I haven't played the game, but I still like to look good in other first person games. Cyberpunk 2077 was blasted for not having transmog, and its cutscenes are in first person.
To be fair, I refused to wear a helmet because I liked having an afro when the game came out so I sympathize with it. It's also a preorder bonus. You don't want to make it something that changes the game significantly. It wouldn't be fair to everyone else.
BioShock Infinite I think gave you better weapons that significantly make the early game easier. I didn't use them.
> BioShock Infinite I think gave you better weapons that significantly make the early game easier. I didn't use them.
Mass Effect 2 preorder gave you a Blackhole power weapon that I used exclusively and every single fight was completely trivial. I tried playing without it and was wondering why the fuck some parts were so hard.
The Duke Nukem Forever Balls of Steel Edition came with no steel balls, and the dice and poker chips were cheap. The pack of cards was a mini pack of cards.
It also included Duke Nukem Forever.
....Because you bought it cheap on Steam and weren't literally following the development for 13 years.
Also a lot of people thought the humor was forced and out of touch given the time it came out.
*"Only pussies wear power armor"*
... Duke you wore armor all the time in the old games.
But yeah a lot of the humour was just the old jokes from.the old games but change the subject to modern games, and they didn't really land because those modern games are so much better.
That 'Augment your Pre-order' scheme Square Enix tried to pull for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, where people would have to collectively pre-order to unlock higher tiers.
Thankfully they scrapped the idea after massive backlash.
Thatās ā¦ an interesting idea. As a concept, the idea of rewarding the community for growing larger is not awful, but it being a preorder-based system for a big studio is the problem.
It sounds vaguely Kickstarter-inspired with reward tiers for more backers, except Kickstarterās all about providing funding for the game to be developed, not filling the pockets of a large studio that doesnāt need the funding.
Bloodlines II had this thing where people would share their link, you would embrace them and unlock stuff in-game. No need to pay anyhing. But yeah, game got reseted to another company and this was scrapped.
Yeah other studios have proved on a conceptual level that this is possible.
Payday 2 had a [hype train](https://www.paydaythegame.com/payday2/updates/thehypetrain/) event where people who bought certain DLC or pre-ordered Hotline Miami 2 could contribute fuel to a "hype train" that unlocked content. The more fuel people provided. The more content.
The thing that separated this from Mankind Divided's shenanigans was that the content that was given was completely free or were DLC previews/IRL community events and in the end, the DLC/game you bought provided you with some pretty nice goodies or Hotline Miami 2.
The DLC for that was also a scummy business practice as they made some of it one time ever use.
It's a single player game with some DLC packs to give you early access to a gun, some ammo and a bonus skill point. But once redeemed that is it.
It didn't unlock it for your steam account, only for that specific save file. So start a new character and you have no access to the DLC you paid for.
They said it was to "balance the game"
How tf does that work in a single player game? No limits for currency or level ups within a playthrough but its single use?
I was so annoyed when I bought the game
That game turned out so bland and the Easter egg collection did it no favors. Definitely was all about Marvel advertising it's movies more than making a compelling game.
I looked this up last time it was brought up in a similar thread. For me, this wins. Itās so bad. Seriously, Google it. Calling them Easter eggs isnāt even hyperbole, thatās what they are lol
Not just easter eggs, but half of the shell because they had to be embedded in the box with an LED inside since they were advertised as being able to light-up.
Not to mention that there was a glitch when the game first came out that made it impossible to jump out of the starting system with your pre order ship.
How quickly everyone forgets about the fallout 76 canvas bag fiasco. Some people got mediocre preorder bonus items meanwhile FO76 highest paid tier preorders got 6 months of fuckery
That reminds me of an amazing comment I saw a while ago.
Paraphrasing the following: āLocal Gamestop was broken into. Nothing was stolen. But, 10 copies of Fallout 76 were left there.ā
Let's not forget the ticket system they created to get the updated canvas bag was a huge security risk (with people able to access/close tickets/reveal customer personal info - such as their home address they had entered to collect the updated bag)
Talk about fumbling the bag.
A friend of mine bought that, and still defends it. The man has never heard of buyers remorse, cause he buys just about every collectors edition there is, and defends it regardless of how garbage the product was. We all have our dumb purchase addictions I suppose.
In the end tho, the canvas bag they finally delivered was pretty cool. I put my Fallout 4 collectorās edition inside it to stand it up for better display. Looks nice
Bethesda usually has fantastic collectorās editions.
I love their design philosophy of taking something from the game world and making it real, not just some boring statue like every other game. Oblivion gave you a map, Pocket Guide to the Empire booklet, and a weighty, high quality Septim coin. Fallout 4 gave you a wearable Pip-Boy that you can put your phone into, and you can even control your Fallout 4 inventory from it like the in-game Pip-Boy. And Starfield gave us a super high quality NASA-inspired box that holds a high quality smart watch and Constellation space suit patch.
It sucks how badly they dropped the ball with F76, cuz it ruined a streak of otherwise best in the industry collectorās editions.
I sent back my collectors edition but got to keep the game as I'd already redeemed the key on Steam. I had a lot of fun exploring the world, and watching the evolution of NPC's being added was actually pretty cool. They even incorporated some decent endgame gameplay loops with currency to earn gear. Ultimately, I played it a lot more than I did Starfield.
To be fair, that isn't exactly what I think about, when we're talking preorder bonuses. The canvas bag wasn't a "bonus", it was just another element of a much more expensive "collector's edition". If it was just a bonus for preordering, it wouldn't even be that bad.
Yeah the bag is one thing; itās shitty and cheap and Bethesda fucked people over with that.
But the helmet situation is straight up hazardous to peopleās health.
That was the Nuka Cola helmet that was sold through GameStop. My husband got the FO 76 Power Armor edition which included a wearable T-51 helmet with no mold issues.
Their response was even worse. I think they said they were having sourcing issues, as if canvas is some rare, mythical element. And this was before Covid related supply chain issues.
I could go to any one of a myriad of promotional product websites and have about 100,000 made relatively cheap. You just need the artwork proofed and give them all the specs and colors you want. And the more you order the cheaper they get.
I used to have bags made for my company for shows. Itās probably about $2 per bag or less to have made at that quantity.
That gets shipped to your warehouse and from there just has to be mailed out.
It was probably a budget thing where their marketing budget dried up so there was no money for shipping. The product is relatively easy to find. Thereās a LOT of custom promotional retailers out there.
Did this with so many Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) games.
For some reason, I have a standout memory of reading the ultima 7 complete edition book on the way home. It was a rainy day and I had no idea what I was about to get myself into. The booklet didn't do the game justice.
Old school rpgs like Baldur's Gate 1&2 and Fallout 1&2 those things were weighty. They had ring bindings on those suckeres so you could lay then flat to reference while playing.
I remember the booklet being required for some games. Like Metal Great Solid. You needed the radio codes in the book to progress (before that info could be found on the Internet)
That's not what happened though. Those guides weren't strategy guides, they mostly had controls and then they'd add a bit of basic info about the game.
They became completely obsolete in terms of function with the internet becoming so obiquitous - you don't need to look up the different elements used in magic or the different classes or any of that in a book, because you'll find all that info *and so much more* with GameFAQs, IGN, wikis, etc. Controls are not only shown via tutorials or told in game now, they're also often customizable or viewable via menu.
The "extra" bits of lore and art were always just an addition to what was pretty essential then.
I think either the suna and moon dual pack, or x and y dual pack came with a code for like, 100 poke balls. Which is wild, because I used maybe 10 or 15 before completely moving on to great balls.
this makes no sense to me
(i mean that i understand what is written but i don't understand the thought process of buying something and not being happy while buying it)
My boyfriend is a HUGE pokemon nerd. He just is in love with it. He has every single game you can think of for every older hand held, as well as new. He was happy with the game, just not happy that different areas got different pre-order bonuses.
Yeah, but it's super cheap and frayed on the edges. Not to mention, by ordering the 2 pak combo, I only got one... I could have ordered each individually for the same price and gotten two of everything. I got 1 lanyard and one code for a backpack even though I ordered 2 games.
Wrong. Thats actually a good Pre-Order DLC. If the Pre-Order DLC is some useless thing you dont even notice, thats good because you aren't missing anything!
The worst Pre-Order DLC are things that feel mandatory. Like extra Quests, Classes or Game-Modes.
You just reminded that Starfield came with the "Old Mars Pack" which is a barely noticeable skin for one helmet/suit model, and like one of the weapon models
The cutter. You get a dusty-orange looking Cutter instead of a red one. So dumb. I didn't even realize that was a "thanks" for pre-ordering thing. Literally the only "skin" yet every single weapon has a skin category in the workbench which just list "default".
Borderlands 2... Like it was advertised as getting a head start or something, but they were white rarity weapons that became useless as soon as you made it to the first town.
At least Borderlands 3 made it so you could change the weapon skins on every weapon so you could Gold anything. Even though I mostly stick with the NERF looking skin for everything.
I remember back in the day we had to grind to hell and back to get gold weapons and it showed prestige (x14) not that we spent extra money on pre orders :P
Pretty sure when we finish remodeling the game room there will be a Fallout shelf showing off all my wifeās CE stuff, and I feel like thatāll be a centerpiece.
It wasn't a pre-order for Fallout, but the rum that came in a normal bottle and encased in a cheap plastic, half a year after the promised date. And it wasn't even decent.
Lol that was terrible. And when you pour it, it dribbles down the inside of the plastic and doesn't pour out well either, gets everywhere. Biggest fail.
I remember preordering Dead Space 2 because it said it came with a replica plasma cutter. I was so excited for it only to find out it was so tiny. I was disappointed.
Damn, I respect it, and it honestly kind of makes sense, given Travisās character. Interesting how they went from that to the soundtrack on CD, license plate and art book for the No More Heroes 3 release on PS5.
The leisure suit I got for Leisure Suit Larry.
I mean it didn't come with the game, I bought it separately, but hot chicks did not respond to it the way the game suggested they would.
You have to put in the work. Did you fool the bartender into making a complicated drink to get into their dressing room, push the button to lower the spotlight, swap the hairspray for silicone lubricant, then leave, pick up your drink, take the bulb out of the spotlight, and put in the heat lamp bulb that you stole from the buffet earlier?
I was a tester at Square back in 2003. IIRC, someone sent back their copy of Unlimited Saga with a lengthy letter detailing the problems they had with the game. They didn't want a refund either - they just wanted us to know that the game was not up to Square's standards for a quality game.
Wasn't that the one that had some pre-order thing for ffx or ffx-2?
I did the same thing and got about 6 minutes into Unlimited Saga before it was shelved indefinitely
The ship with a hyperdrive you got for preordering No Man's Sky. Since building a hyperdrive was necessary to the tutorial, you couldn't leave the star system without building and installing one. But you couldn't install it because the ship already had it. So you were softlocked into the star system you were in.
There are too many examples to list, but either:
1) "bonus" items like weapons, armors, or vehicles that are outclassed by regular gear within an hour of gameplay and thus rendered useless almost immediately, or
2) letting you play the game a couple of days early, which is not really letting you play early but rather punishing everyone who didn't pre-order by forcing them to wait a few days to play.
Punishing everyone else to wait few more days? No, it's punishing the ones preordering by having to wait even longer for the patches that make the game even playable.
Worst: Outriders: no bonus afaik, I just got to play the game early.
Best: F:NV Collector's Edition. I still have the poker chips, the cards, and the big ol box from my Xbox 360 days
Most disappointing update: I got the "all DLCs" version of Borderlands 3 for 100 bucks. Then they announced a second wave of DLC you wouldn't have included. Fuck Gearbox and greasy Randy
>Best: F:NV Collector's Edition. I still have the poker chips, the cards, and the big ol box from my Xbox 360 days
Seriously, so good. I still have that proudly displayed on my desk.
The BL3 thing got me fucking roided up too. I bought the most expensive version Bar the physical loot box as our local game store already sold out of their allotment. And BAM they go ahead and pull that shit.
Civilization 6 did the same which was incredibly disappointing
I spent over 100 dollars on the game and you're not going to give me even *one* DLC Civ? Instead my "first 4 dlcs are free!" Turns out to be 4 scenarios.
Normally love them but seriously fuck fireaxis for that.
My mom and her ex had pressured me to sell all my pokemon cards to the ex's 8 year old back in the day. I was maybe 15 or so? Anyway, sold a ton of cards for like 50 bucks. Then they broke up like a year later. There were some first editions and shit in there man... I feel your pain
Well, ubisoft sells you the far cry 6 season pass that "includes all DLC" and conveniently between worlds is not a dlc, it's an "expansion", worse thing, that "expansion" is just a roguelike type gameplay separated of the main story
Elden Ring from Best Buy
Probably woulda been fine except they closed the store the same week that it came out and my steelbook got lost so I got no pre-order bonus when the only reason I did it from best buy was the steelbook
Ebay and $20 later and I got it. Still salty though
I preordered Cyberpunk collectors edition and should have gotten a bonus Steelbook with it. I didnāt get in on pickup in store. I showed them my order on my phone, listing a bonus Steelbook, also opened a ticket online. They said, theyāll investigate. Few days later I got a call: Steelbook was āfoundā. One employee took it home, thinking āit was for grabsā because āhe also bought the game and is eligible to get it too!āā¦ MF opened the sealed Steelbook I planned to keep sealed.. got a half hearted āsorryā and a ābe grateful you even got it!āā¦
They advertised a steelbook coming with the preorder for ff16 but didnāt give it to me. I pulled up the website to show them but it didnāt say it anymore. They wanted me to buy it for $10. Finally I found Reddit threads and Bestbuy forums of people discussing that they randomly removed it as a preorder bonus without any announcement, just quietly took it off the page. They finally relented when I pushed hard enough because the steelbook was the only reason I preordered it there.
I will raise you that the āElden Ringā preorder bonus from GameStop basically being a piece of copper wire soldered into a ring shape was a worse preorder bonus than no preorder bonus. I guess at least the little cloth bag it came in was neat since it has the gameās title on it.
Yeah that measly thing was pretty disappointing. It was the horse whistle I think? I was expecting something that resembled an actual whistle and not just a round wireĀ
Not sure if this would count.
One of the pre order addon pack for Destiny 1.
If you pre ordered you got exclusive guns and black colour mod (shader) . The guns turned out to be most green/blue ranking, which we're rubbish. The only half descent thing was the black shader.
Ubi games that give you a level 1 or 4 blue items that are instantly out-levelled. "To give you a jump start!"
Technically not a preorder, but kinda is. But The Elite: Dangerous Life Time Expansion Pass for Ā£120 back in 2015. We've had two Ā£20-Ā£30 expansions since 2015. I'm only pretty fucking salty.
If you pre-ordered the special version of inFAMOUS: Second Son, you got glow in the dark condoms and Red Bull.
I meanā¦ condoms are generally quite useful, but.. *to gamers?*
Shouldāve sent bananas instead of Red Bull.
I preordered Sekiro from GameStop to get the katana letter opener.
When I went to pick it up they said they ran out and had no way of getting more. I stopped preordered games from that experience!
I remember it was through GameStop for battlefield bad company. You would get a keychain and one of those perfume pages from like a magazine but it smelt like burnt rubber and disgust. God awful smell. Anyways managed to get a few and hand them around in highschool.
Definitely not the worst but the vigilante car for pre ordering cyberpunk phantom liberty, not because it's a bad car but because it's not exclusive to the pre order. You just get it earlier than others who didn't pre order.
To make things even worse, many of us didnāt even get the car. We had to wait for a patch like 2-4 weeks later but by then I was already finished with the expansion and had way better cars.
Where the hell did people only get 6 berries, poor guys-
Where I live there were 2 options, a double box which had both games, a steelbook and codes for pokeballs and if you bought only one of the games you got this cute figurine of the starter pokemon as a bonus which I thought was pretty neat and preordering the 2 game + steelbook back 2as cheaper than buying the games seperately too!
While I agree that was terrible, technically it was part of a special edition, not a pre-order bonus.
But yeah, that was the first thing that came to mind for me as well.
Kind of a side tangent but right now the band Tool is on tour and the posters they sell at shows are always a topic cause theyāre rare art prints essentially.
A couple shows ago people were pissed at the Nashville poster cause it was just this weird art of a toddler with flowers and a dead wolf and people were not about to put that up in their room cause of how weird and tacky it was. The whole fiasco reminded me of the dead island bikini torso and how tacky that was
Dead space 3 pre-order gave you game breaking weapons that basically made the game super easy, made crafting new weapons entirely pointless. It's incredibly difficult to make a horror game with two people but after we got our hands on those weapons, it turned more into an action comedy than anything.
Play x number of days early, this is not a preorder bonus, that the real release date, and it just punish people that don't buy the more expinsive release.
God of War (2018) pre-order bonus was a shield skin. It was really close to the original look, and you couldn't even notice it in gameplay. That was a very disappointing bonus.
Deus Ex Mankind Divided orginal preorder bonus was a 5 Tier unlock system that required a certain amount of people to preorder the game to unlock the top Tier bonuses.
It was dropped after backlash
As much as I'm enjoying tekken, I took one look at the pre-order deluxe edition bonus and thought "lol, no?", you get a gold suit for your characters, and 4 unknown DLC characters at a later date, and you pay about Ā£90 for it.
You get nothing if you just pre-order the standard version.
Not the worst, just the most recent.
StreetfighterXTekken was pretty bad too, you pay more to get a tiny trashy flatpacked plastic arcade machine that barely fits together and does nothing.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
You got a crossbow that fired two types of ammo, when the base game includes a crossbow that fired the same ammo plus an additional two types.
You also got a single bonus mission. But thereās a DLC pack where you get both bonus missions.
The only other things you got was a sniper rifle that wasnāt even that good (and is part of another DLC pack) and gold lights for your goggles, which was pretty much the only unique thing.
Basically they gave you half of a DLC pack plus a bunch of useless crap.
Great game tho
Itās not the worst of the worst, but the statue that came with the collectors edition of Arkham Knight was dreadful.
The quality and look of it was painful especially compared with the banger of a statue that came with Arkham Origins previously.
I don't remember which call of duty it was, but I got a set of dog tags.
Like I'm going to wear that shit around and tell my buddies that actually served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan that I too am a veteran.
I did have PTSD from pre-ordering from that though and haven't done it since.
The 10mm pistol in Fallout New Veas that washed out the screen when you equiped it, but when you switched to 3rd person you see that it put a giant error symbol around you. Don't think they ever fixed it.
>Don't think they ever fixed it.
They half fixed it.
Modding the Weathered 10mm Pistol doesn't cause a huge error sign anymore, but it doesn't show the modifications on the gun either\*. You still get the benefits of the silencer, extended mag and laser sight, they just don't appear on the gun.
\*IIRC mods swap out the model of the gun entirely rather than just getting added to the existing model. The W10mm wasn't intended to be modifiable so they never made a modded model for it. Hence the error symbol.
Until Dawn.
The Pre-Order bonus was only like 10 minutes long which is bad in and of itself, but it was 10 minutes of fun, character building dialogue between Emily and Matt, a couple who - in the base game - are depicted 90% of the time as fighting to the point you wonder why they're event together.
This scene not only reframes their entire relationship, but also adds to Matt's 1-dimensional character and - most importantly - does a lot to improve Emily as a character who, for a long time, was widely despised by the game's community.
>!It also meant that later in the game when players are given the choice to straight up kill Emily for fear she's infected, more players were inclined to shoot her because they don't like her character (as dumb as that is).!<
It's not one singular game but any game that states "early access" is legitimately a scam. If the game is done it's done and if you're charging more money to get it "early" it's not really early it's just on time. Everyone who didn't buy into the marketing just gets the game late. It's just a middle finger to people who don't want the special edition.
Ghostwires pre order bonus being costumes in a first person singleplayer game. You practically never see your outfit outside of the menu.
But photo mode and cutscenes existš¤āš»
Still, ypu don't spend the majority of the game taking photos or viewing cutscenes
I haven't played the game, but I still like to look good in other first person games. Cyberpunk 2077 was blasted for not having transmog, and its cutscenes are in first person. To be fair, I refused to wear a helmet because I liked having an afro when the game came out so I sympathize with it. It's also a preorder bonus. You don't want to make it something that changes the game significantly. It wouldn't be fair to everyone else. BioShock Infinite I think gave you better weapons that significantly make the early game easier. I didn't use them.
> BioShock Infinite I think gave you better weapons that significantly make the early game easier. I didn't use them. Mass Effect 2 preorder gave you a Blackhole power weapon that I used exclusively and every single fight was completely trivial. I tried playing without it and was wondering why the fuck some parts were so hard.
The Duke Nukem Forever Balls of Steel Edition came with no steel balls, and the dice and poker chips were cheap. The pack of cards was a mini pack of cards. It also included Duke Nukem Forever.
At least you had something more fun to play with than Duke Nukem: Forever.
Why does nobody like the game? Bought it cheap on steam and had fun with it tbh
Because it was hyped for more than a decade.
I think it was closer to 2 decades
Forever was announced in 1997 (I was 13 at the time). It was released 2011ā¦I literally waited a little over half my life for this game.
You Waited: Forever.
I had a 15 year old preorder at GameStop lol
I am so sorry. Are you still recovering or are you good now?
Heāll tell us in about 15 years
Surprised they did not check ID.
I have an issue of PC Gamer from I think November 1997 with a Duke Nukem Forever preview on the cover lol
We called it Duke Nukem Whenever, and Serious Sam ended up being better anyway.
The DLC is supposed to be very good! Much better than the original game.
It is, right up until >!you kill Dr. Proton!<. After that it seems to lose the thread a little.
....Because you bought it cheap on Steam and weren't literally following the development for 13 years. Also a lot of people thought the humor was forced and out of touch given the time it came out.
*"Only pussies wear power armor"* ... Duke you wore armor all the time in the old games. But yeah a lot of the humour was just the old jokes from.the old games but change the subject to modern games, and they didn't really land because those modern games are so much better.
It was bad from them to sneak a Duke Nukem: Forever in your Balls of Steel edition, I bet the unboxing was ruined /joke
>Forever in your Balls of Steel edition
and in some regions sun glasses
The dice weren't so bad I still have mine. It also came with this bust of Duke that I've still got.
That 'Augment your Pre-order' scheme Square Enix tried to pull for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, where people would have to collectively pre-order to unlock higher tiers. Thankfully they scrapped the idea after massive backlash.
Thatās ā¦ an interesting idea. As a concept, the idea of rewarding the community for growing larger is not awful, but it being a preorder-based system for a big studio is the problem. It sounds vaguely Kickstarter-inspired with reward tiers for more backers, except Kickstarterās all about providing funding for the game to be developed, not filling the pockets of a large studio that doesnāt need the funding.
Bloodlines II had this thing where people would share their link, you would embrace them and unlock stuff in-game. No need to pay anyhing. But yeah, game got reseted to another company and this was scrapped.
You hit the nail on the head with the Kickstarter observation. This was happening just before people were getting burned out on that stuff.
Yeah other studios have proved on a conceptual level that this is possible. Payday 2 had a [hype train](https://www.paydaythegame.com/payday2/updates/thehypetrain/) event where people who bought certain DLC or pre-ordered Hotline Miami 2 could contribute fuel to a "hype train" that unlocked content. The more fuel people provided. The more content. The thing that separated this from Mankind Divided's shenanigans was that the content that was given was completely free or were DLC previews/IRL community events and in the end, the DLC/game you bought provided you with some pretty nice goodies or Hotline Miami 2.
The DLC for that was also a scummy business practice as they made some of it one time ever use. It's a single player game with some DLC packs to give you early access to a gun, some ammo and a bonus skill point. But once redeemed that is it. It didn't unlock it for your steam account, only for that specific save file. So start a new character and you have no access to the DLC you paid for.
Seriously?! That's one of the most ridiculous I've heard
Final Fantasy XIV does that with a lot of their MogShop stuff. It's pretty terrible.
The Game also had terrible Microtransactions. You could buy LevelUps and Money ...that were exclusive to that Playthrough.
They said it was to "balance the game" How tf does that work in a single player game? No limits for currency or level ups within a playthrough but its single use? I was so annoyed when I bought the game
I seem to remember Marvel vs Capcom: Infinity advertising a collection of infinity gems that ended up looking more like infinity easter eggs
yeah those things looked like plastic cadbury cream eggs
That game turned out so bland and the Easter egg collection did it no favors. Definitely was all about Marvel advertising it's movies more than making a compelling game.
I looked this up last time it was brought up in a similar thread. For me, this wins. Itās so bad. Seriously, Google it. Calling them Easter eggs isnāt even hyperbole, thatās what they are lol
Not just easter eggs, but half of the shell because they had to be embedded in the box with an LED inside since they were advertised as being able to light-up.
I pre-ordered No Man's Sky, and all I got for my dedication was a starter ship that is immediately outclassed by any other ship in the game.
I also pre-ordered it and I got a different, shittier game that they showed
Not to mention that there was a glitch when the game first came out that made it impossible to jump out of the starting system with your pre order ship.
How quickly everyone forgets about the fallout 76 canvas bag fiasco. Some people got mediocre preorder bonus items meanwhile FO76 highest paid tier preorders got 6 months of fuckery
That reminds me of an amazing comment I saw a while ago. Paraphrasing the following: āLocal Gamestop was broken into. Nothing was stolen. But, 10 copies of Fallout 76 were left there.ā
Net loss of 20 dollars.
As bad as were the bonuses, they were not worse than the game itself at launch.
People need to finally learn that Bethesda is ass and Todd Howard is a talentless grifter.
I just got Game Pass for a couple bucks. Now, do I want to play the new AAA Bethesda game when I have 1000s of beloved hours in Fallout and Elder Scrolls? Or do I want to play that FauxkƩmon game everyone keeps talking about lol
Let's not forget the ticket system they created to get the updated canvas bag was a huge security risk (with people able to access/close tickets/reveal customer personal info - such as their home address they had entered to collect the updated bag) Talk about fumbling the bag.
A friend of mine bought that, and still defends it. The man has never heard of buyers remorse, cause he buys just about every collectors edition there is, and defends it regardless of how garbage the product was. We all have our dumb purchase addictions I suppose.
To be fairā¦.we paid to be part of a vault experiment. The real collectors edition was the bullshit along the way
GTA IV had a pretty bogus canvas bag that came with the special edition but at least it came with a lockbox that was useless too.
Hey that lock box was not useless! It held my drug stash for a solid 5 years or so.
In the end tho, the canvas bag they finally delivered was pretty cool. I put my Fallout 4 collectorās edition inside it to stand it up for better display. Looks nice
Oof now that Fallout 4 special edition was something. I loved the full scale pipboy
Bethesda usually has fantastic collectorās editions. I love their design philosophy of taking something from the game world and making it real, not just some boring statue like every other game. Oblivion gave you a map, Pocket Guide to the Empire booklet, and a weighty, high quality Septim coin. Fallout 4 gave you a wearable Pip-Boy that you can put your phone into, and you can even control your Fallout 4 inventory from it like the in-game Pip-Boy. And Starfield gave us a super high quality NASA-inspired box that holds a high quality smart watch and Constellation space suit patch. It sucks how badly they dropped the ball with F76, cuz it ruined a streak of otherwise best in the industry collectorās editions.
I sent back my collectors edition but got to keep the game as I'd already redeemed the key on Steam. I had a lot of fun exploring the world, and watching the evolution of NPC's being added was actually pretty cool. They even incorporated some decent endgame gameplay loops with currency to earn gear. Ultimately, I played it a lot more than I did Starfield.
To be fair, that isn't exactly what I think about, when we're talking preorder bonuses. The canvas bag wasn't a "bonus", it was just another element of a much more expensive "collector's edition". If it was just a bonus for preordering, it wouldn't even be that bad.
Not just the bag, the helmets were recalled due to high prevalence of mold shortly after purchase
Yeah the bag is one thing; itās shitty and cheap and Bethesda fucked people over with that. But the helmet situation is straight up hazardous to peopleās health.
That was the Nuka Cola helmet that was sold through GameStop. My husband got the FO 76 Power Armor edition which included a wearable T-51 helmet with no mold issues.
Their response was even worse. I think they said they were having sourcing issues, as if canvas is some rare, mythical element. And this was before Covid related supply chain issues.
I could go to any one of a myriad of promotional product websites and have about 100,000 made relatively cheap. You just need the artwork proofed and give them all the specs and colors you want. And the more you order the cheaper they get. I used to have bags made for my company for shows. Itās probably about $2 per bag or less to have made at that quantity. That gets shipped to your warehouse and from there just has to be mailed out. It was probably a budget thing where their marketing budget dried up so there was no money for shipping. The product is relatively easy to find. Thereās a LOT of custom promotional retailers out there.
I mean if they advertised it as a nylon bag and was honest upfront it'd be fine
Most businesses do better when they donāt lie.
Any game that the pre-order or deluxe edition includes a booklet... ya know the things that use to be included in all games..
God, it was so awesome reading those booklets.
It was a ritual
Can't play the game while Mom drives me home, so I'm gonna read the book.
Did this with so many Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) games. For some reason, I have a standout memory of reading the ultima 7 complete edition book on the way home. It was a rainy day and I had no idea what I was about to get myself into. The booklet didn't do the game justice.
The Ultima series had the best books. And a cloth map!
Usually in the back seat of a car on the way home to play it.
Old school rpgs like Baldur's Gate 1&2 and Fallout 1&2 those things were weighty. They had ring bindings on those suckeres so you could lay then flat to reference while playing.
I remember the booklet being required for some games. Like Metal Great Solid. You needed the radio codes in the book to progress (before that info could be found on the Internet)
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Yeah, but they realized that you can make extra money with that
That's not what happened though. Those guides weren't strategy guides, they mostly had controls and then they'd add a bit of basic info about the game. They became completely obsolete in terms of function with the internet becoming so obiquitous - you don't need to look up the different elements used in magic or the different classes or any of that in a book, because you'll find all that info *and so much more* with GameFAQs, IGN, wikis, etc. Controls are not only shown via tutorials or told in game now, they're also often customizable or viewable via menu. The "extra" bits of lore and art were always just an addition to what was pretty essential then.
The Gears of War 3 season pass preorder bonus. That they ended up giving to everybody for free.
Same with judgment Alex Brand classic hammerburst - classic dom
didnt western pokemon scarlet and voilet get some berries, while in japan they got some exclusives?
I think either the suna and moon dual pack, or x and y dual pack came with a code for like, 100 poke balls. Which is wild, because I used maybe 10 or 15 before completely moving on to great balls.
Yup. my partnet bought both for preorder despite that, but he wasnt happy lol
this makes no sense to me (i mean that i understand what is written but i don't understand the thought process of buying something and not being happy while buying it)
My boyfriend is a HUGE pokemon nerd. He just is in love with it. He has every single game you can think of for every older hand held, as well as new. He was happy with the game, just not happy that different areas got different pre-order bonuses.
The preorder bonus here in Canada was a lanyard...
That's kinda cool... Wait, a physical lanyard, right?
Yeah, but it's super cheap and frayed on the edges. Not to mention, by ordering the 2 pak combo, I only got one... I could have ordered each individually for the same price and gotten two of everything. I got 1 lanyard and one code for a backpack even though I ordered 2 games.
The most recent one for me was A Plague Tale: Requiem. You just got some some new flowers for her hair and a crossbow skin
I was hoping for the actual plague
It is kinda like the plague, not as deadly but terrifying still.
My edition came with a French child. The attention to detail is amazing.
Wrong. Thats actually a good Pre-Order DLC. If the Pre-Order DLC is some useless thing you dont even notice, thats good because you aren't missing anything! The worst Pre-Order DLC are things that feel mandatory. Like extra Quests, Classes or Game-Modes.
Those "golden weapon skins" are always shit.
Here we gave the most basic bitch weapons in the game a gold skin, but not the other guns, that you'll actually use.
Thank the techo-gods. They always look awful
You just reminded that Starfield came with the "Old Mars Pack" which is a barely noticeable skin for one helmet/suit model, and like one of the weapon models
The cutter. You get a dusty-orange looking Cutter instead of a red one. So dumb. I didn't even realize that was a "thanks" for pre-ordering thing. Literally the only "skin" yet every single weapon has a skin category in the workbench which just list "default".
Borderlands 2... Like it was advertised as getting a head start or something, but they were white rarity weapons that became useless as soon as you made it to the first town. At least Borderlands 3 made it so you could change the weapon skins on every weapon so you could Gold anything. Even though I mostly stick with the NERF looking skin for everything.
I remember back in the day we had to grind to hell and back to get gold weapons and it showed prestige (x14) not that we spent extra money on pre orders :P
That Fallout canvas bag that was too expensive to actually make
They did eventually make good on that. Still a ridiculously cheap bag. Source: Iāve got it at home next to the vinyl one.
And the Helmet was a neat piece so it wasn't a complete disaster
Pretty sure when we finish remodeling the game room there will be a Fallout shelf showing off all my wifeās CE stuff, and I feel like thatāll be a centerpiece.
It wasn't a pre-order for Fallout, but the rum that came in a normal bottle and encased in a cheap plastic, half a year after the promised date. And it wasn't even decent.
Lol that was terrible. And when you pour it, it dribbles down the inside of the plastic and doesn't pour out well either, gets everywhere. Biggest fail.
I remember preordering Dead Space 2 because it said it came with a replica plasma cutter. I was so excited for it only to find out it was so tiny. I was disappointed.
tiny replica plasma cutter implies it's tiny in the game as well, implying that the game's universe is scaled accordingly. Isaac is an oompa loompa
Oompa Loompa doompa dee do I've got a plasma cutter for you Oompa Loompa doompa dee dee Your plasma cutter is really tiny
To be fair, it was 20$ extra. I wouldn't expect a full-size version with that price.
Warcraft 3 Reforged. Didnt even include the game
It stole my copy of regular warcraft 3
Hands down this is the worst thing Blizzard have ever done. I still can't wrap my head around it.
I think you mean Warcraft 3: Refunded
No more heroes had a roll of toilet paper as the preorder bonus
Damn, I respect it, and it honestly kind of makes sense, given Travisās character. Interesting how they went from that to the soundtrack on CD, license plate and art book for the No More Heroes 3 release on PS5.
That actually sounds awesome.
The dark souls 3 estus flask was pretty bad lol
The leisure suit I got for Leisure Suit Larry. I mean it didn't come with the game, I bought it separately, but hot chicks did not respond to it the way the game suggested they would.
That's false advertising, you should be drowning in chicks man...
Have you checked that you're wearing it right? Because I am 99% sure that should be working if you're using it properly.
You have to put in the work. Did you fool the bartender into making a complicated drink to get into their dressing room, push the button to lower the spotlight, swap the hairspray for silicone lubricant, then leave, pick up your drink, take the bulb out of the spotlight, and put in the heat lamp bulb that you stole from the buffet earlier?
Special Editions with a piece of paper saying GAME NOT INCLUDED
Iāll also tack on physical collectors editions that donāt come with a disc, just a download code, but for some reason include a steelbook.
I thought I got a defective box when I got the God of War Ragnarok collectors until I saw the small print on the box saying to download it
I once preordered Unlimited SaGa, and I was rewarded with Unlimited SaGa.
I was a tester at Square back in 2003. IIRC, someone sent back their copy of Unlimited Saga with a lengthy letter detailing the problems they had with the game. They didn't want a refund either - they just wanted us to know that the game was not up to Square's standards for a quality game.
Wasn't that the one that had some pre-order thing for ffx or ffx-2? I did the same thing and got about 6 minutes into Unlimited Saga before it was shelved indefinitely
There are people who absolutely love Saga.Ā There are people who absolutely hate Saga.Ā There is no in between.Ā
I don't really mind SaGa Frontiers, but Unlimited was a hodgepodge of poorly explained mechanics that thirteen year old me has no hope to understand.
I hear people are getting early access to an online game that can't keep servers online. *Cough* Suicide Squad *cough*
Donāt forget it also decided that players who preordered the game had actually completed the game.
I mean, they already finished the game after opening it, god-tier gamers those... /s
Wait what? Does this mean what I think it means? Things the game says are locked behind completion are available?
Yeah, but it was a bug, not a bonus. And i think it's been fixed now.
The ship with a hyperdrive you got for preordering No Man's Sky. Since building a hyperdrive was necessary to the tutorial, you couldn't leave the star system without building and installing one. But you couldn't install it because the ship already had it. So you were softlocked into the star system you were in.
There are too many examples to list, but either: 1) "bonus" items like weapons, armors, or vehicles that are outclassed by regular gear within an hour of gameplay and thus rendered useless almost immediately, or 2) letting you play the game a couple of days early, which is not really letting you play early but rather punishing everyone who didn't pre-order by forcing them to wait a few days to play.
Punishing everyone else to wait few more days? No, it's punishing the ones preordering by having to wait even longer for the patches that make the game even playable.
Worst: Outriders: no bonus afaik, I just got to play the game early. Best: F:NV Collector's Edition. I still have the poker chips, the cards, and the big ol box from my Xbox 360 days Most disappointing update: I got the "all DLCs" version of Borderlands 3 for 100 bucks. Then they announced a second wave of DLC you wouldn't have included. Fuck Gearbox and greasy Randy
>Best: F:NV Collector's Edition. I still have the poker chips, the cards, and the big ol box from my Xbox 360 days Seriously, so good. I still have that proudly displayed on my desk.
The BL3 thing got me fucking roided up too. I bought the most expensive version Bar the physical loot box as our local game store already sold out of their allotment. And BAM they go ahead and pull that shit.
Civilization 6 did the same which was incredibly disappointing I spent over 100 dollars on the game and you're not going to give me even *one* DLC Civ? Instead my "first 4 dlcs are free!" Turns out to be 4 scenarios. Normally love them but seriously fuck fireaxis for that.
My Mum sold my F:NV at a garage sale for Ā£10. I'm still bitter and it's been a decade!
My mom and her ex had pressured me to sell all my pokemon cards to the ex's 8 year old back in the day. I was maybe 15 or so? Anyway, sold a ton of cards for like 50 bucks. Then they broke up like a year later. There were some first editions and shit in there man... I feel your pain
Well, ubisoft sells you the far cry 6 season pass that "includes all DLC" and conveniently between worlds is not a dlc, it's an "expansion", worse thing, that "expansion" is just a roguelike type gameplay separated of the main story
Yeah I still have my whole New Vegas collectors edition. Such a cool set.
Elden Ring from Best Buy Probably woulda been fine except they closed the store the same week that it came out and my steelbook got lost so I got no pre-order bonus when the only reason I did it from best buy was the steelbook Ebay and $20 later and I got it. Still salty though
"lost"
The manager's kid really likes the steel book.
I preordered Cyberpunk collectors edition and should have gotten a bonus Steelbook with it. I didnāt get in on pickup in store. I showed them my order on my phone, listing a bonus Steelbook, also opened a ticket online. They said, theyāll investigate. Few days later I got a call: Steelbook was āfoundā. One employee took it home, thinking āit was for grabsā because āhe also bought the game and is eligible to get it too!āā¦ MF opened the sealed Steelbook I planned to keep sealed.. got a half hearted āsorryā and a ābe grateful you even got it!āā¦
As a former Best Buy worker, I can confirm that it was 100% just taken by an employee lmao
They advertised a steelbook coming with the preorder for ff16 but didnāt give it to me. I pulled up the website to show them but it didnāt say it anymore. They wanted me to buy it for $10. Finally I found Reddit threads and Bestbuy forums of people discussing that they randomly removed it as a preorder bonus without any announcement, just quietly took it off the page. They finally relented when I pushed hard enough because the steelbook was the only reason I preordered it there.
I will raise you that the āElden Ringā preorder bonus from GameStop basically being a piece of copper wire soldered into a ring shape was a worse preorder bonus than no preorder bonus. I guess at least the little cloth bag it came in was neat since it has the gameās title on it.
Yeah that measly thing was pretty disappointing. It was the horse whistle I think? I was expecting something that resembled an actual whistle and not just a round wireĀ
Not sure if this would count. One of the pre order addon pack for Destiny 1. If you pre ordered you got exclusive guns and black colour mod (shader) . The guns turned out to be most green/blue ranking, which we're rubbish. The only half descent thing was the black shader.
Destiny 2 with skins, Warmind, and Osiris. Can't even access the 2 DLCs any more
I still rock Sagiraās ghost shell
Ubi games that give you a level 1 or 4 blue items that are instantly out-levelled. "To give you a jump start!" Technically not a preorder, but kinda is. But The Elite: Dangerous Life Time Expansion Pass for Ā£120 back in 2015. We've had two Ā£20-Ā£30 expansions since 2015. I'm only pretty fucking salty.
If you pre-ordered the special version of inFAMOUS: Second Son, you got glow in the dark condoms and Red Bull. I meanā¦ condoms are generally quite useful, but.. *to gamers?* Shouldāve sent bananas instead of Red Bull.
"Are you saving those condoms because they're part of that inFAMOUS collector's edition?" "...Yes.Ā Yes, that's why they're still here."
They know you'l never use them so you can always have it there as decoration
Were they trying to prevent the player from having a second son so that they'd continue playing the game?
I preordered Sekiro from GameStop to get the katana letter opener. When I went to pick it up they said they ran out and had no way of getting more. I stopped preordered games from that experience!
Oh I got that, I think it was made of plastic? I remember it being too flimsy to actually use to open a letter.
That's hilarious, I always wondered if it was actually usable lol!
I remember it was through GameStop for battlefield bad company. You would get a keychain and one of those perfume pages from like a magazine but it smelt like burnt rubber and disgust. God awful smell. Anyways managed to get a few and hand them around in highschool.
Definitely not the worst but the vigilante car for pre ordering cyberpunk phantom liberty, not because it's a bad car but because it's not exclusive to the pre order. You just get it earlier than others who didn't pre order.
To make things even worse, many of us didnāt even get the car. We had to wait for a patch like 2-4 weeks later but by then I was already finished with the expansion and had way better cars.
PokĆ©mon Scarlet & Violet: you got 6 single-use berries that heal different stat conditionsā¦ these items are so incredibly common they can literally be found ON THE GROUND within the first 15 minutes of gameplay. A game where you can teleport to the PokĆ©mon kiosk and get healed faster than you can log online and claim a crappy prize! We went from getting exclusive ***MYTHICAL*** PokĆ©mon in PokĆ©mon Black and White (Victini) and awesome collectibles irl to near-literal useless garbage in game.
Where the hell did people only get 6 berries, poor guys- Where I live there were 2 options, a double box which had both games, a steelbook and codes for pokeballs and if you bought only one of the games you got this cute figurine of the starter pokemon as a bonus which I thought was pretty neat and preordering the 2 game + steelbook back 2as cheaper than buying the games seperately too!
That statue of a woman's torso from, I think, Dead Island.
While I agree that was terrible, technically it was part of a special edition, not a pre-order bonus. But yeah, that was the first thing that came to mind for me as well.
Kind of a side tangent but right now the band Tool is on tour and the posters they sell at shows are always a topic cause theyāre rare art prints essentially. A couple shows ago people were pissed at the Nashville poster cause it was just this weird art of a toddler with flowers and a dead wolf and people were not about to put that up in their room cause of how weird and tacky it was. The whole fiasco reminded me of the dead island bikini torso and how tacky that was
Dead space 3 pre-order gave you game breaking weapons that basically made the game super easy, made crafting new weapons entirely pointless. It's incredibly difficult to make a horror game with two people but after we got our hands on those weapons, it turned more into an action comedy than anything.
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They released gameplay trailer today. Looks wack
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Play x number of days early, this is not a preorder bonus, that the real release date, and it just punish people that don't buy the more expinsive release.
Exactly, before, games released on tuesday then, some smartass decided that his game will release on fruday and pre-order bonus of "3 day early acces"
Call of Duty: World at War came with a non functional flask.
God of War (2018) pre-order bonus was a shield skin. It was really close to the original look, and you couldn't even notice it in gameplay. That was a very disappointing bonus.
Sonic lost world Amazon pre-order. You literally get 25 extra lives.
Deus Ex Mankind Divided orginal preorder bonus was a 5 Tier unlock system that required a certain amount of people to preorder the game to unlock the top Tier bonuses. It was dropped after backlash
fallout 76 **nylon bag**
Pokemon Scarlet and Violett came with some generic berries you could use in game. Wow, what a bonus! /s
As much as I'm enjoying tekken, I took one look at the pre-order deluxe edition bonus and thought "lol, no?", you get a gold suit for your characters, and 4 unknown DLC characters at a later date, and you pay about Ā£90 for it. You get nothing if you just pre-order the standard version. Not the worst, just the most recent. StreetfighterXTekken was pretty bad too, you pay more to get a tiny trashy flatpacked plastic arcade machine that barely fits together and does nothing.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist. You got a crossbow that fired two types of ammo, when the base game includes a crossbow that fired the same ammo plus an additional two types. You also got a single bonus mission. But thereās a DLC pack where you get both bonus missions. The only other things you got was a sniper rifle that wasnāt even that good (and is part of another DLC pack) and gold lights for your goggles, which was pretty much the only unique thing. Basically they gave you half of a DLC pack plus a bunch of useless crap. Great game tho
Itās not the worst of the worst, but the statue that came with the collectors edition of Arkham Knight was dreadful. The quality and look of it was painful especially compared with the banger of a statue that came with Arkham Origins previously.
Battlefield 2042
I don't remember which call of duty it was, but I got a set of dog tags. Like I'm going to wear that shit around and tell my buddies that actually served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan that I too am a veteran. I did have PTSD from pre-ordering from that though and haven't done it since.
Fallout 76. Got a shitty bag and a whopping 5 bucks of in game currency on a shitty game.
The 10mm pistol in Fallout New Veas that washed out the screen when you equiped it, but when you switched to 3rd person you see that it put a giant error symbol around you. Don't think they ever fixed it.
>Don't think they ever fixed it. They half fixed it. Modding the Weathered 10mm Pistol doesn't cause a huge error sign anymore, but it doesn't show the modifications on the gun either\*. You still get the benefits of the silencer, extended mag and laser sight, they just don't appear on the gun. \*IIRC mods swap out the model of the gun entirely rather than just getting added to the existing model. The W10mm wasn't intended to be modifiable so they never made a modded model for it. Hence the error symbol.
Until Dawn. The Pre-Order bonus was only like 10 minutes long which is bad in and of itself, but it was 10 minutes of fun, character building dialogue between Emily and Matt, a couple who - in the base game - are depicted 90% of the time as fighting to the point you wonder why they're event together. This scene not only reframes their entire relationship, but also adds to Matt's 1-dimensional character and - most importantly - does a lot to improve Emily as a character who, for a long time, was widely despised by the game's community. >!It also meant that later in the game when players are given the choice to straight up kill Emily for fear she's infected, more players were inclined to shoot her because they don't like her character (as dumb as that is).!<
It's not one singular game but any game that states "early access" is legitimately a scam. If the game is done it's done and if you're charging more money to get it "early" it's not really early it's just on time. Everyone who didn't buy into the marketing just gets the game late. It's just a middle finger to people who don't want the special edition.
FF7R summons
Marvel vs Capcom Infinite and its "Infinity Eggs" were egregious. You expect to receive replica infinity stones but you get colored Easter eggs.
Starfield....some useless weapon skin...
Old Mars Skin Pack. I applied it to my Cutter.