Well I'm getting the boxed version from amazon, so... tough luck! I did offer to give away my "sword master suit" to whoever PM'd me on release day for it.

Back when I was a kid, there was this word "reward". It had this funny meaning that you got something for something, instead of "everyone else didn't get it as a form of punishment".

Custom items made me stop playing TF2, so my preferences might be keeping me from seeing the big deal here.

This.

I think it's just more that TF2 in itself inspires whining.

But what else? you don't have any better alternative than GOG if you want a digital copy...

Sorry Valve, I am pre-ordering from GOG and that is final!

....Raise it to four items and you have a deal. /joke

People who love TF2 items THAT much would've preordered TW2 from Steam anyway...

This isn't a matter of "If I don't buy it at Steam I won't be able to get the items."

I just find any game that includes TF2 items to be... horribly... suspicious. It's a way to ensure a moderate amount of sales on Steam. It also makes me lose confidence in the quality of the game.

Well RPGs are not very popular nowadays compared to games like Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 etc. I think including TF2 items is a good idea if you want to get more mainstream gamers interested in the Witcher 2.

Wouldn't exactly call Team Fortress 2 as mainstream as call of duty, and games like fallout and dragon age still sell moderately well.

Given some of the last few games to do it were Total War: Shogun 2, Plants vs Zombies and Mount and Blade I *really* can not agree with the 'lack of confidence' thing :)

It's a marketing ploy, simple as that. But not necessarily for bad games. Heck, it's probably nice for both developer and Valve. Valve gets some more goodies for one of their games, and the developer gets some more sales from freaks like me xD (though I don't think I'll be getting many more full priced games just for the goodies xD)

I got Homefront 2 (bad one to be fair) and Shogun 2 for the goodies mostly (and I wanted Shogun 2 to some extent) and with the goodies I basically paid off both.

But the market is crumbling at the moment with the massive influx of hats. So yeah, getting less and less likely for people to buy for that.

Edit: Omg nooo... they're scout items ... :( I love scout

I see nothing wrong with throwing in TF2 items. I love that game, and getting an extra hat would be a neat bonus.

About popularity. The Witcher 2 was pre-ordered 111 000 times, and 40% of these was digital copies. I don't think that Witcher 2 needs to encourage with TF2 items. It's just another opportunity to have The witcher 2 and TF2 on the front page of STEAM.

Thanks for posting this! I haven't touched TF2 in ages, but had PvZ before the required date. It's just a road cone/bucket, but hey... It's free.

Plants Vs Zombies was a huge hit before they added hats. Likewise, people who own Left 4 Dead 2 got a weapon and a hat. They're in-game bonus items that were given out for free after the game was already popular. They're still marketing ploys, but given as gifts after they were already owned by a lot of people.

Eh.

That's a baseless claim. If we didn't know about the items, why would we have preordered from Steam?

I may end up buying two copies at this rate.