Please, in the future, can we please call them what they are?

Yes, it was spelled out in the pre-order FAQ that you must buy the retail copy in order to get the exclusives, but that very question and answer tells us the exclusives are not pre-order exclusives (items you get for pre-ordering), they are retail exclusives (items you get for purchasing the retail copy).

I am not one of the many who missed this, so I am not out a lot of money spent on pre-orders I won't be picking up, but some people did miss that single simply- and clearly-worded question and answer on the FAQ, and they went out to pre-order a copy from every place they could, without the intent of making good on those pre-orders. Now they are irritated and ranting, and it could all have been avoided if the same care went into clearly naming the exclusives as went into that one question and answer on the FAQ.

I understand the reason for making them retail exclusives instead of just pre-order exclusives. When the retailer sells a pre-order, they place an order for a copy of the game that they might not have ordered otherwise. When you don't go back and buy the copy you pre-ordered, that retailer now has spent money they might not have otherwise spent, and might have to eat that cost as the game sits on their shelves and depreciates until (if) it is sold. By making the exclusives retail and not pre-order, that costly dishonesty (face it, when you place a pre-order, you are agreeing to purchase what you are pre-ordering, and doing so without the intent of following through is dishonest), but by still calling them pre-order exclusives and not what they are, retail exclusives, you have successfully reduced the effectiveness of that change because the same people that would have placed all of those pre-orders and broken those commitments will still do so.

So, again, in the future, can we please call them what they are, "retail exclusives", and not give them a misleading label like "pre-order exclusives", so the point of making the change isn't made, well, pointless? Thanks.

And for the record, I did pre-order from eight retailers, and bought the retail copies at every place I pre-ordered from. I also have a lifetime sub for CO and STO, a Del Taco code (which I had to get from a friend who lives near one), and the code from the TOS season 3 on BluRay. My sympathies don't really lie with those players that feel they got burned or duped this way, but rather with the retailers who this change failed to protect because of a mislabeling issue. (I have a pet peeve of not calling things what they are, and it kicked in the moment the retailer list went up and the exclusives were labeled "pre-order exclusives".)

(I'd have posted this in the "Feedback" forum, but it's not feedback about the game, it's feedback about something separate from the game, so that forum doesn't have a place for it.)