I'm gonna take this with a grain of salt. Since it was apparently Kotaku(?) who came out with this story first - Knowing their track record and the source being anonymous, I'm gonna question the validity in all of this. Though, should it be true, then its just sad.

As I stated before, it all depends on the incentive of the company. Rockstar got a LOT of flak for the GTA4 port. Though they could/should have spent the time to actually fix that game, they didn't. Rockstar doesn't want their name any more tarnished than it has been thanks to that game. They wanted to do GTA5 right this time around, and if the amount of pre-orders was high enough, they maybe couldn't afford all of the refunds. Therefore, they had to step it up. As for schedules - that's another reason why pre-orders are bad. The company basically has an obligation to fulfill that release date thanks to people pre-ordering and expecting it on that date. If nobody pre-ordered, they could delay the game and nobody would be outraged. Regardless, supporting a company that releases something because of designated release dates rather than ensuring polished quality is still a poor decision.

How many pre-orders did GTA V have? Yet they still released a good port. Pre-orders have nothing to do with the final quality of the released product. If anything, if a game has a lot of pre-orders, it should put a pressure on the publisher to deliver a game that works, otherwise there'll be backlash. Also, like I said above, Batman would have come out exactly the same even if it had 1/10 of pre-orders it had. It was rushed because publishers run schedules and often games are rushed because of that. Nothing to do with the number of pre-orders.

I don't know the figures for GTAV, but can state that with a solid history in the last 12 months with Shadow of Mordor etc, no one would have thought the new Batman game would have been a bad port. And certainly no one would have thought the PC version of GTAV would have been bad, and they were right because it's an amazing game, expertly polished for each platform it's on. That makes it worse, dontchasee? They knew, they knew, they knew and still released the game on PC instead of holding up hands and telling people it's not ready for launch and will need another 90 or 180 days. That's what Rockstar did; they waited and we got a UHD product for PC that took a huge dump on the console versions, and got a whole bunch more for video editing. The reason Warner Brothers didn't is because they know without a doubt the quantity of people refunding is not 100% of sell-through preorders. As do all.

So what you're saying now is that the more pre-orders a game has the more the devs care? There was no refunds when GTA V launched btw.

Ideally, yes, that would be the case. But as I said before, that isn't how it works for all publishers. Rockstar seems to be the type that will cater to their customers. Companies like WB Games, EA, Activision, and Ubisoft just want your money. It's a similar scenario with unions - sometimes, unions are the only way people will even consider working, because it ensures fair pay. But not every job should be unionized, because can result in lazy work. Pre-ordering is the same thing: some publishers take that as "we're under a lot of pressure to get this done right", others see it as "well, we already gave the customers what they wanted so our work here is done". It's a matter of seeing patterns with publishers. Like I said before, pre-ordering can be a huge benefit to some games. For others, it only makes things sloppy.

Oh they do have to try now, if the game is not to my liking, I can and will get my money back and they'll see nothing, like I did with Batman The benefit is I get to play the game when it releases. Like I said, if something is "utter crap" I'll get a refund, nothing lost All pre-orders allow refund on Steam and Origin If a game launches at midnight and I want to play at midnight, the only way to play at midnight is to pre-order and pre-load The point is I could play on release day. I wanted to play on release day because I didn't have much else to do. The point is I wanted to play it on release day, as soon as it went live.

There is ONLY 1 game company who actually cares enough about consumers to never release a broken game (server issues aside), and that company is Blizzard. Their 'we will release it when it is done' policy is a model that all PC games should follow. Sadly Rockstar seems to be the only company that seems to share this way of thinking.

I wouldn't say Blizzard is the only company, but they're probably the best about not releasing an incomplete game, and they actually do thorough testing. I think Epic Games has been pretty good about releasing pretty polished products at release day. Anyway, Blizzard is also one of the only companies that does "expansion packs" rather than bits and pieces of DLCs. Personally, I much prefer the expansion pack method. I personally think the CoD franchise would have been much more popular if they only did CoD4 and then released expansions, rather than release 50 standalone games that recycled some of the same models, textures, sounds, and base-code.

There is ONLY 1 game company who actually cares enough about consumers to never release a broken game (server issues aside), and that company is Blizzard. Their 'we will release it when it is done' policy is a model that all PC games should follow. Sadly Rockstar seems to be the only company that seems to share this way of thinking.

Why stop pre ordering? If I want to play the at launch, I'll pre-order. If the game is turd, I'll get a refund.

refunds are never guaranteed, regardless of how its advertised. This is EXACTLY what the corporations WANT you to think/imagine/dream. Clearly eclap spends a lot of time watching CNN and other propaganda channels, and prolly also believes that the powers that be, have his best interests in mind. 🙂 Theres always one in every crowd, dont worry, just pity them. His/her own words condemn him/her.

'refund requests' 'steam will offer' 'you can request', 'you can receive', sure doesn't sound like a 'guaranteed event in any aspect, more of a 'at their discretion...so...does that mean I'm still 'running my mouth'?