How do you feel about pre-ordering this game?

With only ~1 minute of gameplay released (pre-E3) Fallout 4 is already available for pre-purchase on Steam, the PSN Store, and presumably the Xbox One storefront (can't confirm, don't have an xbone). Usually i don't pre-order games, for fear of the game turning out bad, but having loved every single Fallout game ever made, i feel the urge to just give Bethesda my $60 to support one of my favorite franchises. Am i crazy? I fully intend milk this game out of all of its content as many times as i can, but the gaming community as a whole seems to hate the idea of pre-orders. How are you going about this?

If you intend to buy the game physical there is a case to be made for reserving a copy to an extent but if you are buying it digitally just wait until the day/night before and if it not fucked go ahead and buy it then.

There is close to 0% chance that I won't be buying Fallout 4. I won't be pre-ordering, but for others with a similar disposition they might feel comfortable putting their money down now.

It's your money. Don't let other people tell you what to do with it.

If I see like a GMG deal down the line for $15 to $20 off I may preorder (& actually I think there is one now or was one at least....but I just don't feel like it at this point) it. Otherwise, sometimes I just know I'm going to get a game a few weeks beforehand and do it then.

Stop pre-ordering video games!

Consider it this way...

If you buy the game at $60 after release, you're supprting Bethesda.

If you pre-order the game, you're just telling ZeniMax that people don't care about the quality (notorious buginess) of their games, and will buy them on name alone.

One is desireable, and still completely helping the dev that you love. The other is ultimately pointless*, and does nothing but reinforce low publisher standards. For me, at least, it's an easy choice.

*(again, ultimately pointless, unless you live in a small town and want a physical copy on day 1. That's the reason to pre-order. But if that doesn't apply to you, see above.)

I never pre-order games that don't have at least some sort of release date, and since I now buy everything digitally, I typically won't pre-order a game prior to it becoming available for pre-load.

I don't understand why you would give them $60 now instead of simply waiting to give them $60 later. Even if you know for absolute certain that you will love the game, you are forfeiting the time value of money for literally no reason.

The same way I feel about preordering any other games that aren't called Persona 5. Never preorder games ever.

@bceagles128: @joshwent: Thanks for your input. I see what you're saying, and i get it but, i was always under the presumption that pre-ordering games somehow means more to developers/publishers? As in i hardly ever hear about sales numbers but almost always see pre-order counts and numbers. I think i'll wait until you're at least able to pre-load it (as @chaser324 said, thanks for your advice) now instead of just spending money on an unknown and as you said, promoting bad publisher behavior.

@afabs515: The way you feel about Persona 5 is how i feel about Fallout 4.

It's your money, but I'm just saying: $60 > $60 in a year (or whatever the release date is). If you pay $60 now, you are essentially paying $60 plus interest whenever it comes out. Do you have a credit card balance? Student loans? A mortgage? Any other debt? If so, I'd recommend putting that $60 towards the debt now, still buying the game for $60 later and you will be better off in the long run for it.

Considering Bethesda's track record of releasing glitchy-to-outright-broken games, I'll be waiting on this one. I'm also anti-pre-order in general. Stop paying people for promises!! And that money-has-time-value-argument guy above me has a good point too. $60 now is not the same as $60 a year from now.

I never preorder games, so... There's my answer.

If I knew I wanted to buy the game on release I'd pre-order it (a physical copy)...a lot closer to release - when I want to play a game I like to pre-order to have said game delivered to my door on release. To some that's a great evil but I don't really care. When I'm really interested in a game I simply like to find out for myself whether I like it or hate it - particularly since it seems like half or more of the time when the internet is shitting all over a game I'm confused because I've found myself liking it. And when I don't like a game, I'm at least glad to have found out for myself.

I liked Fallout 3, and I'm sure Fallout 4 will be a really cool game, but I don't care enough for Bethesda's Fallout to want to buy it immediately, particularly when it's all but guaranteed there'll be a release a year or so later with all DLC included. Things might be different if this were a new Elder Scrolls because I loved Skyrim. :P

I'm not as vehemently against pre-orders as some people, but there is literally no good reason to pre-order Fallout 4 at this stage. We don't know the release date, have no indication of what the game actually is beyond a very vague trailer, and there are no announced pre-order bonuses to take advantage of. Your money will be just as good to Bethesda in a couple of months!

Don't preorder games. It's super dumb.

Honestly it's not pre-orders I despise as much as the shitty incentives that feel like a slap in the face to the people who want to hear the reviews or, worse, the pre-order incentives spread so thin between all the retailers that there's literally no possible way for a person to get all the content a game has to offer without buying nine copies (I'm looking at you, WB). Fallout 4 doesn't seem to do either of those, so I don't see the harm.

There certainly are some games that I know I'm going to buy regardless of the perception of those games. Games that, even if they end up terrible, I'll want to play just to see. Fallout certainly ranks among those, for me. But I think that's a question people have to ask themselves.

I feel fantastic about preordering it. Going to play it for sure and it's probably cheaper now than it will be on release.

Not an industry expert by any means, so take this with a grain of salt, but pre-ordering games does mean a lot to publishers about very specific things.

Most AAA games take around 2 years to complete from start to finish, so if a game is going to get a sequel greenlit, it needs to happen as fast as possible. But publishers are weary (for good reason) about sinking $100 million and above into another game in an unproven series, so a metric that they can use to determine its viability is pre-order numbers. If a game has half a million pre-orders before release, it's a little more likely that at least that many people might also buy its sequel (if the first game doesn't get critically panned).

So pre-ordering as a jesture of faith in a game does have some merit, but only if that game is brand new, or part of a struggling franchise where a publisher might not think there is a viable audience to justify the expense of making a game.

Fallout 4 is the complete opposite of that. I have no doubt that ZeniMax was on their ass to make this sequel the second the third game shipped, and even through the development of the insanely popular Skyrim.

So save your $60. Or put it to better use now as the duder above smartly suggested. And when the next vault opens, give Bethesda your money with pride.

This. There really isn't any other reason to pre-order a digital game unless there is a steep discount or its available for pre-load.

The only reason I ever preorder games is to preload them if I want to play them when they come out (Witcher 3 being the most recent example.) That being said, this is far too fucking early to even consider thinking about preordering.

I never pre-order a game unless there is a discount for doing so, and I am sure that I would by it anyway, warts and all. Very few games cause me to do that, however.

I usually avoid pre-orders altogether as I don't support the idea of a publisher/developer making bank before we can see if the game is totally fucked or not, but you are free to do what you like with your money.

This isn't directed at the OP, but why do some people make such a big deal about pre-orders?

Have you considered the fact that maybe, just maybe, someone has saved up their $60 in cash, and just wants to pay it now?

If pre-orders are such a big deal in your life, you have a very charmed life.

Sorry, rant over. And yes, I am pre-ordering this game.

As with every game, never pre-order unless there is a big discount attached to said pre-order or unless it's a very scarce physical item.

I will buy it 100% if it comes with mod tools.

I however, will not preorder it unless it's up for preload or it's got some kind of bonus for preordering that's not a dumb reskin, or in-game caps. There's no reason to let some company sit on a $60 interest free loan for months on end.

I don't pre-order anything unless there's a release date, so right now I won't be pre-ordering Fallout 4. I imagine that'll change when the release date is announced, because holy shit do video games sell out fast around here.

I'll probably end up preordering on Steam, but right now, there's just not enough information to justify the purchase.

I know that there are refund policies on Steam now, but I'd rather use those when I genuinely get burned by a purchase rather than a safety net for when I willingly make poor choices.

I agree with this. The anti-pre-order jerk has been pretty strong recently, and it's just not a method that will work. I don't preorder a lot of games, but there are some every year that I get excited enough about to preorder immediately. Telling people to never pre-order ever just doesn't work, instead we should try to encourage smarter pre-ordering. Save it for the games you really want.

I somehow warmed up to the idea. Beats me why that happened.

I'll end up buying fallout 4, but i will wait till the reviews are out and the game is in people's hands. You are the boss of your own money.

Never thought i'd say this. but looks like i'm skipping out on a Bethesda RPG

Me during the Fallout 4 gameplay..

I getting that stupid fucking PipBoy edition. I don't give a FUCK.

Sorry, really excited right now. I normally don't pre-order games, but there's no way in hell I'm not getting this. It looks like more than I could've hoped for.

Let's all be calm and sleep on it. Never make purchasing decisions in an agitated state.

I am sure the game will be amazing, but pre ordering in general is still a bad idea. I'll probably buy it in 2016 after the inevitable game breaking bugs have been ironed out by people who want to lay down full price to be glorified beta testers.

I can't imagine buying a plastic phone holder for more than a couple dollars.

Actually, I remembered what I had decided about AAA releases - I'm buying the boxed version since in Poland they often are extremely cheap when compared to Steam. I think it was Far Cry 4 I stumbled upon with a price of 120PLN (less than 30€) in the week of its release. I think these are the death throws of the retail market. Let the agony continue for as long as it can.

Only games I pre-order have been the TW games, because I know CDPR have gone borderline bankrupt with each game they've developed. I know its strange but I feel the need to, they've guilt tripped me.

I will get F4 but none of it's pre-order bonuses interest me so I won't feel like I have to pre-order it at all.

I dunno...I think that Metal Gear Solid 5 iDroid case was going for like $80 or $90, I think. And that thing was essentially a walkie talkie iphone case from Ground Zeroes. That Pipboy phone case is much larger. But, It can't be too much more expensive. I'd be shocked if it was $150 or something.

I think I'll pre-order it. I only pre-order games I really want, from developers I really trust. And Bethesda is one of those developers I really trust.

Preordering a Bethesda game...lol. I mean, hey, if you like busted ass games by all means.

No people. You need to give them all of your money now. Buy into the hype.

It's probably one of the games I'll buy like a day before it's released. I've done it a few times with some big games and it's all worked out.

I mean, I'll likely get it on launch anyway, a day early and some random additional stuff is fine.

Apparently plenty of people are on board. Fallout 4 is, at the moment, #6 on the Steam top sellers during the Steam sale.

Oh man imagine I posted the shut up and take my money meme dot jiff right now. I fucking. LOVE. product.

Fuck preorders

@kishinfoulux: I'm used to it, really. I've played enough RPG's that have quest bugs, and glitches, and jank that I've just got a tolerance with it in RPG's. Oblivion got me with a pretty bad quest bug where I was stuck on a boat for a certain quest, and couldn't get back to shore. I had to use a rollback save that was like 10 hours back. Ever since then, I've just learned to have ALOT of save files. Though, for the most part Fallout 3 and Skyrim worked fine for me. I didn't run into many glitches or have anything major happen on the Xbox 360.

Fallout New Vegas on the PS3....now that fucking thing crashed on me an insane amount of times. To this day, that's been the only game I've ever had to put down and wait a while to come back to because of it. Having the game crash on me as many times as New Vegas did was a deal breaking type thing for me.

I have to say, too, that Todd Howard's straightforward approach to the Pipboy was pretty great, too, wasn't it? I don't even know if he was allowed to say 'fuck' on stage (because the Doom guy said "F'ing").