Happy Holidays marketing BS - DoomIII boxes

[N2-VW]

Happy Holidays marketing BS

I am at Best buy yesterday getting my boss a new video card when out on the shelf I see it! DOOMIII!! I did not go over to it since my boss was with me and he is always in a hurry in a store so we continued on to the vid cards. Now the only top of the line, cause he wants the best, was the 9800 XT - which will make his spreadsheets and quickbooks look amazing. Well his 1.5 year old can enjoy Elmos, wiggles and Barney games :bounce: in all their glory. So inside the box there is the coupon for HalfLife2 which is now in my hands. SO as we are walking back I stopped to pick up the game and it is a EMPTY BOX for $9.99 WTF?? Has anyone else seen this
So here is my ? Is the DOOMIII box is their way of marketing to compete with the coupon of HL2? Why the hell would a company spend the money and have all of these empty boxes printed up and put of store shelfs for 9.99 is anyone buying these? I understand including a game with a video card.

 

[ROD]

WTF? Maybe its just a sampler, or you reserve it for that much and get a box I guess.

 

[The Dark Elf]

It's id's answer to Steam.. On Steam you get the game but not the Box, so id give you the option to get the box but not the game, those canny fella's

 

[ROD]

Haha! What is this world coming to? In a few years, kids will never know that games used to come in boxes. Hey, at least it will cut down on cardboard usage, right? Am I right? Ah, forget it.

 

[another-user]

im 99.9% sure that empty box u pickd up was for the pre order

 

[RandomPING]

These are preorder boxes. A ton of games do it, you probably haven't noticed it before, but i agree, it is a huge let down. The first time i saw it was with No One Lives Forever 2. Those boxes actually had little things inside them though along with the preorder.

And if you pay the 10 dollars for the preorder, then when you come in to pick up the game it's 10 bucks cheeper.

EB games has a TON of empty boxes on their shelves for unreleased games. It's just another way of advertisement.

 

[Jackal hit]

ya preorder... those are actually very useful if you think a game is gonna sell like hotcakes... when the game shipment arrives, just go to the service desk, show your receipt and they give you the game that they held for you. ....yay!

 

[Arno]

The box is not empty. There's a poster in it and a little statue of a Doom creature. A true collectors item for hardcore Doom fans.

 

[Blair]

Lots of game companies use empty boxes for PR and pre-sales, I remember seeing CoD boxes a month before release in Best Buy. Just a way to catch your eye and get pre orders. It works.

Valve has to figure out a release date before they can even think about stuff like that.

 

[Kschreck]

At my local Best Buy, many games put out Pre-Order Boxes. Buy the $10 Doom 3 Boz, and you get a small metal Doom figurine, and a poster. Also the $10 dollars go toward the actual Doom 3 copy when it comes in, in April. Anyways a LOT of games have Pre-Order Boxes.

 

[Anthraxxx]

Why not just preorder it at EB? You get the box, and its only five dollars....

 

[burnzie]

in aus, u dont get boxes or anything when u preorder, just a recipt so u can pick it up when it comes in, id buy the doom 3 box to get a poster and figureine and a garenteed copy when it comes out. cool idea

 

[JonTheCanuck]

this seems kind of like the way i saw the hl2 boxes in EB a couple of days ago under the "coming soon" section.

 

[N2-VW]

Hey lets kill a bunch of trees for boxes so the IDs and other software companies of the world can yank our chains and tease us - our land fills have enough problems as it is. I do most of my shopping on line so I have never seen the boxes before. I wonder how many empty boxes are for sale on eBay?
LOL here they are
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3065220474&category=11047
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3065423079&category=27234

I am also glad they are making smaller boxes now.:cheese:

 

[AudioRage]

Originally posted by Anthraxxx
Why not just preorder it at EB? You get the box, and its only five dollars....

Whatever you pay now goes towards the purchase of the game, so it really doesn't matter if its $5 or $10, It just changes the amount you'll have to pay when you go to pick up the game.

 

[MultiVaC]

What creature is the statue of? Anyone know?

 

[S1ddharthA]

there are many different statues
all from the old games not the new one.

 

[Flyingdebris]

they are small metallic minis i've seen some of the old pinky demons as well as of the mancubi