Wind Waker in the store to get that Ocarina of Time disc for the Gamecube
My Backloggery
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That ceases to make much sense with most big-budget titles, though. Does anyone really think they're not going to sell out of Mario Galaxy or Gears of War on day one, regardless of how many they stock?
I believe we're all talking about Gamestop, so I'll just confirm what Fireflash said: you don't lose pre-order money. If you have the original receipt you can get your $5 back in cash, otherwise you can use it to pre-order a different game.
I mean, pre-ordering means I have to go down to the store and go through the pre-oder rigamarole, all for the priviledge of going down to the damn store and putting my money on the table (and so that my information can be added to their databse.)
Which I would do anyway, after the game is out.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I just don't see preordering as some horrid and useless process the OP makes it out to be. It can often be useful for some people. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm sorry to you nonpreordering people that us preordering people exist.
Actually, in my experience, the opposite is sometimes more likely.
I've never seen GS sold out of the 'big' games. Plenty of Halo 3s and whatnot when they were released, and if they didn't have them, Wal-Mart, Target, etc. would.
However, the other day I went to buy Apollo Justice, a game that is, for the most part, under the radar. No other store had it, and GS was the only one that got copies in. The only problem was that, from what I could tell, they only ordered enough to cover pre-orders, maybe one or two extras that got snatched up before I could get there. So now, for unpopular niche games, it seems that pre-ordering has become "if we don't get pre-orders, we aren't going to order any." Supply and demand, I suppose.
Actually, I remember a GS employee flat out telling me this when I couldn't find the Civ IV expansion last summer.
EDIT: Actually, that's actually actually interestingly actual. :P
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GameStop wants you to preorder for two reasons, guaranteed customer visit and knowing how many to order. A guaranteed customer visit is the most important, the more times a person comes in the store, the more stuff they will buy.
The knowing how many to order thing is important for gamestop for several reasons. Most gamestops vary from tiny to average size strip mall store size. There are very few large ones. Shelf space is premium so, it's important to have the right amount of stock. If you overstock to many games, it has a large impact on the store. As an example, when Kingdom Hearts 2 came out, we had 30 preorders, so they shipped 60 copies(common practice for is preorders x2 for big releases). A week later, we still had 20 copies left. New games have a short shelf life. After that first week, we barely sold any copies. We sent several copies to other stores. We finally sold the last couple copies we had left in December of that year(KH2 came out in Feburary.) Another example: my store sold out of it's initial Halo 2 shipment last November. It took 3 years. Our new PS2 section still has copies of NCAA March Madness 2004 in it. Proper stock balance is important in small stores. Preorders take the guesswork out of it.
I hear a lot of "GameStop doesn't want to stock new games." Which is pretty false, new games are the biggest sellers between October and December and when you go shopping during those times you will see a smaller focus on preorders(because all the games are out).
I preorder all the games I want so I can keep track of what I'm getting and when it's coming out.
Rarely does a store get zero copies of a game, but in the case of a niche game, you'd be looking at 1-2 copies of there are no preorders. My store had 2 preorders of Apollo Justice and because of that we got 6 copies(they assumed we'd sell a lot because we actually had preorders on it). Guess how many of those extra copies we've sold since it came out last week.
Hint: It's less than one.
I think the argument is more "GameStop would much rather stock used games, because the profit margin is crazy on that shit, and if they 'happen' to be out of a new release, you're more likely to walk out with a used game."
0.999...?
Your friend does know he can still walk into that EBGamestop and get his $10 back, right? Please tell me he is not that much of an idiot.
I pre-order only when I know I am going to want to buy on day one because convincing the wife to spend $60 spread out over a couple months is a lot easier than all at once.
See the above is part of why I hate the system. Here's four simple reasons:
a) Presumptuous. What makes you think I even want Halo 3? Or Madden 2008? Or Devil May Cry? Or anything?
b) Bullshit. Your Gamestop will have additional copies of Halo 3 whether five people or five thousand people preorder it at your store.
c) Bullshit * 2. And if you run out of copies? Guess what! There are plenty of other retailers that will have it.
d) And then I get to hear "oh, did you preorder it?" And when I say "no" I have to endure them as they laboriously take the 60 dollar item out of the drawer and sell it to me with this kind of attitude like they are giving me a gift/doing me a favor.
Listen, maybe EBstop management successfully brainwashes you into register biscuitry turning you into some kind of retail drone but you exist to exchange goods for cash. That's it.
The preordering system is a festering boil in the gaming market and within EB itself. Quota systems are rarely pleasant for workers, less so for minimum wage-or-close-to-it workers, and HORRIBLE for people that have to deal with employees that have some kind of quota.
Idiots.
For WoW:BC I went to wal-mart as it was opening and got 3 copies because I knew they got maybe 20 and I personally know 15 people who wanted one or 2 copies. I was right to do that as they had sold out by noon and didn't getanymore for 2 months.
I will see how it goes with these 2 and maybe preorder more. I do perfer to order online for most things though as My Wal-Mart can't order in special orders.