On Pre-ordering and the like...

As many of you know, I have a special place in my heart for gaming companies, but as of the last few years, I've being getting more and more disillusioned with the whole getup. There's the problems with the premise, the lack of quality in some areas(Although graphics seems to be uncompromising), and such... but there's one thing that gets me more then all of these: Pre-ordering.

Let me explain. Pre-ordering is one of those funny ducks when it comes to games, that I feel conflicted about. For large companies like Electronic Arts, it's evil, plain and simple. Usually these games are offered at a 20$ premium to thier standard price, and the extra content is... sad, at best. For a small company, I could understand how if you're struggling to get the resources off the ground(Like Mojang), it's vital... but when your game already has a multi-million dollar development budget, it's small beans... it's almost to the point of exploitation of the gaming public.

Let's look at a case example: Fallout New Vegas. I admit, I like to pick on this game for various reasons, some of them founded, some of them not. One of the boggest things I hate is the pre-order bundle. It's basically a cheat: You get one of five sets with your purchase that makes the early game drastically easier. For the same cost of the pre-order bundle, you can buy all five for the cost of what it would have sold for on pre-order on Live Marketplace.

It's things like this that make it seem like the companies are more serving their board of directors then their customers. I hope they all start to shape up.