A Game Delivery!
September 16, 2007 9:11 pm RantsDuring the past few weeks I’ve ordered an enormous amount of games in various online shops. The games I’ve ordered are BioShock, Star Wolves 2, X3: Reunion, The Witcher, Titan Quest: Immortal Throne, Supreme Commander & Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer. That’s quite a lot of gaming goodness for 150 euro, but I digress; the thing is, I probably wouldn’t have purchased most of these games had I not found them at bargain prices, online.
I find myself purchasing more and more games on the internet, whereas it’s been quite a while since I’ve last bought a game in a store. With game prices significantly lower in webshops and most regular stores opening up webshops of their own, what reason is there to still go by and see what they have to offer? After all, they have a webshop: I might as well browse that for anything interesting, and then purchase it online. Heck, I frequently receive online orders in my mail before the games are available in local stores! So why is it that most gamers I know still purchase their games at the local game shop?
Thus far I’ve only purchased games at reputable shops, and had zero negative experiences (okay, so my BioShock copy is slightly delayed - I’ll live). I received Guild Wars: Eye of the North several days before the servers went live - and I expect both Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer and The Witcher will arrive a ways early as well! There’s something nice about just browsing a stores website for good deals on games, and then raking in some classics for no money at all - only to have them delivered to your doorstep just a day later.
That said, I wonder: what do you prefer? Do you occassionally visit a webshop and select a bunch of inexpensive games, or would you rather head on over to your local game store and browse through their collection in person? Have you had any bad experiences with online shopping, or local stores for that matter? Do you see more and more gamers discovering the wonders of inexpensive online shopping? Go on, share your opinions and experiences!
Now then… I’ll be back to waiting for my games to be released & delivered…
If you liked this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
September 24th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Online Shopping is definently the way of the future. I’ve taken to browing ebay and gameswarehouse for titles.
Often I can get a game for half the price, express delivered and with better customer service than many brick ‘n mortar stores give.
Unfortunately you do get some bad apples here and there but for me the biggest problem has been postage. I’ve had many more games arrive slightly broken from transport then dodgey seller deals.
Just be sure not to buy from folks with under 100 feedback
September 25th, 2007 at 8:34 am
In all honesty there’s now been one recent game I did purchase in a local store: World in Conflict. I didn’t want to wait - and still had some gift certificates, so I could get it for 32 euro instead of 49.
Still, buying one game offline doesn’t really match up against 7 online - however good it may be
October 6th, 2007 at 10:37 am
I made the drastic mistake of ordering Halo 3 online. There was a mix up with the delivery and instead of receiving a copy 1-2 days after it was released (on the Monday) I got the parcel the following Tuesday.
8 days of listening to every article, every person, every thing! talking about how amazing Halo 3 was. :-/
Course now I’m plodding away online and having the time of my life. Even if I was a little late to the party.
October 6th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Hehe, well at least you got it shortly after release. The same thing happened with my Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer order… but BioShock was a lot worse.
I ordered BioShock in late August, two days after release. It arrived this week
Ah well, at least I have it now!
It’s not like BioShock (a mere singleplayer game) was as much of a priority order as World in Conflict was anyway