The Price of a Pre-order

The Price of A Pre-order, Does it Cost Us Anything?

Walk into any GameStop and you'll see it, promotional material for the latest and greatest games. Pre-order incentives line the free-marketing spaces of the walls, of course no more free than just before the posters and products are perched into place. After execution of a carefully guarded game plan, designed to get in and out quickly, you reach the counter. The employees bandied conversations are of no concern to you. "Just pay and leave,"you say to yourself; but there you are and the many hollow benefits of pre-ordering are shoved into your face. 

"Well, are you interested in anything else today. You know that the new "such and such"is coming out, right. Why don't you think about pre-ordering it . . . please, please pre-order something, "begs and employee charged with upholding overbearing policies. You may at first question their motives and Gamestop's business practices, but you cave under pressure--or out of empathy.Then, just like that, your in for a copy of the "Super-duper-exciting-limited-collectors-edition, edition," of the "next big thing" from the next "big thing". 

Now, of course, there are possible arguments for both sides of the spectrum, when it comes to pre-orders. One can argue that they can help the brick-and-mortar retailers to accurately gauge interest, and by extension relay this information to the publishers, in order to produce realistic product numbers and delivery orders. This doesn't, however, address any issues with overinflated, unrealistic sales expectations--just look at the oft-cited SquareEnix Tomb Raider fiasco. Pre-orders possibly do serve to determine the sales expectations for future games in a franchise, but they can't do much to build hype, rather, they gauge it. However, I can imagine that limited editions can serve multiple, other purposes, but, again, I don't think that they raise all that much market share. Instead limited editions  can serve to reward devoted fans and day-one purchasers and/or it can serve as a slight incentive for those who are on the fence about purchasing, said game, early.