German gamers may soon find themselves unable to pre-order a number of games. With video game companies revealing games with release windows more and more frequently, a recent ruling by the Higher Regional Court of Munich has made it illegal for retailers to take pre-orders for those titles. The court sided with a consumer protection group who cried foul at retailers taking pre-orders with vague information, making it harder to reserve your copy of Death Stranding or other games that have yet to reveal a firm date.
The ruling didn't come as a direct result of a lawsuit over video game pre-orders, but the ruling does affect them. German retailer Media Markt was sued over a vague release date for the Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone in 2016, and the court agreed that consumers should know when they can expect a product to be delivered after pre-ordering it. The decision applies to all products, including video games, meaning titles with no known release date can no longer be pre-ordered in Germany.
It's certainly a win for the consumer in other areas, but it could prove to make pre-orders harder to come by in the nation. More and more companies are holding specific release date information until they're confident they can deliver, though even then a game is subject to being delayed until it's actually released. The decision also raises questions about what will happen to pre-orders for games like Code Vein that have been delayed to a nonspecific window after having an actual release date.
I just like to pre-order to remind my retailer to remind me... I doubt they're making anything off my $5 deposit per title.
The only real benefit I see nowadays is if you want to play it ASAP and you want your console to auto download it for you. That and the forced preorder bonuses but that's for another thread.
I pre-order sometimes, and have been doing it a bit more lately. Of course, I'm not in Germany though.