It's a personal pet peeve of mine for these developers/publishers/retailers to offer in-game bonuses for pre-ordering games, and especially when each retailer has a different bonus. Star Trek Online has added itself among the list of games I won't buy solely for this. Some of you might say 'well if it's a good game, it shouldn't matter right?' To those people, I say you are blessed; I was bitten by the completionism bug back in the days of Pokemon. I don't necessarily need to get everything in a game to be satisfied, but I need there to be a reasonable possibility, or I just lose interest.

Anyways, here's the article I got this from.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/12/07/no-win-scenario-star-trek-online-pre-order-bonuses/

It's too bad, I was mildly looking forward to checking this game out, or maybe it's good? Already have so many amazing games coming out next year, weeding out a few isn't so bad.

Any other games come to mind that were a part of this? Dragon Age: Origins and Assassin's Creed II come to mind fastest. I picked up DA:O because it's Bioware and I had to, but it still bothered me. AC 2 I plan to borrow from friends when they're done, I refuse to support this kind of 'business scheme/plan' unless I have to (curses Bioware! You're too amazing).

Yeah most pre-ordering game context is stupid.

It's just I can imagine this getting out of hand.

In the future (going to use Starcraft as an example), pre-order from retailer A and get access to special race A, pre-order from retailer B and get access to special race B, etc. Not that I would Blizzard would allow this, but it's the point that matters, eventually depending on which retailer you pre-order a game from, you'll be playing a different game. Oh, and if you don't pre-order, you get a gimped version.

I know I'm probably exaggerating, but it's not like what I'm imagining is entirely impossible. I hope it ends soon.

I wouldn't considered 09 release of "back in the days"... would you? ;)

but, honestly, most of the "exclusive" is no more than entering some code or a string of button pressing... something that can be easily found on the internet.

No, I'm talking original Gameboy Pokemon, that's back in the day for me, some 12 years ago?

And it's more about principle.

It's not so much they are giving you a bonus item as they are taking something away from everyone else.

Exactly.

i kind of like pre-order bonuses but the different-bonus-for-each-retailer part annoys me.

I don't care about them.
I rarely preorder anything especially when they have games available on release date in most shops in Warsaw (sometimes even before release date).

Yeah, I probably wouldn't have gotten so annoyed if the pre-order bonuses were universal across retailers.