1014 réponses à ce sujet

[OBakaSama]

After the 'new' info it's still a case of information being in conflict with each other. Nothing new there then. Next time I think I'll just wait for an ultimate edition.

[Druss99]

vometia wrote...

The Uncanny wrote...

I received their reply this morning:

.... I do not believe that this is a case of Amazon 'opting out' of the promotion, as we are dependent on our suppliers to give us these codes.

Sigh.  So it's still a case of finger-pointing rather than anyone taking the initiative to sort it out.  You have to wonder what sort of message they think they're sending out by saying "not our fault, blame someone else".  If they think about it all, that is.

Perhaps I'm missing a link in the chain of business here but isn't EA their supplier? So we are back to the old "We didn't know about the promotion to opt out" or in his spin "They aren't supplying the codes." This has gotten beyond a joke I'm not even sure if Amazon are clueless in this whole thing or if they are trying to just weasel out of it.

Buying a game and getting the same for your money as everyone else really shouldn't be this much hassle.

[Wittand25]

Well if the UK would start to pay the same as the rest of the continent they might get the same treatment. As it is now EA does loose money every time someone from outside the UK orders from a UK retailer.E.g ordering from amazon.uk instead of amazon.de would safe me 10€. So it is in the best interest of both EA and Amazon to discourage this habit, by offering slightly worse deals for UK retailers who also ship to the euro zone then retailers who don´t. Preorder items or how a game is packaged does not make enough difference to upset the majority of the UK players and affect sales negatively, while at the same time make others think twice if the lower price is worth both the wait and the loss of pre order items. So I believe that is what currently is happening and of course neither Amazon or EA are willing to admit this.

[Druss99]

I don't remember saying them things Autolycus, I'd like to take credit for them because I agree with the sentiment but I don't think it was me. I rarely make that much sense lol.

I recall the DA:O CE fiasco, I remember seeing it was an exclusive in Game and came with next to nothing compared to other versions, it felt like a slap in the face for the UK market. If we are going down that path of thinking (at this point I don't see any reason why we shouldn't) we can also throw in the US exclusive competitions and promotions like the Bazaar and Dr. Pepper incidents. Do EA's European branch just flat out suck? Or do we simply not matter?

I have been shopping on Amazon for about 8 or 9 years I think and have never once had any sort of problem with them. EA on the other hand I have had numerous problems with down the years which I won't go into listing here. I find it hard to side with EA over Amazon in this situation, but Amazons arsing about with producing an answer hasn't helped the situation at all. How much of that is their fault? I don't know. In the end up I can't help but feel ripped off by what I see as an utterly stupid marketing stunt.

Modifié par Druss99, 17 février 2011 - 06:30 .

[Tleining]

Wittand25 wrote...

Well if the UK would start to pay the same as the rest of the continent they might get the same treatment. As it is now EA does loose money every time someone from outside the UK orders from a UK retailer.E.g ordering from amazon.uk instead of amazon.de would safe me 10€. So it is in the best interest of both EA and Amazon to discourage this habit, by offering slightly worse deals for UK retailers who also ship to the euro zone then retailers who don´t. Preorder items or how a game is packaged does not make enough difference to upset the majority of the UK players and affect sales negatively, while at the same time make others think twice if the lower price is worth both the wait and the loss of pre order items. So I believe that is what currently is happening and of course neither Amazon or EA are willing to admit this.

yes, because the retailer tells EA how much the game costs. wait, what?

[vometia]

Wittand25 wrote...

Well if the UK would start to pay the same as the rest of the continent they might get the same treatment. As it is now EA does loose money every time someone from outside the UK orders from a UK retailer.E.g ordering from amazon.uk instead of amazon.de would safe me 10€. So it is in the best interest of both EA and Amazon to discourage this habit, by offering slightly worse deals for UK retailers who also ship to the euro zone then retailers who don´t. Preorder items or how a game is packaged does not make enough difference to upset the majority of the UK players and affect sales negatively, while at the same time make others think twice if the lower price is worth both the wait and the loss of pre order items. So I believe that is what currently is happening and of course neither Amazon or EA are willing to admit this.

Or maybe a better idea would be to negotiate a consistent pricing strategy instead of leaving customers feeling like they've had a bad deal in various different ways.  I'm not thrilled to hear the suggestion of "slightly worse deals for UK retailers" (and thus their customers) since being in the UK we usually get rather worse deals on most things as it is. <_<

That's all missing the point, though; which is that we aren't receiving what was actually advertised.  And that sort of thing does tend to get up people's noses.

[HTTP 404]

Druss99 wrote...

I don't remember saying them things Autolycus, I'd like to take credit for them because I agree with the sentiment but I don't think it was me. I rarely make that much sense lol.

I recall the DA:O CE fiasco, I remember seeing it was an exclusive in Game and came with next to nothing compared to other versions it felt like a slap in the face for the UK market. If we are going down that path of thinking (at this point I don't see any reason why we shouldn't) we can also throw in the US exclusive competitions and promotions like the Bazaar and Dr. Pepper incidents. Do EA's European branch just flat out suck? Or do we simply not matter?

I have been shopping on Amazon for about 8 or 9 years I think and have never once had any sort of problem with them. EA on the other hand I have had numerous problems with down the years which I won't go into listing here. I find it hard to side with EA over Amazon in this situation, but Amazons arsing about with producing an answer hasn't helped the situation at all. How much of that is their fault? I don't know. In the end up I can't help but feel ripped off by what I see as an utterly stupid marketing stunt.

I feel your pain.  I dont know who's fault it is.  I've been following this thread mainly because I shop at Amazon and I buy bioware products but never from Amazon...yet.  It sounds like to me that it is flat out miscommunication.  Where it broke down? I wouldnt know.  But I know one thing, shop somewhere else if possible if you had a bad experience again even if it isnt Amazon's fault maybe EA isnt giving it its due attention as opposed to bigger game retailers like Gamestop.

[Exodusith]

I ended up cancelling my amazon pre-order for the PS3 signature edition. As you can see in the Product Description for it, they are only selling the USA version. An email to their customer service confirmed this annoying fact. As such, its highly likely the codes enclosed will not work on the EU PSN store.



After an angry exchange with the customer support line, I decided to cancel and will just go into town on release day and buy one direct. To hell with all this pre -order malarky...

[Druss99]

HTTP 404 wrote...

Druss99 wrote...

I don't remember saying them things Autolycus, I'd like to take credit for them because I agree with the sentiment but I don't think it was me. I rarely make that much sense lol.

I recall the DA:O CE fiasco, I remember seeing it was an exclusive in Game and came with next to nothing compared to other versions it felt like a slap in the face for the UK market. If we are going down that path of thinking (at this point I don't see any reason why we shouldn't) we can also throw in the US exclusive competitions and promotions like the Bazaar and Dr. Pepper incidents. Do EA's European branch just flat out suck? Or do we simply not matter?

I have been shopping on Amazon for about 8 or 9 years I think and have never once had any sort of problem with them. EA on the other hand I have had numerous problems with down the years which I won't go into listing here. I find it hard to side with EA over Amazon in this situation, but Amazons arsing about with producing an answer hasn't helped the situation at all. How much of that is their fault? I don't know. In the end up I can't help but feel ripped off by what I see as an utterly stupid marketing stunt.

I feel your pain.  I dont know who's fault it is.  I've been following this thread mainly because I shop at Amazon and I buy bioware products but never from Amazon...yet.  It sounds like to me that it is flat out miscommunication.  Where it broke down? I wouldnt know.  But I know one thing, shop somewhere else if possible if you had a bad experience again even if it isnt Amazon's fault maybe EA isnt giving it its due attention as opposed to bigger game retailers like Gamestop.

Just not pre-ordering EA games would be my personal preference but I think I will probably cave for ME3. I dread to think how thats going to be handled, ME2 wasn't exactly ideal with its retailer exclusive DLC and with the amount of people on here who think the Sig Edition was fantastic value it stands to reason there will be a similar deal.

[Mark B]

Wittand25 wrote...

Well if the UK would start to pay the same as the rest of the continent they might get the same treatment. As it is now EA does loose money every time someone from outside the UK orders from a UK retailer.E.g ordering from amazon.uk instead of amazon.de would safe me 10€. So it is in the best interest of both EA and Amazon to discourage this habit, by offering slightly worse deals for UK retailers who also ship to the euro zone then retailers who don´t. Preorder items or how a game is packaged does not make enough difference to upset the majority of the UK players and affect sales negatively, while at the same time make others think twice if the lower price is worth both the wait and the loss of pre order items. So I believe that is what currently is happening and of course neither Amazon or EA are willing to admit this.

I'm sure a certain amount of this is due to taxes and tarifs that, to be fair, Amazon.co.uk and .de have little control over.
Also good to see another advocate of free trade laws benefitting only corporations and not those pesky consumers.
Lastly, if EA wanted to stop this practice couldn't they just remove (or restrict) the language options? I know a lot of Germans speak English, but this would be a disinsentive for a fairly large proportion of international buyers.

[OBakaSama]

Ah...retailer exclusive dlc. That really gets my collector mentality goat. But I can see retailers going for it as it distinguishes them from their competition. The current promo...doesn't. If the business team knew I wouldn't be surprised if someone asked why didn't EA/BioWare just have those items in the box.

[Jak Tor]

Unfortunately it seems that Amazon UK is shafting their customers on this occasion. Looks like I'll be preordering my collector editions from elsewhere.
Last year I preordered ME2 Collector's Edition from Gamestop in the States because I wanted the Terminus Armour. The service was quick, reliable and even with shipping cost me the same as the UK version. Given the generally superior offers the US retailers offer this may be the last UK Collector's Edition I buy... (I'm certainly not cancelling and losing out on the rest of the content at this stage)

Modifié par Jak Tor, 17 février 2011 - 07:34 .

[scr280]

Exodusith wrote...

I ended up cancelling my amazon pre-order for the PS3 signature edition. As you can see in the Product Description for it, they are only selling the USA version. An email to their customer service confirmed this annoying fact. As such, its highly likely the codes enclosed will not work on the EU PSN store.

After an angry exchange with the customer support line, I decided to cancel and will just go into town on release day and buy one direct. To hell with all this pre -order malarky...

The USA version? what do you mean they are only selling the USA version?

[The Dread Pirate Thomas]

I made a post about this whole mess yesterday in the 'worst marketing idea' ever thread. It got locked as soon as I made it. That sort of behaviour is equivalent to turning up the radio so you can't hear the engine knocking. I think it probably just hit a nerve.







The whole situation is a circus really.



All you need to remember is that this is driven by second hand games. Publishers (and developers) hate the second hand game market, and spend a lot of time and effort thinking of ways to combat them. Pre orders, collectors editions, signature editions, one time use codes only available with a 'new' game, are all tactics aimed at reducing second hand purchases and increasing new purchases.



Because none of them work as much as they'd like, and because it's a relatively recent trend, they're not sure which ones work best or which tactics they should use, so they try them all, and to a certain extent, make them up as they go along to see what works.



The fact that this makes it more difficult for the end user, their customer, and the customers that are willing to buy new, seems to have escaped them.



It will polarise their audience. Moe people than previously WILL buy early in an effort to get the goodies. But also more pople than ever WILL decide to wait and buy second hand or a few months after release after things settle and the price drops.



Confusing your customers and making it harder for them to decide what to buy is never a good idea when you're trying to sell something. Not if you want them to buy those somethings from you more than once, anyway.

[Exodusith]

scr280 wrote...

The USA version? what do you mean they are only selling the USA version?

Exactly that. I was told that suppliers would only be providing Amazon.co.uk with american versions for the PS3. You can see it in the Product Description here: http://www.amazon.co...97976807&sr=8-3
"
Product Description

USA VERSION."

Its at the bottom, just after the descriptions of all the exclusive items.

They tried to justify not notifying anyone by stating that "the USA version will work in the UK region". Maybe so, but I'm pretty sure the USA item codes won't work on the EU PSN store. Like I said, I just got fed up and cancelled the pre-order out of disgust.

Modifié par Exodusith, 17 février 2011 - 09:12 .

[scr280]

huh that seems like a realy odd thing to do. i would have thought that detail would have been more visible on the page

[Exodusith]

Well it certainly wasn't there when I pre-ordered, another thing I pointed out to them. But they honestly just don't care. Their choice, but its their loss as I'll be going to get my copy from Game instead. *shrug*

[vometia]

Hmm, that's an idea: I may as well just pay for one of my friends in the US to buy the various games and post them to me in future. It's not like they ever bother to localise them for the UK anyway (if they do, I've yet to see an example) and it'll probably work out cheaper as well as getting better bonus items. Or any of the bonus items at all, for that matter.

That said, the region-locking thing could be a problem: I don't own a PS/3 but I've little doubt we'll be seeing the same shenanigans on PC authorisation systems soon if it's not happening already.

Modifié par vometia, 17 février 2011 - 09:39 .

[OBakaSama]

A friend of mine told me that dlc is region locked for the PS3 insofar you need that region's disc. So a US disc is only compatible with US dlcs, thus needing a US account, etc. I think that's correct anyway.



Ordering PC games from the States: are PC games region locked? Might look into that in future. (Bit of a noob question, I know.)

[Jak Tor]

I've bought quite a few PC games from the States without incident (mostly Bioware Collector's Editions in fact) ... the only games it seems to matter for are MMOs which usually have separate European and American servers. That said I play LOTRO on the American servers without any problems...
Back on the topic of the omitted DLC: Bioware did say that Signature Edition customers would get all the DLC surely it is not beyond their capabilities to recognise Signature Edition Serial Numbers and automatically unlock the items. Amazon may well be losing a lot of gamer's custom but Bioware haven't painted themselves in glory here either...

Modifié par Jak Tor, 18 février 2011 - 12:07 .

[Druss99]

Actually the Amazon.co.uk product reviews for the Baldurs Gate 4-in-1 box set state that some people have mistakenly got the American versions of Tales of the Sword Coast and BG2 which won't work over here. Thats the only instance I've ever witnessed of region locked PC games but I don't really game on a pc much.

[Jak Tor]

I game on pc exclusively and have never come across that.... and I have the full set of BG from the States, actually one of them is from Canada... does that count?
Must have been an issue of having the UK & US versions of the games \\ expansions working together - I do know that UK versions are often slightly different (ie: censored).
I remember that the UK version of Fallout 2 had an impossible quest because all the children had been removed from the game and one of the quests was to rescue a child... most of us patched the game into the US version and got around it that way.

Modifié par Jak Tor, 18 février 2011 - 12:25 .

[OBakaSama]

Well, assuming that we could get US editions for a reasonable price it might be something worth considering in future.



EA could include the items with the actual code with the new releases. They could, but that doesn't mean they will. I think Chris Priestly made it clear that they won't do that. Annoying it has to be said.