If you are used to pre-ordering your video games in advance on Amazon in Europe then you need to be aware that the company has changed its pre-order policy. Amazon used to take payment once a pre-order had been dispatched, but now the company will take payment immediately for video game pre-orders. It is clear they have decided to do it because people were pre-ordering to get various pre-order beta codes or goodies and then canceling once they had redeemed the code. It’s a shame that they have decided to do this. This new policy doesn’t seem to be active in North America, yet.
Wouldn’t it had been smarter to simply give out the codes and goodies AFTER the game gets shipped?
Also, i never knew Amazon did that and i been pre-ordering from them for years, maybe is only a Europe thing i guess since I’m in North America.
This is a new policy so it didn’t happen previously
The codes are usually beta codes, so sending them out after the game ships would defeat the purpose of a beta. I never heard of Amazon shipping g out goodies for pre-ordering though, that’s just… weird.
Hopefully this doesn’t get implemented in North america. I usually preorder stuff right away just in case it gets sold out but that doesn’t mean I want to or can afford to pay it right then and there lol
How will this solve the issue?
People will simple pre-order, pay the money, get the code, redeem the code, cancel the pre-order, get the money back… Now you must “lend*Amazon your money for a day or two but the same scheme will still work.
Because that will all east deter a percent of people that don’t want to go through that hassle, and if you have too many camceled/return orders, Amazon will delete your account
Feels like Amazon Europe is getting worse by the day, at least in relation to video games. We never got the 10% off pre-orders thing like NA either. Instead, we had the shitty 2€ off every pre-order garbage “promotion”. Because 2€ off 60€ definitely is a great deal.
I’d imagine that they’re just shooting themselves in the foot with this, a big portion of people will probably pre-order their games elsewhere, there aren’t many who want to pay for their games months in advance. Plus, as mentioned by blackabe111 above, this policy isn’t even going to solve the issue, LOL.
I literally had this happen to me last week. Preordered Fire Emblem and Astral Chain.
I noticed the money had been deducted 2/3 months early so raised a ticket with them and they denied taking the money, saying it was just a pre-charge.
Useless
My preferred retailer I can pre-order and choose payment when pick up.
I usually do this and sometimes just change the delivery and pay it closer to launch.
It has lead to some cancelled orders, since I sometimes order limited editions and the normal edition, and decide closer to launch which one to get.
Now if they started demanding payment upfront, I might use their services a lot less.
Is this for all of Europe? This hasn’t started happening to me yet? UK – Amazon Prime Member (not sure if that matters or not)
I mean it’s not ideal, I personally tend to have money to cover things I want to buy whenever and as I need them, but I’m not in the majority. Sucks for people this will hit who just wanted to make sure they get a copy of the game because their super fans of the series and stuff. As people have said before in the thread above, you might want to hold a copy of a game that isn’t being released for the next 6 months? Are Amazon gonna give you compound interest on the money not being in an account? Because this seems unfair when the product isn’t to market yet.