How game publishers make money off of "premium" editions and pre-orders.

Principle: People generally respond to incentives in predictable ways.

Question: How do companies make money off of “Advanced” editions and pre-orders.

Through the 2000’s, Pre-orders were commonplace for any major game release, especially console exclusives. A pre-order is when a consumer purchases a game before it is released, essentially making a claim on a copy before anyone without pre-orders does. Pre-orders were originally created to solve a problem for gamers, who wanted to get a game as soon as possible without having to risk their local store running out of copies before they got through the often hours-long lines. While this ensured gamers a copy of their most anticipated games, because they spent their money before the game was finished, no reviews are available to educate the consumer whether or not the game is worth the usual $60 price point. Trying to further incentivize gamers into separating from their money early, developers often create “pre-order bonuses”. These give items, content, or other exclusives to gamers who bought the game early. Publishers love pre-orders as they help ensure they make a profit without having to risk more investment money to ensure game quality. It also makes it hard for publishers to justify delaying a game to fix the game as people might demand their money back. Because of this, some publishers have become notorious for releasing buggy, glitched, unfinished games that could take months to fix with post-release patches, while having massive pre-order bonuses. This problem has been exacerbated by the now dominant online market, which negates the original benefit of the pre-order.

Game publishers also create “advanced” or “premium” editions of games, where they would charge an increased price for exclusive items and content that were only available with the purchase of that edition. While the bonuses gamers could receive were usually either progression boosts, extra items, or exclusive items, some games would cut sections out of the original game to put into either a pre-order bonus, advanced edition, or a DLC (downloadable content) which are usually developed after the game is released to keep gamers interested and playing.

While the creation of “premium editions” are still rampant in the gaming markets, EA being a particularly notorious example, the number of people who buy pre-orders has decreased because of the increasing popularity of online digital download platforms like Steam. While you can still pre-order a digital copy of a game, there is much less incentive to since the original benefit of the pre-order no longer applies, and gamers are getting increasingly frustrated with the shady practices of publishers who release broken games for the sake of profit.

https://www.svg.com/125676/reasons-you-should-never-preorder-a-game/ https://www.wepc.com/news/video-game-statistics/#gaming-video-content-market
https://gamerant.com/video-game-preorders-stats/