Just over a month ago, Square Enix announced a program for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided called “Augment Your Pre-Order,” or “AYPO.” The whole thing was complicated, convoluted, and generally unpleasant, enticing players to pre-order the game with promises of added content and even an earlier release. Apparently, Square Enix has lent an ear to the large number of misgivings and is now cancelling the program.
Instead of dishing out the extra content in weird tiers, all the planned digital AYPO content will be available to everyone who pre-orders the game or purchases the day 1 edition, which includes in-game costumes and missions as well as an OST sampler and digital comics. The press release states that the idea of AYPO was to give “more choice about what [players] received in terms of pre-order incentives” but that AYPO “created even more frustration” and resulted in a “resounding amount of negative feedback.” So, someone at Square Enix/Eidos-Montreal is listening.
We here at Chooch generally operate on a “don’t pre-order” philosophy, and AYPO was a great example of why. Thankfully, the negative reaction to and the cancellation of AYPO will probably discourage some other publishers from attempting similar stunts. The game has also been locked for a February 23rd release date, so no 4-day early release.
