Preorders/Reserves

Quote:

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?

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 :)