Amazon Prime started off as giving you quick one-day delivery options, expanding into the market for Video and music streaming, and with its latest offer of a monthly subscription system, its popularity keeps growing. That may change if you are a fan of big time games, with the latest news revealing that certain games may be locked behind the “prime wall”.
If you go on the Amazon site now and check out games like Grand Theft Auto 5 or Fallout 4, you may find yourself welcomed by a small blue button on the right-hand side. Replacing the welcoming yellow button that said buy now, the blue button instead asks you “join Prime”. Above the buttons it states that the games are “Exclusively for Prime Members”, giving you no option but to either seek them on different sites or use Amazon Prime to order your games from Amazon.
While you will still be able to buy the games through other sellers on Amazon, if you want to buy it directly from Amazon you will need Prime membership. With a yearly membership getting you 20% off pre-orders and new releases, if you like buying big releases when they come out it may be worth checking out the deals they offer.
For gamers and non-gamers alike, do you think its fair to have your ability to buy what you enjoy locked to an exclusive membership group or does the one-day delivery (or even one-hour delivery) tempt you to grab those new games that little bit sooner?
It should be noted that while the block originally seemed to affect both Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com sales, some of the listings on Amazon.co.uk are now unrestricted, suggesting that the initial backlash may already have been enough to sway Amazons opinion on the “prime wall”. Currently, you can see the option featured on Amazon.com’s Grand Theft Auto 5 page.
Image courtesy of Engadget.
I don’t know if its the link you provided, but the Xbox 360 version (which is what loads for me when clicking your link) doesn’t have any issue. Changing over to PS4 (and I’m guessing others too), does have restrictions. Pretty sad, I’ll never buy into that. The 20% off for prime members is fair enough, pay a high price subscription (monthly its not bad, but having to pay for a whole year in 1 go is not nice) to get discount on new releases, considering I don’t buy every new release seems reasonable. Restricting purchasing to prime members only? Amazon? Never heard of that site.
EDIT: I have seen that Amazon can be paid monthly, I know that previously when I’ve clicked ‘try prime’ its always charged me the annual rate, probably because that’s just companies doing what companies do best, my mistake
@zakfeasey:disqus The 360 Version is an out dated version, they would only lock it with the new generation of games.
@Whoever else. This is just them shooting themselves in the foot, And I’m sure places like EB / Gamestop and just about everywhere else are loving it