How do Pre-orders work?

On the day it comes out, do you have to bring in the receipt or do you just give them your phone number/card you paid with? Or do you do something else entirely?

zanderlex : Normally how pre-orders work, whenever a game is announce, 95% of the time, the game will be ready for pre-order, and depending on the company you go to, they can do a few things differently when it comes to the term of pre-ordering.

As for me, I usually go to GameStop (which is also called EB Games in some countries), and what I usually do is go at the check-out and ask about a pre-order on a certain game, and you can either pay in full or pay in payments. If you pay in payments, you have to put in a certain amount of money down which depends on how much the software/hardware cost.

On release date, you have to go to that same place before closing time to get a receipt ticket, WHICH YOU NEED, and once the game is released at midnight, you go back to the same store, with the receipt ticket in hand, and pick the game up.

IgorBird122 : If I go to the store on that day, how will they know I was the one who bought the game?

They didn't even ask for my name when I paid last week.

Do you have any kind of account with GameStop? I've preordered quite a few times from them myself, but I'm not sure if I've ever done it without a PowerUP card. If they didn't take your name, I'd assume you have an account and they used your phone number. Otherwise, I'm not sure. Are you there often enough for them to recognize you? Definitely hold onto your receipt until it comes out, just in case. And if you don't have an account, do you remember them asking for your number anyway? Maybe they took some info into the system.

But anyway, usually you just show up when the item should've arrived, say you've preordered it, and you either pay the balance then or (if you've already paid in full) just pick it up. They should have it set aside for you. In a perfect world you'd get an email letting you know the item's in, but that's never happened for me lol

I ended up doing pre orders for Pokemon and it didn't make any sense. First I pre ordered and I paid and they told me what day to come. A few weeks later I cancelled the order because I had to do it at a different location. But this time, they wouldn't let me pay and said I had to pay the day I pick up the game.

zanderlex : Not sure on that whole situation regarding canceling a pre-order because of moving it to a different location, because I have been doing all of my pre-orders at the same GameStop I go to. Not sure if it varies by different stores, or what, but normally with pre-orders, you usually pay when you pre-order it.


Unless when you canceled your order, was it around time the game was released, because if so, they might have sold out of pre-orders, because that can happen, although it hasn't happened to me, or even witnessed another customer at my GameStop have the similar fate though.