Amazon Prime benefit

[stessier]

Amazon just announced that it would give a 20% discount to Prime members on New/Pre-release games. The benefit is good for 14 days after release and if you pre-order, you'll have the game delivered the day of release. This is good for physical copies only.

Ars Link

[Rip]

That would have been handy back when I bought physical copies of games.......

I'd rather they discount my online video watching.

[coopasonic]

I still buy physical console games because of trade-in value and would use it for that. They already had pre-order discounts for prime members but it differed on different games and were a bit smaller when I noticed them.

[Smoove_B]

As someone on a 5 Mbps DSL line, it's becoming increasingly difficult to acquire new games. I would absolutely order physical copies that unlock a digital version elsewhere. I would also give just about anything to not be on a 5 Mbps DSL line, so there's that too.

[coopasonic]

As someone on a 5 Mbps DSL line, it's becoming increasingly difficult to acquire new games. I would absolutely order physical copies that unlock a digital version elsewhere. I would also give just about anything to not be on a 5 Mbps DSL line, so there's that too.

Apparently not "almost anything". All you have to do is give up your home and move to a first world neighborhood.

[LawBeefaroni]

Guessing this is meant to compete with the Best Buy program I keep hearing about.

[stessier]

Guessing this is meant to compete with the Best Buy program I keep hearing about.

Yep - Best Buy gives the same discount for a $30/year membership fee.

[coopasonic]

Guessing this is meant to compete with the Best Buy program I keep hearing about.

Yep - Best Buy gives the same discount for a $30/year membership fee.

It looks like it is actually $30 for 2 years and best buy apparently often gives $10 credit on pre-orders.

[YellowKing]

I *highly* recommend that Best Buy Gamers Club. The biggest downside is you're buying physical copies of games, so if you've moved beyond that I can't help you. But for me, saving 20% on every game was well worth the hassle of putting a disc in. Especially when you consider that the 20% applies even if the game is on sale.

I'd also add that on top of the 20%, you're getting Best Buy reward credit points for every purchase which means every now and again you're going to get a $5 credit just from that. I'm sitting on $10 worth of those at the moment I need to burn by the end of January.

I paid for that membership in 3 months (and I don't buy a lot of games), and I've still got over a year left on it.

It came in really handy at Christmas when we were buying the kids games for the Wii U, because those don't seem to ever go on any significant sale.

[Pyperkub]

On a side note, I grabbed something like 30 (mp3) albums from the Free Prime Catalog over the holidays, and it's been fun - Grabbed some old Queen albums (as compared to the Greatest hits ones) - it's fun hearing Queen tracks I'd never before heard on the radio or my music collection - it gives me new appreciation for the genius of Freddy Mercury.

Other Notes:

Grabbed Brenda Lee's greatest hits (had only heard of her from Burt Reynolds' reference in Smokey and the Bandit)
Grabbed some Weird Al and Bob Marley
Grabbed some Foreigner albums I hadn't heard in 30 years (probably not Trump's favorite band was my first thought...)
Grabbed some Lana del Rey - very impressive. I'd always been turned off by her first album cover as it reminded me of the creepy farmer painting with the pitchfork.
Grabbed a bunch of Star Wars soundtracks. My first symphony experience was John Williams conducting the Marin Symphony doing Star Wars, and I also remember doing a presentation in 5th grade using some tracks from the Star Wars soundtrack LP back then.
And many more, including Sinatra and Dean Martin, etc.

[Lordnine]

This is pretty great since it works for two weeks after release as well. Many PC games come with digital codes now so it shouldn’t deter you even if, (like me) you don’t use physical media much anymore.

I’m mostly happy about it for Nintendo titles though. Nintendo almost never discounts its games and this is probably the best prices you will ever get on most of them.

[Jag]

With Prime you get 3 months free Audible instead of the regular 1 month free. Haven't used it yet, but probably will since I like audio books. Think that's 3 free audio books. Not sure exactly how it works with book credits.

[Jeff V]

With Prime you get 3 months free Audible instead of the regular 1 month free. Haven't used it yet, but probably will since I like audio books. Think that's 3 free audio books. Not sure exactly how it works with book credits.

Audible is so expensive though and I would probably forget to cancel after 3 months. I've never had problems finding something to listen to with the combination of library + Overdrive, and it doesn't cost me anything. When I was paying for audiobooks, eMusic was a lot cheaper than Audible.

Audible also had (maybe still do?) draconian DRM which limited your ability to listen to books from multiple devices.

As far as Best Buy and game discounts, that's never going to happen. I would need to spend hundreds of dollars there just to bring my point balance up to zero. A few years ago, they clandestinely issued a $50 gift certificate from points in my account, reducing the balance to zero. When I didn't spend the certificate that I didn't know I had, they thought it prudent to further reduce my account by the value of that now-expired certificate. When called on it, their Customer Disservice department merely said, "huh." Not "huh, let me fix that for you." Just "huh." The balance remains negative to this day.

[Jag]

Not going to pay for it. But I think three months is 3 free audiobooks.

[YellowKing]

Most Audible books are 1 credit, and base subscription is 1 credit a month. There are some rare exceptions for really huge tomes or specialty books that take 2.

I wound up signing up for 3 months when they were doing a 99 cent deal, and then paid for 2-3 months afterward. I ended up canceling because between podcasts and other things, I found I couldn't reliably finish an entire audiobook a month. I've still got 5 in my backlog that I haven't listened to yet. The good news is that once you purchase them, they're yours to keep even if you cancel.

[Jeff V]

I found I couldn't reliably finish an entire audiobook a month.

That would be an obstacle doing the free library thing...those expire after 21 days and have to be renewed. Depending on the popularity of the book and the number of copies your library has available, this might not be a problem, or can be disruptive. A few times, with particularly long Stephen King books, I've had to resume weeks later after having to get back to the end of the line waiting to check out a copy.

When I was buying audiobooks, I'd also pick up physical CDs from various discount sources and rip them to MP3.

[Jag]

Most Audible books are 1 credit, and base subscription is 1 credit a month. There are some rare exceptions for really huge tomes or specialty books that take 2.

I wound up signing up for 3 months when they were doing a 99 cent deal, and then paid for 2-3 months afterward. I ended up canceling because between podcasts and other things, I found I couldn't reliably finish an entire audiobook a month. I've still got 5 in my backlog that I haven't listened to yet. The good news is that once you purchase them, they're yours to keep even if you cancel.

Yeah. I just signed up for the free 3 months with Prime today. Now I'm just looking for the longest ones. Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything clocks in at a nice 17hrs 48 minutes!

[Jeff V]

Yeah. I just signed up for the free 3 months with Prime today. Now I'm just looking for the longest ones. Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything clocks in at a nice 17hrs 48 minutes!

I see you're into short stories.

Try Roberto Bolano's 2666; The Autobiography of Mark Twain; or any number of the more massive tomes of Stephen King and others. I've gone through plenty that haven't gone well over 30 hours.

[YellowKing]

Yeah I'm still chugging through Brandon Sanderson's "Words of Radiance." It's 40-hours plus.

[Jag]

Yeah I'm still chugging through Brandon Sanderson's "Words of Radiance." It's 40-hours plus.

Already read both books...twice