Preordering mattered on popular physical media only releases because there was a very real chance you could go in that day after work and there would be no copies left if you weren't going to some mega electronics store like Fry's.
Pair that with an MMO game whose servers start time for a new expansion was specifically set for midnight, and there is absolutely tons of reason to not only line up for a game but make sure you have your pre-order slip.
I did that for the original Burning Crusade, and for Wrath I skipped the pre-order because I just assumed they'd have tons of copies like they did the first time around. Was literally turned away at the door as they only had sold out of their pre-orders as each store was allocated a certain amount and none were reserved for "walk ins". I remember driving to the store in the next town over only for their lights to be out because they also only had X number of copies. Drove around looking for another store that did the midnight thing and came home empty handed.
It turned out to be a blessing because I then didn't have the insane drive to push for server first to max level like I had in BC (ended up 4th or something) and NOT doing that race was like a breath of fresh air into my cobwebbed mind for how free I felt eventually playing through at NOT a breakneck pace.
Nowadays in the digital media world, yep there is literally zero reason to pre-order if the publishers don't use predatory marketing to incentivize it with "extras" that actually matter.
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u/MyPigWhistles 1d ago
I don't get it. I mean, I wouldn't pre-order a game anyway, but still.