Oh so this is the buzz I was hearing about earlier today.

The picking what pre order bonus you want actually sounds ok as far as pre order goes. Tier structure isn't new, but had any previous example ever failed?

As for the quality and necessity of pre order content, is it better that they are meaningless or meaningful?

The 4 days thing is just straight up funny. Are we going to have a day -4 patch now?

Hm, the options in tiers 2 would probably be better off just folded into one offering, because it's weird to choose between a soundtrack (which most would get, because it's free music without pirating anything) and concept art (which you could just Google because you're just going to skim it once anyway), and you want the artifacts of production that you put out there to be accessible to make people further appreciate the thing you made. Similar deal with tier 4.

That just leaves the tier 1 choice. I get the feeling that they've made it a choice because (a) they want to play up this "customize your loadout" promotional fluff; and/or (b) they want you to choose one option and receive one of the others as a pseudo-exclusive preorder bonus from the retail outlet you choose to preorder from, the details of which they'll be announcing later. Otherwise, why not include bundle all three character loadouts in one DLC package that you get for the tier 1 reward, so that you can choose one on a per-game basis?

Pragmatically, I recall Deus Ex: HR having a preorder bonus which gave your character a wad of extra starting credits -- or XP or a Praxis or two, I can't recall which -- and when the reviews came in, many remarked that that advantage threw out the balance of the game because they found that aug activations and other bonuses came too easily and/or early. I think it's worth noting that, unless the player is ill-equipped in the vanilla game, any preorder bonus which gives you more tools as a player runs the risk of spoiling the game for you in a similar manner. And if the loadouts are basically useless and/or cosmetic? Then who the hell friggen cares?

Lastly, in recent memory, the only preorder bonus I've remotely cared about was the friggen AK-FOFF in Sunset Overdrive, which I couldn't get because it was exclusive to some US retailer (Best Buy?) and no Australian retailer seemed to have it on offer (not that I knew that I wanted it until I started playing the game). What ended up happening, was they waited for everyone to forget about the game and then dropped a code for all the preorder bonuses on their forum or something, so I briskly dusted off the game, leveled up the AK-FOFF like the obsessive completionist I am, and haven't touched it since. :P The moral being: eventually they'll probably just dump a code for all of this stuff in a blog somewhere, and you'll wonder why you gave a shit even as you slavishly clamor to acquire it.

"Play it four days early" AKA play it four days before we can release the day 1 patch that will fix major potential bugs you might encounter.

Was Javik in Mass Effect 3 a preorder bonus? Cause that felt the most egregious as to me he was an essential part of that game.

Hopefully this stuff doesn't end up tarnishing what might be a good game in the end.

I mean, the game looks good... but this is pretty much just shit. Pure as can be.

@demoskinos: (and many others)

OK I want to get something straight here since a lot of people in this thread seem to be misinterpreting the title. I am not saying this is the end of all video games or some other kind of doom scenario. The title of the thread is a reference to the Deus Ex series (and the "nightmare" part is also a reference to a popular Alex Navarro saying).
Not to mention that it's also extremely obviously hyperbolic.

@coryukin: They are actually pretty related because they are basically giving you the game as it was originally intended (most likely) and telling you you got a good deal out of it. Oh and they are also asking 59.99 (at least where I live) for the package which is quite a bit more than average PC game price. Don't get me wrong I think it's great that they are including GZ with your MGSV purchase but I wouldn't exactly say you're getting a deal here. If you look around a bit you can get MGSV and GZ separately (and legally!) for a lower price.

@thunderslash: I don't think the Portal 2 ARG is comparable to this.

@madman356647: That's not true and I don't understand why people keep saying this. Kickstarter is not a pre-order at all. Kickstarter is donation. Nothing more, nothing less.

@dudeglove: @beachthunder: It may surprise you but when I made that image I did actually look up (photosensitive) epilepsy and took steps to avoid some of it's most common seizure inducers (Screen/Field of view filling flickering, red and blue colours, white flashes, specific white and black patterns, etc.) and also changed the default visible image to a still image after a user voices his/her concern.
Regardless, it is gone now and I apologise to anyone inconvenienced by it.

@ripelivejam: Javik was a pre-order/day 1 purchase DLC. And yes it's a good example of absolutely disgusting DLC practices. Making a pretty pivotal character in an RPG DLC was a huge dick move.

@dudeglove: Oh I definitely think this was 100% genuine. As you mentioned they have a history with this kind of stuff.

There is a bright side to this whole thing though. The fact that they made the video private after the very negative reaction towards it could indicate they might be rethinking their strategy. We can only hope they will be a lot more consumer-friendly in the future.

Hey man, Steam did it for some games in the past, so whatever.

Stop preordering.

I fail to see what's so bad about this? I mean, if you don't like pre-ordering... than don't? At this point it just sounds like people want to take any chance they can get to yell at something.

Anyone with half a brain stopped preordering years ago. I put it as the second most pointless concept in all of retail. The first is of course gift vouchers :-)

Pre-orders are not a good thing because pre-order numbers have become a business metric to assess product success before a product has been released. The natural progression of this is that products that do not have high pre-order numbers will become a less attractive development proposition than those that do have high numbers. As pre-orders are often driven by existing enthusiasm for a franchise or for a developer, this makes new IP less worth producing... This is not good for creativity... at least in terms of big budget games.

Also, when we buy something sight unseen that we cannot easily get a refunded for (if at all), we are giving up power as consumers. At the very least if you can't get a refund, why wouldn't you wait until a product is released and has been reviewed? To me, pre-orders just seem like waving a white flag and surrendering our consumer power... for the trivial return of getting the game on release day and perhaps some different character skins?

Each to their own, but on principle I won't pre-order.

@kind2u: It's incredibly anti-consumer. And worse still, they make it seem like it's actually doing the reverse.

@humanity: That was discussed earlier in the thread. It's nowhere near the same level. Not to mention that one thing being bad doesn't excuse something else being bad of course.

@hassun: Yah I'm just saying, eh, it's pretty shitty but ultimately whatever.

i dunno- while this whole scheme is exploitative, ultimately i don't care about preorder bonuses.

and more-to-the-point: i don't preorder.

so is it underhanded? sure. but i'm not surprised. i'll still buy the game if it reviews well- this sort of thing has no bearing on my purchasing decisions whatsoever.

I'm not preordering shit unless I know it's a legitimately dope ass game, ex. phantom pain, Witcher 3, GTA v, etc

Deus ex is not a sure bet at this time.

Nah, it's pretty close. Unlock levels of "extra shit" and choose between stuff within each level. It's basically a mix between the Steam stuff and retailer specific pre-orders, just not as straight-forward as the former and not as anti-consumer as the latter.

The biggest difference here is that they dedicated a full goddamn trailer to the process, which is amazing.

@theht: Comparing the Bioshock Infinite campaign and the Deus Ex: Manking Divided campaign I have to reaffirm my opinion that they are not close at all.

@coryukin: Due to Nvidia adding MGSV codes to their GPUs and even replacing some earlier Batman: Arkham Knight codes with MGSV codes people flooded sites like Ebay with codes for the game. The codes were going for $30 - $40. I bought mine for $32.

I just did a quick search for GZ prices and this one came up: http://www.dlgamer.us/download-metal_gear_solid_5_ground_zeroes-pc_games-p-26123.html

So that's $40 ish for MGSV and $8 for GZ, totalling at around $50 or less.

Was a $10 DLC (if I remember right he was actually in the base game/disc, you just paid to unlock him)

@coryukin: That is a serious accusation you're making. What is your source on it being scam site? If you don't want to believe that I can personally guarantee this site is 100% legit. I have bought many games from them (Including GZ!). In case you don't want to make the price conversion yourself: 36.99 BRL = 9.89265 USD
Let's not forget that GZ has been offered for as little as $4.99 on Steam itself as well.

Whether you are convinced or not. Facts are facts.

It was included in the "deluxe"/"collectors" versions. The character model and some combat dialogue was on-disc, but it was a 1.2GB download for the mission.

Good news!

https://www.deusex.com/news/aypo-cancelled