Pre-order incentives are as common as the oxygen we breathe. With each new game, publishers are trying to get your money early by enticing you with in-game goodies that are meant to "enhance" your experience, but never detract from those that might skip out on pre-ordering. Square Enix and Eidos might have taken it a bit too far with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
As it was, the pre-order program for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided worked in Tiers. The more people that pre-ordered, higher Tiers would be unlocked, which meant more goodies for everyone. The last Tier was all kinds of sketchy, allowing the game to be released four days ahead of its normal release date. If they have that ability, why not just release it on that date to begin with?
Needless to say, Square Enix and Eidos have been catching a lot of flak for this, and after much deliberation, the program has been scrapped altogether, as was stated on their blog.
We’ve spent a lot of time reading through all of your comments, working to understand how we can try to make things right for you. After much thought and reflection, we decided to close down the program and make all of the incentive content available to anyone who pre-orders Deus Ex: Mankind Divided or purchases a Day 1 edition of the game.
As far as the release date goes, the team will no longer be pushing an earlier release date based on pre-order numbers, and instead the game will release on February 23, 2016. The blog also mentions those who have already pre-ordered, stating:
To our faithful fans who’ve already pre-ordered: we will be taking care of everything necessary to ensure that all of the changes to the program will be automatically applied to your purchase.
Perhaps this cluster-f*ck was a good thing. While I doubt a debacle like this will halt future pre-order incentives, at least publishers now have a "Do not follow" template thanks to Square and Eidos.
