GameStop Exclusive: Pre-Order Alien: Isolation and Receive A Working Ben Kuchera Voodoo Doll

Continuing their tradition of holding crucial sections of video game hostage unless you pre-order with them, GameStop has announced their exclusive Alien: Isolation pre-order edition complete with fully functional Ben Kuchera Voodoo Doll. The special edition of the upcoming survival horror game comes with the actual game, a download code for the only gun available in the game, and the aforementioned Ben Kuchera Voodoo Doll, as well as matches, toothpicks and a small knife to use with the mystical stuffed doll.

GameStop has acknowledged that giving gamers the ability to inflict unimaginable pain on Ben Kuchera remotely was not their first choice of things to withhold from Alien: Isoloation, stating in a blog post announcing the special edition, “We did a lot of product testing when it came to forcing you to buy a game from us to get the full experience. Special edition cases, art books, special edition controllers, entire levels of the game, we went through it all. But as it turns out, stabbing a Ben Kuchera effigy in the face until the stuffing flies out happened to be what our internal testers wanted most.” The post also went on to detail that gamers are encouraged to punch, stab, light on fire, impale and otherwise degrade the doll in hopes that it will stop Ben Kuchera from “being mean and picking on us.”

The curious announcement comes just days after Ben Kuchera’s own article on Polygon lampooning GameStop’s practice of forcing gamers to pre-order upcoming video games or miss out entirely on parts of the game, something the retail giant claims is incorrect. “See? You thought all we did was pander to publishers and developers so they wouldn’t forget that we’re barely even needed for gamers to buy their games, but look. Now you can light a blogger on fire. Isn’t that what you want? That doesn’t help any publishers or developers. Suck it Kuchera!”

When he was later asked about the Polygon article, GameStop CEO Richard Mullins told IGN, “Look, in a perfect world we could all just walk up and punch Ben Kuchera in the face. But this isn’t a perfect world and that shit is illegal. Until the government outlaws voodoo the best we can do is light this wicker doll on fire and hope Ben Kuchera is sitting in his smug little chair wondering why his leg feels like it’s so hot.”

While Mullins never directly answered the question if GameStop is just being  petty because it has no other ideas on how to remain a relevant brick-and-morter store in a world of growing digital items, he did tell IGN, “Now when you play for an hour and realize you’ve spent $60 on a shit game, again, you can stab your Ben Kuchera Voodoo doll in the heart instead of bitching to us. It’s a win/win.”