This week a curious thing came out.  Adobe (yeah, the people behind Acrobat, Photoshop, and Flash) released a report about gaming trends.  I didn’t know they did this sort of thing, but it appears that among their other products they also have an analysis service that they’re trying to sell, which is where they got the information for this report.

What’s the big takeaway that people are getting from this report?  This year, pre-orders are up, and pre-order revenue is up, yet gamers feel sad about it.  This is the headline everyone is putting out about this, as they repeat what is in the report.  This is an odd claim, and missing context.  No one seems to specify if the people making those pre-orders are the ones who are sad, or if it is gamers themselves.  You would think that if this was some analysis of pre-orders, that the reaction would be based on those who are doing the pre-ordering, but I looked into the report, and that does not appear to be the case.

Pre-Orders

Pre-orders have been the object of a lot of discussion, not the least of which is “why are these still a thing?”  Adobe would appear to have come to a different point of view.  The slide in the report that concerns pre-orders is titled “Pre-orders increasing pressure on developers to deliver”.  I have no idea what that means, and there is nothing in the report to tie any information to that claim.  This seems to be a consistent problem throughout the report.

The Adobe analysis service does not appear to be a survey system, or anything like that.  Instead, it appears to be a service that scans social media and websites to get an impression based on certain keywords.  This means that the feedback they are reporting is based not on the people who are doing the pre-ordering, or even what gamers in general are saying, but who is the loudest online.  I could be wrong about that, though, as the methodology section of the report is very sparse.  If I am correct, though, this means that online posters complain a lot about pre-order culture, and this may not be representative at all of the consumers who do pre-order their games.  There could be so much complaining online about pre-orders that it completely drowns out the voices of the consumers who do pre-order.  Perhaps there are 50 online messages complaining about pre-orders to 1 pre-ordering consumer, which would account for the 2% anticipation score.

As for the “sadness” mentioned, this is literally the entirety of where that came from:

All of the information you see about pre-orders coming from this report is based entirely on this chart.

There is no context placed on this chart, so there’s no real meaning to take from it.  33% of what indicate sadness?  What are they sad about?  That pre-orders are still a thing, or that the game isn’t out yet, or that the bonus material isn’t good enough?  Is surprise about the quality of the pre-orders available, or that pre-orders are still a thing?  It boggles the mind just how meaningless this is.

Then there’s the point where pre-orders have increased this year, 24% sales and 33% revenue.  On the surface, that means that more people are getting pre-orders, obviously, but it doesn’t answer why.  In the Adobe report, it lists the following titles in 2014

• Destiny
• COD: Advanced Warfare
• Halo: Mobile Chief Collection
• Assasin’s Creed: Unity
• Fary Cry 4

Listed 2015 titles:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
• Fallout 4
• Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate
• Halo 5: Guardians
• Rise of the Tomb Raider

The report listed these titles in such a way that it was ambiguous if they were meant as examples of major titles, or the ONLY titles that were examined.  Either way, there appears to be a very simple explanation for an increase in pre-orders.  There are more titles coming out in 2015 that are more anticipated than there were in 2014.  Let’s try to line them up head to head.

• COD: Advanced Warfare vs. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 – Both Call of Duty games, appealing to similar demographics, and the series is on an annual release schedule, and therefore likely to have comparable pre-orders year to year.
• Assassin’s Creed: Unity vs. Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate – Both Assassin’s Creed games, appealing to similar demographics, and the series is on an annual release schedule, and therefore likely to have comparable pre-orders year to year.
• Halo: Master Chief Collection vs. Halo 5: Guardians – A re-release to a new entry.  It is very likely that Halo 5 had much higher pre-orders.
• Far Cry 4 vs. Rise of the Tomb Raider – Far Cry 4 did not seem to have the same resonance that Far Cry 3 had.  Rise of the Tomb Raider, on the other hand, doesn’t have as much buzz as Far Cry 4, but the Tomb Raider franchise history shouldn’t be ignored, so I would guess comparable pre-orders.
• Destiny vs. Fallout 4 – A new IP born into digital distribution in Destiny against a sequel the fans have been waiting years for.  This is much harder to guess, but going off of the surprise success of Fallout: Shelter, it would seem that the public is very eager to give Bethesda their support, and more likely to register pre-orders.

And there you have it, in my blind estimates, I would say that the lineups alone would account for an increase of pre-orders.  This is even only taking these 10 titles into account.  There are other games that could move the needle in 2015, like Metal Gear Solid V.

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