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I am a collector at heart. My home is riddled with posters, old GameStop marketing pieces, action figures and swords (I usually point at the swords when guests laugh at my action figures.) Heck, I even have the old “Funcoland” store sign from my glory days. So yes, I do shell out that extra ten spot when I see a shiny case of the words “bonus content.” The promise of added content triggers something in our brains to tell our hands to reach into our already empty wallets for that extra ten bucks, regardless of what’s waiting in store. But is it always worth it?

I sat pondering this recently while trying to force my head into my Halo legendary edition helmet. After about 10 minutes of trying, I realized two things. Number one: there’s not enough butter in the world that will allow me to slip my head into this thing. Number two: It’s awesome anyway, and my dog looks badass as Master Chief. After placing the helmet back on its pedestal, I sat back and took stock of all of my collector’s paraphernalia. The first thing that caught my eye was my tiny Altair standing valiantly upon my entertainment center, moments away from showing my tiny Master Chief a beautiful death. Behind those little rascals was my Vital Suit, reminding me of those two exclusive levels included with the Lost Planet hardcase. These types of bonuses are what justifies that reach into forlorn wallets for that extra Hamilton or two. Then upon further reflecting, I realized something else: much of my extra content sucks.

Case in point: the bonus content in the Gears of War jumbo tin. Cliff Blezinski’s thirty minute diatribe about the process of breaking up with his girlfriend during the development of the game really complimented the other thirty minute rock, paper, scissors match over the chainsaw bayonet. Did I just pay Cliffy B. extra money to hear him whine? If I wanted to hear thirty minutes of complaining, I would just play the game online, at least then I would still be playing the game. The extra content in Bioshock was just as bad; a video of two guys sitting in a chair and telling me about how they had to make everything wet. Plus, my six-inch Big Daddy came with its head broken! If that can’t crush a man’s dreams, I don’t know what will.

What makes one developer give us interesting tidbits of the development process and cool collectable pieces, while another gives me a ten dollar Cliffy B. infused Frisbee? Is the market getting flooded with so many collector editions that developers have lost sight of what the words “collectors edition” mean and are just using it to make an extra buck? Please developers, start looking at what you’re packaging in with your product and ask yourselves “would I spend ten dollars just for this content?” If the answer is “no”, maybe you should re-think the need to offer a limited edition version of your product, and save a sucker like me ten bucks.

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