Red Dead Redemption - Marketing and Release

Marketing and Release

In North America, GameStop and Rockstar collaborated on a pre-order bonus contest in which customers could vote for one of three outfits that Marston could unlock in the game. Each outfit came with different attributes. The Savvy Merchant would halve the purchasing price of ammunition and guns and double the selling price for ammunition and guns. The Expert Hunter would double the amount of money the player could get from selling hides of animals. The Deadly Assassin outfit, winner of the contest, allows Marston to regenerate slow-motion Dead-Eye targeting twice as fast. Voting was open to all, but only those who pre-ordered the game through GameStop received the winning outfit. Rockstar later announced that in an upcoming patch to fix several issues players are experiencing that they would release the other two outfits for all users free of charge.

In addition to the GameStop pre-order bonus, there were similar bonuses available through vendors throughout the world. The War Horse is a black horse with a white mane, tail and markings and is considered rare. It is also faster and has more health than any other horse in the game. The Golden Guns reward increases fame with each kill, allowing users to progress more to fame. The official online Rockstar Games store offered a Red Dead Redemption T-shirt as the pre-order bonus. Wal-Mart offered a deck of playing cards that are used in game. A limited edition version of Red Dead Redemption featured redeemable codes for the Deadly Assassin and a digital copy of the official soundtrack in most countries, while others also received the War Horse and Golden Guns bonuses.

Both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions features rewards respectively for Avatars and the social network PlayStation Home. The Rockstar Games Social Club is a website that displays the gameplay statistics of registered users and feature competitions and awards based on player activity within the game. Exclusive additional content such as a new gang hideout and an outfit from one of the game's gangs is available for the PlayStation 3 version of the game. Art depicting the game was featured on NASCAR driver Joey Logano's #20 Toyota Camry in the Nationwide Series running of the O'Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas Motor Speedway on April 17, 2010. Logano drove the Red Dead Redemption car again in June 2010 during the running of the New England 200 race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.