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Amazon Rolls Out Release-Day Game Delivery
1Up reports that Amazon has launched a new service for getting certain games into the hands of customers on release day, rather than simply shipping the games on release day. According to the press release, the service will be free for Amazon Prime customers, and available to everyone else for a $5.98 charge on upcoming titles Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Fable 2 and Gears of War 2. They tested the program recently with the release of Soul Calibur IV.
Isn't there always someone who brags about getting their Amazon ordered copy of a game before the release date, or has that become a thing of the past?
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Oh wait, I forgot on Slashdot we like to advertise for companies. Also, this is something numerous other companies have been doing for years (EBGames for example) at no charge other than the shipping to get it to you.
$6 extra for a $50-$60 game? Forget that. I'll wait a day or two and enjoy a lunch out.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Didnt they already do this for book releases (harry potter methinks)? Not such a revolutionary offering in that case, although still a welcome one. Amazons shipping and fulfillment system continually impresses me. If they ever joined forces with newegg we might reach singularity.
I have Amazon Prime, and got Soul Calibur IV from them and this was awesome. I hope they'll do this for all new games!
Here in the UK companies have been shipping games out so that they reach customers on the release date for at least the past eight years, and probably more than a decade. Gameplay always guaranteed it with first-class mail, which usually meant you got a game 2-3 days before release, and almost everyone else does it on their free delivery option (e.g. Play.com). Amazon.co.uk is about the only exception that springs to mind.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
to some, it registers as less than $6. To others, they think alot of thought was put into the number.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
I was getting games and movies on release day from Buy.com circa 2000, and I'm pretty sure I've run into it a few times since then. Is anyone going to fall for Amazon's "service?"
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
To me, it registers as more than zero, and for that reason, I won't be using it. Not that I ever buy console games on release day, anyway.
You clearly don't understand the psychology of pricing. $5.98 is less than $6 (and $5.99 for that matter), which makes quite a few people think that they're actually saving something.
This guy's the limit!
This is a great feature, and I love Amazon Prime. However, does anybody know if they already have this for books as well? I noticed my last D&D book which was released last Tuesday got here that same day. I used Two-Day shipping (free with Prime).
This is what I repeatedly asked amazon for and now they had enough of us ask for it that they deliver.
Excellent service. I am already a prime member so I'm highly looking forward to this one.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I tried Amazon Prime. I got a free trial and decided to pick up some random things that didn't qualify for the super-saver shipping.
The problem with that, is while the 3-5 day shipping comes UPS at around 6:00 PM, when I'm home from work, the 2-day shipping comes during business hours and requires a signature and they won't leave it with the apartment's office. So in order to get the items I ordered I had to drive 30 minutes to the UPS center, wait until they opened it for pick-up, and then wait for my driver to show up with my delivery.
I cancelled AP before it rolled over into a charge. I was hoping there was some sort of feedback form, but there was not.
Be careful of any special shipping you get from Amazon, because there's a chance it becomes two-day-get-your-butt-over-here-and-pick-it-up-yourself.
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find their privates are on the Internet.
They also do it with gas (in the U.S. at least). Have you ever noticed all the gas prices have .009 added to the end. It's not $3.75 gas, like the sign *looks* like at first glance - but rather $3.759 gas. But, it's so commonplace, that we still tell people "I got gas at $3.75 a gallon". It's just another form of pricing bullshit, just like the "under a buck" menu at fast food places that, when you factor in tax (in most states), never actually cost less than a dollar.
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It's best seeing things priced at like $999.99, as if anyone is stupid enough to think $900. Ask any person on the street how much it is, and they will all equate it to $1000 even. This marketing scheme may have been clever 30+ years ago, but now it's just tradition and actually makes me think they're (the advertisers) are stupid for thinking they can trick me, thus LESS likely to buy it (especially anything marked with 5 9s).
Not to mention seeing 5 digits vs 4 digits makes me think it costs more than just $1000 so I'm more likely to avoid it as well. Guess that's what I like about most games' economy (I'm talking in game, not real world), they mark EVEN prices, none of this translate in your head stuff.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
It isn't a surcharge, its the shipping fee. Overnight delivery used to cost upwards of $15 on games for non-Prime accounts before this change
One theory I've read is that it wasn't originally a psychological game. It was originally so that the sale would actually be rung up, so the cashier would have to open the register to get the change, seemingly making less of a chance for them to pocket the money.
The problem with that is you'd have to pay tax.
You have to pay tax either way. When you buy in a B&M, the register adds sales tax to your order. When you buy from an online store with no warehouse in your state, you declare the value in the use tax field of your annual state income tax form.
This came about before electronic cash registers came about. You could easily figure out the dollar amount if everything was in whole dollars "back in the day", but bring in those price breaks of .99 or .97, and now it's hard to figure out.
I worked in a place that had manual cash registers and little charts to figure out the tax amount to be manually keyed in back when I was in high school. Even with an even 5% tax rate in MD, the odds of a sale of items coming up an even dollar amount were decidely slim.
There is a bit of a psychological factor there, as well, but making it so that the cashier couldn't quick-math the number in their head was the real source of it starting.
I've had the same type of service from GameStop.com for a while now. GTA IV, Soul Caliber IV, Lego: Indiana Jones, just to name a few.
Can someone explain to me how this is better than just going to my local store on a release day and buying it? Why pay Amazon $6 more to get it on the same day? I don't get what Amazon is thinking??
... but for some of us, the difference between $50 and $56 is not so much a lunch out as it is staying an extra four minutes past quitting time. I don't normally worry too much about exactly when I get my brand new toys, but for the ones I've been eagerly anticipating for forever, sure, bill me for the FedEx. (Better still, figure out how to let me download you in advance. I love digital delivery and I spend my entertainment budget appropriately, industry watchers!)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Where I work in the UK the pennies are a code; a £599.99 laptop is a current model, a £599.97 computer is out of line and we won't be getting more. I think .98 means something slightly different, can't remember. I've been told a lot of other companies do this as well.
I give up. Please don't give me any more mod points. There is no longer any distinction between +1 Funny and +1 Insightful for me anymore. The decision is too much at 5am with no coffee. I end up wasting them all on stupid Soviet Russia jokes that aren't even funny.
(As a UK citizen) is that Amazon usually charges less than the game shops. It might be different in the US, but over here a game that will go in the shops for £35 or £40 (approximately $70 - $80) will usually be on sale at Amazon for £25 ($50).
Even factoring in the delivery charge, it's still likely to be cheaper than retail.
I've not been into a game shop in years. Just never darken their doors. I use Amazon for the games I want at close to release date, and computer fairs for older stuff.
My experience is that games shops are buoyed up by console players, as the PC range is (1) extremely limited (2) unavailable for trade-in and (3) overpriced. Of course, it might be totally different across the pond.
i live in the suburbs and we have a big 24 hour tesco 5 mins down the road, it has always baffled me as apart from the saturday madness theres never anyone in there (well relativly speaking). When GTA4 came out i wasent going to bother with it right away, that is till i went down to tesco at midnight to get some milk and other things. They had loads of copies of GTA and including myself there were 2 people so i thought why not, less than 10 mins later i was at home playing rockstars latest and greatest. It wasent till the next day when some of my friends who had camped out at various game stores came round to mine. They were all amazed that i had a copy and were asking me who i knew in what shop, when i told em how i got it they were sick (the local Game got 7 copies in for the midnight launch). After that i started paying attention to my games purchases and came to a realisation: the last place you want to buy new games from are shops that specialise in games.
When i was younger these shops were a lifeline, today i find them not only useless but pretty obstructive (no pre-order, no you didnt bundle, no your not signed up to our bullshit club etc etc). I have to wonder why they have chosen to alienate themselves like this, its almost as if they want to be irrelevant.
Well, Bart, your uncle Arthur used to have a saying: "Shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out."
Actually, people are dumb enough to think just that. I see it whenever I help someone purchase a car. The price of the car will be, say, 14,950. In conversations when you ask them how much the car is they'll say "14... 14... 14,9 something". The more time goes by, the more the price mentally goes from 14950 to 14000. You focus on the big numbers up front, and the smaller ones diminish over time.
You see this all the time with home sales, too. And eBay. The big key there is to work your price within search boundaries. If a typical person is going to search for a house from 100,000 to 250,000, and you're priced at 250,000, the search engine may not pick up your item. If you price at 249,999.00, it definitely will be.
I've noticed that Best Buy has a system for this too. Sale items always end differently than a regular priced item. .x5 vs .x9 I believe.
Why can't I buy DVD ISO of a game or a executable which would produce copy protected DVD-R of game with my credit card making you and game developer profit more instead of plastic manufacturers and DHL?
I am also outside USA which means $30-$40 paid for reliable plastic delivery.
Why are game/software developers obsessed with boxes and plastic? Really... Is there a DHL/FedEx conspiracy? :)
The stupid part is, whenever I do searches between amounts, I generally only want items up to at the very worst 80% of the amount. So in your example I would be looking from 100,000 to 200,000 (200,000 to 250,000 would be at the bottom and wouldn't even be looked at). Therefor I would never care or consider the 249,999 house. Whereas if I was searching for 250,000 to 500,000. That 249,999 would be first on my list, and more likely I would jump at the chance of buying it.
On the note related to the people buying cars, that just amazes me. Unless I was lied to by the salesman, and/or he mumbled the remaining 950, I cannot see that working. I just wish I saw more companies that deal with *.00 (raise it a penny, I don't care) that way I could tell they aren't trying to outsmart people, but there's few out there.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
At least one store that I see ads for $x off a minimum $y style coupons, the fine print says something like "not valid on prices ending with 97 cents", for this very
reason -- it's already heavily discounted. (I think it's SportMart ads with this technique.)