In my oponion the two recent Steam Demofests have been a breath of fresh air for the gaming world and might be the first good thing in a long time to happen in gaming. Since the early 2000s demos grew mainly out of fashion and have been replaced by Early Access™ and consumer friendly refund policies. If a game had a Demo it was often out of date and a subpar representation of a game. But with definitve events like Demofest, developers have the opportunity to show of their goods through free and up to date Demos without the fear of piracy or location constraints of gaming conventions. If some Indie Dev shows me that the game is 90% done and the release is with a reasonable time, I surley can spend 20$ to help polish out the last flaws before release. Indie developers are often ride or die with their games and could use the income as early as possible.

Ironically the last games I preorded where AAA games. Resident Evil 2 and 4 Remakes, both of which had extensive Demos. I played them and immediately thought "Yep, this is it, that's worth $60."

Demos are an effective marketing tool and can fully justify a preorder.

I recall pre-ordering EA's Battlefront back then. I only played it for 4 hours at most. Should have pirated it.

Remember shareware?

Pepperidge farm remembers

I started waiting for like a year after release. I don't have as much time to play anymore.

I'm relying on some of you folks to do a "trial" for me and let me know. Your efforts are appreciated 😛

I preorder physical stuff only, especially titles which are going to be in limited quantities due to low interest and number of copy printed.

Where I preorder still has a 7 day return policy as well so if it’s seriously bad or broken like Cyberpunk 2077 then I can just return and get my money back.

Don’t normally do digital preorders since it’s hard to cancel it and usually no point.

I have never pre-ordered a game.

I have however pre-ordered collectables which "come with a game" (despite the collectables likely being more than the game) or the privilege of being able to hang out with my friends at midnight to collect a game on release. And of those games Halo 2, Halo 3, and Battlefield 3 were the only 3.

These days there is even less reason to pre-order, but where I lived and the local small game shop, sometimes the only way to get a game within the first MONTH of release was a pre-order, where the store would literally..... Pre order. Its not a pre-order for you at the store, its the store ordering it from the distributor / publisher.

The very first game i ever purchased on Steam was a game where i went in for the 3rd week in a row and they said "sorry, still not had any come in for re-stock".

And now even more than ever is a BETTER time to pre-order. "Back in my days" good fucking luck being able to return a game if the 7 seals of security purity were not damaged. now, almost universal refunds for digital goods from most of the major game platform hosts.

What about pre-ordering for pickup? That way you have a guaranteed copy, but don't have to put anything down.

/c/patientgamers