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Pff, I now hate whoever is in charge of marketing who gets the T-Shirts. Why? Well because Canadians don't get it as a pre order bonus(gheeyyyyy!!1!1!). The EB guy is like "W-T-F? We don't know anything about a t-shirt bonus *laughs*" Then I told him off cause it's on their damn website ^_^
I know how you feel. And yeah, Canadian EB guys are apparently totally in the dark about preorder goodies.
Apparently, the preorder stuff comes about because of a partnership between EB (of America), NOA, and the American branch of Brady (or whoever is making the product). In order for us in Canada to get these things, EB Canada and NOC and everyone involved needs to look at the American event and think it's a good enough idea to replicate. And then they don't usually bother to tell the Canadian stores when one's coming.
My brother and I pretty much weren't getting a single preorder goodie since the days of the Special Edition Zelda 64 preorder.
Something like a month after Viewtiful Joe came out, we went into our local EB, and the clerk gave us some Viewtiful Joe t-shirts. They said that a box of them had just come in, but it was too late to give them to the people who preordered, so they were just handing them out to random people who walked in the store. I liked getting the shirt, but as someone who's been shafted on preorder goodies many times before, hearing that just sucked.
If you buy your games off the EB website, you can get the preorder goodies, but you have to pay a freaking $15 (American) for shipping, because you're actually importing the game from EB-USA, not buying it from EB-Canada.
When Four Swords was coming out, we really wanted one of those classic Zelda t-shirts, so we asked in EB if they were getting them. They said they had no idea, but "Zelda's a big game, so we'll almost certainly have them". I asked, "If you don't, can I cancel my preorder and get my money back?" They said yes, so I preordered it.
When Four Swords came out, I went in and asked if they had the t-shirts. They said "No, but they come with these free Link Cables". I told them that those were standard, and not a preorder goodie, then I put the game back down on the counter and asked for my money back. While
the manager was working on the next cash register.My brother bought the t-shirt off of eBay for $10 (at least, I think that's how much it was), and I later found the Four Swords (with the free Link Cable) at SuperStore for $15 less than EB was charging.
Later, I went in to EB to preorder Symphonia, and the manager was the only one working the register. I asked if Symphonia had any preorder goodies, and she said "I hope so." I asked her if I could get my preorder money back if it didn't have any preorder goodies, and she said yes.
On the day Symphonia came out, the manager saw me and my brother come into the store, flagged us down, and said "Hey, I got something for you!" She went into the back and proudly came out with a Symphonia artbook. I happily bought the game for full price.
Another time recently, my brother preordered Disgaea. There was a Limited Edition preorder version of the game. As we went in, my brother noticed that all the games in the glass cabinet behind the counter (where they keep all the new games) were all the Standard Edition. The guy in line in front of my brother had a Disgaea preorder slip, and they opened the glass case and gave him a standard version. When my brother came up, the exact same clerk punched in my brother's preorder slip, then opened up a drawer underneath the glass case, and pulled out a disk with by brother's name rubber-banded to it. It was the LE version. The clerk said "We only received one copy of the Limited Edition version, and it was set aside for you."
One month later, EB got a new shipment of the sold-out Disgaea, and my brother noticed that every one of the numerous copies in the display cabinet was the LE preorder version...
I guess the lesson here is that the Canadian preorder goodie system is badly disorganized and frequently unfair, and that good things can come to you if you assert yourself and get ready to take your business elsewhere.