Pre-ordering is a benefit not for the buyer...

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Well, overall Dom3 is rather expensive : 55$ plus postage (5$ for me in France) is clearly above average, for a "small budget" game. Not even counting possible VAT making it increase to 70$ !
I don't have any problem with that though, since Dom2 alone had for me 1000hr+ lifespan !
And I understand that Shrapnel and Illwinter wants to do some money with it. The only other solution good for developers and customers and allowing to lower prices is to distribute through download only, but that's not the way they did it.