Is preordering even important anymore?

[Frogacuda]

I pre-order when I get stuff. There is absolutely no point otherwise. Stores don't even really hold copies half the time

[Rumpy]

I haven't been called about a pre-order in I don't know how long. Everytime I do, I've never been called to say it came in. I always call the day before or the day it's due in.

[Omni]

I said "Hey, I don't want your gutted shit, espically when I preordered in full, how about you give me the sealed one right behind you jackass" to which he replied "ok, sure".

Are you sure you just didn't think those things?

[Roufuss]

Are you sure you just didn't think those things?

No, I'm pretty sure I said them, since it caught my girlfriend by surprise. You don't piss me off when I'm extremely angered.

1) They didn't bother to call me about my preorder and 2) they were going to sell the two copies they had to someone else, so if I DID wait until the ship date that's plastered over there (next Tuesday), I probably would have been SOL, negating the point of preordering a niche title.

And then on top of that, that's when he decided to try and sell me the gutted copy (that had about 9 EB stickers on it) instead of the fresh sealed one right behind him in the case? I knew he knew it was there, because he turned RIGHT AROUND and looked at it when I first asked him.

That's when the shit hit the fan. And believe me, the dude at Gamestop got it just as bad when they didn't get Viewtiful Joe 2 in at all, but every other GS around here did, so I had to drive 25 minutes away just to switch my preorder, since I have no time to play it next week and wanted it this weekend.

Fuck EB, fuck Gamestop, from now on I'll just order through their websites since those have yet to fail me.

[Rocca]

Unless there's a bonus I'd really want, preordering now is totally useless. I picked up Halo 2 two days after its release and they still had a good 50-60 copies on the shelf just waiting there.

I'm on my way out to go get Metroid Prime 2 and they must have 100 copies of it still there.

[MechDeus]

As far as Halo 2 goes, some places you'll be able to walk in and pick it up on 11-9. When I went to Cleveland, I asked a local GS how the Halo 2 reserves are going, they said shitty, cause they mostly get reserves for GTA and sports games. I should have known, because Cleveland is mostly composed of blacks.

It's funny because it's true. Seriously, don't ever go near a game store around here when a sports game comes out, they all have at least one cop at the door to maintain control.

I haven't been called about a pre-order in I don't know how long. Everytime I do, I've never been called to say it came in. I always call the day before or the day it's due in.

They call me if I have something pre-ordered, I'm just usually not around when they call. I check GS' website to see what stores have games in stock and if I don't feel like trusting that I just call them.

[RedCoKid]

Well, here's the theory behind preordering:

http://p211.ezboard.com/fatlususadis...icID=171.topic

Just a little bit on the importance of pre-ordering of games and on why you should...especially for games like Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and pretty much any game released by Atlus since they don't flood the market with games like some other publishers do. Stores like EB and GameStop and anywhere else that accept preorders base how many pieces of game they will take in. If a particular store has 1 or even no preorders of a certain game that store will only get maybe 1 or 2 copies. This pretty much leaves 1 or even none on the shelf after the one person who was interested enough in the game to pick it up on launch day. What happens to the casual gamers who walk into the store the next day? No copies of the game to be found anywhere which in turn limits the visibility of the title and someone who might have checked out the game is unaware of it's existence and they've either moved on or bought another game.

A prime example of this is Atlus' sleeper hit of 2003, Disgaea. When the game came out on launch day, people quickly caught on to the fact that it was a really cool game after the hardcore said it was. (the power of word of mouth) But, when they got around to purchasing the game, most stores were already sold out which means a lost sale or even worse a sale to another game. The turn around time to get more product on to the shelves is about 2 weeks, but in that time Mr. Consumer may have spent that money on another game, DVD, toilet paper etc. They might also figure if they dont have it in plenitful stock it might not be that good a game anyway. In the end, it all boils down to a lost sale which would not have happened if the store carried enough copies, which is directly related to how many preorders of the game there were prior to the game's launch. That my friend's is the importance of pre-ordering especially to companies like Atlus who play it conservative.

[Despair]

Unless there's a bonus I'd really want, preordering now is totally useless. I picked up Halo 2 two days after its release and they still had a good 50-60 copies on the shelf just waiting there.

I'm on my way out to go get Metroid Prime 2 and they must have 100 copies of it still there.

Same thing here. When pre-ordering gets you some cool stuff (t-shirt, soundtrack, etc) than I would pre-order it. Otherwise, I can wait few more days till BB, or TRU get ton of them in, or they alway have enough copies left.

[James]

What RedCoKid and Atlus said. It's important to the small companies, valueless to the big ones. Any EA title ever is easy to get but I reserved Mr Driller DS today because rumor says it'll be a short production run. I honestly don't think I'd have had trouble getting it if I hadn't but it's not like the $5 is all that big a deal.

I admit, it helps that my game stores seem a bit better run than Roufuss'. That's some pretty crap customer service there, especially seeing as the full copies need to be sold first. The whole point of gutting a copy for the shelf is that it goes last and represents the full inventory of sealed copies behind the counter.

James

[Beefy Hits]

Like they said about Atlus, I usually pre-order for the obscure games, new systems launches (Like the PSP) , or for the swag.