Updated 2: EA messes up Dante's Inferno Pre-Orders

Not even a week ago, I had pre-ordered Dante's Inferno Divine Edition from EA store online. Here are the contents of the Divine Edition:

    * Dark Forest PDLC pack FREE (available March)
    * Wayne Barlowe Digital Art Book
    * Developer Documentary
    * Digital copy of the Longfellow translation of Dante’s Inferno
    * 20 song soundtrack from the game
    * Custom Divine Edition packaging

All of it comes with a 7" Dante figure while supplies last. How much, may you ask? For the exact same price as the regular edition. Pretty good deal, right?

It was, until yesterday evening where, suddenly, every Divine Edition orders were canceled out of the blue. At first, I received two e-mails saying that my order was canceled with no reason. The only reason given by the e-mail was:

"We are sorry to inform you that the product you pre-ordered will not be released as expected.  We have therefore cancelled the following product from your order"

So I started trying to get support, but EA's site does not have any kind of support. Have you ever tried finding support on their website? Well you shouldn't even try ;p. I finally ended up on the forums where a user had created a thread concerning this issue, requiring assistance and most of all, an explanation. Many more people, including myself, ended up posting our Order IDs along with wanting a reason or explanation. To this day, we still have no response.

When I tell you to try and find support on EA's website, is because people have tried calling but they wouldn't get answered. About only two persons managed to get on a live chat with EA tech support only to get told useless stuff such as "Maybe your shipping and billing information is incorrect". With no answers, people were starting to think of the 8th circle of hell.

The 8th circle of hell is known as FRAUD within the game. This month, the official website of Dante's Inferno entered within the FRAUD circle. They explain each circle everytime they enter a new and stuff like this. Honestly, if EA would have pulled this off on us, I would applaud them as it would of been quite a huge joke, but I doubt it is the case. Early this morning I have gotten a refund for my purchase, as many others did, showing me that a big joke centered on the 8th circle of hell isn't possible.

Now, I've gotten a refund and I, personally, will still place a new order on the Divine Edition from their website. Some people though will be turned down by this issue, especially those for whom this was their first purchase ever directly on EA's store. The reason I don't mind doing so myself is because such an issue could happen to anyone at anytime, whoever you might be. Whether you order from Amazon or your most trusted online store ever, the risk of such an issue happening is existent. Would you turn down your favorite online store if it happened once? Probably not, hence why I won't turn down such an offer from EA's store.

We still have no explanation though, which I must say, is what bothers me the most. No explanation = no re-order. If we don't have an explanation, how would I know if it's safe to place the re-order again? Hopefully we'll get an answer soon enough for me to place that order again, I definitely want that Divine Edition.

I'll update with new information if we do get a reply from EA.

 

UPDATE: I have received confirmation on the forums that the issue is currently being worked and that it should be fixed within the next 24 to 48 hours. As far as I am aware, most people have been refunded (including myself) and a part of these people have already placed a new order for the Divine Edition (including myself, once again). How it will be fixed and how they will manage this is still unknown, but at least they are working on it.

 

As for the results, from a personal speculation, we can either expect every orders to be recovered or in the worst case scenario, people will get refunded and will be asked to place a new order for the Divine Edition.

 

UPDATE 2: Good news! I have received e-mail confirmation that EA is currently fixing the orders of everybody.

 

"On January 21st your pre-order of Dante's Inferno™ Divine Edition was inadvertently cancelled from Order #*****.
This was an accident and we were about to reinstate your order, but noticed you have already created a replacement order. We sincerely apologize for the confusion this has caused.
If you have not placed a replacement order or need further assistance please contact http://help.eastore.com.

The EA Store Team"

 

Others are also receiving this e-mail and their orders have been restored if they didn't re-order. Thanks to EA's staff who worked hard on resolving this unexpected issue.