this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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I think it’s an age thing a lot of times. It’s like telling my kids to brush their teeth because of my experiences with dental, or you can plug any example like that.
I can tell kids not to preorder all I want. They just haven’t had the opportunity to be burned as many times as we have yet.
I think a lot of gamers just don't care enough too. I know so many people that buy a game on release, play it for a few hours, and then drop it. Even AAA titles that are actually good.
Steam achievements kinda confirm that as well, there is a fair bit of drop-off on even the most popular games.
It made some sense when they came in physical format and there was a real risk of a highly sought game selling out. Nowadays they have put worthless digital incentives on preorders and they can't possibly run out.
It didn't make sense to me that people are pre-ordering digital copies at first too, then I remember mtx and streamers which didn't exist back then.
It's the boiling frog syndrome. Gradual implementation of predatory monetization practices like mtx and gachas have made us grown numb to being treated like cash cows for unfinished products.
The latest generation of gamers probably see this as a norm. It's up to us oldies to remind them about the good ol' days when you only pay once for finished products.
I mean, I usually buy physical and sometimes they do run out. Metroid prime remastered for instance was a pain to get. Granted it's probably not the norm but it happens.
This right here. There will always be a steady supply of new gamers who don't know better.
I don't have numbers but I bet that a lot of people who preorder aren't kids but adults with a proper income. Kids as a group don't have the income to uphold the current presale figures, that's done by working adults who can afford to preorder a game and take the not so small risk that it's utterly shit.
If I want I could preoder a lot of games that come out this year without having to worry about the waste of money to much. I doubt that any regular kid can do that.
This isn't a kids thing, we've been pre-ordering games since before today's kids were born
yeah, when we were kids ourselves. But after getting burned we stopped.
I did a quick search and couldn't find anything that breaks down by age sadly. I really hope someone has the stats cause it would be fascinating to see.
I don't have the figures either but when I think which age group could have the money to actually preorder a game on a whim without knowing if it will be good, then it really isn't kids but working adults.
Could you share what you've found, please? What other category breaks are there?
The only thing I could find was a statista link that claims to show US gamer's proclivities toward preordering in 2016 based on a survey of 1560 people (https://www.statista.com/statistics/662626/game-pre-order-frequency-us-gamers/)
Everything other result seemed to be random news articles about topics tangentially related to preordering video games.
I just saw this video the other day, now it’s just all reminders that I’ve aged out.
It’s funny when you get older how much you realize experience is what drives behavior. You can tell a child 100 times about something, but until they experience it themselves, your warnings more often than not will fall on deaf ears.
Hey it's Lemmy, so I will happily use this opportunity to blame rich people as well. I know people doing very well for themselves, who constantly, say, "yeah it sucks, but I've got the money and it doesn't hurt me so who cares?"
Because they're so completely unable to to think of ANYONE else in a different situation, or even remember their younger selves, that they will continue to incentivize predatory behavior because "fuck you, I got mine", and they're such huge pieces of self involved shit that they won't delay their gratification for a split second to help out an entire industry's consumers.
If that sound harsh, it's been a shit day full of people just like that; decide on your own if it applies here.