So I have official put my Xbox One up for sale, because I realized I never use it and i have pretty much become a part of the "PC Master Race". So i just had a few questions since I am now making my PC my main gaming machine, whereas before I wouldn't buy the big games on my PC. IDK why it took me so long to just go with PC since I have easily sunk more than 2000 dollars into my PC. But anyway if you pre order a PC game at gamestop will they give you the digital code so you can preload it on your system once you pay it off? You may be asking yourself why I don't just preorder on steam or origin, the reason is because you have to pay for them all at once that way, you can't slowly pay them off over the course of a few months. I believe that if Steam did what Game Stop does with trading in games and getting credit, and letting you pay off preorders over time it would be a good step.

When you preorder a game at a retail location you are preordering the physical game. It's no different than preordering a game for a console. So when you finally do pay it off and go to pick the game up you will be picking the game up. Not a piece of paper with a code. You will still need to download the main files for the game when you install it.

Rarely will you get a PC code early or an early pre download on physical copies. Makes sense as your installing it from the disk which takes a small fraction of the time that downloading it would. There is no reason to predownload it if you have the disk.

The only time you may get predownloads is when you pre-order a digital copy of the game. And that is the only time it makes sense as you can do the 4 to 6 hour, or more, download before release day.

I tend to avoid the hassle of gamestop anymore for any games and just prefer to order it online. You can still preorder physical copies of games and have them shipped to you, which is my preference. In the end it is the same, you get a physical copy with all the access stuff included. Typically by preordering, some games will give you an "early access" with your preorder, but it might be sent to you via email or something rather than it coming in the box with your physical copy. I'm not sure how it works with a retailer, but when I got SW:ToR my early access code I believe was emailed to me. Though that didn't matter too much to me because I did so much beta testing with my guild that I needed a bit of a buffer period and really thought out my character.

I just wish there was a way to pay off the digital versions as I please, I would rather not leave my house at midnight if I can just launch steam and start playing.