You're correct 5$ doesn't mean a whole lot. Turns out it's probably not a monetary thing for a lot of us who are opposed to pre-orders. For me it's entirely philosophical. I'm opposed to paying for beta access or pre-ordering triple A titles. For small indie developers I understand that their funding is limited and they may need a little extra help in order to deliver a finished product but there is no excuse for AAA developers who have much deeper pockets. The only thing pre-ordering does for these devs is give them instant profit on a product that hasn't even been tested yet. I believe that's why there is a lot of crappy AAA titles out there that are released with issues that never get fixed because they company has already made their money off the title. And really from a business perspective where's the incentive to try harder when you're already making money with what you have? And on the beta front, it used to be either the testers were getting paid to help or it was free and you simply had to apply providing the specs of your system. It's crazy that people now pay to test games for companies.
I much prefer AAA devs to have to stand by the results of their released product for their profit rather than marketing and "extras" that they provide in pre-orders.
All of that said, I believe NRS is a decent company I would never lump them in with the likes of EA or Activision. I actually am fairly confident I'll enjoy the product they produce. All the same, I still stand by my ideals and won't be pre-ordering content from them.
