Only pirating ubisoft and nintendo games.

No crowns required

When you're ready.

Eventually, no rush though could always wait for tomorrow.

I just played through Portal 1 for the first time, which is a game I knew I wanted to play ever since it came out in '07.

I have to imagine it's a holdover impulse from the days of physical media where stores had limited copies. Why anyone would preorder a digital download is beyond me, unless there are some perks.

i would preorder games from a studio i like to boost their capital while they are still developing. it seems better than them having a lower budget or getting shady investors. but somehow those who are worthy are the same folk who dont do preorders😂

The last time I preordered a game, I had played a leaked alpha build for a while before release, for like 40 hours. It was pretty broken, but it was a lot of fun, so I figured it was fair to pay for the game already.

I'd say there are very exceptional cases where it isn't absurd to preorder, but those are less than 1% of all preorders that actually take place.

The only game I preordered was Monster Hunter Rise. They offered a demo that I played longer than most games currently in my library and it was polished and showed no performance issues. It showed me that it was the game I wanted it to be. So I nabbed it for a preorder discount deal from a 3rd party, legit storefront to save some cash. And it was my favorite of the series and my most played individual title. Maybe that’s all rationalization of something I still shouldn’t have done, but if you are discerning, it works.

Relevant xkcd

Well that's because they just released it a few years ago!

I think I bought it for $10 when Cyberpunk shat the bed what three years ago?

The New one with the 3d Graphics? I will stick to my snes.

More like re-purchase it for twice the price on the next console's eShop

It was free for like a week once a few years ago.

I got half life for free when steam did the 25 year anniversary promotion for it. So you can actually get free games if you wait long enough lol.

I also got little nightmares for free as well, but I don't remember the occasion.

If a game requires a connection to a server to run I just don't bother.

Unless the server software is available so anyone can set one up.

Wait a year post release, get it on sale, put it in the backlog with all the others, play your one comfort game and doomscroll your preferred social media feeds instead of ever playing it