thegame370

I reserve games all the time, mostly at Gamestop and sometimes at EB. Now i reserve games for a few reasons. One is i tend to buy alot of games and sometimes like this fall-winter, they tend to be released not so far apart from eachother. So once i hear somethings gonna be released, i go and reserve it, drop like 20 bucks or so, so when the time comes, i dont have to pay a full 50 bucks and lessen the damage.
I also tend to reserve games that come with pre-order bonuses. Now, in the past lets say 2 yrs, i must have pre-order like 10 games that supposedly were suppose to come with something, out of those 10, i only got about 2. I always ask when i pre-order the game about the pre-order bonus, and they say, to keep checking back if they dont have it at that time. Believe me, i do check once and a while, then it always ends up happening that come release day for the game, when i go pick it up, i ask for the bonus and they say "Oh, we gave them out already" WTF!! Even if thats the case, arent they supposed to put away the bonuses for the people who pre-order?
Does this normally happen to you or am i being to anal? Or could it be that the people who work at my local Gamestops and EBs here in NY are a'holes ?

burninator

It has happened to me way too often. A while back, the EBs around me started a new, even more annoying thing. They would get the preorder merchandise in before the release date, but not give it out until the release day (I assume to keep people from getting the swag, then canceling/changing their preorder). The pinnacle of this brain child of an idea came when the bonus discs for Rouge Squadron 3 came out. They were going to hold off on those until the release day of the game. The main thing on those discs was a demo of the game. Why do I want a demo of the game on the same day the actual game comes out???!!?? Enough people complained and they gave the discs out, but I don't know if they did away with this policy or not. Ughh. Because of this, I just started preordering anything that came with something I want online, to guarantee I get the stuff.

fujishig

That sounds ridiculous. The main incentive to preorder a game is for the bonuses you get, and they should hold them for you if you preorder it early enough. I can see when there might be some shortage or something, but if it happens often, I'd take my business somewhere else, since they obviously don't value you as a customer.

I know we've discussed this before, but you're basically loaning them 20 bucks for free until the game comes out, and helping them gauge how much to order. Plus you pretty much guarantee that you're going to buy the game from them. They should have incentives to make you want to preorder from them, instead of waiting until release for BB or CC to have a better price. And this "if you don't preorder, you won't get the game" applies to maybe 5% of the games that come out.

About the holding on to preorder merchandise... I can see why they do it. Some people don't mind losing the 10 bucks they put down on the preorder to get the freebies, then buy the game from someplace else that has it for cheaper. But for that particular game, I could see your frustration, especially because everything on that disk was included in the actual game (the original arcade game, the two player version of the previous game, etc.)

Leechboy

I preordered a copy of GTA San Andreas today and the guy at EB let me pick anything out of this box. It had Metriod T Shirts, Fatal Fury Hats, some comic books, a few action figures, and other junk. I ended up getting a Killzone demo.

thegame370

Lucky you

jediwicz

I've got the Star Wars Battlefront figure, Metroid T-shirt, Zelda T-shirt, Tales of Symphonia artbook and a dumb Pokemon trainer guide recently. In the past I've received a Zelda lithograph, Final Fantasy: CC link cables, a kick-ass LOTR Balrog litho and all sorts of demo bonuses. I sometimes cancel the pre-order and swap it to another. EB is my local hook-up.

thegame370

Well from what i can remember i got a DOAXBV Glossy Poster, RE: Outbreak Survival Kit, Enter the Matrix Bonus Disc and thats it! Now my list on things i didnt recieve is way bigger!

Groucho

I've always gotten my pre-order bonus.

boredsilly

If you pre-order something and don't get the bonus, get your money back and go else where. Simple as that. Somebody else is getting what you paid for in a round about way.

I only pre-ordered to get the Zelda bonus disc.

Outlaw

Thats is the only reason to preorder.

If I don't get any bonus items, there's no point in preordering, so I sure as hell better get my bonus item if I preordered something or else I'm gonna be one unhappy person. Last one I got was the Tales of Symphonia Artbook and lithograph, very nice too.

Get Me Coffee

I only pre-order if I get a bonus item.