Yes, it is. That's your opinion.

Isn't this already the case? Nothing beats a YT let's play.

Hmm, now that I've actually had the 20 minutes to listen to that video he does bring up some good points, and many I hadn't considered because my pre-orders don't typically work like that.

He does criticize Gamestop console pre-orders, but most of his criticism focuses on how Steam works, and you know what? He's got a point.

My pre-orders work thus:

Gamestop: Want it, throw 5 bucks down when I am otherwise there for some other reason (either a pick up, grabbing a Skylander for my daughter - those are scams btw, just a fun scam), day of release the review embargos are broken and anything tragically bad shows up on my news feed. Given his point that I might be psychologically influenced by having put down 5 bucks into being more likely to follow through I'll probably switch to explicitly checking several reviews before I pick up.

Amazon.com: Pre-order, no money is charged until it ships, shows up on my front porch, free shipping on day of release. This is even better because if I don't rip open the shrink wrap I have a couple of days (in theory longer, but I don't typically pre-order games I don't intend to play right away) to find out if it's tragic, I can set up a refund with a couple mouse clicks, print out the generated shipping label and walk a block to the UPS store or the USPS and ship it back. Typically costs a dollar or a dollar and a half, given that the drive to Gamestop and back easily consumes that much gas I probably, all in all, come out ahead on this.

So, with regards to the video, individually this isn't a bad thing for me, but it may contribute to shit development practices at times. I don't share his hate for day 1 DLC because it's not all created equal. Some is really a douche bag move and really should have been in the main game, most, however, is simply shit they did during certification, isn't necessary to get a complete experience out the game, and, finally, is shit we seem to buy way more often if it's available on release.

Steam is... worse than the above, as he said, by the time the reviews are out you're basically fucked. I think I've only pre-ordered one game from Steam (as it's my 2nd class gaming experience) and it was something that had a demo which I actually liked (XCom if you were wondering). Because of the demo I was relatively certain I wanted the game, it could have been a lie, of course, but less likely than other marketing efforts.

Given that video, I would agree, Steam pre-orders are probably toxic to consumers and possibly very bad for the industry. I'll have to consider if the industry and consumer harm of console pre-orders exceeds the personal benefits and whatever industry benefits there may be.

I don't understand why TB not criticised the TF2 pre-order crap .

I'll grant there probably are redeeming qualities to the game, but all the videos I've seen with the Xenos simply charging, hitting you once, backing off and giving you about 2 seconds to light them up has pretty much convinced me I'll only enjoy this for cheap and when drunk.

Obviously you're completely right that some reviewers are giving rather shit reasons for not liking them game. And if we want to believe the "in game" demo was shit that was spruced up for the press before it was ready, and they intended to get it in the game, then they simply really just ran out of time. This is still bullshit from a consumer perspective, but had the developer been honest, they'd have been sued no doubt.

Gearbox can do one thing to make up for this and it's the same thing Bioware did: "We fucked up and owe our fans, we finish development and release it as free DLC".

Now I very much like Pitchford and Gearbox, I hope to see them step up like this because I do think they are good guys (Duke Nukem notwithstanding). I won't hold my breath though, I'll probably keep playing Borderlands 2 or something in the meantime and cheer them on if they happen to do the right thing.
He seemed to be sticking to much newer titles (Fable III was the only older one, which is silly, since Journey had the same problem), frankly, he has 100s of games to choose from, he couldn't even put in a fraction at this point.

Human beings are not simple, our motivations, opinions and actions are all built in complex formulas based on much more than personal opinion. Social factors highly influence us though we combine ignorance with self deception to limit our acknowledgement of that. When a game like Warfighter or Colonial Marines gets dogpiled like this, it usually says to me something about this game sent up a social flag that triggered such a response.

If you watch youtube gameplay of the game without editing it looks pretty average. The reviews that pan it rarely going into specifcs about what was so broken or different from any other modern railroad campaign that makes it so terrible.

Reviews are still popular and many people care about them, so I would say that they are still significant even tho I personally despise them. But fortunately more and more people seem to avoid them.

That's why I said to judge the reviews based on their (or lack of) merit, on the quantity/quality arguments the reviewer makes to justify why he/she like/don't like the game and not just dismiss them because they share the "majority" opinion and are therefore probably "influenced".

I don't know, the ones I read/watched were pretty clear about what they didn't liked about the game, from the totally broken ally AI to the as equally broken enemy AI, to the numerous glitches, that it felt unfinished, etc... all that with plenty of examples.

It was less broken AI and more "I wish it played different." The aliens run at you and the humans pop in and out of cover, like a CoD game. That is how they designed it, as far as I can tell, not a bug.

Anyway I never said the game is good.

Allies stands in the middle or corridors blocking your passage, react to things that doesn't exists, shoot invisible enemies, forget to shoot actual enemies, enemies that stands still in the open, attack the walls, "hesitate" before attacking you, that's when they don't get stuck into a table or a chair... yes it's definitely "different" but if it was designed that way then the one who did it deserve to be fired... it not shot.

Was it posted?

http://segabits.com/blog/2013/02/16/another-gearbox-worker-takes-to-reddit-says-segas-money-funded-the-borderlands-franchise/

No surprise here.

To be honest from all the gameplay videos on YT the game doesn't look that terrible. It looks like an average shooter. I'll never ever pay full price for it, but when it goes on sale i will buy it.

I don't care about reviews, i stopped taking reviews seriously a long time ago. I really enjoyed DNF, even though all the critics bashed it to death. Heck, i enjoyed DNF more than Bioshock which was praised by reviewers. So nah, i will never let reviewers dictate which games i will have fun with. By taking this "i don't care about reviews" approach i have found quite a few underrated gems such as Alpha Protocol and Nier.

Some times reviews don't even make any sense at all. Just look at Homefront, for example. The game was praised for having a great multiplayer mode, but was bashed for the short 5 hours campaign. Fuck that, COD has a 5 hours campaign as well and gets praised in every review every year. Where's the logic? It seems like too much double standards for me.

I only read reviews to get an idea of the game, whether it's up my alley or not.
If this is true, then it was a fucking dirty move from Gearbox. This, people, is why publishers have so strict control over developers, to avoid getting screwed like SEGA did.

Gearbox deserves a nice fucking lawsuit in the ass.

I hear you. I tend to only pre-order the games I really know I will play right away. It's rare, but sometimes bad purchases do happen. I'm surprised you didn't like Dishonored. I still have not played it myself but it had, as you already pointed out, universal critical acclaim.

I have not yet pre-ordered a single game yet, I have never seen the point... especial now it is all fully digital anyway, and there is not really any chance of any game running out of stock.

I have done some alpha-funding and kickstarters, but I do not consider either to be pre-orders.