Those of you who have Amazon Prime and regularly take advantage of its awesome 20% preorder discount may want to act fast: the company is terminating this specific feature on August 28! So, if there are any games coming out in the near future that you know for a fact you plan to buy (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate or Mega Man 11, perhaps?) now’s the time to go ahead and pull the trigger because after August 28 Amazon’s preorder rewards will be a good bit less lucrative.
While 20% off of titles that only cost $29.99 in the first place isn’t that huge of a deal, when you’re talking about games that retail for $59.99, the savings starts adding up. This savings, coupled with the regular two-day shipping included with Prime can make having a Prime membership worth it just by themselves (and that’s not including any video streaming you do with their service). But, after August 28 the company will be shifting towards offering a $10 Amazon credit and only on select titles. What’s more, the company says that you will have to wait for up to 35 days to receive the credit and that you’ll only have 60 days to redeem it. That’s not nearly as good, is it?
Changes like this really bug me because I used to feel like you got a lot of great perks for being a member of Amazon Prime. The free two-day shipping is fantastic if you order a lot of products (especially ones that would be costly to ship with regular services) and the streaming library is quite nice. But the shift to $119 a year and the loss of lucrative features like the 20% discount on game preorders leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Also, I often feel like for $119/year, Amazon should have even more free content on their streaming service, while plenty of things still remain as pay-per-view or a full purchase.
Still, overall Amazon Prime is still a good deal and I do have faith in the company. I just hope that they find new ways to continue to make its membership an even better deal.
Meanwhile, if you’re already a Prime Member, be sure to log on over the next couple of days and preorder any titles you were planning to get anyway: the big savings will be over soon!