Germany Bans Pre-Orders for Video Games Without a Specific Release Date

Mira Yurizaki · July 17, 2018

If there was one thing GameStop did right, it was allowing me to reserve a copy of the game for $5. If I didn't want the game anyway, I could get a refund (or they may have turned it into GameStop dollars, I forget).

I guess this happy medium won't ever exist again.

vanished · July 17, 2018

9 hours ago, Peskanova said:

I love people like you, waving freedom flag like you are told to do so, Germany is a democracy they can kick that law if they want, but they have the freedom to protect themselves against scams.

Instead saying freedom as a excuse to ignorance just inform a bit more, did you know that Germany are one of the best democracy in the whole world? , just as a canadian try to go and live in germany (without a job, find one there) and do the oposite in your country with a german citizen.... Im not from Germany dude but just saying that's against freedom is just misunderstanding democracy,freedom,germany and their people.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say but it's somehow both wrong and nonsensical at the same time. First of all, I'm 100% correct in saying this is "against freedom".

Just because ultimate unbridled freedom is sometimes arguably not the best way to go (see freedom to starve), doesn't mean that the measures taken to prevent this aren't a reduction in freedom. Yes, they have the freedom to protect themselves from scams, either by just being smart and noticing and avoiding them, or by voting in laws that prevent companies from making them in the first place. And arguably, that is the right move. But again, this is still reducing freedom. Freedom means the right and ability to be scammed.

Second, it's well known that Germany is more restrictive of certain rights than many other places (see laws related to and as a result of Nazism), so they very well may be "one of the best democracy in the whole world", but that really isn't very relevant.

Speaking of not very relevant, the ease with which a German citizen could move and start working here, compared with the ease of doing the inverse is totally and completely irrelevant so I'm not sure where you're going with that. I also have no off-hand info on how hard either would be, so unless you can also provide some it's really a hopeless discussion.

1 hour ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If there was one thing GameStop did right, it was allowing me to reserve a copy of the game for $5. If I didn't want the game anyway, I could get a refund (or they may have turned it into GameStop dollars, I forget).

I guess this happy medium won't ever exist again.

That's one of the additional benefits of digital distribution - no need to reserve a game because you can't run out of copies of digital data If 1000 people in your neighbourhood decide to download it, it might be slow but it'll still work. If they all made a run on Best Buy, that's gonna be a bad time for all.