Last week I posted an article about how I felt Activision’s worldwide pre-order bonus for Black Ops 2 was pretty poor, this being the Nuketown 2025 map. This expectedly lead to some heated discussions online and offline over what actually is being offered for Black Ops 2 pre-orders and what makes a good pre-order bonus.
To clarify one thing, apparently Nuketown 2025 isn’t the only thing you receive for pre-ordering Black Ops 2 with each retailer having an extra bonus. Such as either a PS3 theme or a Xbox 360 avatar add on and Activision also throwing in a double XP weekend… oh and there have been thousands of shirts given away.
And then today it was revealed that the Crysis 3 pre-order bonuses are going to be
- A cloaking friendly predator bow
- All seeing Recon Arrow
- Players will start on level 5 in multiplayer which will allow them to gain the Hunter Nanosuit module.
I like the idea of a custom weapon as a pre-order bonus as it is something that non-pre-order people will see for the lifespan of the game and make them wish they had pre-ordered… possibly. As long as it doesn’t affect gameplay balance then it’s all good. But starting on level 5 just seems a little cheap to be honest and isn’t the sort of pre-order bonus I would want.
Oh here’s a trailer of Crysis 3 as it’s looking awesome
But that got me to thinking what I feel a really cool pre-order bonus would be and I came up with the following list…
- Cap
- T-Shirt
- Exclusive custom weapon skins
- non-exclusive free DLC (so it can be purchased by everyone else)
And the mother of all pre-order bonuses that I want offered by major publishers….. early release.
If I pre-order Black Ops 2 or Crysis 3 I don’t want double XP or an immediate rank up to level 5, I want the game 3 days before anyone else. I want those bragging rights at work or school and I want my friends to see me playing online while they wait to get it from the shops.
I truly believe that will boost pre-order numbers dramatically.
How do you feel, if you were Bobby Kotick (CEO of Activision) what would you have done as a pre-order bonus for Black Ops 2?
Last Updated: November 9, 2012