Pre-orders in gaming.

I'm really not a fan of the way developers run their pre-order programs these days.
Look at Mortal Kombat X for example: If you pre-ordered it, you could play as Goro for free, if not you had to pay about $5 to use him. This content was already on the disk no matter what, but some had to pay to unlock him..... That to me is a very underhanded move for a company.

Other examples are the upcoming Deus Ex Mankind Divided. They had a very complex tier system for their pre-order bonuses which they decided to scrap after a ton of backlash from the gaming community, but there are still preorder bonuses, one of which is an extra mission. This mission is already in the game but if you don't pre-order you will have to pay to unlock and play it.

Other games give you extra costumes or weapons when you pre-order. This isn't as bad because the content doesn't affect the game as much as characters or missions do. I still don't like it though. The new Rise of the Tomb Raider gives you a costume, but it gives you a different pre-order bonus depending on which retailer you buy the game from. This is very annoying for people like myself who want to have everything for the game. Most of the time the content gets released for a price but there are occasions where it doesn't.

Companies used to do pre-order incentives properly. I remember pre-ordering Lost Planet and the pre-order came with a free VS suit figure. No in game items at all. Unreal Tournament 3 and Tales of Vesperia each came with an xbox 360 faceplate. No in game items. Soul Calibur 2 came with a full sized artbook. Even a more recent game, King of Fighters 13 came with a 4cd soundtrack with music from KOF 94 all the way to 13. Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks came with 2 figures. Kung Lao and Lui Kang.

Those types of preorder incentives are far better than what companies give us now and they are far more collectible. I would love it if developers would go back to those incentives and move away from the mostly worthless and useless in game items.


It seems that the direction developers are taking in every aspect of their games is to give us less but charge us more. We only have ourselves to blame though for continually buying the junk they offer (season passes, horse armour)