If corporate America had any sense, they'd spend one fiftieth of their next ad buy, send a camera crew and the product lead out to his house, and give him "the first copy" signed by the dev team to play on his brand new Duke Nukem AlienWare computer.

Sadly, finding this sort of initiative in corporate America is rather difficult... which is why folks like e.g. Airbnb eat their PR/marketing lunch.

So let's get this strait, the fact they did not refund peoples money after 8 years is now somehow bad for them? I mean it's not like preordering meant they sent the money to the publisher. Unlike Amazon where it's free and you can cancel your preorder GS just pockets the cash in exchange for your place in line.

"Marketing like this doesn't get cheaper than $10."

Except for the fact that Game Stop is stupid and evil. They actually have a policy where they won't let you open up your game in the store after you purchase it for the purpose of exchanging it if it's scratched. Then again, most commercial games these days are designed for really dumb people, so it's not all that surprising.