Preordering games has always been something that is alluring to me. Having spoken with quite a few people recently, it seems that I'm actually in the minority, rather than the majority. I play a lot of games (too many, really) but I always thought that any gamer, casual or hardcore, would feel the same way towards preordering as I did. Let me give you a bit of an insight in to why I preorder:

I live in the middle of nowhere in England, so I've always bought my video games online. By preordering, I get my games either one or two days before release, which I consider to be a huge bonus, especially considering I don't live near enough to anywhere that I can afford to drive out to the nearest video game store and actually pick up the game. The other huge benefit is that there is no deposit that has to be placed on the games and I can just cancel them at any time, should I want to. A little side note to this point is that, by ordering online at the sites I use, whatever the lowest price the game goes to, that's the price I pay, regardless of if it actually goes back up again or not.

So that's my reasons. In my mind, I can't see a reason why preordering wouldn't be a good idea (obviously, this is providing you can actually afford the game in the first place. If you couldn't, this would be an entirely moot point). The only conclusion as to why someone wouldn't want to preorder a game under the circumstances I have stated is that people don't like the prospect of paying a potentially higher price, despite the fact it could take between one and two months for that price to start to fall. It brings an interesting thought to mind though: Would preorders become far more used if there was, say, free exclusive content, purely for preordering, or maybe a reduced price (even if it's only £5/£10 off of the RRP)?

It really seems to be a two-sided coin that both sides are very clear on. On one side, there's the fact that you have the game before it is released and it didn't cost you a deposit in the process to do that. On the other side, you're paying the highest price for a video game that could have a price crash as soon as three days after launch (I've seen it happen, unfortunately) or, because you got it before release, you may have got it before the reviews were out and ended up stuck with a terrible game.

I hope that preorders do take off more than they already have because, at least to the minority (I can't be alone in this), it is a worthwhile why of getting the absolute latest video games at the earliest possible time. There will always be people who will be picking up last years games in the preowned section of a store as if they were new, but most gamers (at least hardcore), keep up with games from the last month or two.

Big side note: Of course, I realize this is written from a biased P.O.V., coming from someone who has a total of 18 preorders on for the rest of this year. :p