Be Excellent To Each Other

I know that every now and then someone asks who is best to order from for delivery on or before release day, but every time I search for questions like that I can't find what I'm looking for. If people could write in here which companies they have had good experiences with for pre-orders and which have been bad that would be very useful, especially since we are coming into the time of year when we have a flood of great games getting released!

So, can someone recommend the best company for me to preorder from to guarantee MW3 on or before release day?

The only company that has never let me down — ever — is ShopTo.net. The rest are useless. But I know they were in some trouble with their suppliers recently, so I don't know if I can still recommend them.

Amazon have always been very good for me but it would really depend on how good your postal service is. I've had good luck with my local indi game shop as they tend to get midweek games in on monday and friday release games in on wednesday and are usually willing to let me have my copy early.

I've discovered that http://www.finditcheapest.com is an awesom resource for prices. If you dovetail that site with the the recommendations here, it's trebles all around!

Amazon's hit rate for me is only about 75%, though they will accept "didn't deliver on release day" as a valid reason for a full refund (including paying the return shipping). So when Deus Ex didn't arrive on the Friday, I bought a copy from Asda for slightly less and returned the Amazon one. Save a few pence on the deal too.

I've had nothing but punctuality or earliness from Shop.to, Amazon and Play. To be honest I'm pleased with how often people do get stuff on time or early, as delivery of so much is so flaky these days... and unless you've taken time off work specifically to play a new title, it not arriving until the morning after release or so isn't a problem.

That said it was annoying with Modern Warfare 2 when I got it on release day and arrived home to find people from here had been playing for 24 hours already and kept destroying me with the better weapons they'd unlocked. Ruins the release day level playing field unlike games such as Halo where you could have been playing it a week longer and only have a map knowledge advantage. Something like Arkham or Mario Galaxy where it is single player, no problem with it being out early.

I'll second the vote for Shopto.net. They've never let me down either.
One of the worst for me is Zavvi... I've preordered stuff of them before and not had them until a week later.

ShopTo for me too. I rarely pre-order anything but they've not let me down once yet.

Another ShopTo vote. Everyone else has let me down. Amazon let me down so regularly that I simply don't bother with them anymore for pre-orders. Can anyone fill in the detail on the ShopTo situation? I hadn't heard anything and it'd be a shame if anything were to happen to them - they're genuinely excellent. Their site is archaic, but you get a real sense of personality and friendliness from them. They're not as faceless as the other game retailer sites. You almost feel like you're dealing with real human people.

Yeah, I was going to say ShopTo as well. Pretty sure my copy of Deathsmiles turned up on day one, like. Hoping Dodonpachi Resurrection will, too!

Does anyone know what "The Game Collection" are like for getting pre orders to you on day of release?

I'm tempted by Mario Kart 7 as they have it for £27.99 on there. It's the cheapest I've seen.

ShopTo.net delivered my copy of Battlefield today. They're still 100% reliable for me.

Got my copy of BF3 from Game today too.