Ridiculous Deus Ex pre-order scheme canceled after “resounding” fan ire

At times, it feels like there's nothing that can be done about major game publishers linking additional content to ridiculous pre-order marketing campaigns—the kind that lock that content to a specific retailer, a specific console, or a specific "collector's edition" packed with a plastic figurine (or, um, a mini-fridge). That's not always true, though, as Square Enix and Eidos Montreal proved today by canceling the near-universally derided "Augment Your Pre-order" program for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

First announced a month ago, the Augment Your Pre-Order program implemented a convoluted system where new tiers of rewards unlocked as more customers pre-ordered the game—though Square Enix never publicly announced what pre-order targets would unlock each tier. Once a tier was unlocked, all pre-orderers could choose a single reward from that tier—either an extra in-game mission or a digital soundtrack sampler in tier two, for instance.

Those who didn't want to pick and choose their bonuses could invest in the $140 Collector's Edition, which included all the "unlockable" digital bonuses as well as physical bonuses like a figurine and art book. As a final touch, Square Enix also promised to release the game four days earlier than the planned February 23, 2016 release date if it got enough pre-orders to unlock the mythical "tier five."

The overarching idea behind this complex plan was to "overcome the division of mankind and unite to fully unlock and Augment Your Pre-order!" according to the marketing copy. And in the bowels of a marketing department meeting, this probably felt like a good way to harness the excitement of popular Kickstarter campaigns and the collective "stretch goals" that reward the entire community for reaching fundraising targets. Of course, those targets are public and usually applied to niche crowdfunded games with small but dedicated fan bases, not major AAA blockbusters like Deus Ex.

So it's not too surprising that online gamer reaction to "Augment Your Pre-order" was overwhelmingly hostile, ranging from mere confusion to outright ire from potential buyers. Many message board commenters went with somewhat obvious "I never asked for this" jokes cribbed from 2011's Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Others were particularly mad that Square Enix was "holding the release date hostage" with the top-tier early release idea.

A month of unrelenting negativity from the player base was apparently enough for Square Enix, which said today it's making all the previously "unlockable" digital content available to anyone who pre-orders or buys the game on its release date.

"When [Augment your Pre-order] was first conceived, we wanted to give you more choice about what you received in terms of pre-order incentives - because we've seen in the past that when we choose those packages ourselves, and split them across regions, it has caused frustration," the companies wrote. "We quickly realized this approach caused even more frustration than before, resulting in a resounding amount of negative feedback."

So take heart, Internet. If you complain loudly and "resoundingly" enough, maybe a big corporation will actually listen to your concerns about marketing overreach. Or... maybe this was a relatively unique case.