When is a pre-order bonus good enough so you buy it or fair so you don't miss out much if you dont?

when pre-order include all dlc , like witcher

Personally, as preorders (almost) always disappoint, the only game I am pre-ordering will be Binding of Isaac: Rebirth for a few main reasons.

1. I already know I will enjoy the game

2. There is plenty of proof that the game is at a fully playable state as is

3. All praise the holy Ed :P

4. Also the system requirements for the soundtrack are really awesome: http://puu.sh/bJKpI/ac9a7ce758.png

5. The 33% discount is pretty nice

D. Never I'd rather hack that stuff in later (if possible) just to spite whatever publisher tried to pull that crap. I don't like anything related to the turn of the century in store box pre-order concept. It has no place today.

When I'm going to buy the game at full price anyway.

C) Games from Publishers backlog that allows me either keep them give friends or sell.

Bioshock Infinite + Season Pass preorder for under five euros was really nice :)
Don't think you still can get at that price, but that's one example of good preorder extras.

Never preorder based on some bonuis - it's never worth it. I only preorder games hat I'm really hyped for and really trust they will deliver - and I'd buy them on day 1 anyway or games / sequels made by people I trust and played their previous games or preevious games in franchise. If they give some bonus - ok, but it will never make me make a decission based on it.

I never order (OR pre-order) anything over $25, as a personal rule, because I do not like paying more than that for a game. And yes, there are still plenty of games you can preorder for under that price: VH2, Gauntlet, etc. Gauntlet was worth it just for the comic, to me, because of who the artist is; dude is fucking awesome as an artist and person. I base my choice to preorder on the price and the game itself, if I am interested in it. If I am a little on the fence about it, preorder goodies are the thing that will make or break my buying said game on preorder, as in I will be more inclined to buy something on preorder if it has preorder exclusive, most ESPECIALLY if that stuff is one or more of these items: book/folder of concept art, companion comic/booklet that gives insight into the game, soundtrack, etc. In-game exclusives are cool but as an artist, I REALLY love the concept art and other type things.

There is ONE time I broke the $25 self-imposed rule: D3 expansion. I bought D3 right before the expansion came out, when Blizzard had it on discount for $20, because my bf wanted us to coop in it and he knew I had liked the first two. I did not, however, preorder the expansion. I saved and bought it when it had been out a month, so it was still $60. The only reason for because the bf and so we could play it together. But seeing it was Diablo franchise, I liked D3 so far, and I had actually bought D1 and D2 for insanely cheap at a secondhand store years ago, I felt it was my $$ towards the entire Diablo franchise and supporting it. Otherwise, normally, I refuse to pay more than $30 for a game, preorder or not, because after that, it just seems like greed and fat-ass markup. Technology has gotten better, which means it is somewhat easier to make a game that it was 20 yrs ago. And on games put out by BIG companies, they make so many copies for most/all the platforms, and so many people buy them (physical or digital), that they more than make back what it cost to make the game a few times over. I know if I REALLY want the game, I can just wait 6 months to a yr and it will drop to a more wallet friendly price, esp when Steam and others have their sales.

When you know you're going to get that game anyway, at a price close to the one you're pre-ordering at.

Personal example: BL The Pre-Sequel. After playing BL2 for 200h+, I was sure I'd get the Pre-Sequel, too :) And I got it for just 21 pounds (discounted from 40), which made it really acceptable.

The witcher 3 is worth it especialy because you can get it cheaper than 50$/50 euros

I would join the NEVER faction if it wasn't lying coz I recently pre-ordered The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. I really don't care about any of their bonusses, it's just that I simply cannot wait till the price drops and want to play as soon as possible. Best looking game ever! Tense story, calm and decent gameplay. What more to a game (you might have figuered I'm not the FPS gamer type ;) )?

Seasson pass or other game

I preoder only when the preorder bonus is a game(if the pre-order is for sequel), discount 10-25% , nice physical goodies(if retail).
But for sure wont pre-order a game that comes with day 1 DLC that shoulded be part of the game. For a lot of publishers atm DLC = part of the main story. DLC should be a side story. Believe it or not BL 1 and 2 made DLCs the way it should be.

Worth it: Alien Isolation - brand new chapter completely separate from the main game, takes place in a different location, all original cast from the 1st movie, 3 playable characters.

Not worth it: The Evil Within - 3 shotgun shells and an arrow.

Never!

personally i would only consider pre-ordering a game if it has a high discount (at least 50% off). I hate (and can make me not buy the game even if it's excellent) when they remove "core" content, i'm looking at metro for taking a difficulty out of the main game.

I don't pre-order for the sake of pre-ordering therefore I doesn't really matter what the pre-order incentives are. I Pre-order because I know I won't be able to resist buying the game whilst it's still full-price after release anyways so I might as well get the pre-order cuz that is sometimes a little cheaper and/or has extra content which I'd eventually not be able to resist buying as well, rather than paying the same money to just get the base game 3 weeks later.

For that reason I'm currently trying to decide in what form to pre-order The Crew. Retail is out cuz that's UPlay only and I can't buy things on there so I'd be forever locked out of any additional content. So then question then is do I think paying $80 for the Gold Edition with Season Pass will be worth it. Or will I be able to stick to the Limited Edition and wait out all the additional content dropping to like $5 like Saint Row's 3 season pass currently is...or will I do that and end up buying most of the DLC close to release anyways thus ending up paying way more than the Gold Edition...

And yes yes, I know The Crew's stuff isn't worth it and the business model is likely despicable but at the end of the day all arguments are invalid and I still really want the game cuz I desperately need to scratch that itch which NFS created last time around and then miserably failed to scratch as it turned out to be a 30FPS upscaled mess and The Crew is the only thing on the horizon that could possibly do that. So that only questions that remains is if the Gold Edition is not perhaps the smartest choice for me given everything I've written here. It's a hell of a lot money...but I could end up spending even more.

I don't pre-order as a general rule, though I agree you should only do it if you trust the developers and you know you're going to buy the game anyway.
I have backed several games on Kickstarter, which is in a way similar to a pre-order, but I generally do not support scumbag marketing tactics. Therefore, any kind of limiting game content not only puts me off backing or pre-ordering: it puts me off the game itself.