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Kenneth Cummings

EdgyDude 1

Kenneth Cummings 1

Gajknight 1

The industry is obsessed with day-one purchases. Publishers love pushing the idea that you should pay a large amount of money on software - often times without the possibility of a refund - about which you know very little. For a game that's complete garbage like Aliens: Colonial Marines , getting as many sales on day one before people find is essential. If you don't sell a game like that as quickly as possible, you'll lose out on the ignorant impulse-buyer crowd.Day one impulse purchases are very important to the industry for games well-made and shitty alike. Developing a computer game is a complicated and expensive process, so I can't exactly fault publishers for trying to incentivise consumers to make a risky day one purchase in order to make back the money they spent trying to make the product itself. Still, there's something contradictory about it all that really makes me scratch my head.With every big release, publishers insist you buy the game right away. They incentivise you to do so with lame pre-order bonuses that will inevitably be on sale later down the line. They hype up their release to such a point where you can't wait even one day later than you have to get your hands on a product you've never played before. The intent here is to coerce you into buying their product now by capitalising on the fear of missing out.Missing out on pre-order bonuses makes me feel like I've been punished for being a patient consumer. If I had bought the game before it was released, I could have gotten that timed exclusive offer that I'll now never get. Normally, this would all make sense... if I didn't feel like nearly every pre-order and day one purchase I've made was a huge mistake.Is there any reason to pre-order any more? Had I pre-ordered Metal Gear Rising: Revengance on day one, I would have gotten one out of a small handful of cheap pre-order items. When the PC version came out less than a year later at half the cost, I was able to get the best iteration of the game with all of the DLC included. That's a value of about $80, for less than $30, because the only pre-purchase incentive I needed to buy a Platinum game (other than the sheer merit of it being a Platinum game) was a discount, and that's after the price was slashed in half!It strikes me as almost hypocritical that the publishers and developers of the gaming industry desperately want me to buy their game the day of release, but turn around and make me feel stupid for doing so just a few months later. In certain situations, if I can save a little bit of money by getting a discount on a game I know I'll want and will be good (i.e. Metal Gear Rising: Revengance), I'll probably pre-purchase it. For the most part however, I won't be buying very many AAA console games, and I certainly won't be paying full price on day one for a game I know will be re-sold as an improved version bundled with more content at a lower price. With dozens upon dozens of better games in my back log, why should I buy anything on day one anymore?