What makes you want to preorder or get early access to a game if an established brand is not attached (i.e. an indie game)?

What makes you want to preorder or get early access to a game if an established brand is not attached (i.e. an indie game)?

There are two reasons I would preorder a game.

1. I think I might have to wait in line for it or it will run out at stores.
2. I get access to a beta and I really want to play it right now.

Those two reasons aren't really applicable to a game with no past history.

The only other reason I would think about "pre-ordering" an indie game is in the case of Mount & Blade. They had a fixed raising price and buying the beta gave you access to all future upgrades at whatever you paid. ie you could buy the first beta release for $5 and would get the final release for free, if you waited a while you had to pay $30.

[quote name='zratchet' timestamp='1313517836' post='4849940']
What makes you want to preorder or get early access to a game if an established brand is not attached (i.e. an indie game)?

There are two reasons I would preorder a game.

1. I think I might have to wait in line for it or it will run out at stores.
2. I get access to a beta and I really want to play it right now.

Those two reasons aren't really applicable to a game with no past history.

The only other reason I would think about "pre-ordering" an indie game is in the case of Mount & Blade. They had a fixed raising price and buying the beta gave you access to all future upgrades at whatever you paid. ie you could buy the first beta release for $5 and would get the final release for free, if you waited a while you had to pay $30.
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Pre-order bonuses are also good reasons, like the extra robes/staff for pre-orders on Magicka.

I'll pay for a "Beta" preorder of an indie game if it looks promising, and they're asking a reasonable amount.

$5 for a decently promising looking game with a playable alpha/beta that has some interesting game play and well thought out/polished graphics isn't bad. If you're looking for more than $10 then the pre-release better look damn good and be very unique. Basically it boils down to me being willing to donate a bit of pocket change to an artist to help encourage them to continue with their work, but my money is limited so I'm only donating to projects that either think are likely to pan out, or ones that I really, really, really want to see finished.


However, if you come to me asking for $60 pre-order on your barely functioning, uninspired, uninteresting beta, I'm just going to laugh in your face. I could likely buy something from EA for similar price with similar risk of being junk.

I would have had to have caught wind of the game and really liked it almost instantly then kept checking up on its status every 5 minutes like I've been doing with Diablo 3, which I have preordered.

A preorder will give the company money early before they start, meaning that it is a lot more likely that the game will indeed launch successfully (which is not terribly likely for an indie game otherwise). If you like the game from what you've seen in beta or preview, that may be enough of a reason to support it.

And then of course, as way2lazy2care pointed out, you usually get a (often useless, but still unique) bonus item with "coolness" factor.

Some pre-orders also give you some input in games that's under development. For example, my game I'm working on (Note, I'm just using my game as an example, not trying to spam), a Master of Orion-esque game, if you donate $35, you can create a technology item to be added to the tech tree. Or if you have a particular race that you'd love to see, you can donate $75 to have it added. Or $10 to get access to the latest major build.

One person who pre-ordered said that his reason why he paid is that he really wanted to see a MoO 1 clone, but no other games has scratched that "itch" for him yet. Another person who donated $75 really wanted a particular race in a 4X game, this was his first opportunity to be able to see his race ideas in a game. I'd say that it depends on the type of the game, and the direction that it's going in, is a big factor in people being willing to pre-order/invest/donate.

Another big example is MineCraft. It's not "officially" done, yet millions of people has "pre-ordered" the game. The primary reasons are that the gameplay mechanics is very innovative (if you disregard the fact that the author was inspired by other games), fun, and yet is cheap.

The biggest factor is word of mouth. The more people that know about your product, the more likely you'll get more orders. This is why big companies invest heavily into marketing. If, for example, Starcraft 2 wasn't marketed at all, and just suddenly popped onto store's shelves, the amount of people buying it on first day would be drastically lower than if they've marketed the game.

Hope that helps!

If I pre-order an unknown quality, e.g. an indie game, then it's because I believe in the product. Simple as that.

What if a game is an indirect sequel (i.e. different genre) in a series the indie is doing?

Also, if a game has lots of content packs (ala MTG) would a 50% for 2 years coupon be enticing as a preorder bonus?

What if a game is an indirect sequel (i.e. different genre) in a series the indie is doing?

That's not applicable because the chances of a publisher either giving their IP to an indie or letting them use it is extremely small. If you're thinking about it, stop now and save yourself the anguish.

Also, if a game has lots of content packs (ala MTG) would a 50% for 2 years coupon be enticing as a preorder bonus?
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Not really, because I wouldn't know anything about your game, so why would the promise of extra content for 2 years be appealing when I don't know if your original content is worth paying for? That's something that MIGHT work for a AAA title that people know they will spend money on (say WoW or Fallout 3 or something), but not for an indie game that no one has played before.