Pre-Order bonuses are a Crime

It’s about time that something was done about this issue and it’s a long time overdue I can safely tell you that here and now. What I’m talking about of course is the scourge that is pre-order bonuses that have plagued online and high street retailers when it comes to the latest releases.

At least 90% of the biggest titles are seen dotted around online or in shops with posters boasting how each store has something exclusive for the game if you go in and pre-order it with them. One store may offer you an in-game gun whilst the other may offer you an exclusive character costume or suchlike.

Why is this a problem you ask? Well, put simply, it is daylight robbery. By offering a customer something exclusive to that store you are saying that the game bought elsewhere is incomplete, it is inferior and to play the complete package you must pre-order the game several times or wait until the inevitable ‘Complete Edition’ arrives within the next 6-8 months.

For those patient enough to do this and are savvy with their money this won’t be a problem but for those who want to play a game as soon as it releases then it is not on. If I want to pre-order my game, and receive the complete package, then I expect to be able to do that by ordering my copy with any store.

I don’t want to have to carefully consider who my money goes to because they have the shiniest offer of pre-order bonuses or because, put bluntly, their genitals are far bigger than that of their closest rivals.

It’s not just the stores who are to blame either, because the publishers of the games themselves know exactly what they are doing when it comes to this idea. They do this on purpose just so that gamers will have to pay for something later down the line that they could have had for free had they bought their game somewhere else. For that, I will never forgive any publisher who offers a certain bonus to one retailer and not the other.

Some may not find this to be an issue but it is when you think about how everything else we buy will not be any different should we buy it from another store. Our Blu-ray’s and CD’s are the same and the content on the disc isn’t altered because we ordered from one particular store and one-finger saluted the other.

It’s not too hard to ask that a game is complete no matter where you buy it from but, because the industry has become tainted and aims to exploit consumers rather than thanking them for their support, this will never stop happening.

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