Taken from this article by IGN which talked about this report by MCV.

What you need to know:

Ipsos MORI's GameTrack conducted a survey across Europe that included questions about pre-ordering history/future intentions etc. These questions were asked regarding pre-order activity over the past year. Within the survey, it was found that:

In the UK, which Ipsos MORI considers Europe's #1 pre-order market:

• 20% of those surveyed who had previously pre-ordered said they are either cutting back on or stopping all together. Reasons included spending money on other peripherals or waiting for prices to lower.
• The remainders included 5% who increased their pre-ordering, 49% who had never had pre-ordered, 10% who continued to do so at the same rate, and the rest of those surveyed who chose "don't know".

In the UK/France/Spain/Germany combined:

• 12% of gamers, which amounts to 10.3 million (according to MCV) have stopped or reduced the number of games they pre-order.

So what does this mean?

Over the past few years, I myself have definitely seen many gamers, including many YouTubers, and users on Reddit speak out against the pre-order practice. Editorials from gaming websites such as Kotaku and Cnet (as far back as 2012) have echoed that statement. Could the negative attention, burned pre-orderers, and crappy launches finally be having an effect on the market? I certainly hope so.

Now if all you wanted to read is the news, disregard the following write-up.

OPINION TIME!

I would love to see this turn into a global trend.

This Forbes contributor recently released an opinion piece entitled: "You'd Have To Be Crazy To Pre-Order 'Star Wars: Battlefront'", (very clickbaity title, I know) and I have something to add/ask, since this game is the perfect modern example. I know that a lot of people are going to pre-order this game based on its announcement and brand power alone. EA/Dice has not earned your money yet. EA/Dice should not receive the promise of thousands of purchases based on pretty trailers and lucrative bribes which they have waved in front of our faces like twinkies on a stick. If BF4's launch did not convince you to wait until reviews to commit your money, then think of pre-orders in this PG-13 way:

Mrs. Video Game has a Tinder profile. You see her picture, which is edited and in which she is wearing sunglasses (the announcement trailer). Next she tells you that she can touch her feet to her ears (the promises; the hype factor), and you start to sweat. One problem though; you're going in blind, other than what she has told you. Based on the great things you've heard, you consent. Turns out the graphics were downscaled, the gameplay was laggy as hell, and you start to feel a burning sensation within the week. Next time you'll learn to do it with the lights on, chap.

Anyhow, if you've made it this far, thanks for reading. If you have thoughts/comments/concerns/offended remarks to make, I will be happy to respond to them.

*edit* Added a poll

Ka-pi96 said: I gotta disagree big time. I love preordering. Preorder pretty much every game I'm interested in. I think more people should do it rather than less. And I'd love to see better bonuses for it. Honestly when they offer art books or steel cases or crap like that it actually puts me off preordering. If they were to offer early game access however...

Why do you love pre-ordering, and why do you think more people should preorder? The more varying opinions in this thread the better

I love pre ordering games as well. I like the bonuses and early betas. Gotta disagree with this.

Might I ask what games you have pre-ordered? Just curious.

The problem with preorders is that you often don't really know what you are getting until after release. How many games over the last few years have been broken on day 1 or not as good as they were hyped up to be? A pretty damn huge number.

Pre-ordering is typically bad for consumers because they don't know what they are getting and it allows publishers to abuse the hype and essentially dupe people into buying a sub par product. The fact that so many publishers lean so heavily on pre orders shows the lack of faith a lot of them have in the selling power of their game and they would rather you buy the game nearly blind.

One of my favorite quotes is someone saying something along the lines of "its not my fault I bought the piece of crap that is AC: Unity, I didn't know it was bad because I preordered it". They were so clearly pointing out the critical flaw with preordering without understanding it.

Only the The Witcher 3 and Batman right now. Just like ka-pi I like being guaranteed that it'll be in my hands day one.

Playable betas and/or demos are the one bonus I would personally accept. Instances like Mortal Kombat X made it feel like you were punished for not pre-ordering the game, instead of being rewarded for doing so. I'm not sure I agree with the day 1 statement however, as I do not think there is a shortage of copies available on launch day. Unless of course you live in a supply constrained region, in which case I detract my statement.

Sure they know what they want; I'm not trying to take away anyone's freedom of choice. But sometimes what the product they want is not what they receive at launch. I'm not so sure devs receiving revenue or the promise of sales right away is a good thing. If they have the guaranteed sales, and the ability to hold off reviews until after launch, not every dev is going to do the right thing.

Even though there is no real supply issue like there used to be?

One positive thing I can say is that those are good game choices. Both were delayed extensively so I imagine they should be good at launch.

Precisely. Thanks for commenting.

Hmmmm ok. Not much I can say to that.

Yes it is their fault haha pretty much what I'm trying to get at. They are enabling the devs to do as they please. The devs don't need the final product to earn the sales, they know they can get money with promises, hype and trailers.