Oversold Preorders... Again. Stop allowing your official retailers to do this to your customers
This is the second year this has happened to me when trying to preorder an Elder Scrolls Online, Physical Collector's edition, expansion. Yet again, it was supposed to be a present for my husband's birthday (as we play together along with the rest of our family).
Last year, I pre-ordered from Walmart. The release date comes around, and I get the run around from them, telling me the preorder I made with them never guaranteed me the item, and it was oversold and now out of stock. By this time, the Morrowind collector's edition was not available anywhere. All stores were sold out. I managed to track down ONE copy from a GameStop that was over an hour away from me, who had one collecting dust in their storage room because supposedly corporate had sent them one since their store had just opened that month. It was a disaster, that I had to fix, with absolutely no help from Zenimax, Bethesda, or the retailer Walmart.
So this year... I tried a different "official" retailer for this game... Amazon. I ordered this back at the beginning of April. Everything was good, until yesterday morning at 8:30 a.m. I get an email from Amazon, saying that the order is delayed and they can't give me a guaranteed date when it will ship to me. I have no idea if I will ever get this order from Amazon now. If there are 1000 copies of a product, and I make a preorder, I should be assigned an actual number, product number 456, and I should get that product. It's not rocket science. Clearly, preorders do not work that way at Amazon either. So I'm stuck with either trying to track down a copy somewhere else (like I had to do last year) or just throw my hands up and walk away. That's 2 out of your 4 official retailers for this PC expansion that are clearly incapable of selling your pre-orders with any honesty or integrity.
STOP using retailers that are going to oversell your pre-orders. It creates horrible customer relations for you and your entire company. I really love the elder scrolls franchise, but two years in a row is hurting my desire to play or promote your games.
Last year, I pre-ordered from Walmart. The release date comes around, and I get the run around from them, telling me the preorder I made with them never guaranteed me the item, and it was oversold and now out of stock. By this time, the Morrowind collector's edition was not available anywhere. All stores were sold out. I managed to track down ONE copy from a GameStop that was over an hour away from me, who had one collecting dust in their storage room because supposedly corporate had sent them one since their store had just opened that month. It was a disaster, that I had to fix, with absolutely no help from Zenimax, Bethesda, or the retailer Walmart.
So this year... I tried a different "official" retailer for this game... Amazon. I ordered this back at the beginning of April. Everything was good, until yesterday morning at 8:30 a.m. I get an email from Amazon, saying that the order is delayed and they can't give me a guaranteed date when it will ship to me. I have no idea if I will ever get this order from Amazon now. If there are 1000 copies of a product, and I make a preorder, I should be assigned an actual number, product number 456, and I should get that product. It's not rocket science. Clearly, preorders do not work that way at Amazon either. So I'm stuck with either trying to track down a copy somewhere else (like I had to do last year) or just throw my hands up and walk away. That's 2 out of your 4 official retailers for this PC expansion that are clearly incapable of selling your pre-orders with any honesty or integrity.
STOP using retailers that are going to oversell your pre-orders. It creates horrible customer relations for you and your entire company. I really love the elder scrolls franchise, but two years in a row is hurting my desire to play or promote your games.
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