They're really trying to make pre-orders sound like a good idea. I'm kind of hoping the market crashes just to force some new blood into the industry.

Jim Sterling's unfiltered thoughts on this nonsense are quite amusing. One point I certainly agree with is that under no circumstances should anyone support this initiative no matter how badly they want the game. Squeenix needs to be sent a clear message that this exploitative shit will not slide.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's Pre-order Plans Are Horrible

On their face, pre-orders aren't a bad idea. Especially for copies that have a physical component; there's nothing wrong with getting an idea how many of widget A you need to make - that's just market research in the guise of panhandling. And, given how low the profit margin is for games sold on sale, it also makes sense to give some sort of incentive to prospective fans so that they'll pay full price.

This doesn't look like a well-managed preorder plan, but that doesn't mean pre-orders themselves are inherently bad. I've been pre-ordering games since...well, since the 1980s, at least. Long as you're an educated consumer, there's no harm in it.

pfff... This is stupid. I'm starting to consider to just skip the game, and this is coming from me on a Deus Ex game, but every new thing I learn about it drops my interest further.

The odd thing is, they are losing one day one customer because it's infested with drm.

Anyone else see the incredible irony here.

I'm not downloading, half the game, off steam, that should be included on the disk.

Sure, and they'll throw in 2 separate DRMs for free!

That is exactly my issue with Rare Replay. I love the games featured but why only have 11GB of the 50GB collection on the disc? They could have handled it better (having a 2nd disc, or include the XBLA games on the disc and allow installing the rest of the XBOX360 games from retail copies).

Passing a hybrid physical-digital abomination as the retail version gives you the worst of both worlds...
...or maybe that is the plan all along? Purposefully releasing messed up retail copies that can require up to 50GB day one updates and ultimately making the transition of next-gen consoles being completely digital (and DRM'd) an easy one.

Apparently, the PC retail copies of Metal Gear Solid V is only a Steam installer on a DVD (all 8.5MB of it! Give or take 0.5MB). At least that's what LGR posted on Twitter.

They can go fuck themselves. This is literally the worst yet.

Waiting for the GOTY/Elite/Definitive Edition....

There's Gog. There's a segment of gamers that say nay! We won't stand for this crap!

Bethesda has just realized we exist! Soon all will be forced to have no drm and downloading extra crap!

:Pats fluffy white cat evilly:

The question is, will the Story-DLC be part of that or will it be exclusive.

Indeed. Bethesda's agreement to sell games on GOG is big, and more will surely follow.

Well seeing that most of the editions are quite complete...Sleeping Dogs is missing the cheat DLC's, Hitman Elite has all the DLC content and the Professional Edition + Sniper Rifle pre-order content, TR: GOTY is missing a few DLC's that were in the Deluxe Edition and 4 DLC's (2 skins and 2 maps for MP). Thief is quite complete and same is DX:HR Director's Cut. All the content can be bought, but for Sleeping Dogs Definitve Edition they removed the cheat DLC's completely. Those are available only for the standard edition. In terms of actual content, Sleeping Dogs Definitve Edition has everything you need, though.

Based on this pattern, i'm quite convinced that there will be a blah-blah edition with most, if not all content available and with the possibility to buy the missing content.

If they had created all that content to be included in the game in the first place but then striped them out for the pre-order bonuses then sure... that would be a bit upsetting. If they created entirely new content while waiting for the game to be released so that they could be released for pre-order bonus I don't think that's anything bad. I mean, if they didn't take extra time to create these things then there's be no extra bonuses would people be happier about that? Or are they just upset they can't 'complete' the game now because the devs made some extra stuff on top of the game that not everyone will be able to obtain?

And no I don't know if the content was stripped from the game or created entirely new but we can't lynch them without a fair trial.

Ofcourse that is exactly what they are doing, you honestly believe that the extra mission they are promising is going to be created after the game is released? A pre-order bonus by its very definition means that it will be available day one for enticing people to fork over their money which implies it was planned in advance.

Even if its going to be newly created, as long as it is finished before the release then it should be a part of the game for everyone. A single mission is going to be stripped and sold as pre-order incentive while every customer that doesn't fall for this bullshit crowd sourced pre-order scheme will essentially be punished by not being given the story content after the game is released.

Not only that but this particular pre-order scheme combines two terrible industry practices of tiered rewards and retailer exclusive content together which were already despised by many on their own. Here is a video from Totalbiscuit on the subject that provides plenty of valid reasons as to why this is one of the absolute worst attempts to propagate the pre-order culture to the further detriment of consumers.

Deus Ex Pre-order Bollocks