Dont i know it, as you stated they are always cheap later, and that "IS" when I buy them. I have taken my stand (somewhat) I drew my line in the sand with Origin, I really wanted Dragon Age (new one) but stood my ground. I want to wait on Warhammer but they have pulled the "screw you" on those of who wait, no chaos units. I havent bought it yet and am trying to hold my ground again, but i keep thinking Warhammer is the perfect setting for a total war game.
I agree, I'm part of the problem, but in the last year + i have only bought one DLC (fallout) and plan on abstaining from now on.. I doubt enough of us will ever do it to change things, but who knows.
Yeah, for me it depends on the developer and the content--IP that is at least proven (proven that they have put out great value, or terrible value, so a decision can be made).
Some examples:
Total War: always a shitty pre-order, day-of, anything that is full price. I think I got Shogun II for something like $23, with one DLC, about 2 or 3 months after release in one of the Steam sales?
Borderlands: I always came to these games late (1-2), so managed to hold off and get GOTY editions 1/2 to 1 year later for about $15 total for each...or less. I think I paid $7 for all of BL1? not sure. I came to love those games, so I actually didn't mind paying full price for the week of release for BLTPS, because I felt that I had been robbing Gearbox all this time (those are DLC that are actually great, and don't feel cheaply torn out of the base game, because the base content in those always felt substantial, and then you get nearly 2 more games for each Borderlands when you add all of the DLC content). Now, I didn't realize that BLTPS wasn't Gearbox, but T2 Australia...so of all of those, it definitely cheapened out a bit when it came to the DLC. In fact, it was so misleading with what they eventually released that it left me a bit sour on the content. While I think that one was the lesser of the 3 BL games, I thought it was still pretty good and probably received more flak than deserved....it still should have been priced a bit lower, imo.
Witcher: I never really liked 1-2 in my earliest attempts to finish those. I wanted to like those games, and I do like CDPR, and from what I was reading about Witcher 3 (never interested for me years) coming up to the release, I felt confident that if I pre-ordered, I would not be disappointed. I grabbed a deal for about 15% off, pre-ordering ~2? weeks prior to release, and I was not disappointed. I am not sure if I will ever pick up the DLC for that--it has been nearly a year since I last played it, but maybe once all of that is released and I can grab it on a deep, deep discount, I will do another playthrough. But discounted Witcher 3 on release netted me nearly 300 hours of play on a single playthrough, and none of it was disappointing.
Bethesda--ES/FO: For me, I guess this depends on how I am feeling at any given moment. If you have played one or two of these games, you know exactly what you are getting into: a generally unfinished game that is going to be a buggy mess on release, generally look mediocre-to-ugly by current standards, plays just like every other version of that game...but if you like that model is still damn fun. Infinitely moddable is the big pull, imo. That, and you also know that these games tend to go on a decent discount half a year, a year later, and they are mostly fixed by that time (well, by the community). You could probably say, well that's what those assholes at Ubi do, as well, so why support one and not the other? Fair point...I guess it depends on personal preference and which game, or model, one prefers. Ubi doesn't really have the same type of mod community and effort that Bethesda brings, though, so I always give Bethesda the nod.
I guess what I'm saying is that there are avenues where pre-ordering and DLC are good models that probably should be supported, but it is one that is far too abused by the worst offenders...and they tend to be the offenders that succeed the most out of bilking their customers: Ubi for the bi-annual Assassin's Creed tower climbing re-skin, EA for everything they have made in the last 10 and more years....the usual suspects.
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