Amazon to no longer offer its 20% off pre-order bonus for remasters and remakes

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For those in territories where Amazon is a major presence, the online retailer offers discounts when customers pre-order video games. While Amazon in the UK, EU, and Canada have all slowly tried to phase out the bonuses, Americans have been able to pre-order any type of video game, and receive a 20% off discount. Now, however, things are changing. Games that are a remake, remaster, or limited edition will now no longer be eligible under Prime's pre-order 20% off waiver. The new terms and conditions are as follows:

Offer does not apply to certain video game products such as toys to life, collector's editions, re-releases, re-masters, and product bundles including but not limited to console game bundles and accessory bundles.

That means games like Spyro: Reignited Trilogy, Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition, Shenmue 1&2 HD, and many more are excluded now. With the competing service of Best Buy GCU ending this year, Amazon is likely free to remove perks from their program, as consumers don't have another option.

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froggestspirit

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Odd, I preordered both Sonic Mania Plus and Let's Go Eevee bundle before this. My Sonic Mania plus still has the discount, but not Eevee. You would think they wouldn't be different?
 

chartube12

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Odd, I preordered both Sonic Mania Plus and Let's Go Eevee bundle before this. My Sonic Mania plus still has the discount, but not Eevee. You would think they wouldn't be different?

Depends on when u did the preorder and how. I got a chase amazon card. I used my points to pay half n the card was charged the rest. Normally items are charged at delivery or shipping out date. But since I used my points as part of the order, it was charged before hand. Thus I still got the discounted price.
 
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Windaga

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Hopefully fewer people will preorder stuff now.

Maybe a few less, but I'm sure there will still be many. There are still pre-order bonuses. (I think the Fallout 76 beta keys went out recently?)

Personally, I pre-order titles that I know I'm going to buy - especially if there is an incentive. 20% off is a great incentive, but Sony's recent titles haven't been on Amazon for pre-order (Detroit and God of War), so it's certainly become less useful.
 

Arras

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Odd, I preordered both Sonic Mania Plus and Let's Go Eevee bundle before this. My Sonic Mania plus still has the discount, but not Eevee. You would think they wouldn't be different?
Maybe the latter just doesn't count as a remake. It's technically Kanto, but it's very very different.
 

Pluupy

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I didnt know this was a thing.

Why did they exclude remasters? This is kind of weird because developers could claim a game to not be a remaster and circumvent this weird bullshit exclusion to encourage customer preorders once again.

And what does this mean for late multiplatform releases? Switch didn't get Skyrim the same time as the other platforms so it only got the remastered, collector's edition. Point being, some games are exclusively collector's edition or remastered because of some platform complications or late localization. I feel like this fucks people over and Amazon only loses money.
 

FAST6191

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Are you anti-preorder?
Perhaps not to the extent of some that I have seen elsewhere online. I do however consider it a very silly thing to do unless you know the resulting game is going to be one of those "run of 200 and we ship the excess remaining copies to a warehouse in a backwater in Dakota" type things.

That said I am a cheap bastard and will prefer to buy games for nothing several months down the line, once all the patches have hit, maybe some mods have been made...
 

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Perhaps not to the extent of some that I have seen elsewhere online. I do however consider it a very silly thing to do unless you know the resulting game is going to be one of those "run of 200 and we ship the excess remaining copies to a warehouse in a backwater in Dakota" type things.

That said I am a cheap bastard and will prefer to buy games for nothing several months down the line, once all the patches have hit, maybe some mods have been made...
Ah. That makes sense. I have preordered lots of things and only been burned a very very few times. But I don't think one size fits all. Being cheap and being optimistic about an upcoming game are just two of the ways people can vote with their money.
 

SodaSoba

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Perhaps not to the extent of some that I have seen elsewhere online. I do however consider it a very silly thing to do unless you know the resulting game is going to be one of those "run of 200 and we ship the excess remaining copies to a warehouse in a backwater in Dakota" type things.

That said I am a cheap bastard and will prefer to buy games for nothing several months down the line, once all the patches have hit, maybe some mods have been made...

Problem with that these days is that day one patches often happen and the game is patched over and over
Ah. That makes sense. I have preordered lots of things and only been burned a very very few times. But I don't think one size fits all. Being cheap and being optimistic about an upcoming game are just two of the ways people can vote with their money.
It only takes a few times of being given the shaft before stopping pre orders, most of that can be avoided by no pre ordering anything EA makes
 

Pluupy

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Perhaps not to the extent of some that I have seen elsewhere online. I do however consider it a very silly thing to do unless you know the resulting game is going to be one of those "run of 200 and we ship the excess remaining copies to a warehouse in a backwater in Dakota" type things.

That said I am a cheap bastard and will prefer to buy games for nothing several months down the line, once all the patches have hit, maybe some mods have been made...
I believe it's silly for people to shun preorders. It's ridiculous the extent people brigade against it.

I preorder because I know an experience will be good. I preorder Final Fantasy and Shin Megami Tensei because I know I can trust the developer for a good time, even if that game is comparitively mediocre by their past standards.

So for a game like Fallout 4, I would think about the previous games I have played by that developer. I played Oblivion when I was in middle school and had a lot of fun with that. Fallout 3 was also a lot of fun, and so on. This means games like those, from that developer, will get instant preorders from me.

Preorders allow retailers and developers to gauge how much stock they may need and how much initial "success" was gained just from marketing.

If you don't preorder, you can end up missing out on a copy. I guess it wouldn't matter for you if you wait for a GOTY 80%-off discount. I'm personally not that cheap of a person, especially when I know that the developer deserves the money for a quality, or entertaining, product.
 

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