Some examples:
- Spoiler:
- Call of Duty: World at War - Code to unlock the M1A1 Carbine
This was probably the best deal I've seen. It gave you an incentive to pre-order the game without forcing you to pre-order it. With time and effort you can unlock the M1A1 yourself but this gave players who spent the extra cash an advantage on Day 1.
Gears of War 2 - Code to unlock the Golden Lancer
This isn't too bad. As far as I know, there's no difference between the standard Lancer and gold Lancer apart from the paint job. You can still buy it off of Xbox.com but, it's over 5000 points. Definitley not worth it. Now, a few of my friends tell me that they've seen players using the gold Lancer do more damage. I can't judge whether this is true or not since all of my friends are terrible at Gears but, if it is, that's pretty unfair.
Batman: Arkham Asylum - Code to unlock an extra Challenge Room
I haven't looked into this one much but, as far as I know, it can only be obtained through the pre-order. If so that's pretty unfair. I'm certain people would pay good money to download that off of the marketplace and they probably could have fit it onto the disc anyway (if it isn't already on there).
Halo ODST - Unlock Sergeant Johnson
This one's sort of a waste. Again, as far as I know, pre-ordering is the only way to get this. Even if you can only get it by pre-order it's not worth it anyway. A character skin that you'll rarely see since you're playing a first Person shooter that has no effect on the gameplay whatsoever. This probably could have been put on the disc but, this is Bungie after all. Knowing them, it'll probably be available on the marketplace for an overblown price at some point.
What are your general thoughts on these deals? Me? I find them to be an unfair way of conning gamers out of a few extra bucks. I'm pretty positive all of these are available on the game discs from the start (the CoD one is obvious). Otherwise, they'd probably be more expensive. You're pretty much paying to unlock content that you've already payed for.