Re: I don't understand pre-orders. Do you preorder?

On Sat, 08 Feb 2025 15:53:03 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sat, 08 Feb 2025 19:26:08 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>

    [I did some digging into my old Usenet comments; it turns out
     the game in question was "Grand Theft Auto 4". So that's one
     mystery sorted ;-) ]

>
>

Heh. I should had done that for Diablo 2 from my local EB store. It was
sold out! I had to wait a few days until it got restocked. I can't
remember if I finally bought it from EB or somewhere else though. My brain
is broken. :(

>
Although I'm sure it happened, I can't really remember a time I walked
into a store intending to get a Brand New Game only to find out it was
out of stock. I'm pretty sure though, that if and when it did happen,
I just shrugged and bought something else (and then came back next
week to get the game I was looking for).

For me? Baldur's Gate II. It wasn't in stock. It had a heavy box due to a
large, spiral-bound manual. Might have been harder (and therefore
riskier) to ship in quantity. Electronics Boutique let me reserve a copy
from the next shipment. They didn't charge me. Not even a deposit.

I have a reserved copy of the 50th Anniversary Collectors' Edition 2024
Monster Manual waiting for me at the comics book store, in fact.
Free-of-charge. No deposit. They're just holding it.

Game publishers figured out how to make you actually pay for that
reservation at some point. Clever, clever, clever. I agree with you
Spalls, now it's a leftover status thing.

So, I'm glad my local comics shop isn't run by a bunch of marketing
dicks. The video games industry, OTOH, has something to learn about
engendering bad will.

They'll blame the resulting cyclical crashes on "piracy," I'm sure. Then
they won't learn.

--
Zag

This is csipg.rpg - reality is off topic. ...G. Quinn ('08)