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

On Sun, 09 Feb 2025 14:03:42 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:

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.

Come to think of it, there are two more instances:

"Wing Commander III" and "Ultima IX: Ascension". The reason they
escaped me is because I ordered them direct from Origin (back when you
had to call a phone number and talk to somebody!), rather than from a
store, and for some reason that method doesn't register as a
'pre-order' in my brain.

And both were definitely examples of my buying it NOT because I wanted
to get the game, but for the pre-order goodies that came with the
game. "Ultima 9" came in a big box, and "Wing Commander III" shipped
in a film canister. (Also because I wanted to show my support for
Origin's single-player games, in an era when EA was pushing the
company to focus more and more on "Ultima Online" alone.)

Rather upsettingly, the so-called "Dragon Edition" of U9 that was
/supposed/ to be unique to pre-orders was later sold in retail as
well, so I needn't have bothered with the pre-order. Although that was
perhaps the least disappointing thing in the "Ultima 9" debacle...

So I guess I have THREE pre-orders in my history. Imagine that.