Game offered four days early if enough copies are sold.
Square Enix has announced a pre-order campaign for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided which draws inspiration from the crowdfunding phenomenon, giving rewards to purchasers as the number of pre-ordered copies rises.
Consumers who pre-order Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and register their purchase with a Square Enix account will be entitled to receive their choice of rewards from up to four tiers. The first tier, which consists of alternate costumes for main character Adam Jensen, is available from the start of the program today. Future tiers offer access to a digital soundtrack sampler, an art book, a novella and a bonus mission. New tiers will unlock as pre-determined sales targets are reached, culminating in an early release of the game on February 19.
How many copies of the game need to be sold to unlock the additional rewards has not been divulged, with the game’s website merely listing the percentage of the company’s overall pre-order sales target necessary to unlock individual tiers. Customers will also only be able to select one item from each of the program’s five tiers, meaning they’ll have to make a choice between an art book or a soundtrack and a comic book or a novella, assuming all tier goals are met.
Pre-orders are more important to big games publishers than ever before, and “Augment Your Pre-Order” is a brazen move to drive them. While Square Enix is presenting the program as offering choice by allowing purchasers to select the pre-order bonuses they want, locking items behind tiers with ambiguous goals as a means of encouraging consumers to shill the product in order to obtain access to the bonuses seems more exploitative of them than anything.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is scheduled to release for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on February 23.
Source: Official Site
