Activision has announced this morning that gamers who pre-order the upcoming Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 from a GameStop store or through GameStop online will receive an exclusive playable character, Juggernaut. Although it's been known that Juggernaut would be in the game (as our own Luke astutely pointed out in his frame-by-frame analysis), this marks the first time that we've known he will be playable, if only for a select few.

Although I've been known to pre-order a game or two from GameStop in my time, I have to say that this store-exclusive gift thing is becoming a trend that I'm not a really big fan of. I understand that GameStop is probably the top retailer and first choice of most gamers when it comes time to make a purchase decision. But if I were an executive at Best Buy, K-Mart, or even an independent store owner, this would be a trifle upsetting. Activision seems to have singled out one specific store, albeit the store that moves the most units, as a preferred partner. If Activision can threaten to drop the PS3 as a port for its games, what's to stop other retailers from dropping Activision from their store shelves.

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