Total War and it's Bad Pre-Order Practices

To me, pre-ordering is something no one should do. Really though, why would you ever pay for a product you have no real knowledge of? It's a concept never made any sense to me personally. That's why most companies will give a small incentive for pre-ordering because they know a pre-order is a guaranteed purchase by the consumer.

At least it used to be small.

The incentives for pre-ordering games is getting so out-of-hand that these pre-order incentives are now even ruining the core gameplay experience. These pre-order incentives now consist of large chunks of the game originally developed as a full complete package, that when separated, create a less fulfilling core experience than the original vision of the game, and the latest game to hop on this train(wreck) is the new Total War game.

I'm not going to even bother talking about the horrible state of Total War: Rome II in this article, let's for a minute let bygones be bygones. The newest Total War, Total War: Warhammer, set to release in 2016, has given a pre-order incentive in which an entire race will be given to the consumer as a pre-order incentive. The base game without a pre-order will include 4 races, and a 5th "Chaos Warrior" race is included with copies of the game that pre-ordered the game. Non pre-order copies will be able to buy the race at a later date, the price of which is not known at the moment.

I actually referenced this on my twitter as Total War locking off an entire race at launch and ended up actually getting a response from Total War themselves, stating:

Interesting, so it's apparently not "locking off" something to have it in the game at launch and not give it to people who didn't toss money at you before the game comes out. You're not locking off content Total War? Because it's available Day One, is it not?

Look, just because you don't tell people that there would be a 5th race at launch, doesn't mean you can classify it as DLC. DLC is known as Downloadable Content, and is supposed to extend the life of the game by adding extra content after launch to keep the game going. It keeps developers working on a particular project for a longer time, generates revenue for said developers, and keeps people on the game longer. It's supposed to be a win-win situation, extra content produced by the developers after launch for a small fee that's supposed to enhance an already content-filled game.

However, this idea doesn't apply to content that is ripped out of the main game and is either resold later or given away as an incentive for pre-ordering, or let's just face what it really is, guaranteed sales of the game.

Now you might say, how do I know it's content that was part of the original game? Well, consider it for a minute: why is Total War announcing DLC months and months before launch, and even worse, why is it available Day One? Because it isn't DLC. It's not content that you download after launch. It's content that's available on Day One that is in fact locked off to people who didn't pre-order. If I don't pre-order your game Total War, I can't use the 5th Race. If I do pre-order, I can use the 5th Race. That's locking off content, and there's no getting around it, even if you think you can classify it as DLC and not tell people there would be 5 races months in advance to try and justify the act.

You may also claim; 'Why am I freaking out, there's still four races to choose from'? Well if I remember correctly Total War is a strategy game similar to Sid Meier's Civilization franchise where you pick a race and start playing strategically until you beat all the other empires. In these kind of games, every play session is going to be different depending on what race you choose. I've never actually played a Total War game but I'm going to assume that each race has its own strength and weaknesses. Thus, players would have to change their play styles to accommodate these changes and it builds to the strategy aspect of the game. Removing a race and limiting the player's choice to four races would limit the variety of the game.

You know that DLC unlocker files exist for these type of situations? They're generally less than 1mb files that you literally shove into the main game folder, and boom, all the locked off content becomes unlocked. I actually saw a lot of these files circulating around when Alien Isolation released back in 2014, where this DLC unlocker file would unlock Day One content locked off to people (extra 2 missions in Alien: Isolation) who didn't pre-order before launch. Obviously, a one megabyte file can't hold an extra 2 mission's worth of content, so what did that company do? They locked off content to people who didn't pre-order, but people got around it, and I fully expect there to be a DLC Unlocker file floating around the internet when Total War: Warhammer comes out next year.

I said this last article and I'm going to say it again: we need some damn reform in this industry. As it stands, any company can pretty much do whatever they want without any repercussions. The thought process of a single company is most likely that they think they can slightly push the boundary of what can and can't be done and think it's okay, but when almost EVERY single company is doing something, to the point where I have something to write about every week, that's poor quality control. Continue the fight for good games, gamers. Because no one else will.