It has been a rough year for pre-orders, the practice of collecting money for games from eager players before the titles are even released.Gamers are incentivized to buy early by bonus in-game items and extra tchotchkes. But in practice, the games often fail to deliver on their promises.Huge games like Assassin's Creed Unity were broken on arrival. The PC version of Arkham Knight was so damaged it was recalled from online stores, and has yet to return. In each case, plenty of players had already paid in full due to aggressive pre-order marketing campaigns that promise little smooches of extra content, ending up with something they didn't bargain for.
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You'd think that these disasters would teach the games industry a lesson, but Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, the hotly anticipated sequel in the cyberpunk role-playing game series, has decided to up the stakes for pre-orders in an impressively slimy campaign."Make your own choice, and embrace what you've become," says a voice that sounds more like it's informing you about the airplane's safety features than a game about a cyborg dystopia. "Augment Your Pre-Order is your chance to customize your Deus Ex experience from the very beginning, by choosing the pre-order rewards you want."Like many pre-order campaigns, Deus Ex will offer bits and bobs of additional content that are otherwise locked. Then things get goofy. Pre-orderers can pick and choose their rewards, and if enough people pre-order the game worldwide, publisher Square Enix will unlock new tiers that include additional rewards, such as exclusive missions and a digital comic.These extras will only become available if everyone's in on it, which encourages pre-buyers to pressure their friends into shelling out as well.Basically, it's like Kickstarter stretch goals, but for a game that's already fully-funded and on its way to stores.The slimiest part of it all is that the final, top-tier reward is that the planet will be graced by Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's holy presence a whopping four days early! That's a whole four less days of emptiness and wallowing, moaning at the moon that your hands, mind and spirit aren't pre-occupied with the newest Deus Ex and its digital comic book tie-in. A whole four days to discover, along with the rest of the unified consumer world, if this game is even good or undercooked or whatever.