Why Pre-Ordering H5 Won't Kill The Gaming Industry

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

I’ve seen a lot of posts talking about why you shouldn’t pre-order Halo 5 and I’ve watched all the videos. I would like to take a moment to explain just how flawed this whole idea is.

To recap, the main anti pre-ordering argument goes like this:
When you pre-order games, you guarantee sales to the developers. If they calculate off of the pre-order numbers that they can make more money releasing an unfinished game before Christmas than if they delay it, they will. And if they do make a lot of money, more and more developers will do the same and the integrity of the gaming industry will be flushed.

Does that sound about right? Well it’s not. To those of you that agree with the not pre-ordering thing, you may not be aware of this, but the type of reasoning used above has a name and it’s called a slippery slope fallacy. A slippery slope is when a whole chain of events leading to an undesirable outcome (like more and more broken games in the future) is caused by one, small first step (like pre-ordering Halo 5). Common examples in life are such like “Allowing gay marriage will lead to -Yoink!-!” or “If you smoke weed you will never find a job and your career options will be ruined!” The problem here is that there is no proof that this will happen, and it doesn’t take into consideration other circumstances and other consequences. It’s a fear tactic.

Back to Halo 5. I have recently written another post about this so I’m going to keep this part short. This is what will happen if, indeed, you pre-order Halo 5 and, it does release unfinished. 343i’s reputation will be ruined, people will probably get fired, and the consumers wasted their money. It’s a lose-lose situation. It is the exact opposite of what 343i wants to happen, because like I’ve said before, Halo will not survive if Halo 5 is broken at launch.

Now all of you part of the anti pre-ordering movement are probably asking me to show proof for what I’ve said (and I will) but, in reality, you are the ones trying to convince us not to pre-order.The burden of proof is on you. What you need to do is offer us some tangible evidence that pre-ordering Halo 5 actually impacts the gaming industry. You need to be able to point to an event in history and say “This type of thing has happened before and it’ll happen again now,” because so far, I haven’t heard anything.

As for me, I would look no further back than to Battlefield 4. EA realized that Battlefield was not going to survive another launch like Bf4’s and, what do you know, Hardline is delayed. Battlefield survives. Undoubtedly 343i realizes what the situation is, and they will not let Halo 5 launch unfinished! So all of you go out and do whatever you want with your money. I personally will not be pre-ordering Halo 5 for my own reasons. I don’t know if I’ll like the game. But if you are confident in 343i and in Halo 5, feel free to pre-order it. It will not change anything.

2

Woah!I never would have guessed that the industry WOULD survive if Halo 5 got pre-orders.

3

However, I am very excited for Halo 5.

4

It appears people on this forum do not wish to listen to logic.

5

> 2533274882999606;2:
> Woah!I never would have guessed that the industry WOULD survive if Halo 5 got pre-orders.

I know, right? Never would have guessed some people would have believed that either lol

6

It seems like most games are released incomplete these days and only have 75% of the content while the rest will be available for DLC one month after the release. cough total war cough

7

Companies don’t even check the pre-orders before launch nor do they get the money, so you’re right.

8

I believe there is a direct correlation between the stark rise in faulty game launches we’ve seen over the past couple years and the rise in the emphasis on pre ordering that has also taken place over the last couple of years.

I don’t pre order games because, well…there’s no reason to. Stores never run out of copies. There’s always a copy there for everyone who wants one on launch day. Developers can earn my money with good reviews and good word of mouth from people who have played it. Not from pre released hyping.

9

First of all, you have absolutely no grasp on what a slippery slope fallacy is. It’s when someone says B will happen after A, without offering any reasoning or argument. “Anti-preorder-ers” are not saying preorders can lower the quality of a game for no reason. In fact, you directly acknowledge their rationale in this quote below, which means you defeat your own fallacy. Well done.

> 2533274886246836;1:
> To recap, the main anti pre-ordering argument goes like this:
> When you pre-order games, you guarantee sales to the developers. If they calculate off of the pre-order numbers that they can make more money releasing an unfinished game before Christmas than if they delay it, they will. And if they do make a lot of money, more and more developers will do the same and the integrity of the gaming industry will be flushed.
>
> Does that sound about right? Well it’s not. To those of you that agree with the not pre-ordering thing, you may not be aware of this, but the type of reasoning used above has a name and it’s called a slippery slope fallacy. A slippery slope is when a whole chain of events leading to an undesirable outcome (like more and more broken games in the future) is caused by one, small first step (like pre-ordering Halo 5). Common examples in life are such like “Allowing gay marriage will lead to -Yoink!-!” or “If you smoke weed you will never find a job and your career options will be ruined!” The problem here is that there is no proof that this will happen, and it doesn’t take into consideration other circumstances and other consequences. It’s a fear tactic.

That said, I don’t necessarily agree with this school of anti-preorder thought. I am against preordering because you are buying a product without any knowledge of its actual quality. In this era of gaming, there have been botched releases left right and centre, which has led to a lot of distrust towards games and developers we were once loyal to.

Given 343’s track record, people no longer find it reasonable to base their day one purchase on pure loyalty to the Halo franchise or 343’s past work. If anything, not pre-ordering en masse would send a message to the developer that the community has relinquished their trust in them and that they cannot simply coast of Halo’s legacy to ensure a financial success.

Now you mentioned that the burden of proof for not preordering is on the anti-preorder-ers. It’s not. Preordering, disregarding the silly bonuses, presents absolutely no advantage to the customer. It once had a place ensuring copies of the game when supplies were more limited. In 2015 this is not the case and has not been the case for some time. The burden of proof is actually on you. Why do you choose to buy a game, essentially on day one, with no tangible advantage? The only outcome a preorder (and hence a day one purchase) can actually ensure is being stuck with a cruddy game on release. If the game ends up being good, you really had no advantage over someone who waited a day or two after to buy it.

10

Agreed. It would just be terrible business to have another unfinished like MCC on their track record.

11

> 2533274886246836;1:
> I’ve seen a lot of posts talking about why you shouldn’t pre-order Halo 5 and I’ve watched all the videos. I would like to take a moment to explain just how flawed this whole idea is.
>
> To recap, the main anti pre-ordering argument goes like this:
> When you pre-order games, you guarantee sales to the developers. If they calculate off of the pre-order numbers that they can make more money releasing an unfinished game before Christmas than if they delay it, they will. And if they do make a lot of money, more and more developers will do the same and the integrity of the gaming industry will be flushed.
>
> Does that sound about right? Well it’s not. To those of you that agree with the not pre-ordering thing, you may not be aware of this, but the type of reasoning used above has a name and it’s called a slippery slope fallacy. A slippery slope is when a whole chain of events leading to an undesirable outcome (like more and more broken games in the future) is caused by one, small first step (like pre-ordering Halo 5). Common examples in life are such like “Allowing gay marriage will lead to -Yoink!-!” or “If you smoke weed you will never find a job and your career options will be ruined!” The problem here is that there is no proof that this will happen, and it doesn’t take into consideration other circumstances and other consequences. It’s a fear tactic.
>
> Back to Halo 5. I have recently written another post about this so I’m going to keep this part short. This is what will happen if, indeed, you pre-order Halo 5 and, it does release unfinished. 343i’s reputation will be ruined, people will probably get fired, and the consumers wasted their money. It’s a lose-lose situation. It is the exact opposite of what 343i wants to happen, because like I’ve said before, Halo will not survive if Halo 5 is broken at launch.
>
> Now all of you part of the anti pre-ordering movement are probably asking me to show proof for what I’ve said (and I will) but, in reality, you are the ones trying to convince us not to pre-order.The burden of proof is on you. What you need to do is offer us some tangible evidence that pre-ordering Halo 5 actually impacts the gaming industry. You need to be able to point to an event in history and say “This type of thing has happened before and it’ll happen again now,” because so far, I haven’t heard anything.
>
> As for me, I would look no further back than to Battlefield 4. EA realized that Battlefield was not going to survive another launch like Bf4’s and, what do you know, Hardline is delayed. Battlefield survives. Undoubtedly 343i realizes what the situation is, and they will not let Halo 5 launch unfinished! So all of you go out and do whatever you want with your money. I personally will not be pre-ordering Halo 5 for my own reasons. I don’t know if I’ll like the game. But if you are confident in 343i and in Halo 5, feel free to pre-order it. It will not change anything.

Watch out for those slippery slopes. There’s no proof of that. Halo 4 and MCC have been notoriously hated, yet 343 is still around.
Maybe Halo won’t survive because of multiple reasons.

By NOT preordering Halo 5, the developers will see that the community is waiting to see what the game is like and what reviews will say BEFORE they provide any cash. This obligates them to make a good product. It really is as simple as that.
Slippery slope it isn’t.
Maybe they don’t care if the reputation is ruined with H5 and just want to steal money one last time. You don’t know.

By paying AFTER seeing what it is, there’s no chance of them making money on a failure.
Their reputation will be ruined if the game sucks and we WON’T be out money.
If the game is great, guess what… we can still buy it, despite not having preordered. What a concept! Not a single loss to the consumer.

12

> 2717573882290994;11:
> Watch out for those slippery slopes. There’s no proof of that. Halo 4 and MCC have been notoriously hated, yet 343 is still around.
> Maybe Halo won’t survive because of multiple reasons.
>
> By NOT preordering Halo 5, the developers will see that the community is waiting to see what the game is like and what reviews will say BEFORE they provide any cash. This obligates them to make a good product. It really is as simple as that.
> Slippery slope it isn’t.
> Maybe they don’t care if the reputation is ruined with H5 and just want to steal money one last time. You don’t know.
>
> By paying AFTER seeing what it is, there’s no chance of them making money on a failure.
> Their reputation will be ruined if the game sucks and we WON’T be out money.
> If the game is great, guess what… we can still buy it, despite not having preordered. What a concept! Not a single loss to the consumer.

I don’t think you need to provide proof for such an obvious assertion of fact that if Halo 5’s launch is botched, 343i’s reputation will be tarnished even more. Lol, grouping Halo 4 and MCC together and counting Halo 4 as a “failure”. Halo 4’s launch was perfectly fine, save for a few bugs which were quickly fixed. Just because YOU didn’t like the gameplay changes doesn’t mean Halo 4 is “notoriously hated”. Halo 4 was a massive success (it still held a decent population). MCC on the other hand, its launch WAS botched, and it is what I’d consider a partial failure. The layout of MCC was pretty great, it just needed more work.

Your argument can be torn down by the simple fact that they don’t receive money until AFTER the game has launched. And do you really think the number of copies sold factor into whether or not 343i will fix a hypothetically broken game? They’ll fix the game regardless of its sales. Unlike you, I don’t think 343i thinks it’ll be okay to release broken games if people still buy it. I do trust 343i to release functional games just because it’s the right thing to do.

MCC was a case where it was only overseen by 343i, the people making it were under the time constraint of the Anniversary release date (off by a couple of days), it was a difficult task of tying four very different games together into a cohesive multiplayer experience, they had to port those games to the Xbox One, and they had to upgrade the resolution. That is no easy task under a strict time constraint. I do think the should have delayed the game, but the fact that the release date was Halo 2’s Anniversary date doesn’t help. And I’m sure pressure from Microsoft didn’t help either.

13

> 2533274943814993;12:
> > 2717573882290994;11:
> > Watch out for those slippery slopes. There’s no proof of that. Halo 4 and MCC have been notoriously hated, yet 343 is still around.
> > Maybe Halo won’t survive because of multiple reasons.
> >
> > By NOT preordering Halo 5, the developers will see that the community is waiting to see what the game is like and what reviews will say BEFORE they provide any cash. This obligates them to make a good product. It really is as simple as that.
> > Slippery slope it isn’t.
> > Maybe they don’t care if the reputation is ruined with H5 and just want to steal money one last time. You don’t know.
> >
> > By paying AFTER seeing what it is, there’s no chance of them making money on a failure.
> > Their reputation will be ruined if the game sucks and we WON’T be out money.
> > If the game is great, guess what… we can still buy it, despite not having preordered. What a concept! Not a single loss to the consumer.
>
>
> I don’t think you need to provide proof for such an obvious assertion of fact that if Halo 5’s launch is botched, 343i’s reputation will be tarnished even more. Lol, grouping Halo 4 and MCC together and counting Halo 4 as a “failure”. Halo 4’s launch was perfectly fine, save for a few bugs which were quickly fixed. Just because YOU didn’t like the gameplay changes doesn’t mean Halo 4 is “notoriously hated”. Halo 4 was a massive success (it still held a decent population). MCC on the other hand, its launch WAS botched, and it is what I’d consider a partial failure. The layout of MCC was pretty great, it just needed more work.
>
> Your argument can be torn down by the simple fact that they don’t receive money until AFTER the game has launched. And do you really think the number of copies sold factor into whether or not 343i will fix a hypothetically broken game? They’ll fix the game regardless of its sales. Unlike you, I don’t think 343i thinks it’ll be okay to release broken games if people still buy it. I do trust 343i to release functional games just because it’s the right thing to do.
>
> MCC was a case where it was only overseen by 343i, the people making it were under the time constraint of the Anniversary release date (off by a couple of days), it was a difficult task of tying four very different games together into a cohesive multiplayer experience, they had to port those games to the Xbox One, and they had to upgrade the resolution. That is no easy task under a strict time constraint. I do think the should have delayed the game, but the fact that the release date was Halo 2’s Anniversary date doesn’t help. And I’m sure pressure from Microsoft didn’t help either.

careful thinking like that is frowned upon in this shark tank.

14

Pre-ordering means that stores know how many units they can order.
W/O pre-order a store has to guess and when they guess the usually low-ball it because they dont want to end with extra stuff they cant move.
When you have a line then you can choose how far you will cross it.
When these numbers go to the publishers they already know how much money they are making.
This is why games are released on specific dates no matter the state.
Because on specific season there are specific bump in sales, etc,etc.
Publishers knows how many units they can move day one without anyone knowing jack about the game means that they dont have to worry that much about the game being in a good state. And this is mainly since consoles are like computers now and they can patch them eventually.
That is also a big factor as well, having the ability to fix it later. Before if the game was crappy there was no way to getting that fixed.

So it’s really a combination of things but pre-order does have a big impact on how publishers act.
We all know from the info out there that MCC was not in a state of release. And we all know that it came out because i needed to come out.
They didnt care about the players they only cared about moving units.

15

> 2533274943814993;12:
> > 2717573882290994;11:
> > Watch out for those slippery slopes. There’s no proof of that. Halo 4 and MCC have been notoriously hated, yet 343 is still around.
> > Maybe Halo won’t survive because of multiple reasons.
> >
> > By NOT preordering Halo 5, the developers will see that the community is waiting to see what the game is like and what reviews will say BEFORE they provide any cash. This obligates them to make a good product. It really is as simple as that.
> > Slippery slope it isn’t.
> > Maybe they don’t care if the reputation is ruined with H5 and just want to steal money one last time. You don’t know.
> >
> > By paying AFTER seeing what it is, there’s no chance of them making money on a failure.
> > Their reputation will be ruined if the game sucks and we WON’T be out money.
> > If the game is great, guess what… we can still buy it, despite not having preordered. What a concept! Not a single loss to the consumer.
>
>
> I don’t think you need to provide proof for such an obvious assertion of fact that if Halo 5’s launch is botched, 343i’s reputation will be tarnished even more. Lol, grouping Halo 4 and MCC together and counting Halo 4 as a “failure”. Halo 4’s launch was perfectly fine, save for a few bugs which were quickly fixed. Just because YOU didn’t like the gameplay changes doesn’t mean Halo 4 is “notoriously hated”. Halo 4 was a massive success (it still held a decent population). MCC on the other hand, its launch WAS botched, and it is what I’d consider a partial failure. The layout of MCC was pretty great, it just needed more work.
>
> Your argument can be torn down by the simple fact that they don’t receive money until AFTER the game has launched. And do you really think the number of copies sold factor into whether or not 343i will fix a hypothetically broken game? They’ll fix the game regardless of its sales. Unlike you, I don’t think 343i thinks it’ll be okay to release broken games if people still buy it. I do trust 343i to release functional games just because it’s the right thing to do.
>
> MCC was a case where it was only overseen by 343i, the people making it were under the time constraint of the Anniversary release date (off by a couple of days), it was a difficult task of tying four very different games together into a cohesive multiplayer experience, they had to port those games to the Xbox One, and they had to upgrade the resolution. That is no easy task under a strict time constraint. I do think the should have delayed the game, but the fact that the release date was Halo 2’s Anniversary date doesn’t help. And I’m sure pressure from Microsoft didn’t help either.

I know it’s obvious. I was showing how his argument isn’t really a good one because it’s also obvious that preordering is hurting gaming. It’s not a slippery slope.
Developers know the game has to be good if preordering is no longer an option. This is quality assurance at its best. Simple as that. Developers wouldn’t chance a bad game.
Again, if the game IS garbage, at least we’d still have our money.
The process cannot begin and end with Halo 5; it will take time.

All this arguing for preordering and you keep skipping the fact that it’s pointless.
You can buy the game after confirming it’s good. You don’t need to preorder in order to be able to buy the game.

Halo 4 IS notoriously hated. 20 thousand is NOT a healthy population. You act as if 343 didn’t admit to it not being well-received.

16

So far, the only counter-argument I’ve seen is “pre-ordering does nothing for you.” I agree with that, and I know you will still receive the bonuses if you buy the game after launch. But that’s not enough for people not to pre-order. Again, if you don’t want people to pre-order Halo 5, you need to be convincing. I think it’s harmless. And if I wasn’t totally clear in the OP, that’s because I also pointed you to another post I made detailing why 343i will try to make Halo 5 as good as possible (regardless of how many/little pre-orders they receive).

17

OP, I appreciate your level-headedness in this post. However, I think a clarification is in order.

Most of the people in the anti-pre-order camp aren’t making their arguments based off of clear evidence, and neither are you. It is all educated speculation, and I think both parties are aware of that. There is no way to debate based on hard facts because, simply put, the pool of data that would be used to establish clear trends and identifiable causes and effects is too small. It has only been for a very short amount of time (not even two years, I would argue) that the amount of broken games being released has skyrocketed. I hope you can agree that there is no burden of proof in this scenario because this scenario doesn’t lend itself to there even being proof. We are free to shift the burden of proof in scenarios where there is proof, but because this new trend in the gaming industry is unprecedented, there isn’t any.

Therefore, all we can do is make sound cases for or against pre-ordering. “Oh yeah?! Well PROVE it!” can no longer be a part of this dialogue. We have to use reason alone (in this scenario) to figure out where we stand on the matter.

That being said, I am strongly opposed to pre-ordering (at this tumultuous time in the gaming industry, not in general). I believe that all who pre-order are enablers of a corrupt business model. I believe they are giving up their right to protest lack of quality using the ONE medium that has clout in the eyes of publishers (money), and are thereby giving the green light to devs and publishers to keep abusing consumers. I believe they are either selfish or misguided (depending on the person), electing to grab their precious pre-order perks (or bribes, as they can now more appropriately be called) instead of standing in solidarity with the gaming community against abuse and greed. The requirement of hard proof is incompatible with this viewpoint because it is logically sound and, I believe, evident to those who aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid.

Anti-pre-orderers are justified in their anger toward those who continue to pre-order in light of recent events (but are not always justified in the way they choose to display their anger), and this is why. Every boycott has those who refuse to boycott because it’s too difficult for them – it’s not convenient. Who wants to give up pre-order perks? When that happens, the people who are boycotting get angry at them, because they are undermining the influence they have as a whole in order to bring about change.

If you’re still reading, please hear this: don’t continue to stick your head in the sand and pretend this (broken game releases) isn’t going to keep happening to us. It’s a nice thought, but it is one that is naive of greed. Use the influence you have, your money, to choose to not support the flawed business model of modern game publishers. FINISH THE FIGHT!

18

While we’re currently in the gaming era of unfinished products, I believe it will be very short lived, fool me once, fool me twice kind of thing, people often remember when they’ve been burned. That aside, I think certain developers are starting to take heed to this, as the amount of delays late last year and this year alone have been various.

It’s not about the pre-orders, or enabling and all of that nonsense, it’s ultimately about reception, from reviewer and average player alike, as it will ultimately feed the sales for the sequel or any future games the developer may create.

Just take Bungie and Destiny, Bungie were once greatly praised as one of the industries leading development studios. Now look at their reputation, shattered in almost all of its entirety. What this means is that now they’ve got to try even harder than they previously would have, because of their monumental failure.

It’s not a healthy business venture (or moral), you can try and scam people individually, but you can’t consistently do it with world-wide releases, it just doesn’t work.

19

> 2533274874116484;17:
> OP, I appreciate your level-headedness in this post. However, I think a clarification is in order.
>
> Most of the people in the anti-pre-order camp aren’t making their arguments based off of clear evidence, and neither are you. It is all educated speculation, and I think both parties are aware of that. There is no way to debate based on hard facts because, simply put, the pool of data that would be used to establish clear trends and identifiable causes and effects is too small. It has only been for a very short amount of time (not even two years, I would argue) that the amount of broken games being released has skyrocketed. I hope you can agree that there is no burden of proof in this scenario because this scenario doesn’t lend itself to there even being proof. We are free to shift the burden of proof in scenarios where there is proof, but because this new trend in the gaming industry is unprecedented, there isn’t any.
>
> Therefore, all we can do is make sound cases for or against pre-ordering. “Oh yeah?! Well PROVE it!” can no longer be a part of this dialogue. We have to use reason alone (in this scenario) to figure out where we stand on the matter.

You bring up a good point, and I should have covered that more clearly in the OP. In the judicial system, the burden of proof is on the prosecution. That is, proof beyond a reasonable doubt. All the defense must do is offer enough reasonable doubt for the prosecution’s case not to hold. That’s what I’ve done here. Reasonable doubt can just be an alternate scenario. I supported what I said with the Battlefield example. On the other hand, if you are here to convince us not to pre-order, you are taking up the role of the prosecution, and you need to prove your point beyond a reasonable doubt. I should have explained this, but it was late last night.

> 2533274874116484;17:
> That being said, I am strongly opposed to pre-ordering (at this tumultuous time in the gaming industry, not in general). I believe that all who pre-order are enablers of a corrupt business model. I believe they are giving up their right to protest lack of quality using the ONE medium that has clout in the eyes of publishers (money), and are thereby giving the green light to devs and publishers to keep abusing consumers. I believe they are either selfish or misguided (depending on the person), electing to grab their precious pre-order perks (or bribes, as they can now more appropriately be called) instead of standing in solidarity with the gaming community against abuse and greed. The requirement of hard proof is incompatible with this viewpoint because it is logically sound and, I believe, evident to those who aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid.
>
> Anti-pre-orderers are justified in their anger toward those who continue to pre-order in light of recent events (but are not always justified in the way they choose to display their anger), and this is why. Every boycott has those who refuse to boycott because it’s too difficult for them – it’s not convenient. Who wants to give up pre-order perks? When that happens, the people who are boycotting get angry at them, because they are undermining the influence they have as a whole in order to bring about change.
>
> If you’re still reading, please hear this: don’t continue to stick your head in the sand and pretend this (broken game releases) isn’t going to keep happening to us. It’s a nice thought, but it is one that is naive of greed. Use the influence you have, your money, to choose to not support the flawed business model of modern game publishers. FINISH THE FIGHT!

“The problem is, that’s a cute idea. But that’s not enough. Cause cute ideas can be completely wrong.” (Thunderf00t 9:38)
Here’s a quote by a brilliant youtuber referring to a “logically sound” idea without evidence. And I very much doubt everything you’ve said here because the devs and publishers aren’t going to continue to abuse the people who’s money they’re trying to get. And we’ve already seen this happen with Battlefield. Hardline was delayed until spring, and that was a huge lesson learned after Battlefield 4. And I’ll encourage you to go read this because most of the points I made in the OP are supposed to go along with this.

20

> 2533274833380875;4:
> It appears people on this forum do not wish to listen to logic.

no no they do not