Square Enix Shop: "Bonus Code Included"

[Enkidoh]

The reason why SE has made in-game item codes that come with physical merchandise like the Model Enterprise minion you mentioned short term with an expiry date is for marketing reasons - it increases interest in the merchandise being sold (and thus helps translate that desirability into sales, especially preorder and launch sales, which helps give a quick return on the expense of producing the item), plus it also helps reduce the incidence of onselling of the item (where someone buys an item from SE, then sells it through a thirty party, usually for a profit).

This was particularly shown with version 1.0's bonus items that came with the Collector's and Standard Editions of 1.0 (Onion Helm and Garlond Goggles respectively). Because these item vouchers have no expiry date, unopened copies of version 1.0 with unused item vouchers intact are selling for outrageous amounts on sites like eBay, not helped by the fact owning even an unopened copy of 1.0 entitles that person to download the PC version of ARR for free - the 1.0 serial code works as an ARR code as well.

So to ensure that doesn't happen again with merchandise, the item codes have a limited time window you can register them. Of course it won't stop onselling, particularly when the code is still 'current', but it will reduce it. So I don't see SE changing this I'm afraid.