Price inconsistency

Voltjunkie

Voltjunkie

Voltjunkie

Associate
Joined
9 Apr 2009
Posts
718
Why is it that there's no one shop you can stick to when buying games? All of them have such wildly varying prices it makes it impossible to hold customer loyalty.

For example, one shop has copies of Bioshock for £12 that I need to pick up again. Yippee. I then check out their prices for other games they stock and they are in some cases £20 more expensive than the high street retailers.

Why on earth do game retailers have such iffy pricing? You don't usually see a white goods store selling a £300 fridge for twice as much as their well-known competitors.

Another gripe, why do people on the trade sections of big websites insist on trying to scam people by selling 'rare' Classics versions of games for £60?!

Argh. I'm too tired for this :mad:
 
Indeed, it is rather odd, but I suppose they're trying to get you 'in the door' so to speak with the cheap games, then have you buy from there in future regardless of price. Can't imagine why anyone would just take the default choice like that, but people are stupid or lazy I suppose.

Personally, I shop around a lot before buying virtually anything; if I can get a game £1 cheaper elsewhere I'll make the effort, because the way I see it, that's £1 towards my next game. Did it yesterday in fact, after looking around online for the best price of a few games I was interested in, I took a walk into town, looked at what the highstreet stores were selling them for, and ended up getting Fallout 3 and Tomb Raider: Underworld for £13, after trading GT5P in for £7 (would have been £6 but they agreed to beat another store's trade-in price). Bargain in my opinion, as I had been considering getting Fallout through Steam for £13.50 alone.
 
Just competition really, shops probably price war with thier most direct competition. So essentially prices get segmented amongst groups of different shops meaning that you have a wide range of prices.
 
Last edited:
What amazes me more is how some shops sometimes sell a game for more pre-owned than brand new.

I once asked in one of these stores If they could knock the pre-owned price of a game I was buying down to a couple of quid below the new price and the guy said they can't because the computer won't let them.
 
The worse gaming store I'd say is the most famous store. It's cheaper to buy the games new at most places than they sell their pre owned stuff.
 
Theres a copy of Valkyria Chroncles in my local big game store for 35.99 preowned - it's been in there for ages and ages. Why oh why. It was £20 new in there. Since when have they started charging the actual collectible 'ebay' value instead of the retail value minus a little bit?
 
Meths said:
What amazes me more is how some shops sometimes sell a game for more pre-owned than brand new.

I once asked in one of these stores If they could knock the pre-owned price of a game I was buying down to a couple of quid below the new price and the guy said they can't because the computer won't let them.
Click to expand...

Its usually because of the agreement with the distributor they bought the new copies off. Most of the time they specify that stores can't drop the pre-owned price of the game whilst it is being offered cheap new (& they do check up on stores).

I work in a games store & it annoys me a lot when it happens. especially if its on a recent release thats still in the instore chart, makes it look a mess when its more expensive pre-owned.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom