Amazon return policy and video games loophole?

P

pes4lyfe

Champions League
4 July 2011
Ok this might be a bit not legit but techinally this is all legal, so here goes.

Amazon do a 30 day no hassle retunrs policy on all products.

If I complete a video game within 4 weeks and have no use for multiplayer then if bought of amazon I can return it and get refunded minus postage.

So basically you are paying £2.00 for 30 day rental of a game should you return it.

Its silly but i cant complain. Say I hav ebought games and completed them over 1 weekend sitting. Now that means I have a useless 40.00 quid game. I can sell 2nd hand maybe and lose 10-20quid?

But with amazon I can just return it.

This is totally not illegal. I am a decent person and feel a bit dodgy for doing this but really why wouldnt you.

Thoughts?
 
Great for you, we don't have that luxury here in the states. I think you have laws against that over there. Piss poor for business if you ask me. If something is defective then sure you can return it. But if u don't like it u can get your money back. Strange... If you went to movie and it sucked, are you due a refund? if so no one would make movies anymore...
 
I have no doubt that the more unscrupulous element of Amazon's customers do this all the time, but it is taking the piss and not something I would even consider doing. Amazon are not a company I would shit on as they've always given me good service and prices, and they haven't got where they are by letting schemes like this go unchecked.

The more important issue here is that games developers/publishers need to look at the pricing of their games. If a game can be completed in eight hours, for example, and has no compelling online element (if at all), is the game really worth £40?

A game like COD or Battlefield can offer hundreds of hours of online play. A sports title like Fifa can provide many months to a full year of offline and online play. When a game can be completed in a weekend shouldn't it be sold for £25 new? I'd buy more games if that was the case. Instead I either wait for the big price drops or only buy games that offer longevity.
 
Jamezinho said:
I have no doubt that the more unscrupulous element of Amazon's customers do this all the time, but it is taking the piss and not something I would even consider doing. Amazon are not a company I would shit on as they've always given me good service and prices, and they haven't got where they are by letting schemes like this go unchecked.

The more important issue here is that games developers/publishers need to look at the pricing of their games. If a game can be completed in eight hours, for example, and has no compelling online element (if at all), is the game really worth £40?

A game like COD or Battlefield can offer hundreds of hours of online play. A sports title like Fifa can provide many months to a full year of offline and online play. When a game can be completed in a weekend shouldn't it be sold for £25 new? I'd buy more games if that was the case. Instead I either wait for the big price drops or only buy games that offer longevity.
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yeh i like amazon i wouldnt make a point of doing it. i usually wait for games to drop price rather than buy at release anyway.

In fact its quite funny i recall only doing it twice.

1. pes 2012. after 1 wekk i got bored but after returning it i realised i still had it on my hard drive as it was pc and can still play it. well i dont play it cause i prefer fifa 12 but i could buy, return and keep.

2. fallout new vegas. similar storyfound it boring like fallout 3 too much, retunred it in a few days. deleted of my pc BUT its still tied to my steam account so i can download and play it whenever i want. crazy.
 
I would never screw with Amazon. Other companies I might be tempted but they have treated me really well and their prices and delivery are great. I have two possible points of delivery for mail and packages my regular carrier always goes to the back so I expect deliveries there. I ordered like $250 worth of Blu Rays. Checking online I see they have been delivered. Didn't see them in the back so I called them and told them there must be some mistake. No problem Mr. B we'll send them again. For some reason I had to run around the front of my place and lo and behold the sub carrier had dropped the box off in the front. I called Amazon and told them not to send the second package out. Nah I wouldn't f with them.
 
I'm a fan of Amazon as well, top quality service.

I agree about the pricing of games though, it's stupid. Most new games cost £40 new these days, I'm simply not paying that, no way.

It also sucks how, upon release, the shittiest of games will be the same price an absolute masterpiece - imagine if that were the case with food, cars, houses etc.

I've only bought about 4/5 games in two years - there's a yearly football title each year, then I generally just pick up bargain older games.

You can get Batman Arkham Asylum, AC2/Brotherhood, Orange Box, Red Dead, LA Noire, GTA IV etc. for £5-10, these were all £40 on release...
In fact if you wait a while after release you can usually get GoTY editions that include all the DLC for the same price.
That's another thing that bugs me, paid DLC being released on release day or very shortly afterwards - put it in the game you fuckers, you obviously already completed it to have it ready so soon...

Anyway, the aforementioned games havn't aged badly, obviously, the hardware of the consoles is still the same and although devs do manage to optimise games better and squeeze out all the performance available towards the end of a console's lifecycle, the difference isn't that obvious.

So why not wait until games become cheaper instead of shelling out on the latest releases? £30 is a lot of money to save, you can have a fucking good night and a takeaway with that! Maybe this is just the student way of thinking. :LOL:

Fair enough if you only play online then you're going to need the games when they're more active, but online gaming is a fucking joke these days - back in the mid 2000's before online became so mainstream, you didn't have all the abusive cheating wankers you get now - people will do anything to win (glitching, exploits etc) and pretty much look on any opponent as their worst enemy.

I find that to enjoy playing online I now have to either play a more sophisticated game like a strategy or sports simulation game (with which there's normally a more civil and intelligent fanbase), or just find a way to completely dick all over these chavvy bastards and make their lives miserable, that in itself is entertaining - got so many abusive messages from FIFA tossers when I forced the online games onto manual and they'd never used it before, quality :D.

Went off on a bit of a tangent there and ended up typing up a pretty long rant, oh well, I like having a rant about things now and again :D.
 
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I agree i like to be 6-18 months behind in buying my games. So you can get them at a fraction of rrp.

I ain tplayed batman arkham city or assasisns creed revelations yet nor goldeneye reloaded plus a few other not so old titles.

I have a huge backlog. I will buy these games end of summer or soemthing and get them for 5-10 quid.

I picked up so many games for les than a tenner doing this method. Crysis 2, mass effect, mafia 2, metro 2033, infamous 2 are a few that spring to mind.

I only ever buy games on release if they are truely epic games i cant wait to play. Which is rare these days not so much that the games arent tht great just i have a huge backlog anyway.

I want ssx and ufc3 but i aint buying them until they are at least 25 or hopefuly 15-20.
 
Jamezinho said:
I have no doubt that the more unscrupulous element of Amazon's customers do this all the time, but it is taking the piss and not something I would even consider doing. Amazon are not a company I would shit on as they've always given me good service and prices, and they haven't got where they are by letting schemes like this go unchecked.

The more important issue here is that games developers/publishers need to look at the pricing of their games. If a game can be completed in eight hours, for example, and has no compelling online element (if at all), is the game really worth £40?

A game like COD or Battlefield can offer hundreds of hours of online play. A sports title like Fifa can provide many months to a full year of offline and online play. When a game can be completed in a weekend shouldn't it be sold for £25 new? I'd buy more games if that was the case. Instead I either wait for the big price drops or only buy games that offer longevity.
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Agree with your logic. I've always thought the same as well. What I think they should start doing is instead of charging us the full 40-50, charge us half or less for offline play. Anf if we want online, we pay the 20-25 online pass. Most of the games I get I have no need for online at all, so I feel like I've wasted a good amount of money on a mode I won't ever delve in.

15-20 for Offline, 20-25 for online, depending on gameplay hours, or all 30-40 for offline/online only games.
 
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Lami said:
Agree with your logic. I've always thought the same as well. What I think they should start doing is instead of charging us the full 40-50, charge us half or less for offline play. Anf if we want online, we pay the 20-25 online pass. Most of the games I get I have no need for online at all, so I feel like I've wasted a good amount of money on a mode I won't ever delve in.

15-20 for Offline, 20-25 for online, depending on gameplay hours, or all 30-40 for offline/online only games.
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That's how I'd like the games industry to go ideally. Even if all games were priced at £30 with a £10 charge to play online, or £30 for a game with no online component, to me that's better than £40 with an online pass in the box. For people like me who don't play online much (only one or two games) it would make gaming cheaper and inevitably I would buy more games.

Since the online pass concept became mainstream, I've found that most of my codes are unused, so I'm paying for a part of the game I don't want. I can't help feeling that the online component in many games is tacked on to justify the price.

Like Rob said, I don't know why console games have this universal RRP, regardless of content or quality. There used to be such a thing as budget games when I was a kid, and I bought plenty of them.

It's not just students that have to watch what they spend. I'm 30 with a big mortgage so I have to pick and choose which games a buy new for £40. As it stands I've only bought one game this year and that was one I waited to drop to half price.
 
Here is a thought, if the game is only going to last eight hours, don't buy it...
Go fly a kite. This argument comparing games to houses and cars is lame. There are many variables to determine the price point of a car or a house. A video game seems to be a set price standard based on precedence. In the case of a game like FIFA or PES which you play for months, dont you think you got more then your money's worth? As opposed to the opposite view with lesser games? It works out in the end for me as I don't buy games I won't play..
 
gomito#10 said:
Here is a thought, if the game is only going to last eight hours, don't buy it...
Go fly a kite. This argument comparing games to houses and cars is lame. There are many variables to determine the price point of a car or a house. A video game seems to be a set price standard based on precedence. In the case of a game like FIFA or PES which you play for months, dont you think you got more then your money's worth? As opposed to the opposite view with lesser games? It works out in the end for me as I don't buy games I won't play..
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Exactly, that's stupid.

So the build quality, size and performance/condition/reliability of a car or house affect the price, right? (Among other variables)

So why is it then that with games the same rules don't apply?
A game like Skyrim which has over 300 hours of gameplay and clearly took a lot of time and effort to create costs the same as a piss poor game with a campaign of less than 10 hours?

Imagine going into a restaurant and looking at the menu to find out that a slice of toast is the same price as a luxury 3 course dinner?
It's true that in this case nobody would buy the toast, relating to your point about "not buying games you won't play", isn't that obvious anyway? Hardly even needs stating that you won't buy something you won't use.

I could go on but I don't feel any more comparisons are necessary, the point has been made and it should be simple to understand.

I don't play many video games now anyway - I left my 360 back home when I came to uni and I havn't missed it one bit. I now have a decent laptop which I play a few casual PC games on and that's OK.

Online gaming has (as I said earlier) gone to shit for the most part due to the average IQ of the audience, yet it's become so popular that devs neglect single player modes and stories so they are mostly short and very easy with weak AI, with the game holding your hand through most of it...

This is one of those things that we can do absolutely nothing about but is annoying all the same...
 
I think it's a little more complicated with games. A lot of the time you can measure a car's value based on its features, consumption, brand etc... It's mostly quite measurable.

For a game, we have no idea what kind of budgets they have. COD, Uncharted etc have 4-10 hours of gameplay, which by our standards isn't much, but their development, marketing and production budgets were easily in the millions. Naughty Dog has like over 100 people working on Uncharted, same goes for COD. So how would you measure it's value? And because games don't come out as frequently as before, is £30-£40 that bad? Especially if you know (most of the time) that you will be enjoying the game?

Anyway, I agree about the online pass stuff. I'd rather pay for full offline and pay extra for the option to play online. Ridiculous that Xbox users have to pay for XBL ON TOP of the cost of playing EA games online.

Ahh well, it's just some thoughts on the matter, I don't really have much opinion (except the online stuff) on this matter. I buy about 1 game every 2 months so £30 is quite easy for me as I know what I'm getting most of the time.
 
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Just to add another angle to this discussion, I can see subscription models (such as Warcraft or iRacing) becoming more popular in future once digital distribution gets into full swing. Activision have talked of this before in relation to the Call of Duty franchise, i.e. rather than one big up-front cost, you pay a small monthly fee to play online and get access to new content and title updates.
 
Sorry rob but your point is moot, your not seeing the other side. If skyrim is so great it should be twice as much...... According to your theory
 
the amazon reference captured my curiosity, but that's actually an interesting conversation. :))
i realise what i'm gonna say is almost off topic now as the topic of conversation turned into videogames prices, but i think it's important to make it clear.
pes4lyfe said:
Ok this might be a bit not legit but techinally this is all legal.
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this is absolutely not legal mate. what u just described infact is the most typical example of fraud, a crime recognized by pretty much every criminal law system on the planet.
i'm not judging u or anything :)) i just think it's important to be always aware of what we're doing, and since u wrote such behaviour would be legal, i thought u could use some info. ;)

a fraud is an intentional deception, perpetrated to achieve a personal gain or to damange another person (or a company). simply put, it's not the behaviour itself that configures the crime, but the context. taking advantage of a product return policy is obviously not illegal. but it's your purpose that makes it illegal (perverting the nature of the product return policy, in order to achieve an unfair advantage that is not the natural aim of the product return policy).
that's actually a classic example of fraud... pretty much textbook material. ;)
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getting back to the videogame prices discussion, i've always found quite weird the gap between some european videogames markets. for instance, the average price of a ps3 game in italy is 60/65 euros, while in some other countries (like UK) the prices seem to be notably cheaper.
what's up with that? do u guys have any idea?
 
My dad (who lives in Italy) gets me to buy games in the UK and bring it to him as the price margin is ridiculous. PS3 games are £30-£40 in the UK, and around £60+ in Italy!
 
Milanista said:
I think it's a little more complicated with games. A lot of the time you can measure a car's value based on its features, consumption, brand etc... It's mostly quite measurable.

For a game, we have no idea what kind of budgets they have. COD, Uncharted etc have 4-10 hours of gameplay, which by our standards isn't much, but their development, marketing and production budgets were easily in the millions. Naughty Dog has like over 100 people working on Uncharted, same goes for COD. So how would you measure it's value? And because games don't come out as frequently as before, is £30-£40 that bad? Especially if you know (most of the time) that you will be enjoying the game?

Anyway, I agree about the online pass stuff. I'd rather pay for full offline and pay extra for the option to play online. Ridiculous that Xbox users have to pay for XBL ON TOP of the cost of playing EA games online.

Ahh well, it's just some thoughts on the matter, I don't really have much opinion (except the online stuff) on this matter. I buy about 1 game every 2 months so £30 is quite easy for me as I know what I'm getting most of the time.
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Interestring u mention COD and Uncharted. Theses games are around the 8-12 hour mark on single player. So if you dont play online you are paying 40.00 for a 10 hour game. Based on pricing games per longitiivty these games would be worth 15.00. Yet these 2 games are probable 2 of the most expensive to make, market and advertise etc...Off course COd has huge online and new uncharted some online also. Take another game Arkhum ASylum. Great game but completed in what 12 hours? Even old Mgs games done in 10-12hrs. With no online does this mean these games should be less expensive than a poor 50 hour + online game. You have to take into account the costs to create and market the game and these big companies and big name games have a lot of expenses.

Techically though a game like Skyrim or Fallout is absolutely great value for money if you dotn get bored of it. I mean 200+ hrs of gameplay for 40.00? Sometimes even only 15-25 on PC.

Video game pricing cant be compared to other products. But the way I see it poor games or low budget games that start of at RRP 40.00 but very soon drop to 10-15 quid. Whereas the big games drop to about 25-35 soon enough then 15-25.


lo zio said:
the amazon reference captured my curiosity, but that's actually an interesting conversation. :))
i realise what i'm gonna say is almost off topic now as the topic of conversation turned into videogames prices, but i think it's important to make it clear.

this is absolutely not legal mate. what u just described infact is the most typical example of fraud, a crime recognized by pretty much every criminal law system on the planet.
i'm not judging u or anything :)) i just think it's important to be always aware of what we're doing, and since u wrote such behaviour would be legal, i thought u could use some info. ;)

a fraud is an intentional deception, perpetrated to achieve a personal gain or to damange another person (or a company). simply put, it's not the behaviour itself that configures the crime, but the context. taking advantage of a product return policy is obviously not illegal. but it's your purpose that makes it illegal (perverting the nature of the product return policy, in order to achieve an unfair advantage that is not the natural aim of the product return policy).
that's actually a classic example of fraud... pretty much textbook material. ;)
Click to expand...

Well accordign to the details on the websote there is 30 dayno stress return policy. You can select various number of reason for your return. Such as

no longer needed/wanted
better price available
Ordered by mistake
Performance not adequate
etc..

And within 30 dyas they dont complain. Well I dont do it anyway but notice its a loophole especially you can put pc games onto your hard drive or copy then return so you can keep the game.
 
I don't think that length should be indicative of price at all.

A lot of points being expressed are quite subjective in their biased approach to length equaling a good thing. Personally from my experience the length of a game has absolutely no relation to the game's quality. I've played great short games and i've played great long games. Bad games that drag on shouldn't suddenly worth a lot because they're long compared to a game that knew when to actually edit things out to make the gameplay experience better.
 
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Northzzz said:
I don't think that length should be indicative of price at all.

A lot of points being expressed are quite subjective in their biased approach to length equaling a good thing. Personally from my experience the length of a game has absolutely no relation to the game's quality. I've played great short games and i've played great long games. Bad games that drag on shouldn't suddenly worth a lot because they're long compared to a game that knew when to actually edit things out to make the gameplay experience better.
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Thats true and likewise with movies. Seen some cracking good 70min comedys and some utterly boring 3 hour dramas.
 
It's an interesting thing regarding the worth of a game in comparison to the amount of physical time playing. I never used to care how long the game was so long as it was of top quality, but now I've changed my mind.

I'd have no complaints buying Skyrim because it's worth over 100 hours of game time, whereas the Unchartered games clock in at less than a tenth of that. However, the quality is top notch for both titles, but I'd still rather wait for shorter games to be reduced before buying. Ironically, I ended up getting Skyrim for £20...

As for multiplayer, again, games like Bad Company 2 saw me get hundreds and hundreds of hours out of it, so that in itself is VERY good value when you consider that a two hour trip to the cinema costs £10 these days.
 
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