When I had a regular income, I'd pre-order every game I wanted, mainly because I live in a small town and the local game store generally only gets enough to fill pre-orders + 5-10 more, depending on the presumed popularity of the game. Games like CoD, or other popular series they have many copies. But games like Otomedius Excellent, I was the only pre-orderer, and they only got my copy in, so had I not pre-ordered it, I wouldn't have it.