Okay, puts it back into the usual pre-order quality bucket. I don't mind about pre-orders much..

Dont worry, i wont buy any Descent game , i only buy decent games.

But indecent games (like the old Leisuresuit Larry adventures) can be fun too!

To best of my recollection, there was never a pre-order for Descent Underground. It was on kickstarter, and then it was available "in-development".

I got it as part of a bundle on Indiegala years ago.

I know i own every old game , i made a 'funny' of this one cause the name Descent looks almost like (in)decent.

Well, I`m pretty sure that ten years ago no pre-order games did exist, because most games were sold as physical copies in boxes.
But nowadays you can even find pre-order boxes in stores! Which idiots do buy such crap?

I don't ..... i did pay 129 or 149 hfl in the past for a RETAIL game thats boxed, with a nice large PAPER manual, thats why digital can be sold at 1$ and still make profit, every steam game should be 5 $ max. thats more then enough...
cause no extra phyiscals have to be duplicated, just one copy ( file) of every game, store the files in a nice small disaster proof safe and you're in :D
No ads needed cause you are digital, already online so , win win , and 1 dollar or euro as a bottom price and 5 at most :D

?! Pre-orders started out as a way for people to purchase physical copies of (what were expected to be) much-in-demand games before they were actually released, as a way of guaranteeing a copy of something that might otherwise prove hard to find. So yes, video game pre-orders were around fifteen years ago, easily. Probably even twenty or more (though far less common back then).

I wouldn't say they are. There's bound to be a lot of people who hadn't heard of the changes to the project (including the name change) since Underground was pulled from In Dev. This is just a way to let them know that they shouldn't shit their britches over the "old game" being abandoned, as they'll be getting the "new game". (Of course, they could've just stated explicitly in this news post that there was a name change, and that this was the same game....)

Not talking about the "empty pre-order box" gimmick; just the general idea of pre-ordering physical games (like, by getting signed onto a list, and usually paying at least part of the price of the item in advance).

For example: As far as I can tell, the only thing that makes Icewind Dale II Complete different from the original release (in 2002) is the inclusion of some goodies and minor DLC items from the Adventure Pack that had previously only been available to those who pre-ordered the game.

So this was "Kickstarter" back then?

I have never cared about new releases enough to have pre-ordered anything, and by the time that idea was becoming a somewhat more common thing, my computer at the time was so old it couldn't play anything "pre-orderable" anyway; however, I'm pretty sure the pre-order periods were usually similar to what's typical now (anywhere from a week to a couple months before the planned release date), so no. It actually started out as a way to make things easier on the shops selling the games -- to give them an early idea of how many copies they should stock. Only later (mostly in the age of online sales of downloadable copies) did it sometimes become a way of getting the publisher/developer more money to finish "polishing" the game.

Never pre order

They sure were. My first pre-order ever was Diablo 2. ;)