Preorders/Reserves

Gabe from Penny Arcade rants about Preorders (and some other shit):

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Originally Posted by Gabe

Here is an excerpt from a letter I got from a game store employee. I chose this letter because it covers many of the same issues I got from other employees.

...The store manager is the only one who cares about you reserving games. If the other employees care, it's only because the manager found some way to make them care. Otherwise we really don't give a crap. But managers often care a LOT, because almost their entire performance reviews by the district managers are based on their reservation percentage and their subscription percentage (that Game Informer 10% off card I'm sure you're bombarded with if you ever buy a used game from GameStop). I've seen several managers get fired because their numbers were too low, since their numbers reflect the numbers of the district manager, who's in charge of hiring and firing store managers.

Since reservation numbers are based on the percentage of sales, the store manager probably does not even WANT you to buy a game if you haven't reserved it. It gets worse. Sometimes managers will instruct their employees not to sell a game that the person didn't reserve in order to "teach the customer a lesson" about reserving games. What I'm saying here is that it's very possible that there was a small stack of Otogi copies behind the counter that no one would sell you because they want you to reserve your games in the future. I've personally witnessed this happen numerous times with two different managers. They don't care that the company misses a $50 sale, they only care about getting their customers to reserve games in order to make their own numbers look good. This is very common policy.

Another problem is that sometimes NO extra copies are ordered beyond those that were reserved. At my store, four people reserved Disgaea, and we got four copies in. Apparently the company doesn't realize that when four people reserve something, at least ten more are going to ask for it the day it's out without having reserved it, and that's exactly what happened.

Managers absolutely hate it when we get in enough copies for everyone beyond those who reserved it. My manager was literally cringing when we got about 60 extra copies of Soul Calibur 2 after the reserved copies were held. I, along with the other employees, were instructed to tell people that if they didn't reserve it, we MIGHT have one or two copies left, and that they had lucked out this time, so they'd better reserve games in the future. Imagine my embarrassment when I had to say this after quite visibly going through a stack of 20 extra games.

I got tons of mail regarding pre-orders, lots of it from game store employees. One thing they almost all told me is that nine times out of ten they actually have the game you want but if you didn’t pre order it they are told not to sell it to you. Lots of them even used the same terminology, that is to say “teaching the customer a lesson”. Which makes me think this is an extremely common practice.

I worked at circuit shitty long enough to understand the various relationships between employees, store managers and district managers. That is why I have no animosity towards the clerks or even the managers at these stores. I know they are just doing what they are told to do. I had to do some pretty messed up shit to people at circuit city in order to sell them extended service plans. I remember one old man who told a friend of mine that he didn’t need the extended service plan because he wouldn’t live that much longer. Whenever you couldn’t get an extended service plan yourself you were often told to call a “closer”, usually a manager who would come over and make an ass of themselves. In this particular case the “closer” was the store manager and when the old man repeated that he would in fact not live long enough to use the extended warranty the manager said “Ahh, but that is the beauty of the circuit city extended service plan, it stays with the product. So after you pass away whoever you leave your TV with will still be able to benefit from it.” It’s hard to believe that one human being could say that to another human being but I swear it’s true. That’s why I don’t blame these guys that work in these stores. I know the kind of inhuman fucking monsters they work for.

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I've personally never experienced anything analogous to the letter's author, but I'm concerned by Gabe's insistence that this is a common occurance based on the sum of simliar letters he's received.

Thoughts?

personally even before i worked at a game store 9 times out of 10 if a game was coming i wanted i reserved it

but thats me so i dont totally get the whole thing about not wanting to pre-order

way i see it is im gonna spend the money on the game anyway, some times i get something free with it, sometimes i get the game early for it, the game gets held for me im guranted it so it works well for me

our DM doesnt push the whole have to get subs and reserves thing too much

but the company specially with smaller releases theyre not sure are going to sell, really does only send enough for reserves which is something i try to tell people, like Disgaea before the game came out i had a ton of people asking about it, i tried to tell them its gonna be a small release reserve it, long story short we had 3 reserves (including mine) we got 4 copies of the game

now i get to listen to all the people i told to reserve it to bitch because we dont have it and they cant find it anywhere and some how its my fault


i see this all the time with the none hyped releases, Otogi is another good example 2 reserves got 3 in

i could go on all day with more examples


alot of companies are really putting all their resources into stocking the big releases (Madden, SCII) so if something else smaller is coming out around the same time you can bet a store is only going to get enough for reserves on it because the company would rather have 40 extra maddens sitting on the shelf then 1 extra copy of a smaller release game

I hate preordering and reserving. I refuse to do it. I'd rather just wait until the game is on the shelves than get jerked around by some store. I didn't have any particular incident that makes me feel this way, I just prefer to keep my options open and I am not terribly impatient about needing to play a certain game as soon as possible (I don't usually buy games on the release date anyway - only my most wanted ones).

I prefer buying games at Futureshop (big electronics store) and I don't think they even do preorders. Their prices are better and I loathe EB, so, I don't mind waiting until I see something on the shelf there rather than go through the preorder charade at EB.

When there is a niche game I want that FS may not get (such as Disgaea or Winning Eleven) I have to deal with EB. What I usually do is call the day a game is supposed to be out and ask if they got it in. The local EB sucks, and chances are they never get it in on time anyway, but when they do I ask them to hold me a copy til I get there, and that usually does the trick.

Oddly enough, when I got .hack I did that and they said they'd hold a game for me, but when we got to the store they could not find it, so they gave me someone else's pre-order! :lol: I feel sorry for that guy, but serves him right for preordering at that EB. I am sure he half expected it if he is a regular customer. :p

I used to pre-order a lot of my games, then just stopped as it became a bit of a hassle to scrounge around to find my pre-order slip.

Whether you hate the system or not, I feel it's necessary to say that Gabe is wrong in what he's saying.

If it were up to Gabe, he'd have every publisher print tons and tons of every game, so each store would receive more than two of say, Otogi. He fails to see that if a company (in this case, Sega) doesn't think it can sell that many copies of a game it's best not to print tons of extras. I remember seeing Gungrave come out last year... that's pretty niche if you ask me, and there were tons and tons of copies... I think only one sold that first day at the particular store I was working at (and now you can pick up the game for $10-$20 in plenty of places due to the amount of overstock). Having a preorder system benefits both retailers and publishers, so they can better gauge interest in a title. And it can benefit the customer as well, if they go about things the right way.

I am pretty tight with the managers at the stores I go to, if I thought they tried this stuff, I would probably find another store, (they REALLY don't want me to do that, maybe that changes things, heh...)

Trouble is, These managers are peopl who often read the market pretty well, far better than the hups (higher ups) who would not give them 15 copies of Virtua Tennis, or keep the Neo Geo Pocket Color shelf stocked. The only way to get something I wanted before the single copy sold out was to plunk a fiver on titles I did not plan to wait for. It is probably why I got to play Phantasy Star Collection during the slower parts of last thanksgiving.

As for Circuit City, I seem to remember that they were the ones trying to push Divx DVD players well past the one week that they seemed like a good idea.

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Originally Posted by Jeremy

I used to pre-order a lot of my games, then just stopped as it became a bit of a hassle to scrounge around to find my pre-order slip.

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Phone number and ID. That's all you need.

Solution- Reserves benefit publishers and retailers.

Problem- Why would a customer care?

Book stores are a good analogy for this- I've never gotten wailed on in a book store to reserve Title X, ever. You get the odd Harry Potter now and then that might make it a good idea, but other than that book stores manage quite fine without shoving reserves down people's throats. I can go into a book store and find the book I want, buy it, go home, read. Hell, comparing cost of materials it probably costs more to make a $25 hardcover than it does a $50 game!

Tangent- Though I game more than I read, reading > gaming. -end tangent

I know that book stores have their own rivers of crap to run through that game stores don't, but no analogy is perfect. The point is that there's a business model out there that gets decent product levels out to most stores an amazingly high percentage of the time for a similar type of product. Why are they (mostly) free of the preorder race while game stores are almost slaves to it?

Personal opinion- I'll preorder now and then and I don't hate doing it, but I don't really like it either. If there's a preorder goodie I just have to have then no problem, otherwise I'll get it when it hits one way or another.

James

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Originally Posted by James

Book stores are a good analogy for this- I've never gotten wailed on in a book store to reserve Title X, ever. You get the odd Harry Potter now and then that might make it a good idea, but other than that book stores manage quite fine without shoving reserves down people's throats. I can go into a book store and find the book I want, buy it, go home, read. Hell, comparing cost of materials it probably costs more to make a $25 hardcover than it does a $50 game!

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Cost of materials is one thing, cost of actually producing the goods is another. Development costs are significantly higher for producing just about any game than an author sitting at home hammering away their next novel. I'm sure you know that but it's worth mentioning at least.

$50 is probably a stretch in a lot of cases, but that's another issue.

Also, when comparing buying books versus buying games, I think the demand for new game titles is usually a lot greater than most of the books that are released. Also, far more books are published weekly than games, which probably helps to lessen the demand for all but the biggest books (like your Harry Potters). I think the markets are similar in some regards but too different to compare when talking about whether pre-order systems are effective or not.

I often preorder games, and then forget that I did. As stupid as this sounds, I preordered Super Monkey Ball 2 and Super Mario Sunshine last year, and Gamestop called me June or so to inform me that I had store credit for those two titles.

Also, there are oftentimes situations where circumstances change, such as me wanting something else at the time that I should pick up a game or I just don't have the money. I think that from now on, I'll only preorder limited-stock games, such as Steel Batallion was.

I'll usually only preorder if A) there's a nice bonus involved, like the Zelda: Ocarina disc, or first-printing extras with imports, or B) it's an import that looks like it'll be a limited printing. I like preordering online-only goods for the peace of mind, and for the convenience. For games I can find in brick & mortar stores, I'll get them when I get them. Game distribution in my area is usually good enough (unlike with anime, books, and CDs). I need a good reason to preorder, and simply getting my hands on an easy-to-acquire game isn't enough.

I've only ever reserved a game ONCE in my entire life : Steel Battalion. And that was only because there was no other way to get it otherwise.

And that's it. I'm probably never going to do it again. I think I have enough common sense to understand that for starters, without preordering, I get to keep my money until I decide to buy the game. It's still $50 either way... and if I preorder, I lose the financial flexibility to use it for something else until then.

At the very best case, I'm losing a dime in bank interest :D

Especially these days, you can never be sure what kind of offers you'll get on release week at the major retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City.

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I, along with the other employees, were instructed to tell people that if they didn't reserve it, we MIGHT have one or two copies left, and that they had lucked out this time, so they'd better reserve games in the future.

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This actually happened to me when I called a Gamestop around here about F-Zero GX. The clerk told me they didn't have many left, hence I should have preordered to make sure I got a copy.

After that conversation, I ignored Gamestop and went to Target, who were more than happy to accept my $50 in exchange for a copy of the game. Gamestop's probably lost most of my business because of this.

I pre-order if there's something that I really want, but only at video-game specialized stores like EB or Babbages.. In short, I don't pcare of the manager doesn't care. Just get me my game so I can get out.

I don't reserve at those other stores, so I've never had a hassle, lucky me.

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Originally Posted by negitoro

And that's it. I'm probably never going to do it again. I think I have enough common sense to understand that for starters, without preordering, I get to keep my money until I decide to buy the game. It's still $50 either way... and if I preorder, I lose the financial flexibility to use it for something else until then.

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Definitely. I hate having to cancel a preorder when my financial situation is suddenly tight around the item's release date.

If I know a title is going to be rare, or hard to find once it's out, I'll go ahead and pre-order it. This was a great option when I wanted Burning Rangers, Shining Force III and Panzer Dragoon Saga.


Rarely does a free T-shirt or lithograph entice me enough to pre-order a game, but when it comes with a free game like Zelda did, I'm all for it. I plan on Pre-ordering Rogue Sqaudron 3, because of the free game offer.

I used to preorder until I found that Gamestop ended up with extra copies for every game I reserved. The manager at my local GS will save me a copy but I usually try to only reserve titles I feel will be limited.

Other than that, I only reserve games that will net me some goodies. The SC2 artbook is a good example.

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Originally Posted by NoFace

Cost of materials is one thing, cost of actually producing the goods is another. Development costs are significantly higher for producing just about any game than an author sitting at home hammering away their next novel. I'm sure you know that but it's worth mentioning at least.

$50 is probably a stretch in a lot of cases, but that's another issue.

Also, when comparing buying books versus buying games, I think the demand for new game titles is usually a lot greater than most of the books that are released. Also, far more books are published weekly than games, which probably helps to lessen the demand for all but the biggest books (like your Harry Potters). I think the markets are similar in some regards but too different to compare when talking about whether pre-order systems are effective or not.

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to add

many many books get multiple print runs
most games dont

you will find books from 20 - 30 years ago that still get small print runs here and there

you wont see that with games

id like it if theyd start that but they havent like shit id kill for a second print run of Dracula X for the Duo or of Radiant Silvergun


you really only reserve a book if your dead set on getting a 1st edition
not because its going to be sold out and you wont be able to get it new any more

Too often have I prereserved games that became hard to find afterward. I also like being able to mosey into Gamestop after work at my leisure to pick my stuff up.

Its also nice to have them call ME when the shipment comes in. I don't have time to call the store all the time...

i typically pre-order when sweet swag is involved or i know a game will be limited...
i can only think of one bad pre-order experience i've had. i live about 20-25 minutes from a GS which they told me VF4:evo was going to be in the day after release (which i know is common, since i used to manage at a GS)...i drove into town only to find out that GS two day shipped the game that i pre-ordered, while they overnighted 3 other title that had no pre-orders!...so i went over to EB and bought it...if i pre-order a title i expect to be able to purchase it the before or on the same day that other store have it one their shelf...

I only preorder games I have a deep desire to get (this has been the case with GTA: Vice City.) Come to think of it, I think that's the only game in about 10 years or so I ever made a preorder for. The last one I can remember is MK2 on SNES.

I've only ever preordered one game, Ikaruga. Worth it too :)

I hate preordering but I do occasionally do it, I've done it for mostly for games I expect to be scarce or games I just gotta have day one, or for swag. For example i have a preorder on Rebel Strike, mainly for the extras. I do think the whole punishing customers for not preordering thing is pretty shitty, and if I ever found out my local store was doing it (in fact now that I've read this I remember more than one occasion where I heard the You should have preordered line and I start to wonder.) I would totally take my business elsewhere. A business is IN business to serve ME, along with a few thousand other people, not to punish me. If they feel otherwise, I can take my cash and spend it someplace else.

Never did it, probably never will (unless there's an extremely sweet tchotchke in it for me). But I guess it matters for people who live in smaller markets. So what's the big deal? Just preorder, and thank Jebus you don't have to rely on Wal-Mart or Target to get a copy of Disgaea or Viewtiful.

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Originally Posted by Jeremy

I used to pre-order a lot of my games, then just stopped as it became a bit of a hassle to scrounge around to find my pre-order slip.

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I have a wallet.

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Originally Posted by Orochi

I have a wallet.

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Either that, or get yourself one of those handy little pushpin boards about 3'x4' (the board is made of a brown cork-type material the middle with with the metal frame) and either put it on your wall, or somewhere where you can see it.

Unless I get something free, I don't see the point in preordering at all.

Espically when stores like Best Buy and Circuit City these days usually either charge less on release day for a new game, or give you a 10 dollar gift card. I don't really care if EB got in three copies of Otogi and I should have preordered, because I can just drive to Best Buy and snag it up without dealing with any of the bull.

Last game I preordered was SC 2 for the artbook, but nothing since then, because Best Buy will just give me a better deal than EB will anyways.

Hehe, I have a wallet as well, I just forget to use the thing for pre-order slips, despite it having all of my gaming discount cards and such in it.

I see very little reason to pre-order unless it has promo items that I want. (like soundtracks or posters)

Otherwise I'll be buying used or off from Ebay. :D

I usually only preorder if it is something I really want badly, if they want preorders so much then they should offer more incentive like more promos, I know if they have a really cool preorder promo it will usually make me buy a game I was previously going to wait on before :)

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I, along with the other employees, were instructed to tell people that if they didn't reserve it, we MIGHT have one or two copies left, and that they had lucked out this time, so they'd better reserve games in the future. Imagine my embarrassment when I had to say this after quite visibly going through a stack of 20 extra games.

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This is primarily a manager thing and I notice it affects how employees work. At my local GS I know most of the workers, and they'll only act like that if the manager is standing next to them. For instance, when I went to but KOTOR day of release with no preorder the manager asked me to hang on and see if they got in enough copies to cover the preorders. One of employees was a guy I'm cool with and tried to get me a copy since they had an entire extra box of about 10+ copies beyond their preorders. I got a copy, but he had to check with the manager first and had me wait even thoug he knew the other two boxes would more then cover all the preorders.

Sometimes you get managers who care for nothing except strict corporate rule, happens in any sort of business chain. Those are the places I won't work for. I prefer jobs like my current one, where we have corporate that we have to answer to and so we need to know how to things their way if they ever ask, but we do things our own way. It works out a lot better for the customer and the employees, even if poor upper managment doesn't pull in enough to cover the salaries of two owners and six vice presidents (I kid you not).

I reserve only if I think the game won't get in many copies or if there's some preorder goodie I really want. Hence I never preorder big name titles.

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...Whenever you couldn’t get an extended service plan yourself you were often told to call a “closer”, usually a manager who would come over and make an ass of themselves. In this particular case the “closer” was the store manager and when the old man repeated that he would in fact not live long enough to use the extended warranty the manager said “Ahh, but that is the beauty of the circuit city extended service plan, it stays with the product. So after you pass away whoever you leave your TV with will still be able to benefit from it.” It’s hard to believe that one human being could say that to another human being but I swear it’s true. That’s why I don’t blame these guys that work in these stores. I know the kind of inhuman fucking monsters they work for.

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The exact same thing happened to me with my grandpa. We had some vacuum cleaner guy come to see what was wrong with my grandpa's vacuum. So he checks it out, and says that fixing it would cost too much, and that he should buy a new one. He then proceeds to do this pitch for this insanely expensive 1400 dollar vacuum cleaner. And when talking about the warranty, he used the same "and when you pass away, your family can benefit from it as well" pitch...

... fucking disgusting.

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Originally Posted by FPM

I've only ever preordered one game, Ikaruga. Worth it too :)

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Oooh yeh, I guess I have preordered once too... and Ikaruga was the game for me as well. :)

I've never actually preordered anything but often times I've called up places beforehand to find out if they have a certain game in. If so, I'll ask them to hold or reserve me a copy.

There is finally an EB downtown here but it's really tremendously crappy. They never ask for ID or anything (just a name) when you reserve something. And they have a tendency to jerk people around; at least in my experience. I remember looking for Maximo and there was only one copy left in all the EBs in the city so they agreed to have someone bring the copy downtown for me from another store. Was majorly pissed off when I went the next day at the guy had never showed up. Was a ginormous hassle. So, I generally do not like having to deal with the hassle of preordering or reserving.

That EB in Montreal sounds shittier and shittier every time I hear a story about it. I gotta see this place. Are there any redeeming factors?

If they charged me a pre-order fee, then I'd mind. But they don't. Every so often I drop $5.00 on a game I'm looking forward to, then just keep putting in whatever spare $5.00 or $10.00 I might have on me until its release.

Makes it feel like I'm paying less on release. I only do that 'cuz I'm there so often. I don't see the big deal about not pre-ordering. Not like your money gets lost or stuck or anything.

i dont pre-order outside of big releases that might be out, but i get along well with the eb store manager, and know he really needs his job for his wife's medical expenses, so i wouldnt mind pre-ordeing if it helped him out, if i am focused on a game, i AM getting it, so its not that big of a deal. Like mz said, its not like they are jacking up the price for pre-ordering, and if i skip a lunch here or there and put it in on the game,i might get the game for 10 bucks on launch day, that dosent feel as bad.

Heh.

I have (just) decided to pre-purchase, in full, alost every title I want from now until the end of '03.

Its makes planning a budget much simpler...

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Originally Posted by Zerodash

Heh.

I have (just) decided to pre-purchase, in full, alost every title I want from now until the end of '03.

Its makes planning a budget much simpler...

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ya know, that actually makes sense :wtf: i might follow your lead.

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Originally Posted by Brisco Bold

That EB in Montreal sounds shittier and shittier every time I hear a story about it. I gotta see this place. Are there any redeeming factors?

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Hmmmm. No.

Ok, well maybe the location. That's about it though.

They have virtually no selection ... especially for GBA. There are like 5 games hidden in the back of the store (behind a column and next to the DC used game ghetto). They don't get things in on time. Their prices suck compared to Futureshop. And their service sucks balls. I went one time and they decided they'd all take off early and were closing the store at 6pm instead of 7pm.

I wonder if it's all the game shops in Québec that suck. There are very few places to get anything here. When I was going to school in Ottawa, I would often stop in the EB in the Rideau Centre. They always had a good selction. They had a great selection of GBA games and a large selction of PS2 games as well.

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Originally Posted by Brisco Bold

Gabe from Penny Arcade rants about Preorders (and some other shit):





I've personally never experienced anything analogous to the letter's author, but I'm concerned by Gabe's insistence that this is a common occurance based on the sum of simliar letters he's received.

Thoughts?

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As long as there are more than enough games to cover the preorders, they should sell to you. It's just plain bad customer service to deny the sale of a copy that hasn't had dibs called on it yet.

If I had 90 copies of Soul Calibur II and 75 were taken by preorder/reserve, I'd be gladly geared up to sell the other 15 to whomever wanted them. If the sales person said "You should've preordered, perhaps this is a lesson to you" I would reply with "Really? Whatever. I will take my business elsewhere in the future. I also wanted to pick up F-Zero GX while I was here, but you blew that sale too because of your ludicrous policy.". The customer is always right.

Preordering is fine by me, but I like having the option to pre-pay. If you have the cash in your bank already and opt to pre-pay (VGD allows that if you PayPal them the cash), you've locked up your copy of the game- or at least, you can put a deposit down. Game only stores are your best bet there- I'd be afraid of Circuit City or Toys R' Us clusterfucking something.

I'll preorder games if they are imports (especially shooters)- look what happened to XII Stag. That sucker was presold out, and there were no more produced. Hopefully someone like Xplosiv will grab it up for an Euro or USA release.

I rarely reserve anything. Between OC, PTC, Best Buy, Futureshop, Walmart and Zellers, I can usually find a copy of any game I want.

I guess I should feel lucky. We have a great Software, Etc and Gamestop in our area, and we're on good terms with all of the staff there, including both managers. I don't usually have to pre-order, because they're pretty good about making sure there will be a copy around for me to buy.

That being said, I reserve stuff pretty often anyway, but the way I look at it, it's only $5, and it saves me the trouble of having to hop from store to store to find a game that might have sold out otherwise. I would much rather give them my money than the shady EB employees :)