Regarding this silly “don’t preorder” rant article…
“Want to know why there aren’t any demos anymore?”
I don’t know about other games, but since this is the Forza forum, I’m trying to remember which Forza games were released without a demo. As far as I can recall, only FM5 - and it’s kinda hard to release a demo prior to the console being available on which to play the demo.
“retailer-specific preorder bonuses”
As far as various incentives for pre-ordering (or plain purchasing) from specific retailers, well, that’s hardly video-game specific. You see that pretty much everywhere for pretty much everything.
“these companies want you on the hook before anyone has had a chance to warn you off it.”
Ummm… demo or not, pre-order or not, there is always the option to wait to purchase the game until after it’s been released, and all the commentary and reviews are available.
The guy who wrote this rant seems to want the publishers and retailers to have a more difficult time earning money, the only possible result of which would be fewer successful companies publishing fewer quality games for higher prices. I wonder if he inherited great family wealth? That would explain why he wouldn’t care if the prices of games went up.
Pre-order if you feel it has value to you - don’t pre-order if you don’t. Pretty simple. But claiming it is a bad practice and campaigning for others to follow your lead because you don’t like it? Glad I have the ability to make up my own mind.
Please for the love of gaming itself, stop preordering games:
I love Forza games and gaming in general but have stopped pre-ordering my games and I don’t feel I’ve missed out on anything of substance since I’ve stopped.
You can still head on down to the shop on Day 1 (or heaven forbid, day 2, 3 or 30) and pick up your copy AFTER you’re satisfied with the reviews / streamers, I can’t remember the last time I found a store had completely sold out of a game I wanted either.
Rain, great article. It and you make some valid points. Unfortunately not enough of us gamers will read that article. I’m not sure that a few of us refusing to pre-order is going to make any dent in the madness. I think this mess of retailer specific incentives for pre-orders is just going to get worse and worse… unless the game makers curtail it by making pre-order incentives standard for all retailers, same cars for everyone. Short of that happening (which will never happen because they’re being paid for these retailer specific cars, etc.), we’re going to watch it get worse and worse.
The upside is that there was a Horizon 2 demo. I actually downloaded that and played it before deciding to buy. I waited a month or two before buying. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get the Gallardo or BMW M6 which, I hear, were incentive cars.
I pre-ordered FM5 on the back of FM4 (well, that and the fact it was the only racing game available on day one). I doubt I’ll be pre-ordering FM6 unless T10 announce something amazing in the run up to launch.
Agree with Don,its like the people that read a review for a product in a magazine instead of using your own mind and feelings,you rely on someone else who is nothing like you. I will choose for myself thanks!!
You do realize how the pre-ordering process works, right? When a consumer pre-orders a product (videogame or otherwise), that consumer is effectively making a contract with the RETAILER to have the product made available to them, the consumer, upon release. Pre-ordering has nothing to do with you or I telling the DEVELOPER or manufacturer anything about a product itself. When I go to Amazon to pre-order a Forza title, Amazon is now aware that they have one more copy of the game that has been claimed by a consumer. Based on this information, Amazon will make an informed decision as to how much inventory of the product they need to acquire from the PUBLISHER (not the DEVELOPER) so as to fulfill their pre-order and in-stock needs. So, if Amazon requests 100,000 copies from the PUBLISHER, Turn 10 Studios–as a videogame DEVELOPER–has no iota of a clue as to how many of Amazon’s inventory is for pre-order and how many are going straight to the shelf. Simply: whether you pre-order or buy after release, the money you’ve sent through the chain back to the developer is all the same.
From your ranting about pre-orders, it would seem that you believe Turn 10 gets an email with a “thumbs up” every time Joe Shmoe decides they want to pre-order a copy of their videogame. That’s just not how it works … not at all.
Oh. And the “your supporting them off the back of FM4, and a blue car” … that comment is getting a bit old and its only taken you three times to get there with it. Don’t tell me why I am pre-ordering a product. I am not ignorant enough to think that the Ford GT, Mustang 350 and SVT Raptor (yes, you are already spinning your message when you decide to tell 1/3 truths) are going to be the only vehicles in the game. If you really and truly stand by this as a reason to poke fun at other’s purchasing decisions, you’re a bit more ludicrous than I first suspected.
Exactly … to a “T”. The gentleman who wrote that rant published on Kotaku does not make my money and does not manage my finances. Likewise, if someone can’t read an article clearly marked as “opinion” without interpreting it as some sort of fact that must be spread throughout the interwebs, then I am of the belief that my purchasing power is more strongly wielded than one who copies and pastes that banter in a thread created by someone simply looking for pre-order information. Thank you white knight, but I am grown enough to make my own decisions.
Absolutely. If someone wants to judge me for pre-ordering something, anything when I want and from wherever I want, go right ahead. That person’s interest in my affairs, while flattering, bears no weight whatsoever on my purchasing decisions.
That said, it’s clear that others find no benefit to pre-ordering whatsoever. However, I can tell you with certainty that when my tax-free copy of Forza Motorsport 6 is delivered to me from Amazon on release day with not a cent of shipping or handling paid and is sitting at my doorstep when I return home from work, I will be one happy gamer. The beauty of convenience that pre-ordering offers. Ahhh …
Its unfortunate that this simple thread has to be riddled with such dialog. Too many people–dare I say, hypocrites–too concerned with others and not with themselves.
Absolutely. If someone wants to judge me for pre-ordering something, anything when I want and from wherever I want, go right ahead. That person’s interest in my affairs, while flattering, bears no weight whatsoever on my purchasing decisions.
That said, it’s clear that others find no benefit to pre-ordering whatsoever. However, I can tell you with certainty that when my tax-free copy of Forza Motorsport 6 is delivered to me from Amazon on release day with not a cent of shipping or handling paid and is sitting at my doorstep when I return home from work, I will be one happy gamer. The beauty of convenience that pre-ordering offers. Ahhh …
Its unfortunate that this simple thread has to be riddled with such dialog. Too many people–dare I say, hypocrites–too concerned with others and not with themselves.
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Your last sentence is filled with hypocrisy. You feel you are of significance to others when you’re not. Your affairs have zip to do with the real point most want to get across. They are frustrated with MS and their developer T10’s declining performance since the release of FM3. We as consumers on this forum owned and operated by MS CANNOT organize a boycott thread so individuals try there best to circumvent not having their disappointment not heard. I would love to see MS give us the opportunity to truly voice all of the displeasure in an organized and MS endorsed thread. Would be interesting to see just how many really like the direction things have gone. Don’t think T10 or it’s parent want that.
We have a few reviewers at our clubs page that are quite good at looking over a title and their viewpoint is closely aligned with most of us, and there is the added plus that we’ve talked to and raced against them as well.
When I can resist, and afford to wait, I always fall back on them, and even ask specific questions when necessary. A nice perk.
A nice perk indeed having like minded people. Most reviewers I have no idea who they are and therefore put no stock in them. I know what I like and therefore try things myself,being old does that to you,lol.
I don’t want to incite anyone / anything but feel there is more to add on why / how pre-ordering got to the state it is in now.
It’s all big business now. There are numerous pieces on the web to refer to other than the Kotaku article I posted previously but I’ll reference this rather succinct write up from Reddit which I have edited for formatting and to censor the swear words:
Yes there is rampant cynicism here but it hits home hard.
Perhaps it is naive to hope that by not participating you can effect change but frankly I don’t know what else I can do within my role as a consumer.
I love the Forza series and provided future titles are not an outright disaster, I’ll buy them and enjoy them.
Hell I bought FH2 for 360 (day one, not preordered, knew a lot about what it lacked but still ended up quite disappointed after a couple of weeks with it) and still proceeded to buy an Xbox One to get the proper version of it afterwards.
p.s. I have a background in Forecasting, S&OP and Supply Chain for big multi nationals - perhaps why I am especially cynical about what companies do with their pre order / forecast data.
p.p.s I love the note about blowing up EA. Maybe then we’d get Porsche back
One of the issues I have with these types of rants is:
“Game content suffers due to cuts, and laziness.”
I’ve never seen a comment like that supported by anything other than speculation.
As I mentioned in my previous comment in this thread, I don’t know about other games, and this is a FM forum, so I’ll only speak about Forza.
Are you really claiming that Turn 10 was LAZY in developing FM-4? Or FM-5? Or FH-2? Or do you have some evidence - as in, actual, factual, verifiable evidence - to show that any of the FM series has “suffered due to cuts”?
If not, then what is the point of the rant?
According to the bullet points above, pre-ordering was a GOOD THING until somebody decided the next version of a game didn’t live up to his expectations, yet the retailers, publishers and developers continued to make money.
Waa waa waa - a company is making money, paying their employees, and continuing to grow.
Read half your essay before I got bored with the derogatory tone.
I’ve not poked fun at anybody’s decisions, but expressed my feelings on a matter, in the forum set aside for it, accepted earlier that you can do what you want with your money, and am just making my point that a pre-order should only be made IMO as an informed decision - that’s why I pre-ordered pCARS.
But you seem to have taken it as a personal insult, but there’s no need for name calling.
And please, don’t assume that I seem to believe anything:
A - you assumption is wrong
B - you don’t know me enough to assume I’m fat or thin, let alone what I think.
Amazon don’t just arrange a copy out of thin air, they must place an order to meet their commitment.
No. That would be a placeholder date retailers use to indicate that a product is anticipated sometime within the year they list. Forza Motorsport 6 should be released sometime between September and November.
not a chance in hell. i played a bit last new years eve. there are not alot of sober people mew years eve believe it or not. everybody would think its the buggiest game they ever played. to win new years eve you pull off the track at the start, then pass everybody while they are slogging their way back to the track. dont even bother to pass them lapping them just let them fly off the track solo at the next corner. half the people are so mad they they stutter and the other half cant quit laughing. you dont want any game launching new years eve, online it plays nothing like it does normally. new years eve forza is a demolition derby sim, not a racing sim. it left me wishing they still had spectator mode, it was more fun to watch than play. it was the jerry springer show, driving edition.
To clarify, I never myself used the word lazy. I never said nor even implied that Turn 10 was lazy. The word lazy was from a comment that I quoted.
I pulled a comment from a thread and included a source link, in its entirety to put some context on what pre-ordering is about these days. This is not my opinion, I just felt it was a succinct way of conveying why it may be a good idea to abstain from pre-ordering.
It’s a commentary on the industry in general, not directed at Turn 10 specifically and we can all judge for ourselves how applicable the commentary is to Turn 10 and the Forza series as a whole.
We all read the Forza forums to varying extents so we all have a good idea on the popular opinions of the various Forza titles on the 3 platforms they have been released on.
I added a note after the quote acknowledging that the tone of the quote was very cynical.
From here I don’t want to have a back and forth argument with anyone.
Everyone is entitled to make their own mind up about it and whether or not it has any value to their own personal experiences.
