For many publishers and retailers, convincing you to commit to a day one purchase before anyone?s played/reviewed their game is a big win, and pre-order bonuses are a handy way to entice customers and bank sales estimates before launch day. As these promised bonuses grow in heft and significance, we face increasingly frustrating dilemmas about where and when to put money down for new games.
Metro: Last Light?s hardcore ?Ranger Mode? is a particularly thorny example. It?s advertised as ?the way it was meant to be played? on the front page of the Metro site, but is If that?s the case, why isn?t it available to everyone who buys the game? Is it really, as implied, the definitive Metro experience? We put the question to Huw Beynon, global brand manager at Metro: Last Light?s publisher, Koch Media, who explains why it was segregated out as a pre-order bonus.
?Game makers and publishers now live in a world where offering game content as a pre-order exclusive is a requirement by retail, and Ranger Mode seemed like the best choice since it was a mode for hardcore fans who would most likely pre-order the game, or purchase it at launch in any case,? he says. ?We rejected requests to make story content or additional missions exclusive. We also rejected requests to make this a timed exclusive.?