Hmv and star wars pre order

CyberJuice

Hey

so i went into hmv the other day and got a pre order for swtor

the pre order is in a game box on their shelf beside all their other games,so u just pick it up bring it to the till and pay for it.. it costs 5.99

the guy didnt ask me for my name or any details or anything,just took my money and gave me my receipt and sent me on my way. before i left i asked him does this 5.99 come off the price of the game on launch and he said NO that the pre order is like a seperate game and that hmv has nothing to do with it

On The receipt it just says

Boxed Star W HC Qty 1 5:99 Euro.

doesnt mention anywhere pre order or anything of the likes..

so whats goin on with hmv?was this guy just a clown and doesnt know what hes talking about?? or will people who have bought this pre order from their store have to pay out the full price of the game on launch??

jeawan

seems a bit rich that they are charging you for pre ordering then full wack for the game on the day

Kiith

It's the same when you pre-order it online, which is even more of a joke.

witless1

Kiith wrote: »

It's the same when you pre-order it online, which is even more of a joke.

The online one makes it look like you are getting a deal. They discount the game by €5 and then charge you €5 for a pre-order fee bringing the price back up to the pre-discount price.

It still annoys me that Origin and other digital download games are a higher cost then their store counterpart. Got stung with Battlefield on it a while ago due to impatience and not being able to make it into town, game was over a tenner dearer on Origin.

String

Your basicly paying for early access but if you pre-ordered this later you are probably only going to get to play max 1 day before it goes live and you arent even guaranteed that at this stage. Its a joke really that they are selling them without also having a pre-order of the game

koneko

The price on the day, whether you preorder or not, would be the same, but the €5 comes off the price (it's a deposit, basically), so the headstart and color stone are free.

It is odd they didn't take your details though. I preordered in Game and they use the card for your details, and give you a receipt to bring in on the day.
So I can go in with that receipt, and there's a fiver off the price as I've paid that as a deposit then

(though in my case it's €20 since I'm getting the CE)

CyberJuice

koneko wrote: »

The price on the day, whether you preorder or not, would be the same, but the €5 comes off the price (it's a deposit, basically), so the headstart and color stone are free.

this is not what the guy told me,he said i would be paying the same price as anyone else who just walks in off the street on the day and buys the game. my 6 euro is gone,its not off the final price,its for headstart and colour crystal lol

ill be phoning up hmv in a week to try talk to a manager or soemthing and ill be tellin them they are ripping me off

Raphael

Er - if there's no details involved, what guarantee have you that they'll actually give you a game? Sounds a bit fishy to me.

Gunmonkey

HMV and Gamestop have been doing this with those pre-order boxes for years now. Seen W:AR adn LOTRO boxes on shelves before the releases for €5 each. They never seemed to grasp they were meant to be given out to anyone who pre-ordered but just end up treating them like any other box product.


Best part will be them selling them for €5 6-8 months from now, have even seen LOTRO boxes in stores up until last year.

koneko

CyberJuice wrote: »

this is not what the guy told me,he said i would be paying the same price as anyone else who just walks in off the street on the day and buys the game. my 6 euro is gone,its not off the final price,its for headstart and colour crystal lol

ill be phoning up hmv in a week to try talk to a manager or soemthing and ill be tellin them they are ripping me off

Hah, nice one HMV. I'd go back in and moan.

I'm not a huge fan of Game by any means, but they're handling the preorders correctly so far. Taking down your details, giving you a receipt, and the money you pay for the early start/preorder code, is a deposit.

ZeitgeistGlee

Raphael wrote: »

Er - if there's no details involved, what guarantee have you that they'll actually give you a game? Sounds a bit fishy to me.

Indeed. Completely different to how GAME are handling it, which is quite strange.

aN.Droid

witless1 wrote: »

It still annoys me that Origin and other digital download games are a higher cost then their store counterpart. Got stung with Battlefield on it a while ago due to impatience and not being able to make it into town, game was over a tenner dearer on Origin.

Online first hand publishers (Such as origin selling origin games) have to price them higher or they would have all the other distributors up in arms. Gamestop have threatened it many times that they would not sell a certain publishers games unless they keep the prices higher in there own stores. Imagine gamestop didnt sell swtor? It is arguably the biggest game store in the world! Would be very bad for origin imo.

ZeitgeistGlee

Arguably Gamestop can bluster all they want. They're not going to be able to blacklist a publisher as massive as EA if they choose to make digital acquisition a cheaper option. That'd be like if HMV tried to boycott Apple when they launched iTunes.

Gamers talk with their wallets, if Gamestop want to stop carrying games by publishers who want to make it easier to sell to their customers then I'll just go to someone who will (or buy them direct). The majority of Gamestop's customers are either not going to have the capacity to buy online (no access to a credit card account, internet connection not fast enough/low monthly limit) or simply won't know about it.

Of course this is EA so they might simply be using this as an excuse to keep their prices artificially inflated. :rolleyes:

aN.Droid

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

Arguably Gamestop can bluster all they want. They're not going to be able to blacklist a publisher as massive as EA if they choose to make digital acquisition a cheaper option. That'd be like if HMV tried to boycott Apple when they launched iTunes.

Gamers talk with their wallets, if Gamestop want to stop carrying games by publishers who want to make it easier to sell to their customers then I'll just go to someone who will (or buy them direct). The majority of Gamestop's customers are either not going to have the capacity to buy online (no access to a credit card account, internet connection not fast enough/low monthly limit) or simply won't know about it.

Of course this is EA so they might simply be using this as an excuse to keep their prices artificially inflated. :rolleyes:

Nah, massive amount of people still don't / refuse to buy online. gamestop is the worlds largest game retailer (probably) and would cause a massive drop in sales if they refused to stock a certain game or all games by a publisher.

Welease

FYI for those who may not read their emails..

"Retail" version is now available for download to support the EA start next week.. There will be a link on your account page if you have registered for Early Access.

ZeitgeistGlee

Limericks wrote: »

Nah, massive amount of people still don't / refuse to buy online. gamestop is the worlds largest game retailer (probably) and would cause a massive drop in sales if they refused to stock a certain game or all games by a publisher.

I didn't mean solely online, I meant from other brick & mortar retailers who would continue to sell from that publisher if Gamestop refused to. The day Gamestop tries to throw their weight around by actually blacklisting publishers who refuse to give them a pricing advantage is the beginning of the end of their dominance, especially if that publisher is someone like EA.

Just for a second think about how many stores in your area (or nearest proper town if you're in the country) are selling TOR, how many of those are Gamestop? Now consider that TOR is a PC game which most b&m stores have been moving away from selling in large quantities anyway over the last few years. Now take a triple AAA FPS like BF3 or MW3, how many places can you get that from, and how many of those places are Gamestop? Is Gamestop the cheapest?

It's simple supply and demand, Gamestop can't by themselves completely shutdown the supply of any game from a publisher who won't accommodate them. Those who want it will simply go to a competitor, and if enough people switch over to buying from said competitor/other medium to change their long-term purchasing habits then Gamestop have just shot themselves in the foot in trying to screw over customers and keep an artificially engineered market dominance.

It boils down to short term vs long term advantage. How much money do they lose on Game X in calling Gamestop's bluff vs how much they'll make in the long term over establishing a competitive online distribution (which tech is only going to make easier with time). I'm sure Apple had doubts initially when they challenged retailers for music sales, but as anyone would tell you now it was the right decision. Subsequent generations are only getting more comfortable with tech.

Personally, I haven't bought from Gamestop since the Gamecube days because the guy who ran my local store was a *****, and the lack of any kind of reward card system similar to GAME (who I traditionally buy from) means I don't even get anything for shopping with Gamestop on a constant basis. Trade-ins are always roughly approximate to eachother and I've found in Limerick solely that the guys in GAME know more than the guys in Gamestop (though regarding TOR that's an accolade for neither).

/endmarketpitchwithconstanthandgestures

aN.Droid

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

I didn't mean solely online, I meant from other brick & mortar retailers who would continue to sell from that publisher if Gamestop refused to. The day Gamestop tries to throw their weight around by actually blacklisting publishers who refuse to give them a pricing advantage is the beginning of the end of their dominance, especially if that publisher is someone like EA.

Just for a second think about how many stores in your area (or nearest proper town if you're in the country) are selling TOR, how many of those are Gamestop? Now consider that TOR is a PC game which most b&m stores have been moving away from selling in large quantities anyway over the last few years. Now take a triple AAA FPS like BF3 or MW3, how many places can you get that from, and how many of those places are Gamestop? Is Gamestop the cheapest?

It's simple supply and demand, Gamestop can't by themselves completely shutdown the supply of any game from a publisher who won't accommodate them. Those who want it will simply go to a competitor, and if enough people switch over to buying from said competitor/other medium to change their long-term purchasing habits then Gamestop have just shot themselves in the foot in trying to screw over customers and keep an artificially engineered market dominance.

It boils down to short term vs long term advantage. How much money do they lose on Game X in calling Gamestop's bluff vs how much they'll make in the long term over establishing a competitive online distribution (which tech is only going to make easier with time). I'm sure Apple had doubts initially when they challenged retailers for music sales, but as anyone would tell you now it was the right decision. Subsequent generations are only getting more comfortable with tech.

Personally, I haven't bought from Gamestop since the Gamecube days because the guy who ran my local store was a *****, and the lack of any kind of reward card system similar to GAME (who I traditionally buy from) means I don't even get anything for shopping with Gamestop on a constant basis. Trade-ins are always roughly approximate to eachother and I've found in Limerick solely that the guys in GAME know more than the guys in Gamestop (though regarding TOR that's an accolade for neither).

/endmarketpitchwithconstanthandgestures

Very valid points and I tend to buy elsewhere aswell but like it or lump it they are still the biggest b&m out there for physical game sales and do have allot of pull.

I don't have time too look up all the evidence I needed but here is one link that show's how shady they are and that they shove there weight around from time to time.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/24/gamestop-pulls-deus-ex-human-revolution-pc-versions-from-shelve/

koneko

Gamestop might not be big here, but they are massive in the US. There is no way EA would endanger that publisher-retailer relationship over something this, it'd cost them way too much in the long run.

ZeitgeistGlee

koneko wrote: »

Gamestop might not be big here, but they are massive in the US. There is no way EA would endanger that publisher-retailer relationship over something this, it'd cost them way too much in the long run.

Over something like SWTOR, no. If however long term business projections tells EA's execs that Gamestop is getting in the way of profit then their size in the US or anywhere is going to be irrelevant. They're one company who need multiple publishers to supply to them, if a big publisher like EA makes Gamestop blink the the game is over for them because others will follow suit.

Of course equally if said business projections tell EA that keeping their online arm more expensive than b&m retailers is more profitable again than any challenge, well the only one who gets screwed is the consumer.

@Limerick: Yeah I remember that, I was actually pretty shocked they'd do something so blatant but I think it was a combination of Square-Enix being a less established, more niche publisher in the average gamer's mind/wallet and that Gamestop's own interest in entering the P2P market with the acquisition of Spawn Labs. Frankly I can't see them doing it against the likes of EA, Activision or Ubisoft.