The obvious one is that the price is going to drop 25 to 30 dollars in a month. Final Fantasy XV went from $60.00 to $35.00 in what seemed like a blink of an eye and the same goes for Watch_Dogs 2, Mafia III and just about every other game. The one exception seems to be Grand Theft Auto V which is still going for $60 for some reason. Is any game really so good that you can't hold off a month before buying it?
Day one games are usually super buggy. I don't mean fun little bugs that make you laugh. There's a little RPG called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. One of the big glitches this game had day one is that most players on PS3 couldn't save their games. Without manually creating the first save, the autosave feature wouldn't even activate. That means PS3 players could spend up to an hour clearing the first dungeon, earning the ability to save only to realize they can't save and the patch for this wasn't released for weeks.
On top of that, there always seems to be a day one patch and several right afterwards. These don't always add features but sometimes they can fix major bugs the developers didn't get a chance to fix before the game was shipped out. Then again, sometimes they are adding features. Mafia III most notably added alternate attires and racing side missions for free in a mandatory game update because they weren't finished when the game was released.
Sure there's the incentive of a pre-order bonus but when was the last time that a pre-order bonus was really good? Now the bonus is available to everyone else after a short window of exclusivity. If your local game store is anything like mine you don't even have to pre-order because every new copy of the game comes with the pre-order codes anyway. Another thing is that the pre-order codes have recently been focused to give you an edge in online play, but it's only temporary because eventually other players catch up.
We haven't really been given any incentive to purchase these games on the first day. There's nothing that can't be gained later. Sure you may get an edge on competitors in multiplayer but it won't last and other people will catch up eventually. You may unlock something earlier in the game, but everyone will get it sooner or later. But in the end, who am I really kidding because I'm going to buy Mass Effect: Andromeda on day one anyway.
You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet. You can also check out his playthrough of Sleeping Dogs or Skyrim
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