The WORST Pre-Order Campaign I've Seen: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

THIS IS NOT A POST TO SUPPORT THE PREORDER BONUSES, BUT RATHER BRING UP THE FACTS AND START THE DISCUSSION.

Pre-Order Information:

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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided – Augment your Pre-Order [NA]


https://www.deusex.com/augmentyourpreorder

Augment your pre-order is a worldwide pre-order incentive that is crafted based on fan choice. This program allows you to choose what pre-order items you want from a pool of rewards.

• “Augment Your Pre-Order” consists of 5 tiers, each including 1-3 rewards
  

• Tier 1 will be automatically unlocked as soon as the program launches on 08.31.15.
  

• Each consecutive tier will unlock based on predetermined global pre-order goals for Deus Ex Mankind Divided
  

• As a participant, you get to choose 1 reward from each tier, allowing you to customize your own pre-order offer package
  

• As more tiers are unlocked, the available rewards become bigger and more exciting
  

• To participate, you must have a Square Enix Membership account to redeem your selected rewards on the Augment Your Pre-Order website
  

• During the pre-order window, anyone can access the website to view the rewards and share them on social media; however in order to participate and redeem the selected rewards, you must pre-order the game to get the unlock token for the program
  For boxed purchases, the unlock token will be packed inside the

• “Day One Edition” copy of the game. For Digital Pre-Orders, when you boot the game you will be guided as to how to redeem your AYP items.
  

• Once the unlock token is entered into the Augment Your Pre-Order website, your selected rewards from tiers 1 and 3 will be automatically unlocked in your PSN, XBOX LIVE or Steam Account. Your selected rewards from tier 2 and 4 will be emailed to you in form of a downloadable link.

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In my opinion, this is one of the silliest stupidest pre-order campaigns I've seen.

What makes this one of the worst pre-order setups I've ever seen?

"Choose the Pre-Order rewards you want"

This is a Tier system, a Tier system that requires as many preorders as possible to unlock new Tiers to "reward" players. Think Kickstarter, but unfair.

How is this unfair? Out of each Tier, you can only pick ONE reward. That means you are picking which items you miss out on, rather than are rewarded with. No matter what you do, no matter how much money you throw at this game, no matter if you buy a CE, a master edition, you will miss out on something. You will NEVER own the complete game, unless you pirate the game that has all the rewards unlocked for free, your game will never have everything. There is no winner.

You must CHOOSE which items you want, and which items you will never have. You must CHOOSE between an art book or an OST sampler, you must CHOOSE between a comic book or a novella.

An you might not even get up to Tier 4 to get those things if there aren't enough people to pre-order. It's intimidating people to ORDER NOW OR YOU ALL MIGHT MISS OUT. Miss out on what? Some items in game or some art book? No, Square Enix wants enough people to get to Tier 3 to unlock a mission. A mission...

I've never even played a Deus Ex game and I think this is horrible.

Their words want to describe it as the consumer winning, YOU get to choose what you want, YOU have the power! YOU can ensure that everyone gets as many pre-order bonuses as possible by hyping the game up, spreading the word and convincing others to BUY!

And if enough people pre-order the game, we'll let you play 4 days early!!!.... but only if you pre-order.

If you don't, you're punished. You don't get exclusive items, you don't get a mission, you don't get to play the game 4 days early. You have to buy this game knowing you don't even have the entire game, not that anyone has the entire game, but you have even less than them.

You'll have to shield your eyes and ears from all news for 4 whole days while everyone who pre-ordered starts playing 4 days before you possibly can.


It's so anti-consumer.

idk, just my opinion. I think it's disgusting.

Pretty much everyone that isn't "CD Projekt Red" gets pre-orders wrong, so this doesn't really surprise me.

Kind of hilarious that they don't even try to hide it anymore, though.

The thing is, millions are still going to pre-order, probably buy all the DLC, too. They wouldn't do it if it wasn't effective.

After the Witcher gave me hope, Deus Ex tears it down. The industry has seriously devolved to a hideous state.

Normally I'm not into these kinds of threads, but this one caught my eye for some reason.

There's a lot of fluff going around with these new kinds of campaigns - mostly, as Kali stated, it intimidates people into pre-ordering, not just one copy of the game, but multiple copies just to get all the rewards, lest you be trolled and mocked for *gasp* being a FILHTY CASUAL!!

*Thunder Clap*

Honest opinion: this isn't just stupid, it's plain old HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE because it also keeps people away from the game for the very reason players feel like they "have to" buy multiple copies, just to feel like they can play on a level field.

I don't even know if pre-ordering multiple copies fixes the problem.

The game is tied to your SE account, and it is the SE account that unlocks the content and emails you your "art book".

Is it very likely that their system supports multiple copies bought so you can choose multiple rewards? I don't think so.

I don't see any way you can legally buy the game, no matter how matter how many times, and unlock everything.

Is it stupid? Yeah. But really I think this is just SE trying to generate clicks. Lets remember that pre-ordering a game is harmless, you put 5 dollars down and its applied towards the total price of the game. You can cancel at anytime. I just did it. Preordered COD, played the beta, canceled the preorder, put the money towards MGS V. Being able to play early isn't a big deal, we will see if they apply a review embargo up until the actual release date or the early one. EA Access already offers that feature and nobody cares.

Looking a little more closely, the game is coming out on February 23rd, which is a month that is typically a barren wasteland for sales. Its getting the jump on the two big (one for sure) March releases of the Division and Uncharted 4 but its still a huge risk, and they will likely get undercut by another game earlier in the month (most likely a previously delayed Rise of the Tomb Raider) This is a niche series, a stealthy FPS action RPG, and it will be facing stiff opposition from the holiday season if all of those shooters end up being good. Its also around that time that DICE usually fixes their broken launch games.

I'm predicting a ceiling of an 85 metascore, to be played by fans of the series and not much else. I also don't see anyone else copying this preorder model, but don't expect preorder incentives to end.

There are no other companies in the gaming industry like CD Projekt Red these days. Rewarding you for preordering by giving you a discount on the game?!?! MADNESS.

16 pieces of free DLC?????????? BLASPHEMOUS UTTERINGS!

Two massive expansion packs that add 20-30 hours each for $20?!?!?! HOW WILL WE FEED OUR FAMILIES?!

By working for the Eorzean Post Moogle service:

I can't wait to not play that.

You know, I remember seeing something done like this before, with complete disregard for the consumers. Now where was it...?

Oh, right, Mechwarrior Online. And now you know why nobody talks about MWO most of the time.

This is a tactic to spread word of mouth to ensnare more people to buy into it so more tiers can get unlocked. Basing it off of MWO logic, the consumers have no clue as to how many people have bought into the preorders, only vague corporate stuff with a % bar of progress. PGI handled it in MWO where some points would stall a bit to show interest dying, then a huge spike to take the community to the next tier.

Outside of turning the consumers into unhinged PR people, I don't honestly see the point to this type of system. Yet somehow, people still pay into it all. I remember it being the case with a few preorders in the past on Steam, so I can't really say this is the first I've heard of it going to the mainstream. I really wanna say that this was done with a past Deus Ex, where the more preorders or sales, the better the rewards were for everyone, with a copy of the original PC game being one of the unlocks, and I think some DLC.

They used to be better at baiting players.

I don't see anything wrong with the campaign. Life is full of choices. I think FFXI has ruined a lot of you; you think you shouldn't have to make choices and should be able to have everything.

FFXI has nothing to do with this.

totally pre-ordered and don't feel bad. I'ma get my goodies muhuhahhahahhahaha.

Under no circumstance can any customer own the entire game. You will always have something locked away because of this system. That is what's wrong with it.

This is pretty shitty, not a good thing to do

Hopefully it won't sell too badly because it'll likely still be a good game

This is nothing new, So many games have dealer incentives. Preordering at Gamestop will give 1 dlc, preordering at Traget something else, and so on. Sometimes there are 5-6 differet bonuses, each from a diffeent store. So unless you want 5-6 copies for the game, you will never have it all.
Just pick what you want most, or don't get the game. At least they are making an event out of it.
People always crying because they feel they are owed it all. Sheesh, it's Adoulin rings all over.

I'm guessing they thought it was clever because Deus Ex is all about making choices as you go through the game, and thus missing out on certain things...

...well, all good and dandy, but yea it is dumb to limit rewards for a purchased product... which makes them not even rewards, you payed for them. Meh. I never planned on buying it right at release anyway.

XD

Collectors edition comes with everything

and since the only thing that you would normally get in a pre-order (the skins) is a choice you really just pick the one you like most... better than other pre-orders where you have to order from a certain retailer to get the one you like. Especially if you dont like ordering from that retailer.

The soundtrack sampler the digital comic,novella, and artbook are all things that you never get from preorders. those are always in the collectors edition of games. So really you lose out on nothing

I wish game developers would take a moment to consider something.

Put in preorder stuff, then a couple years down the road if there are people still playing the game, put the stuff in the online store to be purchased so everyone can have it.

It's fair, allows you to unlock everything, generates profit, and removes the incentive for people to preorder, and they can buy the content on a later date. Does this keep money flowing? You betcha. Does it have the potential to generate MORE money? Definitely, take a look at FFXIV's cash shop, now put that on a game like Call of Duty where the preorders were some shiny skin. You will have people with the buyer's impulse, they'll dig into the opportunity to get a preorder bonus later down the road if they are still playing the game. Not only that, but you hardly spend a dime on putting PRE-EXISTING CONTENT for sale.

So all in all, locking content is bad business and is counter productive to what game developers want, money.

What possible motivation do they have to do that?

Most games do not have a long shelf life, especially if they're not all time classics. You're essentially asking them to gamble that their game is not only an all time classic, but that people will still be buying things for it years later.

No business is ever doing that, and none of them should.

I've always despised pre-order ***. Just give everyone the full game FFS.

Well, sure, the system is horrible. But the reason pre-order bonuses get split up like this is because it's financially incentivized for the developer to do so, which in turn reduces some of the risk of a bomb.

I'm not saying it's some consumer friendly practice, but there's a reason it's gotten worse, and it's not because game companies are evil; they just want to get paid. That's the whole point of commercial game development! Make neat stuff, get paid, hopefully make enough money to fund the next iteration of the cycle.

The incredible cost of AAA development is the root cause, and that's not going away until the demand for high end graphics goes away (or they get vastly cheaper to produce).