Games

No. You don't preorder it.

The only reason why preordering was a thing to begin with was to secure last minute funding for small devs to buy the infrastructure they would need to support their game after release.

Starfield is not made by a small dev studio. They have billions of dollars behind them and preordering will not impact the course of its release, nor will preordering 'reward the developers', as they are paid in fixed wages and have no financial stake in its success beyond maybe a tiny token bonus. (This is also why we consider Piracy justifiable for non-indie games. )

There will be no material benefit for you to preorder vs buying once the game is released and public opinions on its state become available.

P.S, you're on Lemmygrad. You're not going to get a different answer.

You have much more to lose than you do to gain when you preorder. Just remember the biggest blunders in gaming in the past 2 or 3 years, and how you would have felt if you put money down on them. Just wait until launch day and pick it up then, or wait a day after it launches for the reviews to come out. You can wait.

Why not just get a month or two of game pass instead?

Why would you pre order a game at all? Like sometimes they offer bonuses, but it’s just a way to trick you into giving them the money without seeing the final product. Just buy it day 1 if you want, but never pre order

Physical: Only something with limited availability. Basically collector's editions of stuff. Even then, you are paying a premium for an art book and some odds and ends. I have a friend that preorders all the FFXIV expansion collector's editions, which is a faily safe bet because they already know they like the base game. Personally these are never worth it for me.

Digital: Never. There's the whole crowdfunding-for-indie-games argument (which starfield is decidely not), but that is totally different discsussion in my opinion.

In the event there is some kind of digital preorder bonus that you actually want, you can always wait to an hour before release to "preorder", after reviews have already circulated.

I don't understand pre-ordering games at all. Do they limit sales somehow? Can't you just buy it on the day it's released? I only play games when they come down in price so I've never tried to buy a game on release day.

(Books, however, I regularly pre-order but only when I know the author has finished the book and there's a definite release date; this way it gets shipped to arrive on the release date and I can help authors get up the best seller list (that's why you see all those obscure Marxists at the top of the NYT bestseller list all the time – it's me buying one copy).)

Pre-order ❎

Pirate before launch ✅

On a serious note, you usually gain nothing of value when you pre-order (and if you do, that's a big red flag). It's usually best to just wait until the review embargo, and the inevitable leaked cracks if the game is popular, to see the public verdict if the game is worth it. With modern broadband it's rare for a game download to last a week like it used to back in the day, so you won't be missing out on much if you just buy the game on launch day, or more likely, on the following weekend when you can actually play it.

Pre-ordering is usually just a corporate ploy to hike stock prices and hype, and that money often won't even be used in the actual development of the game. Specially considering the lay-offs (and burned out developers leaving) that happen right after launch.

Speaking as someone who played Mass Effect Andromeda day one and regrets getting Elden Ring full price, sometimes you can wait a little bit. Maybe save a buck or two on an early used copy, even.

Never pre-order stuff.

I don't recommend ever pre-ordering games, especially so-called AAA games. Wait until thorough reviews and gameplay footage has been released.

Just get Gamepass and play it day 1. Preorder bonuses are such a desperation cash grab.

I used to pre-order a ton because I like collecting physical games and some come with special launch versions but now that I'm older I do it a lot more selectively. These days I pretty much only pre-order a game if I'm 100% sure I will love it (like I pre-ordered the Death Stranding collector's edition because I love Kojima's weirdass games and it ended up being one of my favorite games ever). Sometimes I'll pre-order a game if it's from a smaller-ish studio and I really liked their previous work (like Larian's DOS/BG3, Owlcat's Pathfinder games, Guild Wars 2 expansions, Yoko Taro's stuff, etc.) because I'm familiar with the kind of work those studios do and know I'll be getting it anyway.