Gaming Amazon restricting certain game purchases just for Prime members

Agreed, last year I spent £8500 at Amazon. Most of this was delivered next day, those that weren't were mainly because I'd gone for no rush delivery on non urgent stuff to bulk my digital credit account.

Those deliveries that we're supposed to be delivered next day either resulted in a gift card, or 1 month Prime extension, some people would say that these are hollow gestures for failing to meet the promised delivery date, but last year I received 2 £75 vouchers for late deliveries, no other etailer has ever offered me any thing of the sort!

If you can make use of Prime then it's worth every penny.

 

Definitely. If I wasn't going through a poor patch right now I'd have the full thing and not just the Prime Video every few months or so when I run out of Netflix.

Prime is a good thing if you buy a lot from Amazon. This thing with the games though... is not a good thing.

 

Physical media for games?! They are either in the 90s or they are serving Console Heretics (who deserve what they get for their heretical activities!)

 

not really a big deal to me, can't remember last time i've bought a physical game from amazon as there are plenty of sites such as game, grainger or even tesco that are cheaper.

i did once order some PC bits and mistakenly click the prime trial checkbox - couple of months later i noticed the £79 coming out of my account, opened a ticket with a live chat amazon customer service thingie and was issued an instant refund - i bet they get it a lot and don't quibble unless it happens again or you use other aspects of the service.

physical media is becoming a bit obsolete anyway, just t'other day i got metal gear PC from game for £13, significantly cheaper than cdkeys or similar then realized it was physical and i no longer have a dvd drive - disk arrived in 2 days, i nabbed the code and even with my shitty internets had it installed probably just as fast as a disk install + patching would have taken.

supermarkets do deals such as new releases for £30 if you spend £30 on shopping, can't see amazon not having their own marketplace listing for non-prime options, unless they really discount big new releases i doubt anyone will care about this.

 

I'm an Amazon Prime member and it's brilliant - I order a fair amount of stuff and the movies and series available are excellent. However, I think this newest move is a big mistake and can't understand the logic behind it. The cynical side of me thinks that maybe this is a temporary policy just to drum up some publicity and so they can look like the good guys when they get rid of it in about a month's time.

Amazon are actually pretty decent in that they'll refund the fee if you cancel within a few days and haven't used the service (this happened to me a few years ago).

 

Didn't Amazon recently get their knuckles rapped for not making it clear enough that people would be charged the full whack at the end of their trial period? Fair play to them if they do refund within a reasonable period, though.

 

Sounds like they might be slipping right into the EU anti-monopoly rules, so I hope for them there is at least a brexit so they can pull this stunt in the UK at least

 

Why buy games from amazon, Tesco is alot cheaper for new console releases. And Pc releases you can get cd keys for alot cheaper than Amazon retail.

Anti Monopoly cause they limit what they sell? Good luck with that. If a company does not want to sell a product to you its hardly anti monopoly lol.

Company's get wrong for price gouging not sales limiting. As they are only harming themselves.

As big as Amazon is I would still never buy much from it outside of books. ( Of the main 5 or 6 item types that I do purchase online )

 

I get all my console games from Amazon - Amazon Prime Now can have it with you in 2 hours anywhere in London.

 

tbh, one of the main reasons I took out Prime was the next day delivery service with DPD. One hour timed slot, and DPD were there on the dot 99.9% of the time. Now, however, Amazon have started using their own delivery service and it's patchy at best. Most of the time it doesn't leave the delivery warehouse until about 10am, and there's no timed deliveries - I've had deliveries showing up at 8pm before now (unlike Jake, I don't live in London any more, so I have to wait a day for my deliveries )

I don't really use Prime Video or Music, the Kindle First titles are mostly crap - and I buy very few new games, so really I'm just paying £80 a year for next-day delivery - which is suddenly not as convenient as it used to be.

 

I miss DPD delivering Amazon Prime

 

I still prefer physical goods over transient download services. Particularly as someone with a strong interest in the history of the medium. An extensive part of my library is systems that were out of production for YEARS before I bought them.

In the world of online distribution, games die when companies fold, or simply decide that the servers cost too much to keep running.
If it had been a thing in the past, we'd have nothing but word of mouth to judge the Atari, the Nintendo, the Commodore, the DOS.

A download is a moment, a disk is forever.


On-topic: "LOL AMAZON" sums things up nicely.

 

Can't see the problem. Other shops are available so people will either sign up to prime or shop elsewhere. That seems like a win for consumers and competing retailers.

 

Yeah I'll jump on this band wagon too.

I have prime, personally I think it's fantastic. Whilst I don't use the movies section much (I only watch Vikings through prime) the shipping is nearly flawless for me, the only drawbacks being lack of proper tracking and how even valuable purchases are left on my doorstep sometimes. The amount I've saved on small purchases is great.

That said, what is this?? It just seems like a weird move. I mean people won't sign up just to skimp on a little shipping on a one-off purchase. I only have prime as I buy tonnes of stuff through Amazon, somebody who doesn't won't drop 80 quid to get a physical copy of a game. Just smells like gym memberships to me.

 

Little bit off topic - all the people who mention issues with delivery - did you realise that you can ask to have the package delivered to a shop/drop off point for you to collect when you're free? Personally that's how I always use Amazon Prime as it doesn't cost any more and I just have it delivered to a shop that's close to work so I just swing by on the way home and collect it when im free

As to only selling products to Prime users - seems a strange move really, as has been said there are plenty of other companies who will happily scoop up customers who dont want to take out Prime

 

The best retort to delivery drivers is, tell them you have a dog, that goes bezerk when the bell is rang. They rush back out with your parcel, even when it's after hours!

 

If a parcel is left on your doorstep, keep it and get your money back. Nobody signed for the parcel, so it could have been nicked.

 

I had that issue recently. They left a £400 order with some guy then failed to tell me where he lived. They initiated the refund, then the guy turns up two days later with my parcel, opened. Cheeky bugger obviously realised there was nothing in there for him that he wanted so decided to come clean.

Now I just make sure I am in all day on the delivery day and haven't had any issues since.

 

Yeah, this sounds not at all immoral. Whether it's illegal or not, it's clearly not right, is it?