It's the job of marketing to convince you to spend money on things you don't need. There is no benefit to preordering. They have proven this to us time and time again, with so many new examples just this past year alone.
There are benefits a lot of the time, don't lie. What's typical are exclusive cosmetics, closed beta access, and/or early release access. So weighing those against the worst case scenario of returning the game for a full refund makes it a decent deal.
Cities Skylines 2 is the 1st game i ever preordered.
I figured CS1 is one of my most played games & i was gonna buy CS2 when it launched anyway, so why not do it now? By doing so now, its 1 less thing taking up space in my mind & theres really Nothing to lose with steams refund policy.
The incredible transparency they have been providing via the dev diaries + the fact that they hired a bunch of the top modders from CS1 to help develop the game is what got me to pull the trigger.