An interesting trend I have seen in the gaming industry is the incentive to provide an ‘early’ start to player who pre-order games or buy deluxe editions of certain games before release. This can be as little as the day before release date, to sometimes multiple weeks before the actual slated time for release that is noted in all the marketing. It’s an odd thing to do, essentially giving people the incentive to play before anyone else, but I can say it is most probably effective.
I bring this up because I just found out that Starfield, Bethesda’s big new RPG, is getting an early release on September 1st for all those who got the premium edition of the game rather than everyone else, including Game Pass users, who will be getting the standard September 5th start. Now in this instance I don’t actually mind as Bethesda games are notoriously buggy and so those playing early may have to contend with game breaking bugs that a day 1 (or I guess… 5 in this case?) patch would resolve. However the trend of this being an incentive should actually be looked at in a different light. Instead of people getting to play the game several days early, it’s actually just delaying those who didn’t fork out the extra cash to play on the ‘real’ release date. It’s a lame practice that is purely done to incentivise people pre-ordering games rather than offering people a true bonus for their money. But I guess in this world of FOMO time really is money, so for those that bought into this early I wish you the best of luck, I certainly won’t be joining you.
What do you think of this practice? Do you think it’s fine, or actively partake in it, or would you rather companies stopped doing this? Share your thoughts in the comments! That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.