Noob Collector With a Noob Question

[ZigZag]

Hello, everyone. First of all, sorry if I'm in the wrong section of the forum.
I just recently decided to start collecting, and I've been a bit confused about something. I'm sure this might be a stupid question, but do collector's editions, limited editions, etc. only release AFTER the actual game has released and aren't available for pre-order? I was going to pre-order the ESO: Imperial Edition, but everywhere I searched, they were "Out of stock" & "Sold out", so I pre-ordered the regular version, then I check about a week after the game released and Imperial Edition was now available. Any answers would be helpful. My apologies for being so nooby.
Thanks!

[vhal_x]

What is likely to have happened is that they would have sold out in the preorder stage (as CEs go up for preorder a while before the release), but when payments were being taken/shipping of the orders was happening, some orders would fail/cancel, so then after release, those ones would go back up again as in stock

PS: Not a silly question at all, and welcome! x

[twistedsymphony]

There are a number of scenarios that can cause that to happen. what val stated is the most likely but other times any of the following can happen:

A. The store knows that they will receive stock of a CE but they don't know how much yet, so the listing is created but posted as not yet available or out of stock until they know how many they will receive.

B. The store had an allotted quantity and they sold out of all of their pre-orders, but then the publisher decided to up their allotted quantity so the store re-opened pre-orders to fill the newly added pre-order slots.

C. as Val stated, the store sold out of their allotted quantity but then some pre-orders were canceled, or there will billing problems that caused other pre-orders to become incomplete so the store re-opened pre-orders to re-sell those pre-order slots.

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While some CE pre-orders/release announcements don't come until after the standard edition goes up for pre-order it's extremely uncommon for a CE to actually release AFTER the standard edition is released. Typically this only happens if the CE is a re-pack bundle like a Game of the Year Edition, that includes multiple post-release DLC packs and comes out months later.

Personally I see no point to pre-ordering a standard edition. Unless there is a pre-order bonus that you really want you don't really lose anything by waiting to see if there is a CE that is going to become available. With CEs you're best pre-ordering as soon as you can and then if you decide later that you don't want it then cancel... if it's a good CE then the pre-orders will sell out fast and you'll be glad that you didn't hesitate.

[LowlyAssassin]

Along with all of those scenarios layed out by V and Mike
Occasionally publishers/suppliers keep a percentage of the CE's back to be used as replacements for Damaged or defective on arrival stock, and after all the pre orders have been satisfied and an aloted time that they decode has passed, gvng enough time for any damaged CE's to be replaced from the extra overflow stock, then they release those for sale again

[ZigZag]

Thanks for all the quick helpful answers, everyone. Much appreciated!