CA/Sega are offering exclusive factions for pre-orders of Fall of the Samurai, as seen here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=516142
Now in principle I have nothing against extra content for pre-orders -- although I believe that this extra content should NOT be game content, as for example the content Bethesda offered with the SKYRIM collector's edition. When the extra content consists of
game content, this means the game is being
reduced for those who don't pre-order.
Can you imagine the uproar if Bethesda had reserved, say, the Khajiit race for those who pre-ordered the game? The uproar would have been heard round the world.
Even worse than simply offering extra content to those who pre-order (which is to say, subtracting content from those who do not pre-order), also consider that:
- This is an
expansion,
not a full game.
- The content is split between 3 different packages, which means
nobody wins, everybody loses.
No matter how much money you throw at Sega, you will NOT get the complete FotS expansion.
Most of us -- if not all of us -- are excited about this expansion, and will buy it on day one. Sega does not need to threaten us to get our money. But that's what they're doing. They're threatening to take a portion of the game away if you don't fork over your money now. In fact, by splitting the content across different packages, they're ensuring that you
won't get the complete expansion, and that a few months down the road, they'll dangle the "extra" factions in front of you to get more of your money.
This is not right.
I hate to do this, but I think we, the hard core fans, should stand up right now, and say
we don't accept this. We love the game, we love the company,
we can't wait to give you our money... but
we don't believe Sega should remove developed content from this game so they can grab a few more dollars. It is simply not how you treat your fans.
So I, for one, will not be pre-ordering FotS. I was actually going to, but now that it's turned into a blatant money-grab, I will not.
As far as I'm concerned, these "extra" factions do not exist.
I ask you, the true fans of Total War, to join me. Let's buy FotS on release day,
and not a day earlier.