Mr.K.:
And it instantly hits top of the sales charts, definitive proof consumer lust kills any and all common sense.

Eh, its not exactly fair to say that. Take the Gamersgate offer.

The price of Bioshock + one of the other games covers about a third of the cost of Bioshock Infinite, unless you bought them on Steam in which case, lol you got ripped the fuck off. If you have been wantin to pick up say...Civ V and Bioshock you just saved yourself 20 bucks.

It basically turns Bioshock Infinite into a 40 dollar game instead of a 60 dollar game.

The Steam offer gives you a $37 game for free, if it hits that tier, though if it doesn't then yeah you can quite easily get borked by it.

Considering that for $80 (Same price Steam is selling Infinite) I can get the collectors edition (you know, with physical stuff), Steam can fuck the hell off.

I'm probably willing to throw £30 at a pre-order of Infinite should it end up coming with XCOM, a game I don't presently own and yet want quite a lot.

Might as well, going to buy XCOM at some point, might as well get another recent game while I do so.

Wow, this makes me incredibly suspicious.

Probably Bioshock is going to be a half-baked mess.
Otherwise, why would they essentially give away free games, current games, like X-Com, as pre-order bonuses?
Combine that with the fact that most of the game's trailers were obviously heavily scripted and you got Aliens all over again.

DVS BSTrD:
Well let's see if Jim and Total Biscuit have as much pull as we think they do.

well i wont be pre ordering this one , not because of whatever those two did though , i see a season pass as dlc so ill be waiting for the goty version of this one. and i already own all the free games you could get so meh!

So, a bunch of arbitrary crap that probably has as much effect as the Mass Effect Valkyrie Assault Rifle... and the vague chance of getting XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Well-played. XCOM alone will sell copies like wildfire.

Does anyone know anything about Gamersgate? I've never even heard of it before. Is it reliable? I'm loathe to install another game service on my PC, but the Gamersgate bonuses seem way better. I see no appeal to ingame items, especially in a game like Bioshock. (Bioshock 1's entire pacing revolved around the rate at which you upgraded gear, which let the first part feel tense and conservative but still gave you plenty of time to play with your awesome toys in the second half. Getting an awesome toy from the start would just negate the excitement of finding new guns.) But free games on the other hand, especially Civ 5, is very appealing, as long as Gamersgate isn't a shoddy program or buggy in the US.