Preorders overall are not good because they subsidize bad development practices. A tremendously large portion of a game’s lifetime revenue is day 1 of purchasing, after which point there’s significantly less money to be made from further development. I think this ultimately diminishes the quality of the final result because executive priorities can shift earlier in the game’s lifecycle.

It’s also a symptom of an extremely bloated industry. These studios and publishers have gotten too big for them to afford to build a product in a reasonable timeframe, so they have to resort to tactics like crunch, pre-orders, and week 1 overhauls to sustain themselves.