8 Video Games You Didn't Realise Broke The Industry
3. Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (Maybe?) - Had The First Pre-Order Bonus
Pre-order bonuses are naff. Like, really naff.
We've all been there, pining over the next release of the Batman: Arkham franchise, only to realise that the costumes you're after (the kind of thing that would usually be unlocked in-game, by the way), are locked behind separate pre-order bonuses at different retailers. It sta-hinks, and while it's a nice enough thought to reward your most loyal customers, there comes a point where it gets too much.
Whether it's charging folks stupid money to steadily amass a collection of tat or some other gimmicky nonsense, pre-order bonuses ruin any sense of progression and put up paywalls in front of content that should, ideally, just be included in the base game itself.
What game kickstarted pre-order bonuses? Shockingly, this one is one of the hardest to nail down. Pre-ordering games really took off at the start of the late-nineties and early noughties, and it was around this time that retailers and publishers came together to offer specific pre-order bonuses. It's impossible to say with any degree of certainty which game was the first, but surprisingly, it seems as though Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was one of the first - or at least the first to kick up a fuss.
North American players who pre-ordered Ocarina of Time in 1998 would get a special T-shirt and an equally special box, which had a plastic card. Is it the real culprit behind the tat-renaissance? One can only guess, but one thing we know for certain is that Arkham City was the worst offender, offering a myriad of bonuses with all sorts of retailers. Blegh.