You’re all missing the point here, Elden Ring and how amazing it may or may not be does nothing matter. The practice of companies not having to try anymore as long as they make their money back on pre orders and launch day is sustained by people buying ANY pre orders, for any game, and proving that it’s viable. It doesn’t fucking matter if FromSoftware have made an amazing game here, you still shouldn’t pre order because you didn’t know it would be amazing before you actually got it, and paying for a game on promises is what attracts shitty derivative marketing executives to the industry like blood in the water attracts sharks. The reason so many games are derivative shit these days that barely scrapes the bottom line of average is because gamers as consumers have been tricked into paying for products that barely exist yet because some guy at E3 flashed a logo. It needs to stop, period, no exceptions.