Preorders declining industry-wide - Hirshberg
Activision Publishing president says reservations are no longer the most important pre-launch performance predictor
Bungie's upcoming shooter Destiny is on track to be the most preordered new intellectual property in gaming history, but Activision Publishing president and CEO Eric Hirshberg isn't putting as much stock in that as one might expect. Speaking to investors during a post-earning conference call today, Hirshberg said preorders just don't mean as much as they used to.
"It's also important to sort of reset expectations as it relates to preorders overall," Hirshberg said. "You guys can see the same thing we see industry-wide, which is that there's been sort of a secular downturn as it relates to preorders. We think that's happening due to a number of factors: Things like increased digital consumption, particularly on the next-gen consoles; titles being widely available on day one; and the decline overall for demand of software on the previous gen consoles."
As a result, Hirshberg said other metrics like awareness and purchase intent have become even more important than the number of preorders. Fortunately for Activision, Hirshberg said both of those measures are at all-time highs and climbing for Destiny when compared to any other new intellectual property at this point ahead of its release.
Later in the call, Hirshberg discussed Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare preorders, saying the series is "not immune" to the downward trend. However, he expects the series to lead the industry in reservations once again this year. He also noted that purchase intent for Advanced Warfare is significantly above last year's Call of Duty: Ghosts, and "actually in line with our past top performing titles."
Kind regards,
Martin
Since there is no shortage of copies going on sale either, there is absolutely no need for pre-orders. Or is there anybody daring enough to include something of value into a pre-order? Destiny beta? Free anyway, since it is a promotional tool also. Extra content? Will be DLC anyway, if it is good enough.
1.) You no longer need to preorder a game to guarantee you receive it on day one. I have always dreaded going into Gamestops during the last two gens where I would witness them telling their customers something along the lines of "If you don't preorder the newest Call of Duty, Halo, Final Fantasy, any other million selling franchise you won't be able to buy it on day one--ANYWHERE." I suppose the masses have finally caught on to their little trick. During the Nes days alot of stuff would sell out and even during the Genesis days you might have missed out on Sonic 2 if you didn't get there early enough. But today, outside of limited print run stuff, the majority of retail releases are very well stocked on day one. The only reason the first Dead Island was "sold out" on launch day was because most stores only received 1-2 copies per system but that doesn't happen much.
2.) Other than preordering at Best Buy(where you get a $10 and sometimes $20 reward certificate for preordering certain games) theres almost zero incentive to preorder. Some places like Target and Walmart will occassionally offer you a $5 gift card(usually an e-card in Walmarts case) but thats pretty petty for buying a $60 game. Best Buy's $10-$20 gift card can be used on anything in store and on top of that the amount you paid for the game(the full $60 or whatever you paid after gift cards and gift certificates) will go toward points in your account if you are a reward member(which is free), which means you can use those points towards more certificates and thus get more games cheaper. I have been doing this since atleast 2009 and as a result never have to pay a full $60 for a new game I want and always get points towards my next purchase.
There are occassionally some worthwhile preoder swag such as demo disc, figures, art books, etc but those are few and far between these days outside of getting a limited or collector's edition version of a game, which can sometimes be quite costly at release.
3.) The final reason people hardly ever preorder anymore is because you only need to wait a few weeks/months before you can get the same game for atleast 10-20% off it's original $60 price. It pays to wait since theres really no reason to be the first of your friends to buy and beat a game outside of bragging rights.
There are several more reasons but I feel those three will always be among the most important. Having said that, I still occassionally preorder one or two games from Best Buy a year(Halo: The Masterchief Collection is the only thing I preordered this year but thats because it cost me $30 new and I'll get points from those $30 for something else in the future) but only because thats actually worth preordering from time to time. I've never understood why anyone would preorder simply for a digital item such as a specific weapon, map or skin that are always suppose to be exclusive but then end up being released to the general public a few weeks/months later. But to each their own.
Until retailers as a whole get the whole preordering thing right, it will continue to decline to the point where a publisher will be bragging about receiving 100,000 preorders as their big milestone during their latest earnings call.
I'm hoping that part of the reason is because consume has matured and no longer feel the need to be hyped up enough by marketing to get games on day 1. They are happy for the embargoes to drop and for someone else to find out whether the game is actually good.
All hail digital!