Gamestop Preorder Exclusives Now Reach Into Early Game Development

Gamestop preorder exclusives now seem to reaching into the early game development stages in a bid to create exclusive content for the retailer. The plan being put together by the nation’s largest video game retailer is to develop relationships with developers and publishers in order to increase the offerings available to preorder customers.

The news from VentureBeatstems from when GameStop met with R.W. Baird, an investment company, on the current state of the video game industry as well as future planning for the retailer and the role it wants to play. The current benefit to preordering a game with GameStop is that many games will feature exclusive content such as an additional character, exclusive weapon packs, etc. that you can only obtain by pre-ordering from GameStop. In practice, the new relationships with developers and publishers would allow for GameStop to have a greater amount of content by involving themselves from the game’s early development stages.

“[GamesStop] indicated that software publishers are more enthusiastic about partnering with it,” Sebastian wrote in his note to investors. “For example, by offering exclusive content on each major game release, and longer term, future models may include GameStop offering exclusive gameplay.”

In the above quote from Venturebeat, clarification was sought from both R.W. Baird and Gamestop but as the program is still in its own early stages the ideas are still on the white board. However, if GameStop is involved from the early stages of game development then it is feasible to see larger chunks of the game either locked behind a preorder code or exclusively available to the retailer. Some examples might be larger levels or even gameplay limitations, but nothing is set in stone yet.

To the gamer, this may be a further point of contention against publishers as the digital distribution of gaming along with online connectivity allows for the game experience to be fragmented or enhanced depending on the gamer’s point of view. Using the recently released Watch Dogs as a touchstone for what we can expect, the idea of having fragmented DLC is not an encouraging one.

Polygon did a complete break down of the entire DLC offerings from Ubisoft’s latest IP which would cost the gamer a grand total of $1,240 USD, an truly staggering amount of money for a game that is normally $59.99 upon launch for the basic experience.

While some games like Borderlands 2 and Batman: Arkham City have made all the exclusive DLC available for purchase several months after the game’s initial release, not all studios follow this pattern so hoping that your favorite game will one day offer all the DLC you couldn’t afford.

Looking at it from the other side of the counter, the move is a solid one for GameStop which is doing very well on the sales of new consoles alongside their strong used game sales, PowerUp Rewards program and exclusive content already available with many games. With digital distribution an inevitable reality, it makes sense for the retailer to find ways to keep gamers coming to their stores.

Even with Gamestop preorder exclusives now reaching into early game development, the market is a competitive one and our worry for gamers is that it would not be long before other game retailers like Wal-Marta and Amazon to follow suit. Time will tell if this will be a positive move for gamers or not.