Shin Megami Tensei V: The Pre-Order Experience

Image from https://www.atlus.com/smt5/

Trying to pre-order Shin Megami Tensei V this week was problematic. It was announced that people could begin ordering on June 21st at 9:00 am PST, it was 12:00 pm EST for me. Things did not go well.

A Disastrous Start

People could order Shin Megami Tensei V Fall of Man Premium Edition or the base game that came with a steel case, both limited. As soon as 9:00 am came people could not order anything. After about 30 minutes ATLUS West sent out this tweet:

Pre-orders will be available at participating retailers shortly, and our site will be updated once live on retailer sites – thank you for your patience!

— Official ATLUS West (@Atlus_West) June 21, 2021

After this tweet two hours went by without any update. One retailer then became available. It was a store in Canada, and that was it. Apparently Atlus did not communicate well with retailers and stores like Amazon and Best Buy, American retail store, had no idea that pre-orders were supposed to happen. The stock of the store in Canada ran out of the premium edition and more time passed.

You might be wondering why some people didn’t just get the regular version. the reason for that is that at this time the Canadian retail store was the only one available so you would have to get it shipped internationally if you did not live in Canada. Eventually Game Stop starting accepting orders, but ATLUS did not announce this until they were already sold out. Listings of the premium edition began to pop up on Ebay. The scalpers had arrived. A little later EB Games opened up, but once again this was a Canadian retailer only.

No other news came from ATLUS or retailers for the rest of the day. Everyone was completely confused.

The Turn Around

The next day around 9:00 am PST, ATLUS tweeted that you could pre-order from Amazon. I quickly pressed the link and I was able to secure my copy, as were others. As always scalpers scooped some up too. In about thirty minutes to an hour the premium edition sold out on Amazon. The regular version luckily didn’t sell out and more people were able to buy it. Best Buy opened up to pre-orders the day after Amazon.

It seems as though ATLUS has recognized its mistake and is in the process of producing more special editions. This tweet from them confirms this:

Thanks so much for the outstanding response to the Fall of Man Premium Edition of #SMT5! We're working on making additional copies available to retailers soon.

— Official ATLUS West (@Atlus_West) June 23, 2021

I’m glad they made this decision because I know a lot of people missed out due to the staggering days.

What Should Happen in the Future?

In the future ATLUS or SEGA need to communicate with retailers better. Don’t blindside retailers with pre-orders that you didn’t inform them about. I’m not sure where but there was a communication breakdown somewhere as Amazon and Best Buy had no idea that sales started on June 21st.

Something else that should be done in the future is limit copies of games that people can buy. Scalpers have been a growing problem with not many retailers doing anything to stop them. When I ordered my ps5 from Best Buy they had the limit set to one and you could only have one in your cart. I don’t understand why they or other retailers could not implement limits for software if they can for hardware. Someone bought ten copies of the premium edition and sold all of them for double the price. The original price is $130 with tax.

Conclusion

I would like to end this post by mentioning that on Twitter the pre-order was botched. I would like to say this was more of an exaggeration due to the frustration of lack of communication and the scalper situation. Everyone involved was trying their best to fix the situation. It improved in the next few days, but as I mentioned previously they should aim to be more prepared in the future.

I also would like to recognize the one retailer that limited the amount of special editions to one per person. That retailer is Video Games Plus. I don’t know much about them other than they are a retailer based in Canada. They are the only retailer throughout all of this that put limits on customers. I appreciate that as it helps lower the chance of scalping and gives more equal access.

As usual thank you all for reading and the continued support. Are there any special edition of games that you’ve bought? How was your experience buying them? I’ll see you in the next post.

I wrote a great post on my experience with the Shin Megami Tensei Series. Feel free to read it to see if this game might interest you: https://thegamerwithglasses.blog/exploring-the-amazing-shin-megami-tensei-series/.

Bonus Content

I think buying the premium edition will be completely worth it. I’m mostly looking forward to the soundtrack. The music in the series has always been great. I obviously am also looking forward to playing Shin Megami Tensei V.

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