Is all fair in love and games marketing? - 3 nasty trends in games marketing

I'm sure that a lot of people have a distinct dislike for marketing people. A dislike that is only topped by their dislike for lawyers or having an ice pick wedged in their eye socket.
I myself have a fairly positive view on marketing workers and their trade in general. I understand the need to drive sales for a product and that this practice will sometimes create situations that can perhaps be a little obnoxious or a small hassle for me as a consumer.

But I must say that certain trends that I'm starting to see in video games marketing has made me question if we're starting to reach a point where the marketing decisions are starting to really hurt the games and the people that are going to play them?

Using highly advanced word alchemy, I have condensed my complaints into three main categories that I feel sum up fairly well, what my issues with the current game marketing situation is and why I think they are negatively impacting the games being made.

1) Preorder Bonuses

Getting a lot of preorders is great. Firstly, it's a lot of guaranteed revenue for your company that will come in as soon as you release your game, and secondly, it is also a great figure to brag about (if it's high) and show the world how great your game must be since so many people have already ordered it without it even being out yet.

One way of increasing the number of preorders that your game gets is by creating a "preorder bonus". Something in the game that will only be available to consumers that placed a preorder on the game.
If you look at it in a positive light it is the game company's way of saying thank you to the fans for preordering and believing in the game. If you take a more cynical view it is a way to sucker people into laying down a deposit for a game of unknown quality by promising them a slightly different looking gun/costume/hat etc.

Anyway, my gripe is not as much with the preorder bonuses themselves. I think that it's alright to reward your most dedicated fans a little. What I mind is the practice that is becoming more and more common, where every retailer has their own specific preorder bonus.
Want the silver machine gun? Preorder at Best Buy. Oh, you want the purple striped hand grenades? That's an Amazon preorder bonus.

This got completely out of hand with "Batman: Arkham City", which had so many different preorder bonus arrangements that there are entire dedicated web pages that explain where you need to go to get which preorder bonus!

So many... Batmen? Batmans?

Not only does this mean that some people that preorder may feel cheated when they discover that there was actually a much cooler preorder bonus at another retailer than the one they placed their order in. It also means that the people that care the most about getting all the content for your game will be unable to get it unless they place multiple preorders (now I'm sure some marketing people would actually like them to do just that, but I'd also like those same marketing people to spontaneously combust and go out in a massive fireball of aggregated greed and pure evil, but that's probably not gonna happen either).

Of course, you'll most likely be able to get your hands on all the preorder bonus content later...by buying it as paid downloadable content (DLC). That's right, kick those preordering fans right in the nutsack by taking away the one identifier they have of being dedicated fans.

Early impressions of Batman: Arkham City - Batting for a home run?

Being one of my top 5 games for Q4 2011, I was extremely excited to finally get a chance to play the Xbox 360 version of Batman: Arkham City.
So far I've only had time to scrape the grimy surface of Arkham City, but I have gotten enough dirt under my fingernails to bring you some initial observations and impressions.

It's a strange time when one of the most hotly anticipated games of the year is a comic book franchise one

Like Gears of War 3, which I reviewed earlier this week, Batman: Arkham City is a pretty looking game that feels like it is really doing its best to wring out every last drop of graphical juice that can be found in the current generation of consoles.
However, it is also clear that the graphical juices are limited, and I feel that some of the animations, and particularly the facial work, is a bit lacking.

The big question that you're all waiting to be answered is of course; did Rocksteady Studios pull off another stunning Batman game?
Since I'm only a few hours into the game I'm not prepared to give a final answer on that, but I do think that I can already answer this question with a firm yes... and no.

Batman: Arkham City Review Round Up

The review embargo just ended for Batman: Arkham City, which is one of my 5 must get games for Q4 2011.

And it certainly looks like the caped avenger is not going to let me down.

Batman is looking to be serving us all another round of awesome

Reviews are looking, to say the least, pretty fantastic.
It seems like the game is an improvement over the, already pretty awesome, original in almost every single way.

Looking ahead into Q4 2011 -5 games that I can't wait to play

The fourth quarter (October to December) is traditionally the big release window for video games.

Like a large blob of ketchup suddenly dislodging, it hits me every year with equal measure of surprise and makes me go "oh crap, how the heck will I find time to play all of this stuff?".

Q4 of 2011 is no different.
Sporting mega titles such as Zelda, Gears of War, Skyrim and Rage it is enough to fill a hardcore gamers mind with equal amounts of jubilant glee and deep despair (empty wallet says hi).

For a more detailed overview of every big game coming out in Q4 you can check out this list IGN made

Skyrim alone could eat all your gaming time from November and out

As both time and money are resources that needs to be considered, I have tried boiling the games to get in the next three months down to just five.

This should hopefully let me actually complete all the games that I get, and also it means that I do not have to give my girlfriend a home made present for Christmas (you can only really give someone so many crappy clay ashtrays. Especially when they don't even smoke)

So without further ado here are the games that have made the "do want" list: