Probably because several other games aren't up for pre-order either.

Jokes aside, RetroSpace doesn't have pre-order bonuses you could miss out on; and it's available digitally, so it won't be out of stock anytime soon. So what would even be the point of pre-ordering it?

It's a scrappy little indy game. Valve charges extra for letting you release early with a pre-order of the fancy pants edition. And there isn't a fancy pants edition with an artbook, soundtrack and some guff in the game.
Simple as.

Have you really considered how pointless pre-purchasing a digital product is? Or how nonsensical it is to buy something before seeing the reviews?

Originally posted by Adefice:

Have you really considered how pointless pre-purchasing a digital product is? Or how nonsensical it is to buy something before seeing the reviews?

I don't care about "preorder bonuses". The point I'm trying to make is the dev team was leaving money on the table by having wishlisting be the only option on the store page until the release date. I like it when indie devs make more money.

So what's the real reason -- does it cost more for Steam listings to have a preorder period lead-time?

Plenty of other games don't offer pre-orders, so it might be that there's some downside for a developer to offer pre-orders on Steam. Like, maybe Steam requires some kind of additional fee for pre-orders (since pre-orders mean Steam has to handle the pre-order money during a potentially much longer period during which people are entitled to get refunds.

I think it's also possible that the algorithm doesn't play ball with pre-orders. I've never really paid attention to that, but I believe I have seen games on pre-order being highlighted as "top sellers" on the front page duiring the pre-order phase. That could mean that the algorithm doesn't count those sales during release week; which means a game that everybody pre-orders has a lower chance of being highlighted in the "top sellers" section during release week; which likely means lower sales.

That's all just speculation, of cours.e. But I think it's safe to assume the developers weren't "leaving money on the table", since that'd mean there are people who're willing to pre-order a game, but won't buy it on release day

T.B. is spinning in his grave at this topic as we speak. Let the man rest!
RIP

Originally posted by LinkR87:

T.B. is spinning in his grave at this topic as we speak. Let the man rest!
RIP

What the hell are you blathering about? This game had a demo, and it was quite good; I'm not asking to just throw money into the wind here.

And again, the point of this thread isn't to give fuel to some dullard "gamers rise up" movement; *I want The Wild Gentlemen to make money*, since they released a very good game!

Thank you for an attempt at an explanation, Cahalith; I had the same suspicions, but I wanted to hear it from a member of the publishing team, if possible. By "leaving money on the table", I was referring to the development studio being able to capitalize on the sheen, the patina that a game like this accumulates through both word-of-mouth hype & advertisements in the period leading up to its release -- people are forgetful & impulsive, so making the game only purchasable *on its release date* does actually make the team lose out on potential sales.

What we can probably all agree on is that it likely didn't do the game any good to be released on the first day of the Steam Autumn Sale

Originally posted by KineticZen:

Originally posted by LinkR87:

T.B. is spinning in his grave at this topic as we speak. Let the man rest!
RIP

What the hell are you blathering about? This game had a demo, and it was quite good; I'm not asking to just throw money into the wind here.

sigh... nothing. Just an old man yelling about a bygone age and forgotten wisdom of the past... ignore me.