Why The Gaming Industry Needs To SERIOUSLY Change

Pre-Orders & Season Passes

I've touched on Pre-Orders and Season Passes already, but that was in relation to a separate point. Pre-Orders are not inherently bad. Before the days of the downloadable games, it allowed the consumer to secure a copy of the game on launch, and gave the publisher an idea of the popularity of the game.

The problem is, with downloadable games, this is not a problem, as there is a copy of everyone, and the publisher doesn't need to produce as many physical copies and ship it to stores as most games these are bought online.

A second, major problem is, like so many things in the industry, Publishers and Developers have exploited this in an attempt to get you to buy the game before it's released, and sometimes before development has been completed.

For instance, say the next Call Of Duty gets 10,000,000 pre-orders, what incentive does the developers have to innovate and push boundaries in the game when they have already made their money before the game has even been completed? Season Passes incur the same problem.