Skyrim - Dragonborn Preorders on Steam

You can now preorder Skyrim Dragonborn on Steam in anticipation of the February 6th release date. A reminder of the features:

• Explore Beyond Skyrim – Leave the province of Skyrim and travel to the coastal island of Solstheim. Encounter the Dark Elven settlers of Raven Rock and the native Skaal, as you unravel the mystery of a Dragonborn’s return.
• Become the Ultimate Dragonborn – Harness the power of the Voice as you face off against the first Dragonborn. Wield new shouts and spells including Dragon Aspect – allowing you to summon the inner power of a dragon to deliver colossal blows and strengthen other shouts.
• New Powers – Discover dark powers as you journey into a new Daedric realm. Collect books of forbidden knowledge and choose new paths for your skills and abilities.
• New dungeons, creatures, weapons, and more – Suit up in Bonemold and Chitin armors and wield Stalhrim weapons as you navigate through a myriad of dungeons. Battle formidable foes like Ash Spawn, Rieklings, and more.

More information.

Also a good reminder to tell Steam NOT to auto-update the game. Thanks!

Why would anybody preorder on Steam and give them an interest-free loan for no reason? Unless they're giving out bonuses, the concept of a digital preorder is utterly pointless for anything other than getting your money sooner for no tangible benefit. It's not like they're going to run out of copies…

People have different motivations. Why do you care how I spend my money?

I can think of at least three different reasons why I might preorder and I'm sure there are others.

1) This is an insignificant amount of money to me. Preordering gets it out of the way and possibly lets me preload, so I can play as soon as possible, if this was a title I really wanted to play. It releases next next - $24.95 extra in my account for one week is going to make absolutely no difference to anything - I'm not going to get any measurable extra interest at my end. What do I care if Steam makes a little interest? (and it is a little)

2) I have sometimes gotten better prices. When they first release a game for preorder they sometimes forget to apply the regional pricing. I preordered Skyrim on Steam for ~$50 but later they remembered to make it $89.99 for Australians.

3) If it wasn't a trival amount for someone, it might help their budgeting. If they really wanted to play it and just got paid, someone might buy it this week rather than next week when they don't get paid.

I'm sure there are others.

Is it the 6th now? I thought it was the fifth.

It will unlock Feb 5 here in the US, according to the Steam store page.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
People have different motivations. Why do you care how I spend my money?

Because the world's resources are limited.

I've never pre-ordered on steam. I only pre-order when there's a worthwhile bonus that comes with it. (almost never).

I will buy Dragonborn the moment I know it's compatible with the Unofficial Skyrim Patches. But not before.

I'm not a big fan of pre-ordering and it's unfortunate that so many people are, because a lot of publishers/developers are exploiting this mindset with an endless array of trivial "advantages" to make people invest sight unseen.

The reason I "care" about what people do with their money is that it can potentially harm the industry that we all depend upon for our games. Unfortunately, other people have a very direct influence on what happens in the future, because publishers and developers are using our actions and inactions to determine how to approach the market.

I think it ties into the whole DLC insanity too much to ignore.

That said, it's a minor battle and one that I've already lost. So, it's not like it's a big deal.

I rarely pre-order, and only if there is a bonus attached to it. Risen 2 had the Treasure Island DLC and a discount on Amazon so I ordered it the day before release to get those.

The only thing on Steam I pre-ordered was Kings Bounty Warriors of the North. It came with a special armor set, but the problem was that the armor made the early game very unbalanced - it was too effective to really be used when you were low level. Every battle was too easy and I ended up having to remove it to add the element of risk.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I'm not a big fan of pre-ordering […]
I think it ties into the whole DLC insanity too much to ignore.

Day-one DLC is the worst development in recent years. Like Mass Effect 3: From Ashes! That is just cheating your customers, especially those that pre-ordered your game. I hope Bethesda will never do that.
Also, the DLC for many games now costs more than the game itself! I can get Skyrim for € 20,-. Same price as Dragonborn. That is… wrong.

I'd like to buy Dragonborn. And Dawnguard. And even Hearthfire. But they left the vanilla game with a lot of bugs and that 'bugs' me. I'll pick these up when they are bundled and at a discount. For the rest of you, have fun.

I'd like to buy Skyrim, too, but Steam does not offer it in my region, apparently. I wish to express my frustration here in that regard.

*grinds teeth*

Alright, done.

I started another character in Skyrim a couple months ago after putting it down about a year ago when I was midway through it, but this time I got pretty modded-up before starting again.

Surprisingly (to me), I'm still going strong and enjoying myself, and I've now played this game longer than I've played any prior Elder Scrolls game. But a big reason why are the mods that I applied, and there are already signs that some of them aren't being kept up to date with the DLCs. I'm a big fan of the trio of crafting mods, and at the time I grabbed them there were lots of complaints that the author was MIA on updates for Dawnguard.

So I'll likely continue playing my modded vanilla game and then put it aside when I'm done.