However, with most games, I usually wait a while until I can afford them. For the absolute must-haves that I have to have day 1, I don’t like pre-ordering simply because it ties me down to a specific chain such EB Games, when I may be so impatient to wait for them to unpack and enter the games into the system that I’d rather just go to the Target a few blocks away where they’ve had them stocked for several hours prior. Rather than having to deal with canceling my pre-order and having to worry about a refund, I never put money down in the first place and can go to whatever store has it first and pay up.

If I’m going to want a game bad enough to have it day one, I’m going to want to go to the first place that has it, not to a place I’m restricted to due to a pre-order. In most cases, I generally wait a while to pick up games, though.

I have to say that I disagree with you on the whole pre-order thing; potential compensation (like you say: “…they’ll probably have the game in stock, and it’s not worth the gas money, anyway…”) is not going to keep the gamers coming to your store for releases–especially if that store is Circuit City, which is far from being a video game utopia. Pre-orders will. And I think certain large video game chains have realized this.

For a long time, I was with you on the whole disliking pre-order thing; then I realized: I’m buying the game anyway when it comes out. What’s the point of not pre-ordering it? “Fighting the man”? Putting five bucks down means I’m guaranteed a copy of the game. That money goes towards the cost of the game. The employee who does my preorder doesn’t lose their job for not getting enough pre-orders. I win, they win. What’s really the problem?