On my seeming constant disconnect with "The Forum"

[sandkid]

Yet the promise you mention can be obtained free of charge. Obtaining it in exchange for money still doesn't make sense from the perspective of consumerism.

This leaves is with the "show of faith" which is arguably destructive when misplaced and in no way concurrent with consumerism either.

Highlight and underlined.

You're not wrong. Again, there is 'what makes sense' and there is 'consumerism'. It's important to remember the second one rarely makes sense.

Chia Pets? Furby's? Ty Beanie Babies? Tickle Me Elmo?

Ok, ok, those are physical assets. How about the topic here: promises, right?

Why buy concert tickets in advance instead of at the show? To get good seats, which is a promise.
But gaming doesn't have that issue, you'll say. You're right.
Why buy a game in advance of release? To build hype and secure (hopeful) ability to play day 1 (and fulfill said hype).

Is hype a product? Absolutely! Is it arguably destructive? 100% YES IT IS.
Doesn't change that this is consumerism.
Again, Economics Rule #1: People are Stupid.

So, from the top, you're absolutely right if you talk to me, a similar-minded consumer. It doesn't make sense, it's an empty promise, and I'm throwing money at something that doesn't yet exist. I'm losing no exclusive privileges (that are meaningful to me). So, preorders don't make sense.

If you talk to many others on this forum, preorders make perfect sense. They want the exclusive access (of alpha, and now beta...lol). The 'show of faith' is important to their purchase decisions (charity works very similarly, though nobody likes to discuss that). They want to have the earliest possible access to a product because they buy in to the hype, and the hype is a crucial part of how they enjoy the product...even when they don't actually have the product, yet.

For a really silly analogy: preorders are a bit like buying Christmas Wrapping Paper, Ribbons, and Bows. It's an additional, unecessary expenditure (the opportunity cost of present value by spending earlier than needed) that is justified by the excitement and joy it will illicit prior to reception of the actual product. The truly money-conscience won't use wrapping paper.

Very few are money-conscience. That isn't bad. Christmas would be awfully boring, and I suspect we'd see a heavy knock on the economic boost the holiday gives if we all suddenly were astute with our finances. Frivolous (and early) expenditures serve a purpose, but the language and culture around them can - as you said - be arguably destructive. The implications of the consumer-heavy christmas tradition can find one of its foundations in gift wrapping. So, is gift wrapping bad? Or is it good?

Depends on the consumer.

 

[SouthernGorilla]

I mean, if you think the 66% of steam reviewers are all in this situation because of them, you're in denial.

I don't think anybody, even me, thinks nobody is having problems. But a huge portion of that 66% is people mad simply because they couldn't connect on day one. And that isn't a game problem, that's a traffic problem beyond the devs' control. Others were mad that ship interiors weren't part of Odyssey even though they'd been told well ahead of time that they wouldn't be. I know this because I saw the hundreds of complaint threads on the Steam forum about it. So, yeah, a lot of those 66%-ers are in this situation because of themselves.

When I first started playing ED, I had crashes regularly. It was very frustrating to be in the middle of an SC trip out to a base and suddenly get a freeze followed by a visit to the desktop. I could have been in the forums complaining about how "poorly optimized" the game was. Instead, I accepted that an Intel Q9650 with an RX 460 and 8 gigs of 866 MHz DDR3 was a suboptimal combination for the game. I will guarantee that some of that 66% are in a similar position as I was. I also know from experience that Windows power settings can impact game performance. There are settings in whatever GPU software people run that could make a difference. Sure, maybe things ran fine in Horizons. But that doesn't mean Odyssey will run the same. They almost certainly tweaked things to work better with the newer "standard" of gaming hardware. Does anybody know if more complaints are coming from people with a specific brand of CPU or GPU? Optimizing for one could impact the performance on another.

The overall point here is that not everybody is having problems. Which means the problems are most likely hardware related, operator induced, or even a corrupted download... none of which the devs could know ahead of time. If it works fine for some people here the odds are it worked fine for the devs and that's why they felt confident releasing it.

 

[Erei]

I don't think anybody, even me, thinks nobody is having problems. But a huge portion of that 66% is people mad simply because they couldn't connect on day one.

*citation needed.

If you look at the negatives,very few mention first day issues. In fact, did we have that many issues on day one ? A few snakes the next days, but not that much. We are not speaking Diablo 3 launch and the like.

I haven't played for a few days because the game have too many issues to be enjoyable for me.

OFC some people enjoy it despite the issues. They might even say they don't have any (love is blind after all). But if that was true for the majority, it wouldn't be sitting at "mostly negative" on steam, OA wouldn't have done several videos about the issues, Rock Paper Shotgun wouldn't have called the DLC a "deeply broken game", and the forum wouldn't be in flame.

Don't have issues ? Fine, let the people who have report them and discuss them so the devs fix their DLC and everyone enjoy it.

So, yeah, a lot of those 66%-ers are in this situation because of themselves.

Sure, it's not the game, it's the people.

 

[Dartay]

Highlight and underlined.

You're not wrong. Again, there is 'what makes sense' and there is 'consumerism'. It's important to remember the second one rarely makes sense.

Chia Pets? Furby's? Ty Beanie Babies? Tickle Me Elmo?

Ok, ok, those are physical assets. How about the topic here: promises, right?

Why buy concert tickets in advance instead of at the show? To get good seats, which is a promise.
But gaming doesn't have that issue, you'll say. You're right.
Why buy a game in advance of release? To build hype and secure (hopeful) ability to play day 1 (and fulfill said hype).

Is hype a product? Absolutely! Is it arguably destructive? 100% YES IT IS.
Doesn't change that this is consumerism.
Again, Economics Rule #1: People are Stupid.

So, from the top, you're absolutely right if you talk to me, a similar-minded consumer. It doesn't make sense, it's an empty promise, and I'm throwing money at something that doesn't yet exist. I'm losing no exclusive privileges (that are meaningful to me). So, preorders don't make sense.

If you talk to many others on this forum, preorders make perfect sense. They want the exclusive access (of alpha, and now beta...lol). The 'show of faith' is important to their purchase decisions (charity works very similarly, though nobody likes to discuss that). They want to have the earliest possible access to a product because they buy in to the hype, and the hype is a crucial part of how they enjoy the product...even when they don't actually have the product, yet.

For a really silly analogy: preorders are a bit like buying Christmas Wrapping Paper, Ribbons, and Bows. It's an additional, unecessary expenditure (the opportunity cost of present value by spending earlier than needed) that is justified by the excitement and joy it will illicit prior to reception of the actual product. The truly money-conscience won't use wrapping paper.

Very few are money-conscience. That isn't bad. Christmas would be awfully boring, and I suspect we'd see a heavy knock on the economic boost the holiday gives if we all suddenly were astute with our finances. Frivolous (and early) expenditures serve a purpose, but the language and culture around them can - as you said - be arguably destructive. The implications of the consumer-heavy christmas tradition can find one of its foundations in gift wrapping. So, is gift wrapping bad? Or is it good?

Depends on the consumer.

You make some excellent points. And yes hype, in principle, is also a product of consumerism.

However, regardless of whether hype is a product of consumerism, if being allowed to preorder becomes a commodity and goal in and of itself and, as such, becomes a wholly separate product from the product that is being preordered, can we still say that things make sense from the perspective of consumerism with respect to the product being preordered?

Things get especially weird if we consider that digital preorders have a detrimental effect on the product being preordered. Assuming the consumer wants the preordered product to be as high-quality as possible, a preorder would gain them one desired commodity (the gift of being allowed to pay money in exchange for thin air) at the expense of the other.

From a purely logical standpoint (benefit - costs), this doesn't make any sense. As such, although preorders are a product of consumerism, they're a perversion of consumerism and market forces at the same time. A perversion that is encouraged heavily by game manufacturers themselves – which seems to have convinced users that a preorder is a way of showing "love", "kindness" or "loyalty" towards a product they enjoy, even though corporations aren't people and to it, it's nothing more than a revenue stream for which they barely have to work.

Really appreciate your write up. Thanks for the elaborate response!