pre-order bonuses, they are pretty much the only reason i have ever had for preordering a game. granted, i have only preordered half a dozen at most, but still . . .
anyways, i pretty much never do it. that is mainly because i want to know that i like the game before i actually pay for it. i preordered mag, but i played the beta and i liked it. i preordered fable 3, but i had played the first 2 and was sure i wouldnt be severely dissappointed. i preordered fallout new vegas (still havent played it), but i played fallout 3 so i wanted it. i have preordered portal 2, and i am pretty confident i wont be dissappointed there either. i dont remember any others atm.

mag had a unique oufit for each class depending on where you ordered. my store of preference was gamestop and they happened to have the one i wanted, so cool beans. fable 3 had an exclusive item and a tattoo. nothing serious or game changing, just unique. no big deal to me that i didnt get the others. new vegas had an exclusive weapon and some other stuff in each of its preorders as well. well they may not have been exclusive really, but you got them from the start, so i dont think it was a big deal which you got or if you got one at all. though some were kind of weak. my friend got some javelins . . . not impressive. regardless, i chose mine because it also came with a nostalgic vault 13 suit. portal 2, i am getting from amazon. they are giving a $20 video games credit for it. nice incentive for me, especially since they are the only major option with free shipping. gamestop has exclusive skins, but that doesnt really match up to free shipping and a $20 credit now does it? especially when theres nothing all that great about the skins anyways. see, normally im not even all that interested in preorder bonuses. im not one of those guys that feels like they are missing out on content by not having them. and a lot are kind of lame anyways. if i preorder its cause i want the game right away and/or a preorder bonus pulled me into it. like mag and portal, i want(ed) them at release, and the incentives gave a good pull as well. new vegas and fable i knew i wanted, not necessarily right away, but definitely wanted. the bonuses tipped the scales just enough for me to splurge.

anyways, sorry for the rant, and on to the meat of this topic. brink's bonuses, and why i have such a dilemma with them. i originally only knew about the doom pack. this is because i use gamestop to watch incoming games. i was sold. i am an old doom fan, and the tattoo looks badass. i also liked the smg skins. so i was just holding out on ordering cause i usually wait until the last month anyways. later on, i looked it up on amazon. i prefer ordering from there if i can, because you can get free shipping for most stuff. i weighed the psycho pack + free shipping + $10 game credit against the doom pack, and had a HARD time. i really wanted the doom pack, and didnt really want the psycho pack, but free shipping + a $10 credit is a major sell point. so i was still holding out, trying to decide. then i wondered about other preorder bonus options, and found my way to the fallout and specops options. now i also really wanted the fallout pack. i also noticed that while the preorder content was mostly just aesthetic stuff, the psycho and specops bonuses had exclusive weapons and attachments. now i want the fallout pack just as bad as the doom pack, but i would prefer ordering from amazon. i am interested in the other 2 packs as well, but mainly because they have exclusive items. so to wrap that up very simply: i equally desire the fallout and doom packs, as a nostalgic gamer, but i would prefer to order through amazon.

i may have a solution, but i dont know if it will work. i am thinking about ordering from both best buy and gamestop. one copy will be for a friend of mine as an early birthday present. then, i am thinking of making a dummy PSN account which we will both use to redeem our codes on, which should then let us both download both. if i found a couple other people who are getting the other preorder bonuses, i could let them in as well. 4 people, each with a different preorder, but all of them getting all 4 by using this one PSN account to redeem their code and download them. although, if i was going/able to find 2-3 other people, i would then prefer to order from amazon instead. now, i havent shared dlc before, but as i understand it, that should work right? i read somewhere a while back that it doesnt work with all content.

so, points of discussion:
-your thoughts on multiple preorder bonus options, or preorder bonuses in general
-your thoughts on the brink preorder bonuses
-would getting a group together to share the bonuses work?

EDIT: oh yeah, and ebgames.com.au has a http://www.ebgames.com.au/ps3-149880-Brink-SteelBook-Edition-PlayStation-3. ARRRRRRGGGHH. bonuses dont usually pull at me much, but collectors editions do (i have gotten collectors editions for halo 2, doom 3, madden 09, dragon age: origins, fable 3, new vegas, halo reach, maybe others), especially if i really want the game anyways. especially especially (that is so not grammatically correct) when there is a steelbook, or even sometime just something other than a plain old regular game case. of the collectors editions i have gotten, halo2 doom3 and dragon age are my favorites because of the steelbook game cases, and then halo legendary because i got it cheap and there is so much cool stuff in it. but anyways, ebgames.com.au is the only location with a steelbook edition, and they only ship to au. kind of obvious, but soo aggravating cause i want it. but then ps3/xbox versions are $108, which is insane because that seems to be the standard rate for new games. the plain version is the same price. and before you try to argue that its a different currency, $108 AUD translates to ~$111 USD according to google.

I don't know how psn and dlc for playstation works being on xbox, but i don't see how putting your packs into one psn would allow everyone to get the stuff. I would think you could only use that dlc with the name that the codes where entered with. or at least on the same playstation the codes were entered in so i don't see what the other 3 people would get out of it. But again im not sure

I don't know your situation but gamestop has it set up where you can preorder online and have the game sent to a gamestop close to you and that would have free shipping then if you want the doom pack that much.

Others have been saying that you can usually buy pre order codes off websites because people don't claim the prize and then sell them off if you want all of them.

Also, welcome to the forums. I'm now supposed to give you a turtle.... :turtle:

well, PSN allows you to share content. as i understand it, say you have a friend and one of you has some dlc that the other does not, or you both do. one, or both, of you can give the other their psn login and password. you make a new profile using the other person's login. using that profile (we will call it profileD), and you can download anything they have purchased from the store (maybe not ANYthing. as i said, i recall reading that some content cant be shared). that content can then be used by any other profile on the playstation for as long profileD is there. that means if you delete profileD, anything downloaded from it becomes inaccessible. content can be downloaded onto a total of up to 5 different playstation systems. you can have up to 16 profiles on your system. this method is apparently mentioned and/or approved of by the ToS

i have a friend that does the same sort of thing on xbox, though i dont know as much about it, and from what he says, it is much more complicated, and probably bannable.
EDIT: i just remembered, it does work on the xbox, at least the way i am doing it. purchases are made with my g/f's profile, because we use her debit card, and i have at least been able to play all the downloads from the arcade with my profile. i have not tried with other dlc yet. my friend though was saying something about having to log into the account that bought it first, and then having to have a second controller while playing, or something like that. it was confusing.

and thank you for the turtle