Early game unlock for digital pre-order?

[Buzz]

We generally see that physical games are leaked or even officially available couple of days in advance. And people who pre-order digitally have to wait exactly till the date of release. Considering that with digital sales publishers see more money and no threat of second hand sales. Won't it be fair if digital pre-orders unlock 24-48 hours in advance? It will be an added bonus for people considering digital purchase over physical and would push some people to get it digitally. Thoughts?

 

[nsilvias]

dont give them ideas op

 

[Van Bur3n]

They already do this in New Zealand.

 

[Trace]

This should have been implemented years ago.

 

[Greywaren]

What's the point of release dates if you're just going to break them?

Also, retailers would get upset if publishers started doing this. More people would buy digitally and it would harm physical shops. Not a good idea.

 

[RadzPrower]

It's been known to happen, but is usually isolated to special editions and could largely be considered a final beta or load test.

 

[Buzz]

What's the point of release dates if you're just going to break them?

Also, retailers would get upset if publishers started doing this. More people would buy digitally and it would harm physical shops. Not a good idea.

Click to shrink...

Well retailers break the date very frequently themselves, don't they?

 

[Greywaren]

Well retailers break the date very frequently themselves, don't they?

Click to shrink...

They aren't supposed to, though. We all know they do, but they shouldn't.

 

[Deleted member 5764]

I'm eagerly awaiting the day where we take this a few steps further. Games go "gold" and are ready to be printed at least a month before they hit store shelves. I'd love to be in a world where digital versions of the game go out a few weeks before the retail copies. Basically what movies do right now between digital and physical releases.

The biggest downsides here are damaging retail partnerships, and developers needing to push back "gold" status. The latter is based on most games getting some kind of 1.1 patch for day one of release.

 

[Lant_War]

Activision did something like this with CTR, the game unlocked at 9PM of the day before.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

Certain services will give a preload option and also follow the new zealand option of midnight releases which you can use a VPN to unlock early.

So it's already unlocking early for plenty of titles, which isn't an option of physical. Not to mention certain publishers are/were already charging more for a special edition of a title that comes with playing 24/48 hours early like you are suggesting. Why would they leave money on the table when they can charge you more to play early?

 

[Zukuu]

I'd be a total sucker for that. That would finally be a reason to preorder something.

 

[Buzz]

They aren't supposed to, though. We all know they do, but they shouldn't.

Click to shrink...

That's why I think it will be a good idea. Maybe call it a Special Digital Edition or something is there is some legal issue in doing so.

 

[Mesoian]

We generally see that physical games are leaked or even officially available couple of days in advance. And people who pre-order digitally have to wait exactly till the date of release. Considering that with digital sales publishers see more money and no threat of second hand sales. Won't it be fair if digital pre-orders unlock 24-48 hours in advance? It will be an added bonus for people considering digital purchase over physical and would push some people to get it digitally. Thoughts?

Click to shrink...

Someone was doing this.

All it really means is that people getting that early unlock don't have access to the wider day 1 patch and will have to deal with more bugs. Or, if it's multiplayer, it moves them out of the beginners pool faster by having those who care about the game a lot cannibalize each other before the greater casual pool shows up.

For the developers and publishers, there's not really a great reason to do this.

Well retailers break the date very frequently themselves, don't they?

Click to shrink...

They're not supposed to. I remember a few local mom and pops getting fined for this back in the day.

 

[Shudouken]

For region free consoles like the switch you can buy the games on the australian e-shop and they'll unlock many hours earlier depending on what time zone you're in.
I find that kinda unfair, I think all should unlock at the time the earliest store unlocks.

 

[Buzz]

Certain services will give a preload option and also follow the new zealand option of midnight releases which you can use a VPN to unlock early.

So it's already unlocking early for plenty of titles, which isn't an option of physical. Not to mention certain publishers are/were already charging more for a special edition of a title that comes with playing 24/48 hours early like you are suggesting. Why would they leave money on the table when they can charge you more to play early?

Click to shrink...

I guess that's one drawback where publishers like EA nickel and dime us for this.

 

[Tunesmith]

Some publishers games in Europe already do similar things where digital releases on Tuesday and physical on Friday.

 

[ramoisdead]

It's already been done before. The most recent is Sega's Judgment on the PS4. Digital preorders for the game on the PS store get to play it days earlier.

 

[RadzPrower]

Actually, this is becoming common practice in the indie scene as many cases they cannot afford to make physical releases intially. Usually, this means the physical release come some months later after they have made some money, but I have seen some cases recently where the physical release was within a month of the original digital release, likely because of large preorder numbers.

 

[Fisty]

Eh preload is enough as it is imo, if you move the already arbitrary date to an earlier arbitrary date, that just becomes the date you have to wait for everytime so nothing changes lol