I will immediate be upfront and say I have never played a battlefront game before. I will also say that ever since the announcement for this game, my interest has slowly been building. The latest trailer started off nicely enough, and despite it showing neither game play nor representative graphics, I was, dare I say it, excited!

And then there it was, the 'pre order now for bonus content'

My excitement was immediately replaced with disgust. As a brand new potential customer /fan of a series I know almost nothing about, this kind of behavior is just bad.

I, along with most other people, have NO IDEA what this game looks like in motion, or what the game play is. Is it battlefield reskined? You don't know but give us your money anyway. Did you darth Vader? Is he in the game? Who knows!! But give us your money anyway.

I know this may seem redundant, but this is the first time I think I've been REALLY offended by a games marketing (okay, Evolve with its pre order dlc bullshit takes the cake, but this is a close second). I honestly don't know what to think of this game anymore, and even if it's a stellar game, which it has a very good chance of being, it's already made a massively negative impression, one that may be impossible to reverse.

I don't see how this is any different or notable with this game in particular. Sounds like the MK stuff is more egregious/relevant the moment.

You're right in that it doesn't make much sense to pre-order a game without gameplay. So don't do it. You'll probably get more of an idea of what the game looks like around E3, and even then you can always wait after the game's release to buy it, just to make sure it's functional. It makes you feel terrible when looking at games that haven't been released, but the only way to counter (or properly rebel) against such market tactics is to not pre-order and wait until it's been released.

EDIT: And just as a side note, the old Battlefront games will play nothing like these new ones. We don't really get shooters that play like those anymore, so it's well worth visiting those for the first time if you're a big enough Star Wars nerd.

@a_cute_squirtle: Oh I am definitely not about the pre order life. What I'm saying is, this is affecting my purchase decision, as in after the game is released. Like I said, even if the game is phenomenal, this kind of behavior is just plain offensive and for me at least might end up in a no purchase decision being made.

Every game does this. You have been able to preorder The Witcher 3 for months now. Same went for The Order and for Destiny.

If people stopped preordering games they would stop giving out these "bonuses" for doing so.

Then I don't know why you would ever purchase a game from a major publisher ever again. Which is completely fine! Plenty of fantastic gaming experiences to be had with many games that don't try to nickel and dime you every chance they get.

It's the same thing with every game these days. No reason to single this one out of the crowd. If I took offence every time I saw something like that, I would never buy another game, movie, book, album (or any product of any kind, pretty much including food products) ever again.

The Evolve shit was something to be offended about. This is just par for the course.

It seems like the dlc will be free for everyone a week later. pre order dlc -read the key features line near the bottom. Which makes it a pretty bad reason to pre order it just for that.

If it's anything like the first two... yeah, it's Battlefield with a Star Wars skin. That's not necessarily a bad thing, the first two were super addicting.

We at least had an idea of what those games played like early on, though. OP is trying to differentiate this game from the rest based on that criteria.

At least it's not paid DLC. If they were asking you to pay for extra content in a game they've never actually shown the gameplay of, there'd probably be actual outrage over this. As it stands it's just more incentive to those people who were buying this anyway to preorder it today instead of next week, which matters a whole lot to those companies.

@teddie: exactly right. Though I was unaware that this bonus content will be available to everyone. That makes it a little less disturbing!

Honestly it's sounds pretty different from both the older Battlefronts and the newer Battlefields. Read IGN's coverage for a quick overview but in short it seems like it's going to less like Battlefield (ie. conquest oriented) and more it's own thing. One of them devs sums it up interestingly with this tweet. For context he's the lead level designer.

I don't disagree with your feelings OP, but this is very common behavior at this point and I guess I'm just used to it. Generally speaking these things "work out" in the long run. Almost every piece of "pre-order DLC" ever conceived does come out later as a paid download.

Here are the full details from ign:

On December 8, a month after launch, Star Wars Battlefront owners will receive a free add-on for the game that adds another planet to the location line-up (bringing known planet total to 5).

Called Battle of Jakku, the DLC is set on the desert planet that made its first appearance in teasers for The Force Awakens. (Check our Star Wars wiki for everything we know about Jakku.)

Fans who pre-order Battlefront get the DLC a week early, on December 1.

This is so common for most big games that it seems weird to get mad specifically at Battlefront for it. I just don't pre-order because that's silly. The only people that pre-order are those who are bad at spending their money. Even those who live in weirdly remote areas where there's only 1 place they can buy games at within 50 miles will always get a chance to play big games like this, even if they can't play it the first week it comes out.

@brendan: The only people who regret pre-ordering are people who don't bother to do proper research before they buy something. I've pre-ordered tons of games over the years and I could count my regrets on a couple fingers. My biggest disappointments are things I've picked up on a whim, or by someone else's recommendation counter to my own judgement.

That being said, I certainly wouldn't pre-order Battlefront now, with so little info out there. But if they were to convince me to pick the game up day 1 I have no qualms with pre-ordering.

Why are people still complaining about this? If you don't want to preorder, then don't. If you do, then do it the night before release so you've gotten whatever information it is that you needed to justify your purchase. It's not that big of a deal.