• What about Early Access Games?
  • Do you feel differently about Early Access vs traditional preordering?
  • If you are open to the idea in specific circumstances, what are those?
  • How do you decide if a game qualifies?

I’m interested in the community thoughts on preordering and I’d love to have a thoughtful discussion on the matter.

Personally, I’m against preordering, except in specific situations where I want to actively support the development of a game.

I have been thinking about this because there is a game I’m considering preordering from a medium sized studio, but the reason I want to preorder is for the IP, rather than the game and it goes against my typical stance on this. The game is based on my favorite book series and part of me wants to encourage more games be made based on this series. At the same time, the book series has found commercial success and as a whole does not need my help.

I did name the specifics here because I’m hoping to encourage discussion on preordering as a whole, rather than my example, but if you want to know, I’ll drop a comment and we can have a discussion in the comment thread. :)

EDIT: thank you all for the thoughtful discussion on this! I expected most people to slam preordering, but there was some very thoughtful dialogue here and that is why I appreciate you, Lemmy!

  • Sunsofold@lemmings.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 days ago

    That’s the sneaky thing about IP based projects. Even if it was a small indie team, even if they were in love with the original book, even if they had incredible respect for the original author and their work, a book and a game, or a movie, or an episodic show, are so inherently different as to make any IP deal simply a lie. They use different techniques, methodologies, and structures such that they can’t produce anything like the same experience, even with the same plotline. It’s a mask to trick people into buying the product, and the wildest part is that the mask can work so well that even the makers don’t realise it’s a mask.